Dream Dictionary

Letter A

A prisoner of your limitations, or a traveller of wider possibilities

Western science has in the past painted a picture for us that suggested nature and the universe is one vast impersonal and almost mechanical process. When you travel beyond the frontier of your own personality and contact the life that gives you existence, a completely different viewpoint emerges. What you find is the mysterious love that leads a crocodile mother to carry her babies in her mouth unharmed. You discover the wonder that drives birds to fly hundreds or thousands of miles to an exact location to mate again with their dedicated partner. You meet the indescribable beauty that lies behind a flower’s miracle of colour and intricacy. You meet the creative impulse of the universe that has woven your being throughout eternity. See Exploring Inner Space 

Within the meeting between yourself and Life lie all the other possibilities – the healing of your ills; the finding of a meaningful place in society and the world; the solving of problems; the discovery of creativity; peace, or the powers of self destruction that lead to awful depression and suicide. If any of that seems abstract, take a few moments to look at yourself. If you feel you are not totally connected with the processes of nature and this planet, consider this:

You are totally and inextricable a part of the wind and the rivers and the earth. Lucidity is a growing awareness of that. Lucidity is a greater awareness of the part you play in the scheme of things, and the personal attitudes, pains and conflicts that stand in the way.

We are often trapped by ourselves. Most of us interiorise our morals or beliefs into our dream life. In other words, we take as a truth that what is important outwardly is as important inwardly in our dreams and creative life. In other words, you are as upset by a dream as if it had actually happened in waking life.

But whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

Such mistakes make us feel things that are ridiculous. This happens with the morals we live with, by and may be necessary in waking life, we try to make them fit to our much bigger and freer dream/inner life and that causes conflict because the two worlds are completely different. So in dreams about sex we do not have to live by the same small moral world often necessary in waking life.

See Martial Art of the Mind – Opening to Life – The Healing Experience –  A Huge Change Happening – Extending Your Awareness

AIDs

As can be seen from the examples below, most dreams are about anxiwty about having AIDs. So even if you dreamt of having AIDs it is probably a fear of it.

Example: I am playing with her juicy ****, but the cars never seem to come by. We go to look for a better place to watch the race (I carry her piggy back) and there is more sexual playing. I am really getting horny and still the race doesn’t start. I start thinking of getting a condom (I am afraid of AIDS) but I don’t know how to talk to her about this.

Example: Living with M. We are in a small house. There is an extremely sexy girl living with us. She and I want to have sex, but with M. there is is impossible. (I observe the girl have sex with at least one other person and know that she had it with still another). M. is watching me very closely. Later, I think it is probably good that I didn’t have sex with this girl as I could or probably would have gotten AIDS.

Example: But the woman might have had aids. For some moments all the assessment of her character went through my mind. Basically that having casual sex with me probably meant she would have casual sex with quite a few people. I worried that I might have caught aids.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel in the dream and is there signs of those feelings in my life?

Am I worried about catching the illness, and if so I should do something about it like using condoms.

What do I understand from my dream?

Using Processing Dreams can help.

Aardvark

Although it is a fairly harmless creature, living on ants, it is often seen to have magical powers by it native countrymen; said to enable people to pass through walls.

Useful questions and hints:

This is an animal, and like any animal probably links with traits within you, so see Animal

If you describe the animal as it is in your dream, how would you describe it? That is important as it is what the dream represents.

It could help if you imagine yourself as the animal and note what is felt.

Aardwolf

The aardwolf is a shy creature that is nocturnal and is not a threatening animal. So it cold seen as a friend in dreams.

Useful questions and hints:

This is an animal, and like any animal probably links with traits within you, so See Animal

If you describe the animal as it is in your dream, how would you describe it? That is important as it is what the dream represents.

It could help if you imagine yourself as the animal and note what is felt. What would you say as the animal?

Abacus

Has been used throughout the centuries as a calculating device, and so would represent problem solving or business of some sort.

Useful questions and hints:

What are you doing with the abacus, and does that give you a clue to the dream?

Are you facing a problem that you need to solve, and does the abacus represent that?

If so can you define what the problem is?

Abalone

This is like the mother of pearl, where colours are all the time shifting and changing. So it is like looking into the inner world of dreams, of intuition and touching the highest in us.

I was on a beach in somewhere like Ibiza. I met Danny, I knew that I didn’t have the money like him to live a different life, so I wondered what I could do. I saw a rock mound with water running through it. I then saw that ancient peoples had carved out some more of the rock and had inserted abalone shells around the running water creating a trough. as I looked on, I suddenly realised that this was an expression of the divine, and that I could live here and dedicate my life to the divine, thereby giving my life as much meaning if not more than Danny’s.

Useful questions and hints:

Have you at the time of the dream had any feelings about something to do with your inner life?

If you have can you say what they are and what you realise from them?

What was the action in the dream with the shell – holding it, glancing at it, using it in some way? Whatever it was can you gather any information from it? See Action in Dreams

Can you enter the dream to find its meaning? You can do this by using Acting on Your Dream.

Abandon Abandoned

There may be a fear of being left or losing someone, perhaps arising from an actual experience of loss in the past. You need to consider whether your feelings of abandonment are also feelings of dependence. But it depends what you have a given yourself to – if it is careless abandonment it could lead to careless results. If it is to your wholeness then it might mean a journey into yourself.

Nearly always such feelings offer opportunities to meet ones fears and learn greater independence. Difficulties surrounding this are often linked with what we frequently call love, but might, for greater clarity, be called dependence. For instance, if a partner leaves us and we experience great pain, much of that pain and anxiety comes about because we have depended upon our partner to supply, or help supply, such needs as money, a place to live, social standing, sexual satisfaction, a sense of being wanted, companionship and support in crises.

Dependence and need are often so closely intertwined it is difficult to really separate them. But I feel that life in us is constantly trying to move toward survival and independence. But being independent does not mean leaving a partner. But if the thought or feeling brings distress or difficult feelings it becomes suspect and might have links with childhood experiences. But an amazing sense and experience can flower from the freedom of true independence. It is more rewarding than simple independence, and with infinite possibility. Life could begin in an entirely new way. Relationships could be things of depth, variability, and beauty, once freed of the shackles of the eternal buzzing fears and pains. Because on the end none of us are totally independent – or totally alone unless we have shut ourselves up in a small and lifeless inner world. See Inner World Making

Example: For instance, if a partner leaves us and we experience great pain, much of that pain and anxiety comes about because we have depended upon our partner to supply, or help supply, such needs as money, a place to live, social standing, sexual satisfaction, a sense of being wanted, companionship and support in crises.

Perhaps the difference is found in awareness? As in if the co-operation on different levels between two (or more) people was a conscious choice. I have struggled a lot with this dependence on my partner in the past and have often questioned if I had made the right choice to walk this path with him. Now I dare to trust that I did.

Perhaps all needed is to add “TOO MUCH” as in …….because we have depended too much upon our partner…………….too much would then mean a dependence beyond the mutual agreed co-operation.

Although, as an adult, you might now be capable of gaining your needs, such powerful feelings of helplessness, anxiety or sense of abandonment, can be stimulated by any situation reminiscent of the childhood situation that first called them into play. Therefore, it can help to carefully look at your life situation to see what changes are producing these feelings. You also need to decide whether there is real cause for fear, or whether you are suffering anxiety due to past experience.

Example: I was in a very loving relationship in which I had developed powerful emotional links with D. We communicated many times each day while apart at work, etc. But one day there was no communication. I felt tremendous anxiety and emotional pain and shock, really frightened that she had dropped me. In fact she hadn’t, but my fears were very real and difficult to deal with. A real shock.

In a certain sense, the pain arising from abandonment, and feelings attending it, can arise from other losses, such as termination of employment or a baby or loss of status. This can be seen as a confrontation with one’s own internal poverty. If this can be accepted, then the situation becomes an opportunity to gradually transform old pains and dependencies. The roots of these frequently become revealed if we accept the pain as a signpost to its source and understanding. Awareness of the part such pain has played in your life is a tremendous means of transformation. See Self Observation

But because facing the enormous emotions that are locked up with feeling abandoned are difficult, sometimes it needs us to grow to greater strength to meet them.

In general the dream might link with a sense of how others, particularly our parents, felt about us while we were a child. This feeling of not being wanted may have become habitual. It may not be true that we were not wanted, but our feelings are saying it is. A sense of abandonment powerfully influences our relationships as an adult, and can lead to feelings of being unloved in the midst of what is really a happy and caring relationship; sometimes carries an element of self pity. The feeling if abandonment can represent big changes in your life such as leaving home, or travelling and living in another country, and so feeling abandoned by all ones friends and usual sources of support.

Dreaming of abandonment may also link with feeling life has no meaning or purpose. They may occur after going through sepa­ration or divorce, or even the death of a loved one, especially a parent or spouse.

Such dreams can reveal grief, anger, resentment and despair that has not been faced or dealt with. Meeting such feelings is a way meeting and working through these feelings and is important and may show emotional block­ages. See Life’s Little Secrets

If by a friend or relative: Suggests either anxiety about losing friendship, or of illness creating a loss. It can also suggest that you feel unloved and unwanted.

Being abandoned in the sense of allowing sexual and emotional liberty: Finding a new freedom; dropping usual social codes and unashamedly expressing ourselves.

An abandoned building, project etc: Something that you were involved in and had life for you at some time, but is now either in the past, or that you have withdrawn energy or enthusiasm from, or perhaps given up on.

Also: It can be an example of one of the functions of dreams, which is to release held back sexuality and emotion. See: alone; functions of dreams; hero/ine.

 Example: ‘My Mother asked me to go and buy some butter for her. A chain on my left leg prevented me from going very far. I look down the road and see my Mum, Dad and my four brothers in the back of a car. I wave and call and they drive right past me, going over the chain I am wearing on my leg.’ Lorraine. LBC.

Lorraine’s dream illustrates not only her feelings of being left out of family life, but also the chain on her leg shows her not fully independent. We often feel ‘abandoned’ while we are trying to become more independent.

Useful questions:

Is the feeling in the dream one I have often?

If I look backwards through my life, when did this feelings start?

Because this feeling might deeply influence the way you feel in a relationship, it is helpful to recognise the difference between the history of this feeling as it has played in your life, and what is actually real in your present relationship?

What or who have I abandoned or been abandoned by?

What are you seeking through being abandoned?

Are you gaining anything from it?

See Talking As  – Habits –  Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Abase

Do you feel you were abased or were you abasing others? It is important because it could show you either in an active or passive role. See Active and Passive.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what situation in the dream did the feeling or action of the dream take place?

What does that situation describe about you?

Have you felt abased or doing the abasement in your life, if so can you change it? See Carry Forward.

Abattoir

Unpleasant feelings about death or illness, and maybe the denial of your instinctive urges. It can also mean the killing of finer feelings. Because it is about the killing of animals see Animals.

If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we did it might be questionable.

If carcasses: Something to do with death or the physical facts of life; may be a reference to your body or health. See: meat; butcher.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings do I have that underlie the images of this dream?

Am I killing something in my nature or in others? If so what is it?

What do you feel about death – have you ever faced the feelings? See Death DreamsNear Death Experiences.

See Levels (Brain) and Mammal Brain

Abaya

As an item of clothing you need to decide what you feel about it and what you would feel if you were wearing it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

It is useful to look up clothing to maybe clarify what your dream means – Clothes.

What were you doing with the abaya – wearing it, washing it, throwing it away? Each thing gives a different meaning. See Action in Dreams

Abbey

This can depict religious feelings, or the inner place of quiet. That is, those areas of feelings and thoughts that are quiet, strengthening, and inclined to consideration of the meaning of life.

Is the abbey ruined or in good order? If it is in ruins then it can represent memories; or even that your thoughts and feelings about traditional religion have now fallen into ruin. If so does that feel like growth or regret?

But personal feelings about religion may play a great part in what this dream means to you.

Anything connected with religion can indicate a variety of things, depending upon your own feelings about, and links with religion. Therefore the dream can suggest –

1) A social programme attempting to integrate as many individuals as possible into one cohesive group. The aim is to achieve a community with the same goals and beliefs, perhaps within a hierarchical structure.

2) When such an integrated group is formed, being a member of it can produce a positive sense of connection with others. If one disagrees with the goals and beliefs of such a group, the group can sometimes exert an enormous pressure to conform with their goals. This can lead to individual persecution, or conflict between the opposing groups or nations.

3) A system of beliefs and practices that are designed to enhance one’s relationship with oneself, with others, and with a greater whole. Such systems often have the underlying belief that the whole is greater than the part. They may therefore aim to help the individual recognise his or her connection with the whole, or even gain experience of it.

4) A means of dealing with personal and social anxieties, egocentric urges, the human sense of helplessness against the trials of life, in a positive or socially acceptable way.

5) An awareness of or a reconnection with the core of your being. You might call that core God, Life, Spirit, but as in the example below, it is the powerfully regenerative side of your inner life or feelings, thus your contact with LIFE itself; or it might be the world of experience you have created inwardly by your thoughts, meditation, actions.

6) The moral rules we make decisions from – such rules may at times kill much of our inner life; moral authority; our relationship with the community.

Example: ‘It was like an English Church with several great spires. The whole building seemed to be built in a white and gold design. The gold parts shimmered in the sun. I gazed at this wonderful sight for some time and felt such a wonderful feeling of upliftment, my tiredness gone.’ Johan E.

Example: ‘The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches.’ John P.

In the example John sees the dogmas of the church as an assault and degradation of human qualities of love and moral support. See: prayer; religion and dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my actual response to the abbey, and what part does that response play in my life?

Do I have personal associations with an abbey? If so what are they?

Have I difficult feelings about religion? Can I put those feelings into words?

If I imagine myself as the physical structure of the building what do I feel? See Acting on Your Dream.

Abbot or Abbess

This can mean a meeting with your highest aspirations, or difficult feelings about any authority figure. See abbey.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the relationship with the abbot or abbess? See Relationship.

What feelings did I experience in the dream, and how do they relate to my waking life?

If it was an inspiring meeting what did I realise or gain from it?

Abdomen Abdominal

Your dream may be directly about your physical health or diet needs. If so it will in some way be connected with food or activities bringing illness or health.

Almost half the dreams on file that mention abdomen, belly or stomach, show the dreamer being shot, as in the example below. This is obviously to do with a particular type of hurt. When human beings learned to stand up, they exposed their vulnerable underbelly. If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. The sort of hurt referred to is that related to when we might be deeply criticised, feel badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

So this might point to vulnerability, or the sort of hurt that results from being deeply criticised, badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

Pleasure in this area show a sense of integration within yourself and with the world.  The solar plexus also links with hunger, the longing to be held, desire to give of yourself, or to be at the real or figurative breast. If these urges have been hurt, we tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

We link the abdomen with ‘gut feelings’ or intuition; feeling reactions in a relationship. For instance we use such phrases as ‘you make me sick’ – ‘I can’t stomach what you’re doing’ – ‘you haven’t got the guts’ – ‘like being hit in the guts’ – ‘I’m really hungry for you’. See: solar plexus.

The opposite is to dream of waves of pleasure moving within us, which gives us a sense of integration within ourselves and with the world.

The solar plexus might also link with the potential of our fully active natural drives such as hunger; longing to be held; desire to give of oneself. If these are hurt, we tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

The dream might point to gut feelings or intuition; feeling reactions in a relationship. For instance in the English language we use such phrases as you make me sick – I cant stomach what you’re doing – you haven’t got the guts like being hit in the guts – I’m really hungry for you.

Our abdomen is our digestive ability, both physically and psychologically. See absorb

Stomach or abdominal dreams may refer to some dis-ease in the actual organs. We might not be able to stomach something we have met in the everyday world. We may not be integrating our experience.

In a woman’s dream: May refer to her childbearing ability or pregnancy.

Shot in the belly: something to do with sex, a painful response to relationship, or feeling a target of someone’s verbal or emotional attack.

To vomit: A discharging of unpleasant feelings resulting from ingesting, hearing, reading, being told, experiencing, something unpleasant.

Example: The people watching are saying Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside. Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it engendered.

Here is a very interesting example of relating to such hurt.

I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach. I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from fears and hurts that haunt us. See What we Need to Remember About Dreaming.

Idioms: Belly aching; have a bellyful; eyes bigger than ones belly; have a strong stomach; turn ones stomach; butterflies in stomach.

Useful questions are:

What was happening in this area in terms of my feeling responses to people and events?

What was the feeling involved?

Was there pain or swelling that might indicate emotional wounds?

Might it have something to do with digesting new experiences in my life?

Is there a health or diet issue that is causing some concern?

See Body

Abduction

You may be feeling influenced by someone else against your own inclinations or desires. This can occur when events in life, such as leaving school or home, push you into changes you do not embrace with pleasure. Or it may be you feel a group of people you are involved with are forming a clique and pressurising you.

If a flying saucer is involved it shows and enormous amount of feelings and experiences are trying to surface from deep within you. They are shown as aliens because your present education and experiences are very different from what you are capable of and what you hold within you.

Happening to someone else: The desire to influence or have power over someone.

Happening to yourself: Feeling influenced by someone else against your own inclinations or desires. This can occur when events in life, such as leaving school or home, push you into changes you do not embrace with pleasure. Or it may be you feel a group of people you are involved with are forming a clique and pressurising you.

Abduction in connection with flying saucer: It can sometimes point to being sexually abused as a child. But some of the most intense research on such dreams or apparently real experiences suggest a powerful full surround virtual reality such as dreams create. They usually show an enormous break through into consciousness of unconscious material that had been repressed or denied . Everyday life and especially western social attitudes and beliefs make it difficult for the core life processes and feelings of connection with the cosmos to surface. When they press for acknowledgment it may feel like, or be presented as, an alien attack. This is because inner energy and awareness is often felt as alien to what one presently believes or knows.

See UFO’s – The Final Answer by David and Therese Barclay – Flying Saucers – A Modern Myth by Carl Jung.

Useful questions are:

If I identify with the alien how do I experience myself? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peerdream work.

What new or strange experience is entering my life or trying to claim my attention?

Is there something within me or that I feel that I am feeling threatened or swept away by?

Ablaze

See: Fire.

Able

To be able suggests you have the qualities defined in the dream – for instance ‘I was able to face the monster that was frightening’ – ‘I was able to make love with a wonderful partner’ – ‘I felt confident and was able to land the job I wanted’.

And the opposite shows a need to develop the qualities needed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were the qualities that were shown or missing in the dream?

What did you achieve or fail to achieve?

By using the following you can arrive at a fuller insight into your dream – Processing Dreams.

Abnormal

Even if parts of your body or face are shown in a dream to be distorted or abnormal, such a dream is not usually referring to your body. This is about how you feel you are, or your idea or image of what sort of person you are. The dream translates the feelings into your body form. You might dream your face looks subnormal mentally, or your body has strange areas. This refers to an internal sense of yourself not having developed to your full potential, or of psychological hurts having distorted some facets of you, such as your ability to feel positive and creative. Nevertheless, occasionally dreams of this sort do point out illness, so if there is any cause for worry, it is best to go for a medical check. See: body; dwarf; giant

If something else in the dream is abnormal other than ones body: Feelings that there is a problem in some aspect of your life. Look up the object in the dictionary to check what it is.

Whether the abnormal feature in your dream is part of your body, of someone else’s body, or of the dream objects or surroundings, it suggests two things:

1) You may be harbouring fears about how other people see you – your self-image. Or the dream may reflect fears about your physical health. Even if these abnormalities appear on someone else, it may still refer to yourself, perhaps a part of you that has not developed to its full potential, or has been hurt. Our ability to love, for instance, can be hurt, and so may not have achieved its potential.

2) If the abnormality is part of the dream environment, it may point to feelings that something is not right, either with what is happening around you, or how you are responding to it.

 

If something else in the dream is abnormal other than ones body: Feelings that there is a problem in some aspect of your life. Look up the object in the dictionary to check what it is.

Useful questions are:

What did I feel when I looked at the abnormal features?

Do I feel something like that about myself sometimes or about my life situation?

Was there pain or swelling that might indicate emotional wounds?

Might it have something to do with ‘digesting’ new experiences in my life?

Is there a health or diet issue that is causing some concern?

What is it about myself or my life that I feel is distorted or not fully developed?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsLife Changes

 

Aboriginal Aborigine

In most dreams this refers to your more spontaneous feeling or instinctive or natural reactions to the things that happen to you. Often, like unbidden sexual or religious feelings, this side of your nature may be less conscious than your more daily or socialised reactions. The aboriginal may also represent your less rational or logical side, the part of you moved by feelings, magic, ritual, or ancient beliefs.

In some cases it depicts the side of yourself that may not have much chance to express in most social situations. But it is also the side of yourself that is closest to nature, with keener senses. It is more intuitive and less rational, and does not regard itself as distinct from the natural forces that produced you, or the other wild creatures of the earth. So at times this dream figure may enable you to see things more clearly, cutting away the social complications.

The aboriginal may also be a link to relating well to your own nature energy and motivations.

The modern western adult is often very much out of touch with the life giving processes within them and may feel isolated and often ill at ease in the world. The black figure in dreams, or the native, can give us a much needed connection and balance. It can also be an image of less sophisticated parts of you. See: African; Australian aboriginal dream beliefs.

Useful questions are:

Am I at odds with this natural part of myself?

Is there some love and understanding between us?

Is this being asking something of me?

What can I learn from this side of myself?

Does the primitive part of me need attention or is trying to grow? Use Talking As to understand more about this side of you.

Abort Aborting Abortion

In general this is about losing or getting rid of a part of you, or a project/idea, that was just developing and is therefore fragile. It can refer to a relationship that has not worked, or you feel will not work. It suggests one has aborted, or might abort or lose, an idea, a direction, or an area of one’s feelings such as might surround a love affair; an attempted relationship, direction or project is not supported by your own enthusiasm, love, energy or confidence.

The loss of something developing within you that you must decide whether you wanted it gone or whether you did not want to lose it. Or the feeling you will lose a creative idea, a direction, a project or an area of your feelings such as might surround a love affair; an attempted relationship, that is no longer supported by your own enthusiasm, love, energy or confidence

If you are a woman and pregnant, it may be revealing a fear of losing the child; or you may be exploring feelings to do with abortion; or even feeling something from the past.

The dream is seldom a prediction.

If the abortion is natural: Something your being is rejecting as unhealthy or unwholesome, or something you have been developing that has not worked out.

If dream connects with actual abortion: The emotions surrounding the actual experience of abortion; sense of guilt; the fears of damage to future possibility of childbearing; the feelings about loss of the baby. All these need to be healed in some measure.

Also: The body was in the midst of a process if the abortion was induced. The body has powerful feeling reactions which need acknowledgement, and are frequently presented in dreams. See: baby.

Example: I dreamt that my mum had a miscarriage. When I woke up I knew she had split with her current boyfriend. She rang up and I said, ‘Mum, don’t tell me, I know why you’ve rung, you’ve broken with your boyfriend’. She was amazed and asked how I knew. Antoinette T.

Antoinette’s dream shows how the dream uses abortion to depict the loss of a relationship.

Here is another example:

I woke up sweating this morning, I had a dream that my husband and I were in a car accident and something went wrong and my body was trying to reject the pregnancy ( I have never had a child, but 2 years ago I lost a baby due to miscarriage) and the doctors gave me an emergency C-section. The baby was a girl and extremely tiny, I felt very attached to this little girl, and she ended up dying of complications.

My reply to this woman was – Now the Big you has tremendous feelings and is involved in you as only it can understand. So in your dream your car accident represents what it felt like when your baby miscarried. Something had gone wrong that was why the miscarriage happened.

But you as a woman are a wonderful thing, and the Big you and the personal you are so intertwined, but you/we are usually unaware how much the Big you feels when a baby is lost. It has worked miracles to form this amazing thing – a baby. And to see it lost it felt badly. So you and the Big you were very attached, and the Big you more so as it had formed every cell of the baby.

So what you felt in the dream was a little of the crying for that loss for both of you. When a woman is open to her inner process of Life – the Big you – then she will try to heal her heart and her body of the loss. Mostly it is just swept under the carpet. But your dream is a way of healing. Meeting the feelings of the Big you can be scary because we are not taught that we have anything in us except blood and guts and so have no experience of knowing who we are.

Example: I had an abortion when I was 16 years old I was forced into it. My child would have been 6 years old by now. I been having dreams of this little girl and she keeps calling me mommy it simply breaks my heart. And all I do is cry. But what does it mean to have dreams like this?

Reply – There is so much people never learn from school, television and public opinion. Your child is not dead and of course she is communicated with you in your dreams. Your love for her keeps her alive, and please do not keep ‘breaking you heart’ because it puts a real burden on your growing inner child.

It would take me too long to answer your questions fully here, but if you click on the links you will get a lot of what you need to know. So see – Fertility – Summing Up – The Inner World – Talking with the dead

A friend wrote to me recently and was supporting abortion. My reply was, “I partly agree, but after abortion many women have difficulty having a baby, or the first baby is born with malformations. Examples are my wife’s’ sister whose baby was born with terrible problems. Also my father’s sisters – Roman Catholics were very keen on abortions and not having babies and all died of cancer of the womb.

You cannot really screw with the nature of women and get away totally free for we are all living creatures, and we are all born with a tremendous urge to have sex – in one way or another.

But here is something I experienced while working as a therapist. Linda had been sent by her doctor because she suffered depression. “The fourth and final session began with Linda lying on a blanket.

At this point neither of us understood what her movements meant, or what her inner of the LifeStream process was beginning to express. Because the movements were strong enough, and Linda could allow the spontaneous action easily now, I suggested she lay down instead of standing. We were using – LifeStream

The fourth and final session began with Linda lying on a blanket. Her arms quickly began the spontaneous movements to her abdomen without needing any priming by finding the tensions. The movements were much stronger this time and her whole body became involved. Her knees drew up and her abdominal area domed. She made very little sound – some people are extremely vocal – but she was intensely absorbed in the movements for nearly an hour before they stopped and she lay peacefully.She then sat up and told me excitably she had experienced something extraordinary.

She said that four years earlier she had been divorced and went to live in Spain with her children. While there she had an affair with a Spaniard and became pregnant. Because she already had children and was not wanting to stay with the man, she had an abortion.

During her body movements it had seemed to her as if the Life in her had said the abortion had hurt it. It then led her through the spontaneous movements to complete the process of birth of that baby, and in that way she now felt whole.

The process of birth which had been cut off had been able to complete itself. Abortion hurts the process that keeps us alive – and women who have abortions do not usually allow LifeStream to heal them by completing the birth process.

And what is so wrong in taking care and taking the pill – so why have an abortion instead of taking care? You must realise that the most powerful urge in us is to have sex, and it will override any objections, fears or restraints you have unless you are very string willed. But even strong restraint is harmful, for that energy has to go somewhere – often into neurotic behaviour or even worse. See Energy Sex and Dreams

Useful questions and hints are:

What have I lost that has been newly developing or emerging in my life?

Is this something I should try to regain?

Does healing need to take place around the feelings in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming –  Life’s Little Secrets

 

Above

This links with what you feel is superior or has a wider view of your life or possibility. It sometimes shows a sense of inferiority in relationship to what is above you. Or you might be looking at what you strive for and presently seems above you.

In many dreams what is high, or if you are in a high place, indicates you are experiencing the most refined side of yourself – those things that exist beyond body concerns and link you with universal awareness.

If you are standing above or high up: Having a wider viewpoint of your life or feeling superior or in a position of advantage. Sometimes this says that you are living in your head instead of your heart.

Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself

See: height; hill; mountain; flying.

Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself. ]

Useful questions are:

What are the abilities or achievements I feel good about? Find out by using Talking As.

What am I looking up to or reaching for?

What or who do I feel is above me?

Abroad

Your feelings about that country, or the view or associated feelings you have of it; being in or moving toward a new or changed life situation. For instance just being married might be a very different and new way of living, so be shown in a dream as a foreign country. Occasionally such dreams reveal things we absorbed or learned in connection with that country and its culture.

Being abroad, or mention of a country other than your home, in general is a way of depicting particular feelings or a situation you are in. For instance, if Italy is abroad for you, you might feel it is a warm and romantic place. It would therefore represent a situation in which you are feeling romance and warmth. But a country at war would represent conflict.

If you have not previously been to that country it could suggest exploring new interests, relationship or personal attitudes.

Are you travelling abroad in the dream to get away from a present difficulty or feelings?

So in most cases, abroad suggests a change, or a different feeling or life situation than you are presently in. The dream may be referring to the exploration of new interests, or new areas of yourself – or even of being in a situation you are not at home in.

If you have been to that country, the dream most likely refers to the events or emotions that occurred while you were there.

If the country is a place your family originated from, it may depict the unconscious influences and cultural attitudes you inherited from your family.

If you have lived and worked in that country: You need to define whether you were happy or stressed there and what you absorbed of the atmosphere while there, because the dream would be referring to this.

If abroad or going abroad: Making a change in your life, doing something new; wanting to escape your present environment; getting away from it all; moving into a new attitude.

If someone or something arrives from abroad: A change; something new arising in your life.

Someone of the opposite sex from abroad: Hopes for a new relationship; a relationship that has new features; difficulties with intimacy in present relationship.

See: travel – or specific country.

Useful questions are:

If you have lived in the dream country:

What was your overall experience of that place?

Were you happy there, lonely, what characteristics of the people did you take in?

What is your general view of the country and its people?

Am I or should I be exploring new interests, or new areas of myself?

Is there a situation in my life where I don’t ‘feel at home’?

Explore you dream by using Dream Processing.

Abscess

Painful and withheld emotions or memories. Occasionally it might represent a site of actual physical illness. Perhaps the abscess represents a situation in which old and painful experiences are coming to the surface to be dealt with.

The part of the body on which the abscess appears might give a clue to what part of yourself in terms of personality or abilities the dis-ease is felt.

Abscess still swollen and unrelieved: Emotions still repressed and may be causing psychological infection – influencing views and decisions negatively. The dream abscess may also represent a site of physical illness which may or may not be obvious while awake. In the example below, the abscess has released its pus, or painful feelings, perhaps through Hilary’s prolonged crying. The emotions are, with Hilary, affecting her ‘grasp’. She also uses other imaged word play in ‘near the knuckle’. Washing up shows her clearing away the influence of her ‘evening meal’ of experience. See: individuationbody dreams.

Example: ‘Was looking at my knuckle and saw that I had a nasty boil which had come away as I did the washing up and all that was left was a big hole, pink and healthy looking skin around. It felt very close to my knuckle bone. My lover had told me he was leaving me for good, and going back to his children. That evening, I cried most of the night.’ Hilary K.

Useful questions are:

What part of my body is this on, and am I aware of any problem in that area?

Are there painful past experiences, or irritating thoughts that may still be causing dis-ease in my life?

What does that part of my body represent psychologically? (Look it up in the rest of the dictionary, i.e. arm; legs; chest.)

Explore you dream by using Dream Processing.

Absence-Absent

If it is a person who is absent the meaning of the dream depends very much on what you feel in the dream, and what your relationship is with them. So you need to define what your response to the absence was – were you lonely, upset, glad, hoping for them to return?

Having defined what you felt, then ask yourself what they suggests in your waking life, or what part it is playing in what you are doing. Do you have a sense or worry the person is leaving you, or that there is a distance between you? This may also connect with feelings of being incomplete, as one might if an arm was missing.

If it is an object that is absent from where you expect it to be it suggests that your expectations are not matching reality, or that changes have occurred that you have missed observing.

If the object connects with another person, such as a ring, then it indicates feelings about a change in the relationship. This might simply be a change in the way you feel rather than a change in the other person.

Useful questions are:

Are these my feelings or do they reflect what is true externally?

What am I missing or in need of in my waking life?

Is there a waking event that stimulated this dream?

You can find out more by using these techniques Talking As; Processing Dreams;

Acting on my Dream. Also see What we need to Remember about Dreaming.

.

Absorb Absorbed Absorbing

This suggests two separate qualities that merge into one. In a relationship, whether a feelings relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in.

Dreams often represent learning or personal growth as an organic process. Ideas and experience are taken in, digested, then form part of an organic whole in an integrated way. This is sometimes depicted much as a tree absorbs through its roots. What is absorbed becomes a living part of the organism. But that does not mean taking it in whole; it is broken down and only the parts that are usable are integrated into the life of the organism, the rest is discharged as waste matter and is later used as compost.

Seeing something absorbed in a dream may therefore represent the taking in of ideas or influences, or even poisonous feelings, depending upon what the dream images are.

The meaning of the dream does depend on the situation of the absorbing. So if your body is absorbing something, this may refer to something you are eating, or some influence in your life.

Being absorbed in something like water or energy suggest your personality opening to being a part of the wider life around you.

So being absorbed into something it suggests an enlarged experience of yourself, or a letting down your defensive barriers. It might also feel like being overwhelmed by another persons identity or another influence you do not identify with.

Useful questions are:

Does the dream give me a clue to what I am absorbing?

What do I feel in the dream, and what does this say about me?

What do I do, or what could I do, about the situation?

Try the following to help you clarify the dream Talking As.

Abstract

An abstract shape, patterns, or colour in your dream most likely refers to feelings you meet that are difficult to define, or even recognise. It is important therefore to define them from whatever feelings or responses they produce in the dream.

Useful questions are:

What do the colours or patterns remind me of or make me feel?

Do the images lead me to do anything in the dream or respond in any way?

If so what does it suggest?

Try the following to help you clarify the dream Talking As.

Abuele


Por supuesto que también podría ser una abuela mal – pero aún así son un reflejo de los dolores y maldad interior que puede llevar con nosotros a través de nuestra herencia familiar. Así que sea bueno o malo debemos honrarlos, porque sólo a través de ellos podemos encontrar camino de regreso a lo que está más allá de ellos en el pasado.

A veces, una abuela puede aparecer como un ángel, como lo es para un niño pequeño. Su toque y el amor es un vínculo con la antigua sabiduría que las abuelas tienen en su interior. Se puede llegar a través de ellos y cambiar su vida.

Tuve un sueño de mi abuela: entré en una casa muy luminosa, donde había niños pequeños tantos … parecía que estaba cuidando de ellos, que estaban jugando y riendo en el interior de la casa. Ella llevaba su vestido de flores favorito, mientras caminaba hacia ella le extendió los brazos y me ofreció un abrazo, así que fui a ella y como ella me abrazó me sentí la calidez y la felicidad, vi flores brillantes y el sol y las plantas en el brisa. Luego, en un instante todo se acabó. Me desperté, estaba de buen humor. Me preparé para el trabajo y como yo estaba en mi camino al trabajo, mi madre me llamó para decir feliz cumpleaños. Justo en ese momento me acordé del abrazo de mi abuela me dio esa misma mañana ….. lo que es una coincidencia que la misma sensación de calor. Como ya he compartido ese sueño con mi madre, los dos teníamos lágrimas de alegría.

See grandmother.

Abuse Abused Abusing

Abusing, being abused, or abusing, physically or sexually, may point to your own past experience. The dream may be an attempt to work out the inner damage you have about this. If not that, then there is a likelihood it is showing you some way you are either abusing someone else’s friendship, or are yourself being, or feeling, abused.

It is like aggression, and can be physical or very subtle, so can be passive-aggressive. Some times abuse, like aggression can be caused by held back sexual urges, or a means of passing on what you received in abuse as a child.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have any memories or feelings about being abused?

We sometimes abuse ourselves by damaging or repressing parts of our nature, so does the abuse point to this?

Am I in an abusive relationship or work situation?

It may  be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward; Using symbols to change life problems and Dream Yoga. Also see hostility; aggression.

Abyss Black Hole

Usually the abyss represents the unknown, and perhaps the infinite, of your own mind or consciousness. The fear of falling into the abyss represents your attempt to control your feelings and what emerges from within yourself. It also frequently refers to feelings about, or fear of, death. To quote from Dream Yoga, “Death is a fact that we all face, and it is no good running away from it in our dreams. That only makes it more scary. Because you CANNOT run away from death you should meet it face to face. If you do that it will transform into the beautiful part of life it is, instead of the horror we have been taught to see it as.”

The positive side of the dream is that it links your conscious mind with the immense potential you hold within yourself unconsciously. Part of this potential is an experience of going beyond opposites, of resolving paradoxes, of moving beyond the limitations of the rational mind and emotional responses. In these ways it is similar to the dream images of the Sea; void. It can also be thought of as the void or nothingness. This can be frightening until we realise that the void has everything in it, but it is without form. Another way of looking at it is that it is the polar opposite to waking consciousness – the deep dreamless sleep type of awareness. See Levels of the Mind in Sleeping

 

Falling into the big black hole:  Are things we avoid in waking life, but should not be avoided in dream life. Here is a dream of someone who is no longer afraid.

There was still a current trying to pull me back into the black hole hugeness, and I began to feel afraid as I felt that if I regressed any more I would cease to exist. Then it came to me that I regressed every day in this way when I went to sleep. I lose any sense of personal existence yet emerge none the worse the next day. But in sleep I regress to whatever lies beneath consciousness without being aware of it. The difference now was in being conscious of what was happening. So I knew the fear was unnecessary as every time we go to sleep we drop back into this condition.

So I let go and fell. I didn’t go to sleep though. Instead I fell into an awareness of immensity, of hugeness, and the immensity was full of knowing. Like a raindrop falling back into the ocean, I seemed to merge with that hugeness and yet maintain a sense of my own existence. And between the hugeness and my own sense of being there was communication. I was aware that what held me was the process that had grown me from being a tiny seed in the first place. It is so obvious, but I experienced it like a revelation that I had not created or grown myself. But now this deep part that had caused me to exist and grown me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me. I understood from it that if I opened to it each day, if I surrendered to its action, then it would grow me to a fuller life until it realised itself in me. This felt like a holy gift, that the mystery of life would live and know itself in me.

The hole is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it you realise that it is the way to your own center and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland.

The abyss in a dream gains its meaning largely from how you respond to it. It suggests a situation you might fall into or be lost in, but it is also space, infinity, a situation or state of mind not limited by form or smallness.

Sometimes the abyss is the same as a void, suggesting the formless spirit of life lying within and at the core of all physical formed life. Therefore it might link with the transcendental or the spiritual life of death.

Example: The first experience was looking at a green wall and seeing the huge moving circle of the mandala. At the centre of it was emptiness. Out of this nothingness poured forms of living creatures, all moving and dancing out from the centre in time with each other – though the individuals were not  aware of their synchronous movements. These emerging, dancing forms went out to a periphery – the edge of the circle – then they danced back to the centre and merged back into the nothingness. I knew this represented life and death and again life, for as things fell into that nothingness, at the same moment new life spewed out of it.

But holes can be like that at the base of the tree in the photo, can be an entrance into another experience or dimension,

If feared: Fear of losing control; loss of identity; fear of failure; meeting with those dark fears or worries we hide in our depths; lack of confidence; death in some form; the unconscious. Having these fears in no way suggests the external or internal world warrants anxiety. But lack of confidence will obviously hamper performance in dealing with the difficulties represented by the abyss.

Without fear: Being able to take risks, not be afraid of illness and death in a paralysing way. It suggests going beyond the boundaries of one’s own limitations, concepts, present experience. It represents the enormous personal potential lying beyond already formed conceptions and experience. It is the aspect of human consciousness existing beyond the opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong. Access to this gives tremendous liberation to the dreamer, freeing them from restricting rigid concepts or habits of thinking, responding and relating. See: death; falling; pit; void; archetype of the void.

Useful questions are:

Am I frightened of the abyss?

If so what is my fear about?

What does the abyss offer me if I enter into it?

What holds me back from it?

What have I found in meeting it?

Try Acting on my Dream.

Accelerator

Ability to govern your expression or expenditure of energy or speed of advance in work, a relationship or life. What you are doing with the accelerator shows the amount of power or ‘drive’ you are putting into what you are doing or where you are aiming to go in life.

If the car is not responding when the pedal is pressed it suggests you are out of energy, or that there is a problem with how you are motivating yourself.

If pressing down on accelerator: Desire to reach ones goal or desire quickly, or putting more effort or power into your resolve; frustration; ability or ‘drive’ to succeed.

Lack of response from accelerator: No inner enthusiasm for tasks or goals; a sense of getting no response from something you are involved in.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this depicting my desire to control things, or speed up things in my life?

How much am I depressing the pedal and how does that relate to where I am aiming to go?

If the car is not responding I need to ask myself why my emotion or body are not responding to this decision.

Explore your dream using Dream Processing.

Accept Accepted Accepting

To be willing to admit or receive what is represented in the dream. If somebody else if accepting something from you, then it is about feelings of being acceptable, or having something to give. See: giving; gift.

 An unwillingness to receive or accept what is offered or being offered needs to be explored. Acceptance is a great power that will open many doors in the inner or dream world. It is like allowing the Life Will to work through you. See The Life Will .

 Example: I woke this morning to a terrible smell. It was so strong I felt one of my cats had either peed or shit on the duvet. I was cautious about moving because it felt so near to my nose. The smell was slightly chemical in that it irritated my nose slightly. I slowly sat up – slow because of suffering vertigo and sitting up can be awful. So I slowly reached over and switched on the table light. Then I began searching for the awful mess that I was sure was causing the smell. But there was now no mess and no smell. I asked myself what was the cause of the smell and received the response it was the awful stink I had set up in my relationships with women. But there was no feelings or insights attached to it so I was left wondering.

 On then exploring the cause I was gradually shown the heap of shit I had been. Firstly my teenage years when I was depressed. Then my early twenties and thirties when I remembered my awful condition in not being able to meet peoples eyes and not even being able to wave to a friend who greeted me. And then the worse shit of all, the memory of having blood on my hands from killing someone – and the person I had killed was me, so I had walked around like the living dead, depressed, unable to make love to my wife, a zombie looking to others for life and love, a heap of shit.

But then I was shown the way out – admitting that I was a shit, and asking for help as the twelve steps in Alcoholics Anonymous define it. In opening myself to that wonderful otherness my heap of shit became a compost heap which offered new growth.

  

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I willing to admit or receive whatever is being depicted?

What am I giving of myself?

What is involved in the relationship with whatever or whoever is giving or receiving?

See The Keyboard ConditionLife’s Little SecretsMartial Art of the Mind

Accident Accidental Accidentally

In your dreams there are no accidents or chance events. In one way or another, you create the whole dream. Therefore to dream of an accident may mean you sense attitudes, or events, are leading you toward whatever is depicted in the dream. This is in no way a prophecy, but it might occasionally depict a self-fulfilling incident. In which case it is wise to be aware of any events suggesting what is portrayed in your dream. You can then avoid the final moves creating the accident.

The dream may also be showing feelings of stress or tension that could lead to events best for you to avoid. The event might be a relationship break-up, a work crisis, or whatever is suggested in a dream – or caused by a relationship or work break up.

Again, defuse the situation by being aware of the tensions or stress contributing to the dream accident. Deal with the stress of tension, and thus avoid its possible consequences. An accident in a dream may also suggest feelings of being out of control, or not being able control events occurring around you, perhaps heightening stress.

Sometimes this simply suggests the feelings it gives rise to, as shock or fear. Perhaps something has shocked and hurt you. Often dreams of upheaval are signs of great change that are or will occur, so learning to meet change is a necessary skill, and something we need all the time.

Many people have strong feelings of anxiety about any dream which shows them having an accident or being injured. If we could have a record of every dream each person had, we would see everyone dreams again and again of being injured, murdered, killed. Because these are common themes, some dreams are going to coincide with an actual accident or plane crash. Because these dreams are common themes, many dreamers attempt to link the dream with a later event. But such dreams are usually about psychological injury or anxiety. Nevertheless many people do have warning dreams.

Defuse the dream situation by using visualisation to change the dream imagery – see Acting in Your Dream. See: esp in dreams; warning dreams.

Accident at sea: Feelings of threat about relationship. Perhaps a sense there is a problem building up. See: First example under boat.

Accident in car: Tension about your efforts to ‘get somewhere’ or achieve your goals. Take care in driving for a few days. See: car.

Accident in the home: A sense that tension is building up in your home life. Occasionally this means you have unconsciously noticed something might cause an accident in the home. Therefore check whatever it is that produced the accident – i.e. is stair carpet loose if you dream of falling down stairs?

An accident to someone else: Could be hidden aggression, but consider what facet of yourself the person depicts and see how an accident links with that. See the entry on people to help with this.

Plane crash: Worries about a project such as business collapsing or not coping financially. See: Aeroplane.

Example: The other night I had a dream that my ex-boyfriend was killed in a car accident. I was mortified and became hysterical. I can only remember little bits of it now, but I do remember seeing him in his car, dead. I think I started crying in my sleep. I have been thinking a lot about him lately, before I had the dream. I’ve missed him so much and this worries me. A.R.E. dream.

The woman in the example had actually parted with her boyfriend. The dream is therefore most likely an expression of her deep feelings about losing him.

Idioms: Accidentally on purpose; chapter of accidents; a blessed accident.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling stressed or tense about something?

Is there an attitude I have that could lead to some sort of accident or misfortune?

Is there something I am avoiding doing that is at the root of this dream – i.e. have you noticed the tires on your car are bald, or a piece of electrical equipment needs attention?

What are you worried about?

How can I change the dream imagery to defuse it? See Carry the Dream Forward.

Accordion

Like most musical instruments, it represents an expression of feelings, a coming into harmony or accord with things or with yourself. It shows some sort of self-expression.

It can, in some dreams, show the pleasure of being able to play. See: musical instruments.

Accounts or Accountant

Obviously to do with thoughts or concern over money. Whether it is about anxiety or insights depends upon what is portrayed in the dream; may also depict having to give an account of oneself, revealing the details of your actions or dealings with others. It can help to decide what the dream is about by using Processing Dreams.

Difficulty in balancing accounts: A sense of not having been honest or careful in your dealing with others or yourself; worries about money and surviving financially; not remembering events and activities clearly; an unresolved problem.

Accountant A pert of you that has a good business sense, although perhaps you could be more creative.

Argument with your accountant or the tax inspector This is probably a warning to remain in the black and not spend beyond your means.

Negative accounts or arguing with accountant: Worries about money or an inner warning to watch expenditure; a conflict relating to feelings about money or value.

Positive accounts or praise from accountant: You are moving to good fortune and are handling your business and money well – unless there is obvious money worries at the time of dream. In which case it might be a compensatory dream.

Idioms; Account for; an account to settle; be accountable for; by all accounts; call to account; doctor the accounts; of no account; on account; on no account; settle an account.

Useful questions are:

What does money represent for me?

If you have an accountant how do you relate to her or him?

How are you feeling about money at the moment?

Have you been honest in your dealings with others – this can be a big cause of money worries?

Accuse Accused Accusation Accuser

Feelings of guilt, or social or relationship difficulty. If you are the accuser, it may be showing feelings of being victimised or wronged. The feelings may be from the far past. But it can also be a way of avoiding being truthful.

Accusing someone else: Unconsciously feeling someone is not playing fair with you or you have a feeling you are not expressing to them; or self accusation about something you feel strongly about.

Being accused by someone: Feeling wrongly judged; feeling guilty about something; something you need to be aware of.

A lot of people’s dreams are like the following example, feeling wrongly accused, although some are obviously about accusing others.

Then she begins to get hysterical, accusing him of being untrue and doing her wrong. As her accusations get more hysterical and untrue and harsh, the entire tribe begins to see it is wrong. They walk away from her. She is now sobbing and screaming that she had been to the doctor’s this morning and got bad news. Finally she’s on the floor sobbing. Everyone has left the building except me.

It is a truth in psychology that we tend to blame anything on to others. To face up to the accusations is a very positive step.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I felt accused lately?

Am I holding back dealing with feelings about someone?

What is the accusation in the dream, and is there a link with my waking life?

Ace

A controlling factor in your life, or some vital point. Also, ambiguousness, as the ace can be high or low.

Ace of Hearts: Love and good relationship.

Ace of Diamonds: Financial good fortune.

Ace of Spades: Feeling of success in work.

Ace of Clubs: Wealth, health, love and happiness. A letter concerning money.

Idioms: Ace in the hole (a reserve).

Useful Questions and Hints:

To find out whether the ace is high or low, and what it means in your dream try Talking As.

Ache

Indicates where we may be holding back the energy relevant to that part of the body. A man who dreamt of an ache in his throat later discovered in therapy that he had been holding back emotions about his father who had died suddenly. On release he was able to say how much he loved his father. Look up part of body to see what the ache might relate to.An ache is a warning that all is not well. Perhaps some part of the body has been hard used, or your dream could be using your body symbolically .

An ache is a distress connected with wherever the ache appears in the dream. For instance an ache in the chest probably refers to heartache or unexpressed emotions, and therefore pain about relationship. See: Body for the various parts of the anatomy the ache may appear in the dream.

An ache can also show a problem in that are of the body that is not yet acute enough for you to be aware of it consciously. An ache can also suggest a longing for or about something, thus the idiom. Idioms: Heartache.

Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.

When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, an done should check out ones health in the area. See the example under Body.

In Chest: Withheld emotions.

Lower back: Sexual energy blocked.

Useful questions are:

Is this about a psychological ache I have or a physical problem?

Am I aching/longing for something – if so what is it? See: bodyArm; Legs; Head.

Does this connect with any ache or discomfort while I am awake?

If I imagine myself in the dream, what feelings or intuitions arise about the ache? See Dream Visualisation for help with this. Also Talking As.

Acid

The dream image of acid suggests there is something that has the power to eat away at your positive feelings. The image may point to fears, cynicism, or criticism as in an acid tongue. If you are the one using the acid, be aware of the power to hurt or damage that you hold. If the acid is in a particular setting, such as work or relationship, then it refers to difficult feelings in your everyday life. If possible trace the feeling in your dream to where it is occurring in your waking life.

Acid test means the test of real value, as gold will not corrode, but lesser metals will. Therefore corrosion denotes material, easily destroyed things. Something may be burning away at your feelings or confidence, perhaps guilt or anxiety; your own vitriolic attack on someone else; fear of getting ‘burnt’ or hurt.

Throwing acid on someone: Purposely hurting someone; putting them to the test by being hurtful.

Where acid refers to LSD, See: drugs; mind bomb; LSD hypnosis meditation

Idioms: Acid tongue; come the old acid (try to deceive); the acid test.

Useful questions are:

Is something eating away at my confidence, resolve or sense of well being?

Do I feel a difficult but cleansing action taking place?

Have I been deeply critical of someone else or even myself?

Do you feel something corrosive inside you?

Acknowledgement to the New Edition

The latest edition of my Dream Dictionary, the result of some fifty years’ experience of working with dreams and their interpretation, is in two parts: the comprehensive enlarged and revised Dream Dictionary itself, offering both short and longer dream interpretations, and an Encyclopedia of Dreams, Life and Human Mystery, encompassing a vast range of related topics. Used in tandem, the two parts offer an in depth study of dreams and the inner life.

This book has literally evolved through many lives. It started with the publication of my first dream book Do You Dream which appeared in 1972. That was my first attempt at a dream dictionary, and that went through another life in the book Dream Dictionary published by Optima in 1990. This was a massive enlargement and was the result of considerable experience and research. The enlargement was due to the thousands of dreams shared with me by countless people. So, many of the insights in that book would not have been possible. The dreams came from several different sources. The first major influx came from readers of The Daily Mail. Readers of She Magazine contributed some interesting dreams. The many people I have spoken to on LBC radio station in London have significantly helped, because I was able to talk over the dream with them. Then came an influx from viewers of Teletext on Channel Four. The ‘Dream On’ feature has helped me particularly regarding the dreams of teenagers, especially girls, whose dreams I had hardly any experience of previously. But I have to stress that it was not simply from the many dreams sent  to me, but the countless dreams I and other people explored – not interpreted. Exploration of dreams will be explained later.

The next big step came slowly as I added to an unpublished dream dictionary which later became the basis for the Hudson Dream Dictionary on cell phones – and then the iPhone version of the same. But a great learning experience came from the thousands of emails sent to me via DreamHawk.Com. And it is from those posts that I am now ready to enlarge my work further in this present edition.

My work at Atsitsa the holistic holiday community, on the Greek island of Skyros, where I taught groups of people how to explore their dreams, enabled me to experiment with a format which enables a peer group to support each other in dream-work. The outline on peer dream work describes this approach. Dina Glouberman, through her use of  ‘Visualisation And Life Choices’ showed a way of using questions to stimulate response from the unconscious, which I incorporated in the peer dream technique. It was a wonderful introduction to a further step in dream exploration – not interpretation, interpretation lack the personal experience of actually experiencing ones dreams.

My friendship and work with John Hodgson and all those involved in the ‘seed groups’ my wife Hyone and I led helped me define the approach described under using symbols to change habitual life problems, which is a new entry.

My thanks to Marcia Karp – psychodramatist extraordinary – who pointed out to me the way basic information in some entries was lost amongst the examples. I have remedied this. Thanks to Sarah Davison for suggesting I clarify the need to look for some entries under group headings. I have listed all such headings now in the addenda. Also to Dakota who has given so much inspiration and support.

Thanks also to Jacqueline Shenton, Chris Campbell, Ros Lynes and Brenda Blake, and loving thanks to all those whose names I have not mentioned who have been willing to be with me as I explored my own and their dreams.

I want to thank my son Neal, who through sharing so much of his inner life with me while I working on the revised Dream Dictionary, reminded me of some fundamental truths. His courage in experiencing the emotional impact and revelation of his dreams, in being willing to share what he met, tells me again that within each of us lies a radiance that enriches us if we can meet it; that this radiance constantly tries to show us how to become whole; that becoming whole may take strength, surrender and trust. There is an example of this here.

I am thankful to all of you who have used the book. I appreciate your support. My love and thanks to you all for helping me to create a life so full of interest, so full of your dreams and so rich in meetings with Life itself.

Acne

This may suggest you feel unclean, or that you feel others see you as unattractive or unlikable. There is a likelihood that you feel shy about social contacts and expressing yourself, or that you feel there are blemishes on your character as others see you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you have acne – if so what comments does this dream make about it?

Can you shift the dream images in any way to arrive at a more satisfying feeling?

What does this suggest about the image you have of yourself?

What ever you feel in the dream you can change it. Most dreams are the result of unconscious habits, you can become a different person by  using Dream Visualisation.

Use Dream Processing to find more insight.

Acorn

Considering that our being has emerged from the tiny combination of sperm and ovum, a huge growth has arisen from a tiny beginning. This potential is frequently represented by the acorn or a seed. Even when adult, there is still enormous potential remaining unexpressed. The acorn can also suggest synthesised experience, and because of its link with potential, depict opportunities.

Because the oak tree is often used as a symbol of strength or endurance the dream acorn might point to reserves of such strength. Other cultural associations are age, long lasting, eternity and mystery, as with the Druid connection with the oak tree.

Shakespeare writes “the oak not to be wind-shaken” suggesting strength in difficulties.

Seeing or picking up acorns: Suggests you are in a positive life situation in which you can make things happen successfully.

Unripe acorns: Warning against acting prematurely. Wait until your plans, ideas or abilities are mature, or the situation ‘ripe’.

See: oak under tree; tree; seed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What potential or opportunity am I meeting at the moment?

Have I a seed, in the form of an idea or an opportunity, that I need to plant now?

Is there an inner strength I have but am not letting grow?

Explore the acorn by using Talking As.

Acoustics

An inner condition allowing you to either be clearly aware of delicate inner feelings, or disrupting your awareness, depending on dream circumstances.

Because sound is a factor, see sound.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I define what it is I am aware of and what that suggests about me?

Is there an element of great awareness here? If so what am I sensing?

How am I responding in the situation and can I connect that with waking life?

You can define more of the dream by using Dream Processing.

Acoustics

An inner condition allowing you to either be clearly aware of delicate inner feelings, or disrupting your awareness, depending on dream circumstances.

Useful questions are:

Can I define what it is I am aware of and what that suggests about me?

Is there an element of great awareness here?

If so what am I sensing?

How am I responding in the situation and can I connect that with waking life?

Acrobat Acrobatics

Depending upon the context in your dream, this suggests the ability to deal with challenging events skilfully. It may also suggest psychological agility or balance – or the opposite if the acrobat falls.

You might also be facing events that need a lot of skill to deal with, or are risky.

Useful questions are:

Am I attempting something that requires a lot of skill or risk at the moment?

Are there life situations in which I need to carefully balance my activities?

What did I feel in the dream that is relevant to my present life situation?

Acrophobia

This may represent an actual conscious fear, or symbolise the fear of falling. That is, you can fall from grace, fall from social favour, fall in other peoples opinions. Such fear often has a base of anxiety about losing control, or having control taken away.

But something found useful in practice is to actually visualise falling. See Fall into the Big Black Hole.

Useful questions are:

Am I frightened that if I am not in control of my life things will go haywire?

In what way might I lose my balance in life?

Am I dealing with the fear of death here?

How can I change the imagery and feelings in this dream?

Action Or Activities

What you are doing in your dream gives a good indication of what the central message of the dream is. If you are building for instance, then it suggest creating a new environment of life situation. Also, being active in your dream shows you doing something about what you are meeting in life. The opposite is a sort of passivity. So look up the keywords for what your action is – i.e. swimming, run

The energy you express during each day is an expression of life itself. It is the stuff of creation or destruction. So it can be a way you move toward satisfaction and well being, or toward self destruction and illness. therefore it is incredibly important to know how to use your energy in a way that brings satisfaction to yourself and others. This is not always easy, because some self-destructive urges or dispositions have been deeply etched into us by early childhood events and examples.

But as you lie sleeping, your dream actions reveal whether you are using your potential toward self-destructive behaviour, toward illness, or toward unfolding your possibilities and connection with others.

As an extreme example of this, a man dreamt he was watching someone who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his own faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean the room, and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself.

This dream was a turning point for the dreamer because it showed so clearly how he was making excuses for the attitudes of despair, of helplessness, of being disadvantaged, that he lived in all the time. Realising this he had a big internal clean-up of the feelings and thoughts he accepted as true.

Other common actions such as standing, running sitting, can have profound meaning in your dreams. For instance are you really standing in your life and expressing the positive and confident potential that you have? Are you running away from yourself in some way? Are you sitting waiting for life to happen, or are you up on the stage of your life expressing what is in you? And remember that there is always creative action. If you fought the establishment head on you might get knocked down – but a singer can do the same and be acclaimed.

The meaning depends entirely on what the action is, so it is helpful to get at the root of the action. For instance are you active or passive; are you creative or destructive; are you going somewhere or coming from somewhere? After defining the action go to the entry describing this. Suggestions are: active/passive; movements; positions; postures movements and body language; running; struggle.

Useful questions are:

What am I trying to achieve through my action?

Am I involved with someone else in this, and in what way?

What does this action express?

How does this involve me with anybody else?

Am I active or passive?

What feelings are involved in this?

Actions

The energy of your life is an expression of life itself. It is the stuff of creation or destruction. So it can be a way you move toward satisfaction and well being, or toward self destruction and illness. therefore it is incredibly important to know how to use your energy in a way that brings happiness to yourself and others. This is not always easy, because some self-destructive urges or dispositions have been deeply etched into us by early childhood events and examples.

But as you lie sleeping, your dream actions reveal whether you are using your potential toward self-destructive behaviour, toward illness, or toward unfolding your possibilities and connection with others.

As an extreme example of this, a man dreamt he was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his own faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean the room, and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself.

This dream was a turning point for the dreamer because it showed so clearly how he was making excuses for the attitudes of despair, of helplessness, of being disadvantaged, that he had lived in all the time. Realising this he had a big internal clean-up of the feelings and thoughts he had accepted as true.

Other common actions such as standing, running sitting, can have profound meaning in your dreams. For instance are you really standing in your life and expressing the positive and confident potential that you have? Are you running away from yourself in some way? Are you sitting waiting for life to happen, or are you up on the stage of your life expressing what is in you? And remember that there is always creative action. If you fought the establishment head on you might get knocked down – but a singer can do the same and be acclaimed.

The meaning depends entirely on what the action is, so it is helpful to get at the root of the action. For instance are you active or passive; are you creative or destructive; are you going somewhere or coming from somewhere? After defining the action go to the entry describing this. Suggestions are: active/passive; movements; positions; postures movements and body language; running; struggle.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I trying to achieve through my action?

Am I involved with someone else in this, and in what way?

What does this action express?

How does this involve me with anybody else?

Am I active or passive?

What feelings are involved in this?

Is there a theme I am expressing.

Try Processing Dreams; Dream Visualisation and What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Active Passive

We are in a passive role when we are an inactive observer in our dream, we are all the time on the receiving end of dream action, or as in the example below, make no effort to move from discomfort. If this occurs frequently in our dreams, we are probably passive in our waking life also.

Example: ‘I was in a house that I lived in many years ago, how I got there I do not know, but I saw myself sitting in an ordinary chair just behind the closed front street door. It was very quiet, and I was afraid, but I did not make any effort to move.’ Ms J.

This habitual passivity can gradually be changed by such techniques as active imagination. It is our own emotions, fears and sexuality we are meeting in our dreams, so it is wise to take charge of ones inner feelings rather than be a victim. The following dream illustrates an active dreamer. See: Secrets of Power Dreaming – Active Imagination – processing dreams.

Example: ‘As I walked toward a house a number of demons or devils came at me menacingly, trying to stop me getting near the house. Although they made all the ghostly noises I wasn’t at all afraid of them. I felt they were a damned nuisance, and to show them I meant business I grabbed one and with my right hand I gripped its flesh and squeezed. It started to squeak in pain and I squeezed harder.’ Clive J.

Example: I am on holiday, standing outside the hotel, at which I am staying. The day is lovely, warm and sunny. Across the road and to the right there is an old white house with a low, stone bridge leading away from it into the country. I turn, enter the hotel, but when I get to my room find my luggage has been removed and the room occupied by strangers who seem completely unaware of the situation and of me. I then go to the dining room which is full of people eating, enjoying themselves – I know no one and am left standing in the doorway, watching.

In the last example the woman is extremely passive in her response to other people taking over her room. Because a dream offers so many possibilities the woman could easily throw the people out or acted in a more aggressive manner; for dreams are created by you emotions, fears and also your courage or lack of it, so fear creates fearful or passive dreams. So you Cannot be hurt or die in your dreams.

Remember that dreams are like a computer game in which you can kill or be killed – feel it all – and come out of it unhurt unless you are still frightened. Fear is a great creator of awful dreams and you need to fight back.

In the ancient view of dreams recorded in the Atharva Veda, being active, or even actively aggressive, was seen as a positive sign, even if one was injured or mutilated as a result of one’s active stance. Whereas if the dreamer passively accepted injury in a dream this was seen as a negative implication. This was because it was felt that the active or passive stance within the dreams indicated a similar disposition during waking life. As the active person is generally more successful, the dream sign of an active disposition was seen as fortunate.

We are psychically always on one side or the other—tiger or fawn, destroyer or destroyed, taker or giver, object or subject, active or passive, creator or created. Here is the dichotomy of our fall from the greater self of primitive psyche into the forms of reality, the division of self and other. All our lives we try to achieve a balance of these contradictory opposites, and whether in our egos we succeed or fail, every function claimed by the ego is balanced by its opposite in the subconscious. Only in the fusion of infancy, or of sexual orgasm, or in religious ecstasy do we escape the psychic wound of division. See Stuck in life – unable to move and Avoid Being Victims

There is another side to this disposition of action or passivity though, where passivity has a positive connotation. So this must not be forgotten in regard to dreams and dream work, or in fact in connection with everyday life. This aspect of passive/active is described well by P. W. Martin in his book Experiment In Depth (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1964). In talking about working with active imagination he says, ‘One must be actively passive – active in giving over the energy, passive in observing. The outstanding characteristic of the true vision is its complete autonomy.’ This is a very important issue, as without the ability to control one’s reaction to one’s inner life, much of it will remain unavailable. If one is stuck in being constantly controlling one’s thoughts and emotions, in being a sort of powerful ‘in charge’ sort of person, then ones spontaneous inner life may never be able to emerge. Thus an ability to become passive is essential. But Martin calls it passive-active because it is a consciously decided passivity rather than an unconscious habit.

This holds true even while one is asleep and dreaming. I learned this lesson while hunting as a young man. For hours I had walked through woodland looking for a quarry but without sign of a single creature. Tiring I stood against a tree eating a sandwich. Slowly and magically the forest came to life around me, creatures walking and flying nearby unafraid while I remained quiet.

This powerful control of ones own activity in an open and receptive state is the key to the doorway of the living ‘creatures’ and personalities of our dreams – to the unfolding of innate qualities that would not otherwise be able to break through the threshold of consciousness and become known. Without being able to become passive in the sense of not interfering, the spontaneous emergence of unconscious vision and content cannot occur. The examples given in active imagination and dreams shown how this is used in actually meeting unconscious content – alsp see Opening to Life.

Actor Actress Acting

If you are the actor/actress, you may be acting a role, not being your true self. This might also express a desire for public acclaim or notice. But if you have strong feelings/ideas about the character of the person, then your dream image may be using them to represent those feelings or ideas or themes.

Depending on context, can represent yourself wanting public acclaim, or not expressing real self – acting a role. Just as someone’s life may be ‘acted out’ on stage or in a film, so actors may represent a showing of facets of your own life, especially inner life; the false image we may be expressing; our attempt to impress others, or act a part; ones inflated opinion of oneself. In some dreams when we see ourselves on the stage, or are watching a film or show, it denotes the examination or contemplating of some special situation in ones life.

Every night you create a new drama. You conjure out of your own being the people, the creatures, the surroundings of your dream. Then you give life to what you create – not only life but purpose and drama. You are a supreme dramatist, playwright, actor and actress. You are the great Creator – in your dreams. Considering this, have you ever wondered why that enormous creativity does not flow into your waking life? You can see that some people have that creativity and are enriched by it personally and financially. Why not you?

The many charcters and the scary or wonderful drama are all your own creation – and yet you might see yourself as having no creative ideas. Wake to the fact that you are a supreme dramatist, playwright, actor and actress. You are the great Creator. See: Examples below.

Idioms: Act a part; act on impulse or information; acting up; caught in the act; as the actress said to the bishop; get in on the act. See: theatre.

Example: Dark man on stage holding a reclining woman in the air. Woman dressed in long dress with a low neck line. Large silver cross round her neck. Man in evening dress, streams of blood coming from his arms like jets. Places woman down on stage. Woman gets into a cab outside hotel, man at the wheel but doesn’t see his face. She sits in the back of the cab, suddenly the sides of the seats close in around her. The cab driver takes off a rubber mask and it is the man of the stage scene, but the woman in the cab is me? Mrs. L L.

This dream of Mrs L. L. very clearly shows how the dreamer is watching on stage something relating to herself.

Example: When I looked at the film it was a carnival going on in the street, people with gay clothing and crowds watching. Two girls were going to sit in an old model type car, but someone said it would be better if they sat on the back of the car as they could been seen in the parade. Then I was looking into the crowd to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd. H. K.

Here the main feature in the dream is the effort to ‘find me’. So the dreamer is watching the film in order to clarify their own self image, or find out who they are and how they relate to other people – the crowd. See: Creating a New You; Stage; Roles.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being acted and how does that apply to my life at the moment?

Is a special life situation being explored here that is important to me?

Am I acting out an old pattern of behaviour, or is something new being expressed in this dream?

It might be helpful to read What do You bring to Your Dreams?; Acting on Your DreamBeing the Person or Thing

Acupuncture Acupuncturist

Giving or receiving some form of healing, or redirection of energies. This may also represent the barbs some people stick into you through their words or deeds.

This might also refer to an awareness of where your emotional and physical energy is blocked or being released – or how to release.

The acupuncturist as a person may represent the self-healing process in yourself, or even introverted anger or pain. But this depends on your personal feelings about acupuncture, and your relationship with an acupuncturist.

The dream may be about learning to better direct your own energy. The acupuncturist is a representation of your own ability to heal and understand your inner condition.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being deal with in this dream and how does that apply to me?

Can I learn from what is happening in the dream?

Is there something I would like to have happened in the dream?

It would help if you used Processing Dreams.

Ad-Advert

A desire to have others know something about yourself, or a way of bringing something to your attention; recognition of a need or opportunity.

Advertisement for a job: Desire for change; hope of something new; desire to find more satisfaction; recognition of opportunity. There may also be questions of desire, needs or choices connected with this. Considering what the rest of the dream portrays, and any feelings involved, will define this.

Advertising a project, a product or yourself in some way: Probably a desire to have others recognise your needs or talent. Advertising can be a costly way to do it.

Example: I was fed up. I said to my husband, ?Let’s take a holiday, just the two of us, get away from it all. I saw an advert in a newspaper for a log cabin, very secluded. We took it. On our arrival I was overjoyed. It was so neat and tidy, but very plain. The large bedroom had a double bed and a single by the wall. the sun was shining really brightly through the window. J. M.

Here the advert appears to represent the recognition of a personal need – to have time alone with her husband – and the opportunity to do so.

Useful questions are:

Is this bringing something to my awareness or that I need to pay attention to?

What new opportunities or situations am I seeking or hoping for?

Am I feeling my way to a new direction or activity?

See What we Need to Remember about Dreaming.

Adam and Eve

Depending upon situations in the dream it can suggest you are touching the feeling of wonderful simplicity and harmony; or there is a temptation or guilt regarding a relationship with the opposite sex. Basically boy-girl stuff.

Adam can represent your father. He can depict innocent unconscious drives. So in this sense Adam and Eve represent childhood, prior to self awareness and self-will. Because of associations we may have with the story of temptation, the image of Adam and Eve could also refer to sexual desire and your way of dealing it.

Adam Unconscious and therefore innocent drives and responses to the world. The basic level of personal development or consciousness. Some dreams may express a more archetypal aspect of Adam, in which he represents the fundamental formative forces in nature and in ourselves, that have led to human existence, and therefore to our personal life. In this sense Adam would represent the formative forces within that lead to the development of your self awareness and sense of identity. Looking at this in terms of your personal experience and growth, you started life as a baby. As such your state of being was not as complex as it became as an adult. This simpler level of being was the basic stage of your growth of personal awareness or personality, and still underlies it. This condition of awareness, one without guilt or a sense of time, or even any awareness of independent existence, is represented by the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. We emerged by the development of self awareness and all that goes with it.

Eve Because of the particular way Genesis has been translated, Eve is often associated with innocence, but also the offering of temptation. In our dreams she may depict the basic human urges and state of being, largely unconscious, such as we mean when we use the phrase the innocence of childhood.

Eve’s more archetypal meaning is independent will and sexuality. Even within the simplistic view of the story in Genesis, Adam came first, and simply went along with the way things were. Eve expressed initiative, and therefore became the first human individual with separated identity.

So Eve can depict the power of sensual seduction. She can also represent a man’s wife; or in another sense his emotional sexual relationships with her. For a woman she can represent the wonderful innocent but potent longing for sexual contact, and its expression as signals of desire to a man.

Eve originally depicted independent will power, or having individual existence within the group or a relationship, which through the ability to choose or make a personal decision, brought about self-con­sciousness, or individuality. Before Eve, or will power, humans lived in harmony with their instinctive drives, but did so because they had no will of their own. This is why Eve can represent temptation, and through will you can make a decision. So she also represents decision. See: individuation; snakes

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling conflict or temptation about a relationship?

As a woman – am I becoming aware of deeper issues regarding womanhood?

As a man – am I becoming aware of deeper issues regarding manhood?

Do I feel I have lost something – the wonder of innocence and childhood for instance?

It would be good to explore your own associations with Adam or Eve using Talking As or Processing Dreams.

Adder

Is not usually a dangerous snake, thought it can poison you. So like any snake it can represent danger, and often your own poisonous emotions. See Snake

Addict Addicted Addiction

Something or someone may be influencing you in a way that undermines your ability to make choices. There may also be a connection with powerful emotional or economic dependence. These activities or influences are not arising from your will or responsibility, but from the emotions and fears, symbolised by that to which you are addicted in your dream. One can be addicted to a relationship, or to work. Your dream may be commenting on such a situation. If so, it is wise to consider how to move toward greater independence.

Perhaps there is an indication of fearing loss of control in regard to something or someone.

The dream may actually refer to a drug you are using and being warned about in your dream. Sometimes the fear of something is the power which actually dominates us – not the thing itself. Each of us have areas dominated by such fears or feelings, and the dream action will point to what they are. To dream of an addict who is other than oneself will still point to some issue about addiction in oneself. See Obsession.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in my life might be overpowering my freedom of choice?

Am I in a relationship that is influencing me negatively?

Is there addictive behaviour I am not admitting to?

Use Processing Dreams to help with this dream.

Address

This represents your present life situation and all it links to. It also may depict the way you live and what you feel about your way of life, your living area, and the locality of it. It therefore indicates feelings about your present style of life.

Another person’s address: The condition or life situation of the person as it applies to you. You will need to look for clues as to what your dream is telling you about this. It might be suggesting contact.

New address: A change; – or hopes for or fear of a change.

Past address: The person you were, the traits you developed, what you faced in life at that time.

To forget or lose your address: To lose sight of your goals or standards in life, or who you are. This suggests a loss of connection with, or a break down of, the feelings and motivations that usually give you purpose and drive. Thus one would experience a sort of confusion about ‘where you live’ i.e. your place in life and connection with others. See: house; home.


Useful questions:

What address is this…home, work…someone else’s address?

Does the situation or quality of the address describe something in my own life?

If I said I was going home, what situation would I be going home to – happiness; loneliness?

What is the quality of the locality in which I live, and what do I feel about it?

Adhesive

See Glue

Adjacent – Adjoining

This suggests a strong connection with the dreamer, or what is wanted or being worked toward. For instance in Japan, rocks or trees that are close together are sometimes seen as married or linked. Dreams use the same sort of symbology to suggest a more than surface connection with someone or some aspect of life. There could also be the suggestion of confrontation or discovery – being near something in this case meaning that we can no longer escape meeting it, or it is near at hand in the sense of being discovered or experienced. The example below shows adjacent as depicting difficult feelings near at hand that the dreamer meets.

Example: I had a dream in which my best friend, her 4-year-old daughter, and myself were staying in this huge old, Victorian style house. My friend put her daughter to bed in another room, and we went in the adjoining room to watch a movie. My friend fell asleep and then all of the sudden, her daughter came screaming into the room, covered in blood. I didn’t actually see what happened, but I knew instantly that a crocodile had attacked her and bitten her legs off. I tried waking up her mother and I was holding her (the child) in my arms and crying. Then I woke up. The dream was so realistic, and when I awoke I was covered in sweat and shaking really bad. The dream upset me so much that I didn’t tell anyone about it. A week later, I found out two other friends had dreams in which this little girl was also attacked by a crocodile. What could this possibly mean? A.R.E. dream.

The dream suggests a close and perhaps psychic connection with the girl and her mother.

Useful questions:

What or who am I feeling connected to or near at this time?

What is the influence of this connection?

Admiral

The ability to direct the many facets of yourself across the sea of life experience. In other words the ability to meet the difficulties of life decisively and to make decisions direct action. This may also be a father or authority figure. The admiral may also represent the best or transformative in you.

Or if you have connections with the navy you need to think or feel what an admiral means to you.

Useful questions:

Am I the admiral in my “sea of life experience”?

Does the admiral represent an authority figure I know, such as father or schoolteacher?

Am I meeting a need to deal with challenging circumstances?

See: Roles.

Admiration

As a child we need our parents admiration and praise in order to unfold our potential. Also, admiring qualities in others is one of the ways we shape our own direction and choices. So it is useful to take note of what is being admired in yourself or another person, and how that is reflected in your life.

This may be a straight forward awareness of your feelings about that person or a recognition of those qualities in yourself. It might be a sign of personal success and confidence; probably indicating qualities in the person you either have yourself but may not be recognising, or else qualities you would like or need to have.

Feeling good about yourself; recognising things about yourself you may have overlooked; positive self-image; confidence. On the other hand it might be a compensatory dream expressing the need to be admired due to your low self esteem. If the dream stresses the situation making you a figure of great admiration, it may suggest an inflated opinion of yourself or a strong need for approval and acclaim from others. See: emotions and mood.

Idioms: Lost in admiration.

In some dreams, and in some fantasy work, a sense of enormous appreciation or admiration often arises. June Dunlap, in her book Exploring Inner Space, describes such a feeling of admiration – experienced while feeling herself to be a fly – in the following way – ‘At frequent intervals I would swoop down, alight, rub my graceful back legs together, and admire the opalescence of my delicate sunlit wings. Totally without egotism but with deep satisfaction, I stated repeatedly, ‘I’m beautiful. No one else thinks so, but I really am.’’ Such feelings of admiration and awareness of beauty about oneself are often more direct, and arise as a sense of enormous appreciation of what has been achieved or met in your life. The admiration often results in feelings of love for yourself, which is very healing.

Useful questions:

What is it that is being admired, and am I aware of those qualities in myself?

Can I allow the good feelings about myself or another person?

Am I feeling low at this time and needing appreciation?

Is this a recognition of an emerging quality, or am I compensating for not receiving enough attention?

Admit or Admitting

This might be showing something you have found difficult to recognise about yourself or another person, therefore it might be about arriving at new insight. Sometimes admitting something arises through a confrontation of some sort. It might be in connection with your need for someone. This might be difficult to accept because of dependence. In some dreams it shows new levels of self acceptance.

Useful questions:

What relevance does what is being admitted have on your waking life?

If there was difficulty in admitting, can you recognise what the difficulty was or is?

Can you consciously accept what was revealed?

It can help if you use Processing Dreams.

Adolescence

Adolescence is the time of your greatest sexual growth, and development of new ranges of emotion, intellect, and sensitivity. So any adolescent in your dream often points to yourself at that age, and the things you faced – or if you are not yet a teenager, then the things you feel about moving toward adolescence.

During adolescence we move from youth to becoming a mature adult. This means learning to become more independent of the work energy, the money and time given by parents. It means making your own decisions, moving toward earning your own keep and establishing yourself in the community and the world. Sometimes the break from parents is made by establishing a relationship with someone. However the shift needs a level of heroism in many ways, and if you succeed the difficulties change and deepen you.

Many things we face while young are never resolved, or remain as potentials, and are frequently confronted later in life. So the dream teenager can depict these unresolved issues or potential still to discover.

Hurt feelings of love or wanting to be loved; damaged self esteem or feelings of value in the world.

Female teenager in a female’s dream: Possibly feelings to do with the process of sexually maturing; competitive feelings in relationship to men; some aspect of your own feelings as a teenager.

If this is a known friend, it most likely represents the attitudes and qualities, or lack of them, seen in the friend. In which case the other aspects of the dream describe the part these qualities play in your life. If it is an imagined female, it usually depicts yourself in some way, perhaps in a way you might not usually see yourself. Possibly she is enacting the issues of most importance in your life.

The feeling or emotional side of dreamer rather than the thinking assertive; uncertainty or inexperience in relationships; powerful sexual/romantic attraction or feelings.

The eternal side of your nature, forever young.

Define how you see the character of the teenager and take it to represent those characteristics in yourself.

Depicts the feelings or assessment of their own future, or ways of meeting future relationships. Or it might show a relationship, its pleasure or difficulties, with a teenager such as brother or sister.

Whether the young person is your own child, someone you know, or a stranger, it is often an expression of yourself at that age and the things you were confronted by at the time. Therefore define, perhaps by writing down, what attitudes and feelings were predominant in your own teenage years. Common themes are uncertainty/shyness, inexperience, immaturity, high sexuality, idealism, ambitious hopes and plans for the future, depression, the confidence or strength of youth. You can decide which, if any, of these your dream deals with by defining what feelings are expressed in the dream.

Possibly represents feelings of competition or aggression with other males, depending on dream content; the qualities depicted by the dream male, and their place in your life.

Sexual inexperience, social aggressiveness or uncertainty. Yourself at that age if you are male. Aspects of relationship not lived out in your teenage if the dreamer is a woman, or reflections of things still active in you from the past.

Feelings of sexual attraction coloured by adolescent vulnerability, idealism or uncertainty; uncertainty or inexperience in relationship; or what you feel about that particular teenager. Often the dream shows your difficulties in a male female relationship, and this gives a clue to working through those difficulties.

Please view this wonderful examination of what adolescence/teenage is  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-BO1rJXbQ

Useful questions and hints:

What did I face as a teenager that is still a factor in my life?

What am I exploring about being a teenager, and what can I learn from this?

What is the character of this adolescent and how does that relate to me at the moment?

What theme or actions surround the teenager, and do they give clues my present situation?

What things are happening in the relationship with this adolescent and do they throw light on a present relationship?

Example: I was flying over a landscape covered in trees like a large parkland. I was reasonably low down in my flight path, and the land looked fairly flat. But suddenly a long low hollow or depression became visible as I neared it. I knew intuitively there was a young man down there who had been injured. Sam T.

Sam explored this dream and contacted strong feelings of depressed withdrawal from his own teenage years. The words ‘long low depression’ were very descriptive of what he found.

The dream below shows Hillary taking her teenage feelings into her love making. This is because Hillary had no chance during teen years to mature sexually, so as an older woman, she now finds herself meeting a young girl’s feelings with her lover.

 Example: ‘My lover, and I were going to try and make love, both with our own hurts and being aware of each others difficulties. We were both very gentle with each other. A young girl came in under the bedclothes with us. I thought it would interfere, but I could see it wasn’t worrying her. She was playing hide and seek. We were in bed out in the open countryside.’ Hillary.

See: boy; first example under falling; girl; individuation; man; teenage males dreams; teenage females dreams; teenage girls love dreams; woman.

Useful questions and hints:

What did I face as a teenager that is still a factor in my life?

What am I exploring about being a teenager, and what can I learn from this?

What is the character of this adolescent and how does that relate to me at the moment?

What theme or actions surround the teenager, and do they give clues my present situation?

What things are happening in the relationship with this adolescent and do they throw light on a present relationship?

Did I manage to transcend my parents way of life and thought?

See Programmed – Self Observation – The Fundamental Process – Mountain Path – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Adonis

The beautiful and self sacrificing side of love; feelings of ‘worshipping’ someone, or desire to be worshipped and adored.

Useful questions are:

Are you in a self sacrificing relationship?

What does this dream depict of your love and of being loved?

Are you facing a deep need to be loved at the moment?

Adoption

To be adopted is double sided. It implies either the loss of parents or being rejected or left by them. On the other side it means someone has accepted you and taken you as their own child.

If adopted: Might be a sign of feeling unwanted or insecure in your family or relationships. Many children have a fantasy or belief that they were really adopted by their actual parents. This may be a way of coping with difficulties or even cruelty by parents. It enables the child to emotionally distance themselves to some extent from their parents. Some children long to discover that its real parents had lost it and will return to take it back into the love and acknowledgment it needs. This because the present relationships do not satisfy its need to feel special and wanted.

If adopting a child: You may be longing to become a parent, but uncertain about your own ability to produce a child; a need to express the enormous power of your love and caring; some sense of feeling abandoned and the attempt to give that part of yourself the love and security it needs.

See: abandoned; child; family and relationships.

Useful questions are:

Do I feel a lack of connection with my parents?

Is there a longing in me to go home – in other words to find myself in loving and caring company?

Are you dealing with your child self and caring for it – if so define what it needs and how to give it/yourself those thing.

Adore Adoration

Anything that we adored deeply influences or penetrates us.  Therefore we open ourselves to the influence of what is being adored.

Being loved is a very healing feeling. You might be experiencing this in your dream because you need it. Or perhaps you have achieved a greater ability to love and this is a result of that. There is of course a possibility you have an inflated sense of yourself.

What is it I adore, and what possible influence will it have on me?

If I am observing this in someone else, what is the object of love and how do I feel about it?

If this is an uplifting experience, can I observe this in my waking life at any time?

Opening oneself to the influence of what is being worshipped – an idea, a person, an object.

Inflated sense of self, unless you are meeting your own core self and feel it is holy.

Adorn Adornment

Dreams about adornment are often about a cave or holy place that is adorn with jewels or carvings, and it suggests you are entering deep into yourself and receiving parts of you that link your conscious mind with things that are universal and worship, usually thought of as spiritual. Or else it is memories of ancestral traces within you.

Adornment on men and women were probably first worn in ancient times when an attractive stone hung upon ones person caught the attention of other, so could be thought of as woman’s magic – probably to get a better man. The same with men, to show how different they were and as sign of being important. In today’s world they can signify the attention given to a woman, the memories attached to what is worn, or to attract attention as with rings in ones lips or nose.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I adding something to myself?

Am I compensating for something?

What do I feel as I saw the adornments, and what part does it play in my life?

Try Talking As and Processing Dreams to find a deeper understanding.

Adrift

Feelings showing you without any determining direction or anchor in life, such as family ties, sense of duty, personal motivations or involving interests or relationships etc.

If you are willingly adrift, or purposely set something adrift it might be you are opening yourself to what is beyond your control, the ebb and flow of the great forces in life, the trackless way.

If an object is drifting in water the meaning is of something being brought to you by life events – or carried away. If drifting in air then it links with things that you are noticing, perhaps intuitively, in your thoughts.

Useful questions are:

Am I lacking direction in a situation?

Am I allowing something beyond my control to take its course?

Is this expressing my dropping of dependency and attachment?

Adult

If you are a young person dreaming of an adult it may be indicating your potential, what you can become if you continue your present direction in life. But most frequently it is about the influence of an adult or adults.

See: Man or Woman.

To be an adult is not an easy task or achievement. There are two very different sides to it. Most of us achieve an adult body, but very few of us achieve emotional, sexual or spiritual adulthood. The story of this is told in all the old myths and legends – after all the greatest meaning is life and what we can achieve in it. So in becoming an adult we brave great dangers, face monsters, pass through difficult initiations. Fundamental to the whole drama of our life is the evolution of our own identity from the depths of unconsciousness in the physical process of conception, through to developing self awareness as an adult – from the great ocean of collective culture, language and society, to the emergence of ourselves as a mature individual. To do this we face death and rebirth several times when we metamorphose from baby to child; from child to adolescent; from adolescent to adult; from adult with youthful body to ageing body. It is such an incredible journey, so heroic, so impossible of achievement, so fraught with dangers and triumphs. It is the greatest story in the world.

The modern western adult is often very much out of touch with the life giving processes within them and feel isolated and often ill at ease in the world. The black figure in dreams, or the native can give us a much needed connection and balance.

Even if we feel we are an adult, there are usually still enormous potential remaining unexpressed, stil a great deal of unmet childhood or baby needs. See Beware of Love

Example: I was in a very loving relationship in which I had developed powerful emotional links with D. We communicated many times each day while apart at work, etc. But one day there was no communication. I felt tremendous anxiety and emotional pain and shock, really frightened that she had dropped me. In fact she hadn’t, but my fears were very real and difficult to deal with. A real shock.

If you are an adult facing feelings of abandonment, it may be helpful to recognise that such feelings usually connect with the realisation in childhood that if your parents died, abandoned you, or you were left and felt abandoned you would not have the skills or maturity to obtain your own needs. Although, as an adult, you might now be capable of gaining your needs, such powerful feelings of helplessness, anxiety or sense of abandonment, can be stimulated by any situation reminiscent of the childhood situation that first called them into play. Therefore, it can help to carefully look at your life situation to see what changes are producing these feelings. You also need to decide whether there is real cause for fear, or whether you are suffering anxiety due to past experience.

During adolescence we move from youth to becoming a mature adult. This means learning in some measure to be independent of the work energy, the money and time given by parents. It means making your own decisions, earning your own keep and establishing yourself in the community and world in some way. Sometimes the break from parents is made by establishing a relationship. However it is achieved the change needs a level of heroism in many ways, and if you succeed the difficulties change and deepen you.

This means a growing sense of recognising the needs of your partner yet not denying your own.  It means the ability to be something for the partner’s sake without losing your own independence or will. It means becoming aware of the issues that colour or influence relationship, and meeting them as partners. Independence and closeness together. You become caring sexual partners through discovering each others needs and vulnerability. It is emerging from the dependence of parents and what they provided or failed to provide. That it is difficult is shown by the number or people who never manage it – never move from wanting to be handed food and money as a child does – never moves beyond being angry with others for not supplying their needs – never manage a love relationship with the opposite sex – or a love relator’s with anybody.

When we move beyond the processes of growth faced in adolescence we journey into adulthood, during which we face relationships, work, parenthood or creativity, with more independence. However, there is no age at which we can say we have arrived at adulthood. Sometimes elements of babyhood, childhood or adolescence have not been outgrown even in old age. Dreams sometimes illustrate this when we see ourselves in the dream with an adult head on a baby body. Or we have an adult body but the genitals of a child, and so on. But in general, in this period of our life we dream about the issues of relationship, of finding our own strength to deal with life creatively and satisfyingly. There is an attempt on the part of our dream process to release and deal with early traumas or situations that occurred and led to blocking or trapping our potential energy and creativity. Without this clearance much of our energy to express and achieve is tied up in the past, or in non productive habits. At this time too our dreams explore the challenges and difficulties we face in outer life.

Unfortunately meeting challenges with a reasonable amount of our potential means a real and honest self-assessment and meeting with areas of feeling that have not been healed in the past. As Freud so clearly pointed out, there is enormous resistance to this. It is much easier to explore the controlled world of lucid dreams, or see ones dreams in the light of inspiration rather than confrontation. Of course, dreams are all these things.

Useful questions:

What is the character, the strengths or weaknesses of this person and what part do they play in my life?

What is happening between this person and me, and how do I connect with that?

If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel or realise? (See Dream Visualisation for help with this.)

Adultery

But adultery depicts the union with, or giving of innermost feelings to, persons or objects for which you have no committed relationship, or do not have a deep affinity with. Or it may be an urge caused by physical or emotional hungers, or needs deeper than the social and religious codes pressing upon you. It is also a way of opening a door to new influences, a new direction in life that will in some way change you, flow back to you with its own needs, light and shadows.

Exactly what your dream reveals depends on your feelings in the dream and the events shown.

Seeing your partner having sex with someone else: You are probably deeply uncertain about your own value and doubt whether you are lovable. These feelings may hide painful dependence upon the loved person. This dependence may be based upon childhood needs that were never met, or were betrayed. This can of course be an intuition, but be careful in deciding which.

If the relationship is felt as pleasant it can be a simple desire for sexual change, satisfaction and adventure that is not satisfied in waking life. If it is resisted, it is nevertheless your own fantasy, so may be desire masked by guilt.

Dream adultery can also be a means of personal attack within a relationship. This because you are having sex with someone else so hitting or hurting your partner.

If the adultery is felt as a threat, it may express anxieties about your relationship.

A woman being someone’s mistress: Can be any of the above, but occasionally anxiety about security. This because becoming a mistress might bring financial or emotional support.

Seeing your partner having sex with someone else: You might be deeply uncertain about your own value and doubt whether you are lovable. These feelings may hide painful dependence upon the loved person. This dependence may be based upon childhood needs that were never met, or were betrayed. It can reflect anxiety or intuition about your partners fidelity. It can also mask a desire to be rid of your partner, to leave them. The adultery would give you an excuse to leave them.

Dreamer commits adultery: We all have sexual desires that sometimes attach to people other than our partner – or to people it would be difficult in reality to have a sexual relationship with. If you are having sex with another person, the dream may therefore be a release of sexual feelings. If so it is a harmless way of exploring sex with another person, or an expressions of wish fulfilment, desire for sexual variety, or guilt about wayward desires.

Resisted adultery: A sign of struggle with your sexual desires; expression of strength meeting opposition in life, therefore strength to overcome difficulties.

Maurice Nicoll, in his book The New Man, points out that the biblical mentions of adultery were not only direct references to that as a real act, but also to a symbolical meaning. As a symbol adultery represented being unfaithful to the one God – whoring after other gods. Taken in general, adultery might therefore carry a similar meaning, a sense of being unfaithful in a committed relationship, whether that relationship is marital, social, work or to ones ideals.

However, being faithful to one person for some people is tortuous and so it needs to be understood that for some people it is in their nature to be polygamous.

Useful questions are:

Am I somehow cheapening a valuable experience in life?

Do I long for something that is physically or emotionally forbidden to me?

Am I not admitting the needs I have ?

Does this show an area of my life that is full of energy that I do not let flow into my everyday life?

See Dream are Virtual Reality and What do you Bring to Your Dreams.

Advancement

Desire for improvement in ones life; a sense of confidence in your abilities at the time of the dream, or that you are making headway in a situation or in life generally.

In many dreams the advance is being made by someone or something that is getting ever closer. Sometimes there is a sense of anxiety with this. This portrays something you are confronting in yourself, or in life, that is making inroads on your confidence and energy. Define what it is by considering where you meet this feeling while awake.

If the advancing person or thing is not threatening, it shows a growing awareness of a situation, a developing relationship or internal experience that is getting ever nearer or more imminent.

Idioms: In advance of; make advances to.

Useful questions are:

What do I feel in the dream, and where do those feelings arise in waking life?

What am I advancing into or to?

What am I leaving behind or moving away from?

Is there anything or anyone helping me?

Adventure Adventurous Adventurer

The dream is probably depicting new experiences you are daring to allow yourself, or that circumstances have pushed you into or confronted you with. Perhaps you are making changes within yourself, or in your external life. You are probably taking risks, doing something new. The context in the dream will state whether the risk is worth taking, or whether fears or other factors hold you back.

Dream adventures often show you deeply involved in something, trying out skills against difficulties, and very often appear when you are exploring your own inner world involving your past or wider awareness.

There can of course be sexual adventures in which you move into challenges of expressing your feelings or facing your fears.

If difficult: Facing things about yourself that are painful or you wish to avoid; afraid of, or there are difficulties with; change.

On an interesting/pleasant adventure: Undertaking something new and/or difficult; a new opportunity presenting itself; making a change; undertaking the journey to meeting oneself; learning new skills and expressing new potentials.

Useful questions are:

What is it in waking life that is challenging you or involving you deeply?

Are you making changes that call on new skills? Have new levels of inner experience opened, if so what?

What skills or qualities do I need in this?

Adversary

The person or group you are pitted against represent something, probably within you that you are in conflict with. Such dreams show parts of your nature you struggle with. Jung called this the Shadow, the aspects of yourself you are frightened of, or repress for one reason or another. Enemies in dreams usually refer to some facet of this. Though it may simply depict something you are struggling with, a relationship for instance, or feelings about work.

Because the enemy is usually an aspect of yourself, real change can occur by relating differently to each other. For instance if you are lucid in your dream you can become them so fully there is no problem.

Useful questions:

What is it in me that I am in conflict with?

If I imagine myself in the dream is there any way I can resolve the enmity?

What is the action in the dream and what does this show of the details of the conflict?

Adversary

See: Enemy.

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Advice

Whether the advice is given or received, this usually suggests information you need to think about, and perhaps act upon.

Being given advice: What you need to know but perhaps wouldn’t take from someone else; intuition – occasionally of utmost importance, especially if the figure in the dream is one you feel natural respect or veneration for. Feeling pressured by other people’s opinions; sometimes it represents the influence of other people in your life – the pressure of other people’s opinions, or your own sense of what you feel others expect of you.

Giving advice: Conscience; sense of ‘ought’ or ‘should’; what you desire to say but haven’t; what you know to be useful unconsciously, but perhaps haven’t accepted; trying to influence another person or some aspect of yourself. In the example below, Renee, the dreamer, may be exploring attitudes and discovering an appropriate response to a situation.

Example: …. I can now talk candidly to my mother. She tells me she’s having an affair with someone named Dan Morris. By now she is very upset and has tears in her eyes. She says he treats her like a slut and a piece of filth. She uses other similar words. I ask her why she doesn’t just leave him. She forcefully says, ?No! That is not a possibility. Then I ask her why she doesn’t just reverse their relationship and treat him like a slut and a piece of filth. I start to offer her what I consider very wise advice. I think she shouldn’t allow this man to be in control. At the end I am happy and feel I’ve helped her. Renee P.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this advice about an issue in my waking life – if so what is the essence of it?

If giving advice is this something you should personally take notice of?

What is the subject of the advice – health, love, work – and does it apply to that area of your life?

See Information and Insight.

Advocate

An advocate in your dream is a part of you, or a feeling, that supports and argue for you. Often it is a demonstration of qualities you are not aware of.

If you are the advocate for someone else it suggests you are feeling strong and clear about a situation or person.

See Lawyer

Aerial Antenna

This usually shows you what is happening with your intuition or contact with others through subtle means. So you might be tuned in to information or insights that are useful in some way. Your intuition is vast and can give you ‘news’ of what is happening around you or within you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the signal I am picking up and what message can I extract from it?

What is the theme of the dream saying about the aerial and how does that link with my life?

Can I transmit as well as receive?

What is happening with the aerial, and what does this suggest about my ability to be intuitive?

Is there a problem with the aerial – and if so what can I do about it?

Am I receiving information, and if so what is it?

See Using Your Intuition.

Aerobatics Aerobatic

This suggests you are, or are going to be daring in your life or undertakings. This could connect with any aspect of your life, but is often connected to relationship, work, or ones efforts toward personal growth. The success or failure of the flying will show how fearful or confident you are in expressing your daring. This is largely a matter of nerve, and anxiety can bring you down. It doesn’t matter that you are watching someone else do the aerobatics, it will still most likely refer to yourself. That is unless you know the person flying the plane. Then it might suggests an observation you are making of them.

Useful questions are:

What is it I am daring to do that is risky or adventurous at the moment?

Am I showing off in some way trying to attract the attention of others?

Does this reflect in any way with the relationship I am in at the moment?

Aerobics

A possible reference to your attempts to keep healthy – lose weight – remain sexually attractive. How the dream presents the action will define whether this is a suggestion for more activity in that area, for less, for a change in attitude, etc. Occasionally this might be giving you the experience of how it feels to be really flowing and alive. If so nurture the feeling and replay it often.

Useful questions:

Do I need to take more exercise and is this dream suggesting it?

Are there aspects of the dream showing new information about health or giving health suggestions – if so do they apply to me?

As a piece of drama what is the dream depicting?

Aeroplane

See Airplane.

Aerosol

Something that may influence you in a subtle, or perhaps invisible way. Feelings under pressure that may escape at the press of a button. Means of dealing with a situation, depending on what the aerosol does in the dream – getting rid of irritants? Killing germs? Cleaning something?

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the dream aerosol designed to do, and how does that connect with your needs or desires?

Do I want to kill something – if so what does that suggest in my life?

What situation am I changing with the aerosol?

Try using Talking As to define the dream and its meaning.

Affair

In general dreaming of a pleasant affair is a way of enjoying or exercising the wonderful feelings of falling in love and sharing emotional and sexual pleasure. Many dreams are compensatory, and therefore make up for the lack of passion or excitement in our daily life. But having an affair in a dream may help keep alive or active the ability to love and be loved if there is not sufficient stimulus in waking life. It is not unusual for married and happy people to dream of an affair with someone else.

This may express nothing more than a desire for variety, but of course occasionally is the sign of an infatuation or desire for the person we love in the dream. Adultery dreams may also express release of sexual feelings; desire for another partner; desire for one’s partner to have sex with someone else.

The person you are having an affair with may represent a particular attitude or situation in your life. Therefore if the dream has a strong feeling such as failure or fear attached to it, the affair might well be dealing with your ?relationship? with such life situations. Examples include – infidelity; betrayal; failure; longing for love; feeling alone in a relationship; etc.

Many dreams of lovers are a painful and often desperate affair where the dreamer longs for the attention and ‘love’ of someone she or he has a crush on. These are often a natural part of growth where in dreams we wrestle with powerful emotions until we emerge with more mature responses. See Beware of Love.

Another possibility with dreams about an affair is that they express the constant process of trying to find a balance between what we deeply desire and what is socially or personally possible. Some people will marry or live with a person because that person is the best they could achieve in the circumstances. Nevertheless they may still long for someone different. Or perhaps there are aspects of relationship missing in their present situation, and they long for a fuller satisfaction but do not want to

destroy their present situation. See: boyfriend; sex in dreams.

Difficult affair: Because dreams are a safe area to explore our emotions and relationships, such difficult dreams may be a way of meeting fears we have about relationship. Often they bring to the surface painful feelings about a past or present relationship. There is thus a chance to work through such difficulties toward an ease with ones feelings of attraction and love. See: processing dreams.

Dreaming about someone you are having a waking affair with: Your feelings about, analysis of, fears regarding the state of the affair and where it will develop. See: Fifth example below.

Homosexual affair: For women their first love affair was with their mother, so was a love for someone of the same sex. So a woman’s homosexual dream may often have this element of seeking the comfort and love of the mother. In a more general sense such dreams may depict ones difficulties or fears of relating to someone of the other sex; ones hidden feelings and difficulties regarding ones father if in a male’s dream; the introversion of ones own sexuality and desires if one is being seduced or buggered; or meeting an autonomous or dissociated part of ones own nature; exploring what is involved at a more than surface level in the relationship.

Loving affair: Our experience or pleasure in relationship is one of the most profound experiences we can meet. It can be enormously healing if we can relate to pleasure in a way that does not cause tension or guilt. Therefore loving relationships in dreams are ways of exploring our own possibilities, not only within ourselves, but also in future relatedness. The person we are relating to in the dream is an image not only of our own desires but also of how we relate to intimacy, love and pleasure. The interaction with them reveals all your difficulties and skills in regard to living and being loved.

In Damon’s dream below, he gradually moves beyond a feeling of separateness to an experience of union. This suggests he is feeling at ease with his own sexuality and ability to melt, thus allowing another person to enter his feelings deeply. In fact when such union takes place there is a very real sharing of self in a psychological way, much as there is at a physical level when the sex cells merge and share genetic material.

Ones partner having an affair: If the dream is disturbing, usually displays the fears we have about being unlovable or inadequate – see example below; a deep wish to be rid of ones partner. So seeing him/her with another person makes it possible to leave him/her without feelings of guilt or responsibility. In a very few cases this depicts an intuition of ones partner having a secret affair in real life. See: autonomous complex.

Example: I was in a building with a number of people. Winnie, a woman I worked with many years ago was there, sitting cross legged on the floor. I went to her and kissed her. She responded and I put my hand down on her thigh under her skirt, and gently moved it under her knickers to touch her vagina. It was moist and wet with excitement and I pushed my fingers into the slippery crevice. As I did so my feelings rose in a beautiful soft and satisfying orgasm. I thought I had ejaculated, but had not.

Then I was in a street and met a dark haired young woman. We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere. Damon.

In the dream below Andrew’s fear of his wife’s desire for another man is being expressed. But the dream really depicts Andrew’s feelings of sexual inadequacy.

Example: I was on board a pleasure cruiser with my wife. As I stood on a high deck I looked down and saw her sitting below with very tight knickers on and nothing else. As a man walked toward her the knickers came off or slipped down. The man was sexually aroused and started attempting to penetrate her. She only put up a token resistance, mewing a bit, but not fighting him off. I rushed toward them and kicked him off.? Andrew P.

Example: I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Stella. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Stella has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. She remarks that it is interesting that my penis has its own little pocket, which is a reference to my pants, and seems to make sense in the dream. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Stella is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so. As I do this I realise I am sitting so near to the edge of the bed I am almost falling off. Rick D.

This dream presents the struggle Rick has with his pleasure at having the attention of another woman, and his feelings of connection with his wife. The edge of the bed and falling suggests he feels very on edge and insecure about such feelings.

Example: Someone was fondling my breasts. I felt the weight of whoever it was as they lay by my side. An electric like feeling ran up from my feet. It woke me up instantly as I was terrified. I dreaded going to bed. My husband and I have had separate rooms for years, due to his insomnia. The dream occurred a few times a week. Sometimes twice a night. Eliza L.

Eliza is a spiritualist, so believes the experience is a psychic event. As a casual observer there appears to be a direct connection between the lack of her husbands attention and the clear experience of a sexual partner. Her terror is most likely due to the fact that Eliza is actually frightened of her strong sexual feelings, and so may have chosen an undemanding husband. If not that, she is certainly afraid of this emergence of her dream life into apparent physical reality. See: hallucinations.

Example: I was sitting with my husband, my daughter or sister, and Rachel C. Rachel, who is the same age as my daughter, was telling us all that she wanted and would have a sexual relationship with B, my husband. As she kept talking about this, I thought, at first, how open and honest she was being and how easily she could talk about her sexuality, but as I listened I began to feel cross and upset as I saw B. was going along with what she was saying. She and my husband lay down on the wooden floor. He was being very encouraging and his eyes were shining very brightly. At this point I felt very upset. My daughter/sister pointed out to everyone that I was upset but no one seemed to notice until then, and I felt that B. was really teasing me and making fun of my not being able to cope with the situation. My husband came over to me with his arm out to touch me but I was so angry and I put my arm up to shield myself from his touch and then began to throw things at him to express how angry I was feeling. H.

Example: For the last year I have been having an affair with a married man. I dream I am visiting his home, and as I approach or should I say float up to the front door, which is open, I can clearly see him standing in the hall. One of his sons is shouting down the stairs and he is answering back. He seems agitated and harassed. I deliberately float by the open door and linger long enough for him to see me. At this point I am aware that something is following at my heel. My man then quickly comes out of the house and sadly indicates he cannot leave his family and home for me, and quickly returns to the domestic scene. I then sadly turn away, and as I look down I see a large scraggy Irish wolfhound. I realise he has come out of the back door of the house, and has been following me closely. The striking part of the dream is this rough looking dog, for when I look into its deep dark brown eyes I can see and feel such love and devotion and am so warmed. As I take the road away from the house, the dog stays close at my heels and I know I have a devoted friend who will never leave me and I feel much happier. As we walk away I can hear in the distance my man’s wife calling the dog from the back door. On getting no reply I hear her irritatedly say ‘Well, we can easily get another one’. and bangs the door. J. Y.

J. is working out her situation with her lover in this dream, realising for herself that he is not going to leave his family. Nevertheless, she does take something positive from the relationship, shown as the dog, which probably depicts devotion and warm love.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way does this dream comment on my present relationship(s)?

Are there lessons in this dream I can apply to my waking life?

Does the dream show things I am denying myself in waking, or that I could express in waking life?

What problems are shown in the dream that I need to be clear about and work on?

It could help to read Growing Up to Love and Beware of Love. See: Adultery

Affectation

If some sign of affectation appears in your dream, you need to ask yourself what you are doing that is not in accord with your deepest feelings or character.

The dream can depict mannerisms that are not in accord with your deepest feelings or character. If the affectation is observed in a person you know, it might be an intuition about them hiding who they really are.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I doing something out of character, or pretending to be something I’m not?

Why is this happening in the dream and has that got a message for me?

Does this remind me of someone I know – and if so what do I feel about that person?

Try using Talking As to get more insight into the people in the dream

Affliction

The affliction we dream about is usually pointing out something you have difficult feelings about, are afraid of, or that really stands in the way of a fuller and happier life. Remember that the dream is giving an image or drama that tries to describe as a cartoon or mime, what the problem is. So as a metaphor what is it pointing to?

See: Illness

Afraid

As humans we tend to be afraid in our dreams, and often in our life, of almost anything. We dream of the dark, of a hole into which we might fall, a shadowy figure, animals attacking us, other humans, ghosts and spirits, devils and demons, sexual feelings, and so on – but especially of death and our children dying. Often it is not just fear, but terror.

Here sure some examples:

Example: Can someone help me with this dream last night I had a dream that someone walked into our house and my boyfriend wasn’t there he left to work and someone came to my bedroom and stabbed my son I tried to fight with him and then he stabbed me several times. My son was lying in the bed the way we sleep and he was dead and I was lying next to him bleeding. The man left the house in a hurry I grabbed my phone to call 911 and he comes back in the house so I hide my phone. I pretend to be died and then he leaves then I woke up. what does this dream mean?

Example: I had a disturbing dream last night. I apparently murdered a friend from school, who I have not seen for more than 20 years in real life. In the dream, I had to hide her head with no body in a box of washing powder. My husband was instructing me to pour some washing power over the head to hide it and as I did so, the power turned into liquid. I could just about see the head trough the washing liquid and I was very fearful that some one would find it.

Example: Last night I had a dream where I was bitten on my left hand by an evil/ ghostly dog.

Example: I had a dream the other night that my brothers and I was at my mother’s house and there was a raving bear inside a fenced area. But anyway we were all afraid to go into the fenced area. My one brother said that he could calm it down, it was standing at the other end of the fenced area looking kinda down, he walked over to it and it swiped at him 2 times slicing his head and neck.

Example: I had a dream about two purple snakes, coming from different directions, one from the left and the other from the right. These started going after me, however I kept running and running from the centre, at times they would seem like they want to come together in the middle and attack me and I kept running.

Example: I dreamt that my wife and I were in bed. She was asleep on my left against a wall. I was lying awake wondering whether there were any ghosts in the house. Deciding to test this, I said aloud, “If there are any ghosts, show yourselves.” Nothing happened, and feeling a bit smug, I close my eyes in readiness to go to sleep. As I did this, the door to my right creaked open, and two black men entered. They looked as if they had risen out of a grave, almost as if the flesh was hanging of them. I was very frightened as they came towards me with their arms reaching to me. At the time of this dream I was a member of the Rosicrucians, and one of the things I had learned was about the said power of the sign of the cross. So I made the sign of the cross, and said one of the words of power used by the Rosicrucians.  At this the two black men disappeared. I felt, not only great relief, but also as if my knowledge had given me some power. I suppose, once more, there was some smugness, as if I was strong enough to meet anything.

So I lay back in bed ready to sleep. As I did so, once more the door creaked open, and in came the black men. This time none of my waving of hands in the sign of the cross, and all my magic words stopped them. They reached me and their hands went around my throat to strangle me. I woke up screaming and terrified. (See link to Rosicrucian Order).

Despite all of such dreams there is nothing to be afraid of in your dreams. Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us. But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts or fears that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiment’s of our fears and ideas presented to us as truths; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are.

Most of the things we are afraid of in dreams are things that we carry into the dream from our childhood. We are so programmed by what our parent fear or believe that we carry them into us and are haunted by them in our dreams. Obviously there are things to be afraid of in the outer life, but not in the world of our dreams where we are alone with ourselves. So running from the bear, tiger or dog that attacks you in your dreams is running away from your fears. Nothing can hurt you or kill you in your dreams except your own fear and anxiety. See The Magical Dream Machine.

An example of this is given below:

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways. He pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

Example: The mobile home was so large the edge of it was over the ridge I was walking. There was no space to duck down to avoid it. I looked to my left and there was a sheer drop for about 200 feet. This was like the face of a massive dam in shape. I jumped down and as I was falling and falling I wondered how I was going to land. Would I smash to bits on the obviously hard ground below? I didn’t have any great fear about this. So it wasn’t a nightmare or anxiety dream. I never seemed to resolve this question because suddenly I was on the ground without any sign of hurt or even a bump.

As I hope you can see it is only the fear you carry into the dream that causes people to wake in terror. The example of the two walking dead is a dream that the person worked on and gradually saw was his tremendous fear of his losing control over his sexual feelings, which he constantly held back. As it was resolved the fear disappeared.

Useful Questions and Hints:

You could alter the dream by visualising it differently. See How to Face Fear to help with that.

Try seeing what you take into your dream. See What do I Bring to my Dreams.

It helps to understand your dream, so use Processing Dreams to do it.

Also always remember that you are much bigger than you realise – so look at You are More than you Presently Know.

See: Anxiety; emotions and mood.

Africa African

This may refer to your own feelings about black and coloured people or racial prejudices if you are white. If you are black, then it is about some aspect of your own personality or experience.

Africa was the birthplace of the human race, so may refer to your personal origins. But if you are aware of particular associations, such as having lived in Africa or studied it, then it would probably refer to those associations.

In dreams we still use native or tribal Africans or Australian Aborigines to represent our own natural inner life, the feeling urges or intuitions that guide or beset us. Thus the African, or being in Africa in a white person’s dream, unless we have defined associations with it, may represent a level of our mind or consciousness, that does not differentiate and separate things in the same way our conscious rational mind usually does.

This African or archaic strata of consciousness produces a sense of being connected with the mysterious spirit of life itself. It also gives insights into the wisdom learned through collective human and animal experience.

The African would suggest contact with the insights, intuitions or influences arising from such a source. It therefore also has a connotation or connection with formation, the coming into form of what exists at present unconsciously as potential. See: aboriginal; black people; natives.

In some dreams of black people by white’s it often shows much freer sexuality or awareness of life’s urges.

Useful questions are:

Is this a connection to the more instinctive aspects of myself?

Does this pertain to feelings about skin colour?

How am I relating to this part of me that connects more fully to my intuitive self?

What can I, or am I learning from this relationship? See: Aboriginal, AbroadThe Life Will.

Afterlife

See: death and rebirth underarchetypes; death; death and dreams; death – is there life afterwards.

Afternoon

The time of day in a dream sometimes refers to a period in your life. In this sense afternoon often represents middle age, the years of physical decline, or of fruition in your life.

But the dream may not be referring to age. In this case it may suggests a winding down period, the more subtle feeling areas of experience or relationship, or a period of relaxation.


Useful questions:

What does my dream suggest is past its peak, or in a relaxed or winding down phase?

Is there a feeling connected with my dream, and if so what is it?

Where am I going or what doing that applies to my everyday life?

Age Aged Ageing Ageless

The age of characters, family, animals, objects or yourself in a dream often carry very definite associations or information. What these associations are depends a great deal on what age you are yourself.

Idioms: Act your age; age of consent; age before beauty; ages since; an age; at an advanced age; at an awkward age; come of age; ripe old age; show ones age; under age.

In general:

ageing; Moving toward death; a sense of inevitability; an identification with the body rather than with the process of life; passing of ones opportunities offered by the younger phases of your life, but the opening to a new relationship with life given by the new period.

ageless; Depicts the core of you that does not suffer from change; the spiritual aspect of your experience; the changeless core of self which has lived throughout time.

baby or child; Refers to your feelings of dependence or vulnerability, perhaps even helplessness or powerlessness; but often it suggests need for love, support and care; it may even represent actual memories of your own baby/child/hood. The bay or child also depict newness, new opportunity, a fresh approach. See: baby; youth.

extreme old age; Feelings about death; old way of life; some influence in yourself or surroundings that antedates your birth. Influences from ones family such as attitudes or fears may be generations old, and so be depicted as incredibly ancient; often represents something holding a lot of wisdom or experience. One may therefore feel the person is holy or revered in such dreams.

middle aged person; represents achievement, maturity, the ageing process. The elderly person may depict feelings about ones parents or a parent/authority figure; the wisdom gathered from many years of living; the declining power or creativity, or the feelings of decline and loss within oneself. Such feelings are often simply cultural and are not a real reflection of what is possible or opportune at this time of life. It is a time when you have to create your own world and life more fully than in previous ‘ages’. See: individuation.

new object or thing; Something that is just appearing in your life, like a new romance or opportunity. But sometimes it represents something that is just a new idea, something that has not got any physical reality yet.

old fashioned; An old way of doing things; something established as compared with something new or emerging; something accepted socially; time tested but perhaps now out of date.

something or someone as old as yourself; Usually refers to yourself in some way. Dreams often include houses which were built about the period of ones birth, and so refer to ones own lifetime and what has become of you. Thus an object the same age as yourself would depict some aspect of your life, depending on the object.

teenager; often points to whatever difficulties you faced, or are facing, in the process of meeting sexual drives, adult relationships, and the need to become an independent and motivated part of society. Thus there may be feelings of uncertainty, shyness, inexperience or idealism suggested in the dream teenager.

very old thing; Either an early part of ones lifetime, such as babyhood, or something that happened in the past and because you have changed so radically, appears to be a very long time ago; or refers to things that influence you which are from a time before your own birth. We are all influenced by the culture we live in for instance, and that is very ancient. But could also be a family trait, or even an influence or vitalising motivation with which one was born, and which appears to have arisen from a

distant past; something that represent wisdom or deep experience. This wisdom is usually not yet defined. It needs to be made conscious by exploring the symbol. This can be revelatory in that we become aware of massive information gathered but never before made conscious.

young adult; Yourself at your physical peak; yourself at that age; that period of your life; the period of worldly opportunity.

If one is a child or youth: most adult figures would suggest either a parent or authority figure; the possibilities of ones own maturity; a role model, or a target for admiration or sexual attraction; perhaps even some form of security in love and being cared for.

If you are already past mid-life: the younger people in your dream in general depict that period of your life and what was learned or experienced at that age. The different age groups also represent the opportunities commonly associated with that age. For instance a sixty year old women who falls in love might say ‘I feel like a young girl again.’ Or one might say to a young person, ‘You’ve got an old head on your shoulders.’ It is in precisely this way that dreams use age to represent feelings and situations.

Example: I dreamt I was on a garden with an old man, a young boy and a young man in his thirties. The plot of land had something of the feeling of an allotment. It was well tended, and I had the sense the young man had been doing most of the work on it. The soil was rich but at the moment dry. A few shoots were just breaking the ground from hundreds of bulbs which had just started shooting.

The old man was kneeling at the edge of one end of the oblong plot of land. He was digging up bulbs one at a time and looking at them, then putting them back in the soil again. As the soil was dry he had to dig the hole a bit bigger to get them back. The bulbs had good roots and the shoots were firm. I was agitated about the old man digging them up though, and felt he should let them be. This seemed to link with my own propensity to dig up seeds when I was younger, to see if they had germinated.

The young boy was simply watching and was quite shadowy. The younger man was getting on with whatever work he was doing. I spoke to him after leaving the old man. Henry G.

Henry, the dreamer is a man in his late fifties. He explored his dream and summarised what he realised as follows:

In connecting with the feelings in the dream the different aged males are all facets of myself. The old man is my own sense of ageing, and the feeling of dryness and being outside of the opportunities that I associate with those younger than myself. My feeling that nothing is growing in my life makes me want to dig under the surface of things to see if there are any new things that might arise. The younger man is the active and creative period of my life during which I did in fact ‘sow a lot of seeds’ which are now emerging into reality. The boy is my impatience but also the aspect of myself from which new ideas and directions can emerge.

He is that part of me which is still growing, like the bulbs. The garden is my soul/soil. It is all the work I have done to cultivate skills and attributes in myself and create things in the world. What is important is that even though I am in my fifties, these younger parts were skills and attributes I developed in the past and are still active in me today.

Example: Every night for the past six months at least, in my dream there is a baby. I seem to be neglecting the baby, i.e. I tell myself it is time I fed it or changed it etc., but the baby thrives in spite of my neglect. It is never the same baby – it looks different each time – but it seems quite content. Mrs. M. C.

Here the age of the baby reflects the level of feelings the dreamer is dealing with. The keyword is neglect. So Mrs. C. is being reminded by her dreams that she is neglecting either the needs arising from her own childhood emotional dependence or her need for warmth and love as a baby. The imagery of the dream suggest it is warmth and love she is not getting enough of, and most likely she didn’t get enough when she was actually a baby. That she is now a adult does not reduce the strength of her unfulfilled needs.

Example: I am in an unknown old building with unsafe floors. I vaguely feel it belongs to my long dead father. Around me are rats, which have young. I am hysterical because they keep multiplying. People with me, unknown, although my husband is there, I don’t seem to care about them. I usually wake shouting because one of the rats touches me. I am not frightened of rats when awake. Dorothy C.

The age of the building suggests there is some connection from a long time ago. The dream goes on to say the connection is with the long dead father. This is unclear because Dorothy has not yet made it conscious what the fear is that arose in herself from her relationship with her father.

Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.

Example: From Dream Power by Ann Faraday page 163. I was being presented to a Persian king in the grounds of his palace. As we talked a group of happy, laughing young girls came into the garden, followed by a rather sad looking middle aged woman who I thought must be the King’s chief wife. This woman was obviously in charge of the harem and was sad, I felt, because the king no longer wanted her sexually and had relegated her to the role of household organiser. One of the girls came to Sally and said, ‘Don’t you recognise me? We were together in a previous incarnation’.

Ann Faraday’s comments on the dream are that she realised the king represented her husband, and she was the chief wife. This led her to realise that in the early years of their marriage there had been much joy in their sexual relationship. This had faded in the years preceding the dream, and they had grown apart sexually. The middle aged woman therefore represents her own sadness through feeling past her prime and unattractive. Such feelings do not mean she is actually unattractive, only that she feels she is.

See: age and dream; adolescent; baby; boy; girl; daughter; age and your dreams; ancient.

Idioms: Act your age; age of consent; age before beauty; ages since; an age; at an advanced age; at an awkward age; come of age; ripe old age; show ones age; under age.

Useful questions are:

What does the particular age represent to me?

Does this signify particular aspects of the age?

What were the main events or features of my life at that age?

Does this dream highlight special aspects of the thing or person. If so what are they?

Is there a difference between what I think about.

It might help if you use Processing Dreams.

Agenda

Things you want to do, or feel you out to do; feelings about your future; plans. The dream agenda may have arisen not because of your conscious decisions, but perhaps what your inner self knows would be useful to do.

The agenda could be there because you are deeply influenced by another person’s needs or decisions.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your present ‘agenda’ and how does it relate to the dream?

What is the dream showing as things you plan to do or be?

If this is someone else’s agenda, how much are you involved in fulfilling their needs?

Try using Talking As and also Processing Dreams to help find the meaning of your dream.

Agent Agents

An agent can also be a person, animal or even a situation or food that acts as an agent for change. Because it has so many possibilities it is best to define the dream by using Processing Dreams.


Useful Questions and Hints:

If you were the agent what were you doing, or what was your role?

What was the task or activity of the agent in the dream.

What was hope for or aimed for in the dream.

Try using Talking As to help in finding the dreams meaning.

Aggression-Aggressiveness

Aggressive feelings are one of the main ex­pressions of our energy, along with sex, ambition and survival. Generally speaking, it is not wise to hold them back even though they are in an awful and destructive phase. Wherever possible it helps to seek a more satisfy­ing and constructive expression for them – beating a pillow with a rolled up newspaper for instance, while allowing your feelings to vent.

Many aggressive or hostile feelings arise from childhood experiences, and are, at their origin, directed toward one or both of our parents. But unfortunately in adult life they tend to fire toward someone we have an emotional link with, such as our partner or even ones child.

It often happens that held back sexual impulses turn to aggressive actions or intentions.

Perhaps you live in an environment where violence is a part of life, if so please read Dream Yoga.

It is fascinating to see how our cultural background stimulates or diminishes aggression. In his book The Dreaming Mind Robert van de Castle says, “During my eight visits among the Cunas, I never saw a child hit or heard one severely scolded. Nor did I ever see a young child on the ground, because the child was always being held on someone’s hip or sitting in someone’s lap. Such indulgence produced a secure and confident child who felt extremely accepted by every member of the tribe. As a consequence, there was an almost total absence of competition, rivalry, or Cuna-to-Cuna aggression in the dreams of Cuna adolescents. The aggressors in Cuna dreams consisted of the Panamanian National Guard, evil spirits, animals, and foreigners. By way of contrast, almost half of all American adolescent dreams involve aggression and it is generally with other Americans. (Kuna or Cuna is the name of an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia.)

We might displace our aggression in our dreams by dreaming that instead of killing our boss, we might dream that our employer’s automobile is crushed by a runaway garbage truck.

If you are aggressive in a dream it is most likely showing you your own aggressiveness, and will point out where it stems from. Is it from being ignored, given wrong goods and wrong price, being treated like a nobody or a fool, being lied to?

If you are the victim of aggression in your dreams ask yourself whether there is a part of your own nature which as directed anger inwardly instead of expressing it. Also look to see if there is a situation in your family, or in work that is threatening you – is so take steps to alter it.

Example: Lenox Lewis the boxer plus another man also a famous boxer were having a competition as to who was the strongest. Yet they were not fighting just moving boxes with pictures or building blocks around. You could see that they were very frustrated by the way they were lifting these boxes, attempting to utilise their strength. The feeling was that some do-gooder was trying to show that men who used aggression could turn this energy to something more constructive, such as, what set of blocks compliment each other or what large piece of jigsaw puzzle fits in what place. I could see the intention that the creator of this idea was trying to achieve. This was a way of turning raw energy and aggression into an intellectual and creative skills, still with a competitive spirit. Yet the whole concept was spoilt by such a childish approach. The mind that had dreamt the idea up had very little if any sense of his or her animal nature.

An interesting dream because it tries to solve the problem about the dreamer’s aggression, but it doesn’t take into account his animal tendencies. See Reptile and Mammal Brain in Humans.


Example: I was attending an adult class with about 20 or 30 people, mostly men. The teacher came in. He said something and a man asked a question or spoke back. The teacher got really angry and hit him with a walking stick. Someone else in the class remarked on the beating and was attacked also. A man sitting next to me on my left said that if the teacher hit him he wouldn’t sit and take it.

But as the second man was hit, my companion said something like – Bloody hell. The teacher landed two mighty blows on his arse, but he didn’t move. I said in horror “Good God!” whereupon the teacher moved to hit me. I stood up and said, “If you hit me with that thing I’ll whack you in the fucking ear.” I felt keyed up and ready to fight. He backed off and threatened to get the headmaster on me. I told him to try it. He said if I could do better try it. So I took over the class and it went really well. Then I seemed to be witnessing a young man making love with a girl in a room. A teacher burst into the room and got angry at the couple. The young man was not at all cowed. He said, “You burst into a private room without knocking. We happen to be adults. I want an apology.” The teacher was silent for a time then apologised. The young man said, “Thank you sir. I am proud to acknowledge you as my teacher.”


The dreamer was a man in his forties, and the dream, when he explored it was about the sort of violence he witnessed at school. It shows how he felt and what he wanted to do, to stand up for himself for taking such heavy blows – but at the time lived in the belief that it was normal. But he was now seeing it from a different viewpoint, and handled it very well. As you can see, you do not have to cower to aggressors in your dreams. See Dream Yoga.

Here is part of an interview with Stanislav Grof that is very interesting.

Jerry Snider: What about our current cultural period? The social climate today has a feeling of hopelessness, of being trapped. People have lost faith in most of our institutions, especially our political institutions. In our urban populations, the rampant crime keeps people feeling trapped. Are we in any single classic stage?

Stanislav Grof: Yes. Many people who have these inner experiences, take a larger look and see that we have now enacted in our world a lot of the elements you would encounter internally when you are in a transformation process. For example, you would encounter tremendous unleashing of aggression. You would confront destructive and self-destructive tendencies within yourself if you have an inner experience. There is also a liberation of repressed sexuality. This has been happening for years. Just about every aspect of sexual behaviour has been openly presented in the media. There are all kinds of very unusual sexual experiments such as S&M parlours, sexual slave markets, fist fucking – all these things have sprung up. So the sexual impulse is sort of being released and acted out, and also the aggressive. There is an increase not only in criminality but in terrorism as well, all over the world. Then you have satanic elements emerging from the collective unconscious. The deep levels of the psyche are now being ventilated.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the anger in the dream directed toward me or someone else?

If it’s toward me, am I dealing here with anger in myself I am not recognising, or am I sensing the anger in someone I know?

Am I frightened of expressing anger or hostility?

Can I allow a safer expression of my anger?

It may  be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward and us Processing Dreams. See: hostility.

It can help to deal with anger and aggression by using The Cushion Technique.

Agile

This shows you coping well with what life is confronting you with, and having adaptability or mental quickness.

If it is someone else who is agile it might still refer to you, as your dreams often use other people to illustrate some of your own strengths and weaknesses. See: movement; postures movement and body language.

Agility in your dreams can mean that you are mastering the ability to use all the movements, postures, gymnastics of dreams. In other words you can change from being in a body or out of it, you can meet and deal with images of fear and anger; you can fly into the awareness of greatness and genius, you have become a master in the realms of death. See: movement; postures movement and body language.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the agility accomplishing anything, and if so what does that suggest in my waking life?

What does the dream suggest I need to be agile in connection with?

Does this in any way show me needing to be more flexible about something – work – a relationship?

Depending on what you are doing it  might help if you use  to explore your dream.

To be really agile in your dreams you need to practice a form or Dream Yoga. There is a short version Here and the long version Here.



Agony

What feeling or decision, what responsibility or concern is tormenting you? Or does the dream suggest this is a physical pain? If so See: Illness.

Agony in your dream may be a sign either of something radically wrong in your body or in your inner feelings. If it is the first you need to arrange a physical check. If it is the second you need to arrange a situation in which you can talk out, explore and express the inner agony.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of actual pain in my body while awake, and am I doing anything about it?

Does this agony depict a misery I am carrying inside me, and if so how can I allow it to be expressed?

What clues do I get from the dream about the source of the misery?

You can make great changes and healing by using Acting on Your Dream.

Agoraphobia

As with fear of falling, this may represent an actual fear. But as a symbol it means a fear of being exposed, of being seen, of possible attack, and of having nothing to hide behind or under. In general it is about anxiety. See: Anxiety.

Useful questions are:

What is it I am afraid of if I am in the open?

What might happen if I am exposed?

Is the fundamental fear that of death or something else?

Agreement

A harmony of previously unreconciled opinions, emotions, beliefs, etc. It is important to clarify what is being agreed in the dream, and what you feel you know about this.

Agreement or lack of it in dreams shows how easily or otherwise you relate to or work with others. It is worth considering how this reflects on your daily life.

Useful questions are:

Am I agreeing to be polite or do I really feel it?

Does the agreement lead to doing something together of parting ways, and what does this suggest in your waking life?

Is this agreement about an important decisions – if so what is it suggesting about my waking decisions?

Aim

Suggests directing attention desire or emotions toward what is represented by target or goal. Motivating toward something or the power of intention.

Edgar Cayce said that, “Mind is the builder” and so whatever you aim for or strive toward becomes real if you work at it

Aimless: Undecided; conflict; loss of pleasure or what gives pleasure and meaning to life; unacknowledged pain defeating pleasure and motivation; fear. But also it can be about trusting Life to guide you, and not being possessed by ambition and a way of life that constricts you.

Being aimed at: Feeling a target, perhaps of other people’s criticism or attack.

Being the target: Feeling as if you are being criticised or attacked.

Gun or weapon being aimed: Directing or directed anger or serious threat, sexuality or attention.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I aiming at?

Does this imply a goal or other important target?

Do I feel criticism or threats are being aimed at me?

Do I know what I am aiming at?

Get a fuller understanding by using Acting on Your Dream.

Air

Dreams use air in two ways. The first depicts the sort of feelings we have if we have ever struggled to breathe through illness or danger. So the lack of air could show a struggle you are having to survive in the present situation.

Air is the tangible opposite to physical life. In most dreams any mention of air is in regard to flying and ones ease or effort to do so. Therefore the air depicts the medium in which we express the pleasure or difficulty of flying. In these dreams the air probably represents the invisible but felt social atmosphere within which we unconsciously exist and strive. Therefore occasionally a dream shows the dreamer losing the air – wind out of the sails – that sustains their flight, suggesting a loss of the support usually gained from public or individual acceptance or approval, or ones own confidence. When we talk about ?clearing the atmosphere? – or there being ?something in the air? this is precisely what dreams of air often refer to.

In far fewer dreams air is mentioned in connection with breathing, as in the example, and depicts, in its absence, a fear of not surviving in connection with what one is facing at the time. In other words a strong sense of being overwhelmed by anxiety or some invading influence, or struggling to survive. See: breath; wind.

Floating on air: relates to ones mind and mental attitude, idealism or lack of it. This may show how we manage to escape from ‘reality’, or painful things such as shyness, by thinking beautiful thoughts, or creating a mental world inside ourselves through meditation. In a positive sense this shows an ability to change your state of mind at will.

Fresh air: Fresh ideas; new approach; mental attitude in which you can feel more alive or creative; an easy ‘atmosphere’ in which to survive.

Poisonous air: Ideas or atmosphere in which you find yourself losing your own identity or deepest motivations; a killing of your own vitality.

Something appearing out of the air: Intuitive perception.

Stuffy air: Mental emotional or social atmosphere in which you are not stimulated or free to think creative or individual thoughts; atmosphere of moral rigidity in which it is difficult to ?breathe?.

Idioms: Free as air; up in the air; light as air; a breathe of fresh air; in the air; a lot of hot air; the air was blue; clear the air; into thin air; put on airs; up in the air.

Example: I am in a cot and suddenly the bottom falls out and I find I am under water – I do not feel the wetness or the cold, I just know I am under water and must not breathe. I cannot hold my breath any longer and gasp for air – still under water – and am surprised I can breathe perfectly normally. Mrs. A. P.

Example: Gliding from a mountain top. Then I am with Pat Brown, a girl friend I knew at school. I am lying on top of her holding her breasts. Then I am led into rooms but avoiding them each time as I felt some sort of trap and threatened imprisonment. To avoid being caught I take a deep breath and this caused me to fly up into the air and away.

The first example illustrates the connection between breath hold and dealing with anxiety. The second shows how flying into the air is an escape mechanism.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I afraid of not surviving a situation, or losing support?

What is it I sense ‘in the air’ or atmosphere?

What is my relationship with the environment I am in?

Do the specific events or actions in the dream give a clue to what I am dealing with?

Am I escaping into airy feelings?

Do you problems with breathing, if so see The Slow Breath and The Breath of Life.

Use Acting on Your Dream to define what your dream is about.

Air Conditioner Conditioning

Perhaps ones lungs; methods or techniques you use to ‘cool down’ or calm your feelings or ‘blood pressure’, so a way of dealing with stress; relief. Ways you use to ‘clear the air’ in a disagreement or relationship.

This I believe obviously links with breathing and may be about the air we breath and its quality. See Breathing

Example: They carry me through the window to my basement room I shared with another woman who talks about her boyfriend. Then it is hard to breathe. Oh, I hear a motor and we guess it’s a VW bug or bus and it’s an old man’s wheelchair. Then it’s hard to breathe and we see yellow thin strips of confetti-like stuff all in the air and we are breathing it in. It is in the air conditioning so we all get up and go outside where it is a hot summer night.

But the media has shown other associated ideas we may have with air conditioning. Because air conditioning draws air from outside it may be illustrating that in some way. Also all rooms are linked and so it is often shown how people can get into someone else room/life; or even discover otherwise secret areas of oneself or an escape route.

Example: A couple of years ago I lived in an apartment on the second floor.  A skunk had a made its nest on the ground outside, directly below the bedroom window.  In the summer in Los Angeles with no air conditioning and the windows open, there were some terrible nights.  That’s the only skunk experience I have had and it was pretty bad.

If felt as cold: Something causing emotional withdrawal or coldness. See: air.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the air conditioner doing, and how does this relate to you?

If the air conditioner is malfunctioning what does this suggest in your daily life?

If you stand in the role of the air conditioner, what do you arrive at?

Do you problems with breathing, if so see The Slow Breath and The Breath of Life.

For help understanding your dream see Acting on Your Dream.

Air Raid

Feeling under attack, the severity depending on the dream damage. The attack might be emotional from people, or feelings we have about events around us. Things may be going badly at work, and comments be felt like bombshells. Very often though, the threats are purely emotional/mental. We may read of an illness such as AIDS and the anxiety we connect with the idea has a devastating effect.

Example: ‘I am in a house and planes are dropping bombs on it.’ Mrs S. M.

Example: I was in a room with my aunt and uncle. It was dark outside and there was some kind of air raid going on with glowing missiles flying through the sky. I was terrified and tried to draw the red curtain across the window to block them out. The window was a right angle shaped one in the corner of the room. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cover the whole window. As fast as I pulled the curtain across, the other end would be exposed, showing the missiles. I was becoming more and more frantic and my aunt and uncle just sat at the table playing cards, completely unperturbed and indifferent to my fear. D. K.

This dream from a girl in her teens clearly shows how she is dealing with her fears concerning the world. Her distress is even more intense because the fears of external threats which appear very real to her, are totally ignored by her family. The curtains depict how much she tries to shut these feelings out of her mind, and how unsuccessful this is. The dream is probably dealing with her difficulties in facing life as an adult, and the demands it may place upon her.

Idioms: I feel blitzed; it come as a bombshell; go down like a bomb; go like a bomb; put a bomb under someone; earn a bomb. See: aeroplane; war.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in my external life am I feeling threatened by?

Are things happening out of the blue that I feel threatened by?

Am I facing new things that I am still learning to deal with?

Can I put a name or situation to what threatens me?

You can gradually change any fear of anxiety you feel by using Carry the Dream Forward.

Air-Sea Rescue

To be rescued from the sea depicts a situation in which you are at the mercy of powerful natural forces – perhaps strong spontaneous emotions or fear – that you are not dealing with well, otherwise you would not need to be rescued.

Even if it is someone else rescued in most cases it still points to an aspect of you that needs help. This may refer to a difficulty in dealing with the demands of life generally, and a dangerous attraction to giving up, losing your identity as you withdraw inwardly. If you are seeing or actively helping in an air sea rescue, this suggests an action to deal with feelings that might otherwise engulf you or someone else. In this case it is showing what strengths or techniques you use to deal with difficulties and challenges. See: Sea.

Useful questions:

What powerful emotions or changes am I dealing with?

Am I feeling overwhelmed by something?

Can I define the strengths and ways I use to deal with threatening feelings?

Do I feel as if I am ‘drowning’ in a situation or relationship?

You can use Carry the Dream Forward to gradually change what you feel.

Aircraft

See: airplane.

Aircraft

See:  Aeroplane

Airplane Plane

The plane in your dream shows all the amazing possibilities of change, of varied experience, of romance, business and discovery in life today. But it also holds all the possibilities of failure, of not being able to get your projects or relationship off the ground, along with delays, unexpected threats, and the possible tragedy and loss you might meet in life. Your dream airplane communicates this in the action your dream portrays. The plane journey, for instance, suggests a change in your life, leaving your ordinary affairs behind. It is a journey into the unknown, into taking risks. Perhaps you are making a move toward, or away from, love and opportunity. It is risky because the plane can fall from the sky, and you can meet feelings of failure or despair.

A plane can also attack, and this shows fears, anxiety about being exposed to attack from other people or events. This does not mean you will be attacked, only that you fear it.

To climb aboard a plane is to embark upon dramatic movement from one way of life, or one situation in life, to another; a leap into the unknown, into chance – so it is a powerful symbol of change. Perhaps that flight into chance, into life and its mysterious possibilities might be okay. But it might fall from the sky too. Meanwhile, on the plane you will not have your feet on the ground, you will not be secure, everything is ‘up in the air’. The plans, the love, the hopes and efforts might die, might lead to tragedy with all its rippling effects moving into the web of relationships and events connected with the flight of the plane.

In exploring a dream about a plane crash it took a long time to really connect with anything, but when I did the feelings were all about how there has been a crash of my dreams, ambitions, desire for love and the heightened feelings that arose or ‘took off’ in connection with a lover. In comments on planes above I say, “The plans, the love, the hopes and efforts might die, might lead to tragedy with all its rippling effects moving into the web of relationships and events connected with the flight of the plane.” This was true in my life.

An attacking aircraft: Feeling attacked either by your own doubts and self criticism, or that of others.

Being grounded: Sense of not getting anywhere and frustration; plans and hopes that haven’t connected with achievement or opportunity – maybe this isn’t the right time yet.

Biplane: It can represent a more full contact with flying in a plane, and needs a lot more courage to do.

Example: “I saw a biplane fly overhead. Its pilot was performing daring new stunts. I ran into a house to tell a man who was in bed to run out and see the plane. ” David R.

The example clearly shows one aspect of what a biplane means, being daring in a new area, taking risks in life, braving a new work area or relationship.

Difficulty landing: Difficulty achieving goal or making it real in a down to earth way; anxiety about where life events are taking you; feeling out of control or not being in control; difficulties or fears about being in someone else’s hands.

Falling out of plane: Usually anxiety, sometimes about death or failure of high hopes. It is also the opportunity to fly if you can overcome your anxieties.

Flight attendant: A part of you trained in dealing with personal problems, and also emergencies.

Pilot: The pilot is a part of you used to having a much wider and inclusive view of where you are going in your life, so trust their help.

Plane falling rapidly: ‘Pit’ feeling in stomach that one gets when feeling anxiety about the outcome of a situation; sense of failure or guilt; apprehension about the future of a project or direction; anxiety about something.

Plane journey: The plane is also a means of leaving things behind, rising above or finding a way of escaping difficulties or the past. It is a way we move beyond the limitations of any one locality, racial customs, family attitudes or religious environments. It is the power of the mind to move among and learn from or experience these many states of being. It offers a much wider or more inclusive view of where you are and where you are going in life.

Private plane: Ones personal activities and plans not deeply connected with other people.

The crashed or wrecked plane: Worry about failing. Can be anxiety bringing down your ambition or adventurousness; a loss of self confidence or mental equilibrium; warning about a business project; broken dreams and hopes. Sometimes shows or refers to a break up in a relationship or a failed endeavour, a hope, a journey that fails.

Watching a plane crash: A sense of emergency; feeling you are aware of an important social or national event. Sensing something difficult happening or having happened in your life, like a divorce or loss of business or love for instance. Can sometimes relate to childhood traumas that make it difficult for you to get your life taking flight.

The plane journey: Shows a move toward independence; leaving home or friends; success.

Watching a plane land safely: The arrival back to oneself of the actions, words and energies sent out into the world. As a simple example, we may have a carpet to give away because we are moving. We tell a neighbour who passes the information to someone else. This new person wants the carpet. A completely new person therefore lands, or arrives in our life. The landing plane may also mean coming down to earth again, or making something more applicable in an everyday sense.

The example below clearly shows one aspect of what a plane means, being daring in a new area, taking risks in life, braving a new work area or relationship. David is calling on a part of himself that is withdrawn and inactive to ‘get up’ and be involved in something daring. Sometimes the plane in the sky represents feeling threatened by something new or unknown. This is shown in the second example.

Example: I saw a biplane fly overhead. Its pilot was performing daring new stunts. I ran into a house to tell a man who was in bed to run out and see the plane. David R.

Example: A woman who was a radio researcher was offered the job of presenter. She was thrilled but dreamt she was in a road walking and planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting. She had to dive into a ditch to avoid being killed. When she explored the dream she realised she was afraid of facing the public directly, and this fear if left unconscious would have caused her to refuse the job. She accepted the fear and managed to press forward with the job.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I taking a ‘flight’ into a new or challenging situation or relationship?

What am I leaving behind or arriving at?

Are there radical shifts of life style I am involved in?

Do some events in my life feel like a ‘plane crash’?

It helps to read this Dreams Are Virtual Realities and also Processing Dreams and Acting on Your Dream.

Airport

Refers to making new departures; changes, hoped for or real; desire or need for adventure. This could be mentally, emotionally or sexually; achieving goals; being en-route to something, or something new in life; a checking of one’s own values, identity, a sort of self assessment in regard to independence and moving to new opportunities. Self doubts and uncertainties at this stage stop us from attempting the new; occasionally the departure point for ‘higher planes’; considering that a flight might take us to new places, opportunities or relationships, the airport can represent a terminus or change in connection with any of these.

This could be mentally, emotionally or sexually; achieving goals; being en-route to something, or something new in life; a checking of one’s own values, identity, a sort of self assessment in regard to independence and moving to new opportunities. Self doubts and uncertainties at this stage stop us from attempting the new; occasionally the departure point for ‘higher planes’; considering that a flight might take us to new places, opportunities or relationships, the airport can represent a terminus or change in connection with any of these.

Landing at airport: Meeting a new experience; arriving at a goal or ambition; coming down to earth after being involved in flights of fancy, creativity or change.

Missing a flight at airport: Feeling anxious about plans not working out, or failing to meet deadline; lost opportunity; warning that you are cutting things fine and might actually miss a plane, etc.

Picking someone up from airport: Meeting a change in your life; something arriving in your opportunities or experience that is out of the normal day to day events or routine.

If it is someone you know: it suggests a greater alliance with the aspect of yourself suggested by the person, or perhaps an alliance with that person.

Planning airport stops: Clarifying strategy for a goal you wish to reach, or change you are attempting to make.

Difficulties in realising: The route suggest things you sense stand in the way of realisation of goal. Stranded or delayed at airport:

Difficulties with changes going on; anxiety about changes.

Trying to get to airport: Attempting a change or to get to a goal; moving toward a new departure, or a change from the usual routine – unless flights are part of your usual routine.

See: aeroplane; foreign countries.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where am I trying to arrive at in life?

Am I trying to escape or ‘fly/flee’ from something?

Is my present situation new territory or ‘foreign’ country to me?

What risks am I taking at the moment?

See Processing Dreams for help.

Airship

This can mean an uplifting experience, for airship do not need to go fast to stay aloft. So it is like being shown a higher viewpoint without effort.

But because of the history or great crashes it may represent for you threats of disaster, depending on the dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Any feelings you have in the dream will give an indication of what it was prompted by.

If there was any sign of danger, what was it and how did I cope with it? See Active and Passive.

If I felt uplift, how could I put into words what I felt or sensed.

Aisle

The aisle as a part of a building or plane, represents the way between opposites; a way through. If you are in the aisle it suggests possibilities of being in public view if there are people about; moving between opposites; the experience of connection with other people, or being connected by a common purpose or link. Sitting near an aisle suggests you can get out of the connection with other people more easily, or are more open to whoever or whatever is in the aisle or what it is leading to or connected with.

The aisle often appears in dreams about marriage, and in such dreams probably depicts the powerful social and personal feelings and expectations connected with an approach to the decision making and commitment of marriage. It therefore might indicate the pressures holding you in that place. See: corridor.

Useful questions:

Where is this aisle leading, or what does it connect with?

What do my actions or feelings here suggest?

What is my relationship with the aisle?

Am I connecting with someone, and if so what does this suggest about my waking relationship with that person?

Alarm

Hearing an alarm in a dream suggests something is trying to get your attention and wanting you to wake up. Basically it is to get your attention to do something – what are you supposed to do?

But there are so many types of alarm signal; for instance a telephone ringing is an alarm signalling you to answer. It could be an alarm clock, or fire station alarm, or an alarm signal telling you it is time to start of stop work; so decide what type of alarm it is and what context it is in. Context is the essence!!

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the alarm asking?

What sort of alarm is it?

Is it important and what do you do about it?

What is the context it appears in – see Context.

Albatross

An albatross is a sea gong bird and can survive and prosper in harsh times. It is like a spirit of sea and air. It is an amazing traveller.

Its folklore which may be an influence in your dreams is that it can mean a burden that you carry because you killed the spirit in you. But being followed by an albatross suggests good luck. See Birds

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your relationship with the albatross and what does that suggest?

What feelings did you experience in you dream in connection with the albatross?

Was the bird healthy throughout the dream?

Using Processing Dreams can help you understand the dream.

Albino

What is it that in the Albino that so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin?

To dream of an albino human suggests something or someone unusual. But it depends on the dream as to what it means. The albino will usually have a different view on life that others. If they enjoy the attention they it is a good sign, but if they are angry that they are so different they may carry difficult feelings.

If it is an albino animal, it is different, because white usually suggest purity or an influence that is beyond the normal. Some ancient people see it as spiritual with great influence.

 

Alchemist

The magical and transformative aspect of mental and emotional action within you. The alchemist depicts the ability you have to transform your feelings, and in fact your nature, by changing your own experience and body. Mostly we do this unconsciously by changing our surroundings when we feel down, or perhaps reading a book or going to the movies. But the alchemist is about taking over the process consciously.

The symbol particularly points to the ability to change what you consider useless, painful or worthless, into something of great value. This links with the process in you that can present childhood trauma or negative family attitudes, and in doing so transform them into insight and useful energy.

Useful questions:

Am I aware of how I allow or work with this influence in my life?

What can I do to increase the power of this transforming influence?

Why am I dreaming of this at the moment?

What is it in myself or life that needs transforming?

Is somebody I know a transforming influence in my life?

See: alchemist archetype.

Alcohol

Is an influence which changes the way you feel, moving you toward negative or positive feelings. It is therefore often used to represent ‘the spirit’ or a power that changes ones heart and mind.

It can also be a prelude to friendliness or intimacy; an allowing into your life of another influence you do not immediately feel is your own conscious will. It can indicate sociability; dependence; alcohol dependence and the loss of ones control over oneself.

The Daily Express reported that “a nap can be spoiled by a nightcap” and that “a wee dram before bedtime…causes insomnia and robs a night’s rest of its restorative powers”. This research evaluated the impact of drinking before going to bed on heart rate and sleep. The study involved 10 university students, who were given low levels, high levels or no alcohol to drink before bed. Drinking higher doses of alcohol was found to reduce the amount of REM sleep, and resulted in a shallower sleep during the latter half of the night. It also appeared to adversely affect the part of the brain that usually controls the body during sleep. From this, the researchers concluded that the alcohol had disturbed the restorative effects of sleep.

In 2015 it was shown that even the lowest amounts of alcohol can lead to Alzheimer’s.

In an inner sense the wine or spirit represents a life changing influence, an influx of power or potential – i.e. a deep self acceptance allowing new and often life-changing experience and energy both from within and from other people and events. In this sense the alcohol or spirit is probably used by the unconscious because the conscious self often feels helpless, or has to surrender control, in order to allow the upflow of what is potential or innate within you to emerge. It therefore relates to drunkenness – drunk with the spirit.

Here is a man experience of exploring his dream about being drunk because men had poured alcohol into him.

As I allowed this I had a deep sense that this represented a profound self acceptance, but also an acceptance of my life situation. I can see this in that I am no longer struggling to climb out of building work or common everyday life. The men I felt as ordinary everyday life experience, and they were pouring the spirit of life on and into me. In other words the acceptance of everyday life opens to a connection with the roots of life within oneself – life that is both common and ordinary, yet profound. At this first part of the dream I also had an image that I was drinking the blood of thousands of human beings. I don’t mean I was drinking lots of blood, but that I was drinking the essence of their blood. This had in it the experience of taking in a huge realm of everyday life. It was the taking in, the acceptance of a wide range of human experience – everything from deep sexuality to religious realms of the supersensual. This I felt was what the wine used in Mass represented.

I believe there is an obvious difference between dreams that warn us of overindulgence or dependence upon alcohol, and those that use it as a symbol of an influence emerging from your infinite potential. In the former, negative feelings of one sort or another appear in the dream. In the latter some aspect of a transforming influence is seen.

Beer Social relaxation; social acceptance – ‘with a glass in my hand I’m one of the lads’; mood change; sedative to drown loneliness or emotional pain.

Champagne Luxury; richness; worldly success; celebration or prelude to sexual relationship. But in life it is a killer of the Life urge in us, as is any alcohol. I wonder if that was why Islam bans alcohol drinking.

Example: I was in a holiday community in which worked. It was a warm sunny atmosphere, and I noticed a wonderful feeling growing in my body with a sense of expansion. A few days into that feeling I was invited to a woman’s party and champagne was being drunk. I was offered some but refused but a woman friend said I was being a downer and poured me half a glass of champagne. I felt nothing unit the next morning when the wonderful feeling was gone and I felt empty of any feelings, especially the feeling of wonder that had been growing in me. So although people use champagne as a great source enjoyment I felt it was only a deadening substance that people maybe use to cover up their own loneliness and joylessness.

Whiskey or spirits: Similar to beer or wine. May be used to refer to the inner power that can spontaneously express through one.

Edgar Cayce said that whiskey is the ancient symbol of evil spirits based on actual clairvoyant sightings of the entities that hang around and attach themselves to the alcoholic fumes, the bottle, the person, or the place where these drinks are served. Often these entities or spirits attach themselves to the habitual drinker, actually urging him to drink more. Whiskey can also be a means of oblivion, escape from reality, a stimulant (temporarily), and a depressant.

Wine I dreams may represent sociability; relaxation; social pleasure; the strange mystery behind the existence of self-awareness; blood or the flow of life force. The possible reason that wine, especially red wine, has become a symbol of the human spirit is most likely due to its method of production. The separate ‘lives’ of thousands of grapes were squashed so their life blood would pour into a common vat. This then underwent a magical transformation by yeast which turned it into alcohol. The connection here is that people who have a direct experience of God or of the spirit, experience it as a unification of all that has lived and is living. The experience of countless human lives has been linked and transformed into a vast sea of wisdom and heightened awareness. It is this we ‘drink’ when we touch our own union with the ocean of awareness that is our spirit. See: blood.

Example: We went to the same restaurant. This time it was narrower. We drank red wine from large goblets. On reaching for my goblet I knocked it over. The wine spread rapidly and I thought it was blood. I felt fear and ran from the dining room. Next I was sitting on a camel, being led by another girlfriend of mine. It was down a street where I had worked. It is called Hope Street. H. B.

The dream shows the connection the unconscious often makes between wine and blood. It shows how the alcohol produces transformations that lead the dreamer to experience fear. In other words the dreamer fears what emerges as the changes occur. Even so there is then the emergence of hope.

Example: I was sitting in a boat. It was a small sailing boat, on the sea. In one hand I was holding an ash tray with a joint, in the other hand was a glass of wine. I realised I couldn’t steer the boat while I was holding both. Bitz.

This dream clearly shows how the dreamer’s habits of drinking and smoking leave him unable to steer the ?boat? of his life properly.

Example: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. The King James Bible. Acts 2:2

Alcohol can represents the activity of a transforming process upon you. One that can change the way you act for better or worse. You need to consider your dream to see which of these it is. Also represents stimulation, relaxation, and a way to face inner anxieties, even if only temporarily. It can also refer to the way you deal with difficult feeling, by drowning them in drink. Or it might relate to sociability in some way, or the escape from the humdrum events of life. See: Coffee.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this dream about a transforming influence, or a dependent need I have?

If this is about a transforming influence in my life, can I identify it and use it?

What does the action of the dream suggest about the influence of the alcohol in my life?

What effect is the alcohol having on me in the dream?

If no alcohol is being drunk in the dream, what is the dream indicating about it?

See Processing Dreams to gain further meaning from your dream.

Alcoholism

See: Addicted.

Alien

This usually indicates urges or feelings you find difficult to identify with; feelings of being an outsider in a group or society. The alien can also depict something very new and previously not experienced in regard to your own potential or mind.

Frequently the alien in your dream represents aspects of your mind that have not previously been consciously experienced and so may seem frightening or difficult to understand. Considering that estimates suggest that we only use one tenth or less of our potential, it is not difficult to see that a large mass of our own inner functioning and experience are normally unknown and is called ‘the unconscious’. It is therefore not surprising that we have ‘aliens’ in our dreams and experience.

When some part of this unknown area of yourself emerges, or presses for attention, one may depict it as an alien. Quite often in dreams, or in UFO sightings, the meeting has a strong type of religious feelings. I believe, through investigating this experience, that feelings of awe and veneration often occur when fear is absent and we meet a vastly bigger intelligence or vision of life – even if it is our own unconscious content we are confronting.

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals. The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves.

But it is not usually realised that the whole phenomena of dreaming can occur while awake and you are in a receptive state of mind. Any visions, voices heard or hallucinations are all the product of the dream process breaking through the barrier that usually only allows such things while asleep. If you have had such an experience you will see, if you think about it, that as with dreams, images, people, voices appear as if outside you. That is exactly the work of dreams, which project a whole dream, its drama and characters, onto the screen of our sleeping mind. See Visionary for more information.

Because we are not used to knowing or seeing this wider and huge self our first feelings are that we are possessed by an alien being, or some dark shape or unknown creature. Remember that even while awake the Life will can control movements and thoughts. So any alien or strange thing that you experience needs to be treated like a dream.

That is not to say they are vague inconsequential fantasies, because they are attempts of your Core self – the ET of yourself – trying to communicate a much wider awareness of what you are. Yes, an ET. This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will.

As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. So much of our inner enormity is held back by the way we live and our cultural attitudes, that when it does press to emerge it might very well be depicted by our dream making process as an alien of a flying saucer. Nevertheless, often in dreams we feel the alien as an enemy or something to be frightened of. This is not correct, for this is like saying there is reason to fear oneself. In the short term this may be rational as some of our own urges may not be dealt with well, and so may be dangerous. But in the long term we can meet ourselves. See:  Life’s Little Secrets; The Two Powers; Accept all that you Are.

Example: This morning I woke up and as I opened my eyes and sat up there was this alien creature there in front of me. I was amazed and felt wonder because it was real and solid and was trying to communicate with me. I felt so much love for this strange creature and its attempts to communicate even though I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. Then suddenly a switch must have been tripped inside me and I understood and knew the alien. It was my wife, and she was saying, “Tony, turn over you’e snoring.” I must have been coming from a level where my language centre hadn’t yet been switched on and I was seeing my wife as a delightful alien. Example: I then tried to feel my way into the alien. Powerful feelings again – fear – anxiety. Part of it was the feeling engendered by my father’s death. Here one-day, gone the next! But then I got through to seeing and understanding, feeling the underlying alien. It was part that in me, or of me, that watches other people’s reactions to my emotions; watches without feelings, except for cynicism and plotting. But more than anything else, it is my fear of loss of self. I had been thinking of this lately. One loses self to enter the unification of all opposites. I had read this description in the fourth level of psychedelic experience. It was also the fear of being possessed by something “alien” such as I had felt about sex, about having no problems, about the Zen meditation, the void, the egolessness. Example: Taken from a TV interview. “I felt a strange feeling up my spine, like rush up my spine right up to the top of my head. Then I was in a meadow and there were aliens there, not the grey ones but slight and slightly see through. A female alien was holding her baby in front of her, and if I were religious I would have felt it was Mary and her baby.”

This last one has all the signs of an altered state of conscious experience. Also very much likea kundalini energy rush which leads to expanded awareness. The baby and mother is another sign or expanded awareness and so links her with an archetype of motherhood, so she feels in contact with the divine. Devoured by aliens: Forces, fears, neuroses, at work in you that use up your potential energy, and stand in the way of easy self expression.

Example: I had been told by a woman I used to work with, that I was to photograph a wedding near the Aldwych in London. I went there but there was no wedding. I was then in an underground series of tunnels, helping to paint the floor of the large rooms. Then someone killed the woman friend because she would not tell them the short cut through the tunnels. The short cut was then open and people were coming through to where I was painting. I looked to my right through the doors of the large room and saw strange alien type creatures. I felt a bit anxious. They were like skinless creatures. Now I was walking out of the town. It felt like the end of the world, or the end of society. I was walking through lots of churches standing on a hillside, surrounded by grass. They were of all types, strongly built but empty now. I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD. Peter M.

Although the drama in the dream does not present a clear and obvious story, the dream does have symbols of unity in the wedding, of the unconscious in the underground, of the previously unmet aspects of self in the aliens, then the meeting with the religious feeling in the Shepherd and Peters joy. The end of society and the empty churches were representative of the changes going on in Peter’s attitudes and understanding of himself in relation to his own mind and religion.

Example: I left the house and went to the church nearby. I opened a door on the left side of the church but shut it quickly because ‘something’ was there. Five or six priests came and knelt down at the front of the church. The Reverend from my local church started talking and I hurried out, not wanting to get involved in the service. I then went to the side of the church and opened the door where the ‘something’ was. I could now see what it was. It was a being from another planet, completely human, but with a furry body and tail. It had a son with it. I slammed the door because I was afraid, but the catch did not connect and the door opened again. I threw a book in for the aliens to read. They threw out a book for me to read. It had loose pages – like my ready reckoner. I put them in order and read the story and lived some of it. As I read some of the words were in alien symbols, but I could understand them. Gradually the book changed to alien words. I/it progressed. All the lines sloped down from left to right. Now the sky was like a vaulted or squared ceiling. The two aliens looked down from one of the open squares and called. There was an answering call from two others of their kind. I knew these were the only ones on our planet. I also knew that they had to completely be themselves. I wondered why, and they told me it was because their whole race was within them. Peter M.

This is a dream of Peter’s that occurred at later date and shows his religious feelings, the church, directly presenting him with something alien. This new experience is gradually seen as himself – ‘I now looked within myself and also began to see all of them within, and was becoming like one of them’. Not only is Peter accepting this aspect of himself more fully, thus not seeing it as completely alien, but also it presents him with a new type of awareness – a feeling of connection with all of his race. In fact Peter had been a loner and very independent, feeling disconnected from society as a whole. This massive change, with very deeply felt fears and joy, is depicted in the two dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening in my life that I don’t connect with, understand or feel is alien to me?

If I identify with the alien creature or thing, what feelings or facets of myself do I encounter?

Can I recognise from the dream the feelings or fears I use to avoid or meet with this alien facet of myself?

For help doing this see Processing Dreams and What we need to remember about dreams.

Alive

In some dreams there is a great feeling of extraordinary aliveness, or there is a particular emphasis on the difference between being alive and dead. This usually refers to the dreamers potential of positive feelings and energy. The dream might even compare the two.

Example: I was alone in a house and asleep in bed. Something materialised or landed on the foot of the bed. It woke me a little and I felt afraid. I had the feeling it was some sort of entity materialising and coming for me in some way. It moved up the bed a little. I felt paralysed, partly by fear but also as if the ‘thing’ was influencing me. This made me more afraid of it. Then it moved up higher, not on my body but on the bed. I was very afraid and struggling against the paralysing influence. I managed to shout at it – “I will destroy you. I will destroy you”. As I shouted I pushed at it with my hand. This felt to me as if I were going to will its destruction and use my hand to smash it. I still felt a little uncertain of the outcome but I was very determined to fight it. At this point I woke up or was awakened by my wife. She asked me what I had been dreaming. Apparently I had been pushing her and shouting that I would destroy her. David P.

David explored his dream in depth and describes his insights as follows –

I started by considering the recent nightmare of the ‘thing’ at the foot of my bed. Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing. The ‘thing’ seemed at first to be a woman’s vagina. There was a little feeling in this but not much. Then it slowly grew in intensity and I realised the ‘thing’ was death. Recently it is obvious from the mirror that my body is going through another period of rapid ageing. The dream was a dramatic representation of my feelings about this. Death was gradually creeping up on me, gradually overwhelming me and I was fighting it. As the session deepened I saw that in my feelings I felt that death had put its finger on me. The touch of death was like a disease though. Once touched the disease was incurable and gradually took over one’s body. I could hardly breathe as I experienced this, and I understood the sort of emotions that might lie beneath asthma attacks. This struggle with death went on for some time. It was not terrible but was felt strongly. I also recognised that my wife. Deb, has similar feelings about her ageing, and is communicating to me that her body is dying and unclean, especially her genitals, and this is off-putting. I see that when I shout I ‘I will destroy you!’ in a way it is my fear of being destroyed that is behind the emotion.

I began to wonder what to do about the situation. The feeling was that death was claiming me. So, I wanted to face the truth about death, whatever it was. I wanted to walk right up to it and look it in the face and know whether death meant a final end. If it did I would rather know. As I approached death like this by imaging walking toward the THING, my feelings went through an amazing transformation. All the tension left me. I felt good, positive, easy to breathe and with a sense of hope about life and death. This was so surprising and sudden I wondered what had produced it. I needed to be aware of how this change had occurred. So, I retraced my steps to look at death and try to understand why it had lost its power of fear.

At first I saw that my tension and sense of death being or giving a disease was due to a view I had of it. When we look at the world only through our senses, death is obviously a terminal sickness that claims everyone. Someone said on TV the other day – Life is a sexually transmitted disease that produces a 100% mortality. Seen in this way death is the rotting corpse, the skeleton. The path to it is disease or breakdown. But in looking it in the face I saw another view of it. I saw the dead body, the corpse, the skeleton, as a form left behind by the process of life. When I looked at myself to see what ‘David’ is – I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms. I am Life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream what attitude allows or creates this feeling of aliveness?

Do I diminish the feeling in any way, and if so how?

In what ways does this differ from my daily sense of myself, and what can I learn from that?

See Talking with the Dead; Near Death Experiences; Life and Death.

 

Allergic Allergy

This may be showing you an actual allergy you have. Or it might be used symbolically. In this case you need to consider what the allergy in the dream depicts. Look it up in the dictionary if possible.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What event, food or other substance might I be having trouble coping with?

Is there something I have a strong feeling reaction to that I need to be aware of – aware that is of how my strong feelings affect me?

If the dream involves people am I not seeing what a bad reaction I have to someone?

You might find it helpful to use Talking As and Processing Dreams

Alley

This is a direction you are taking at the moment. The dream shows you the often hidden side of what you pursue, so the condition, mood and quality of the alley is a comment on what you are doing or feeling. Because most alleys are small, it may be saying you are leaving the main highway of your life. See: road.

Like any road it indicates your prevailing direction in, or approach to, life – this direction/approach can be either self created out of your own actions or decisions, or arise out of other peoples or social influence. But the alley suggests limited possibilities or horizons, or present limited possibilities will be overcome with effort and initiative. The ease or difficulty in the alley shows the state of your present situation.

An alley with a dead end suggests concern about a tight situation that appears to have no easy way out.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What situation in my life does this describe – limited opportunities, lessened horizons?

What is the main action in the dream and is there any connection with situations in my life?

How would I describe my situation in the dream – i.e. happy, lost, searching, etc – and in what way does that link with my waking life?

Am I walking this alley or looking down it – if the latter, what opportunity or difficulty does this suggest?

Am I involved with other people, and if so in what way?

Where am I going or what a I trying to achieve?

Alligator Crocodile

Feelings or fears of being attacked or overwhelmed, possibly from within oneself, or by a powerful mother – i.e. ones internal dependence upon mother. There is so much about ourselves we do not know, and when a new aspect of us, or a much larger power within us emerges – like and great creature from our depths – we react to it with fear. See Autonomous complex

The alligator and crocodile often represent a hidden form of treachery, apparently harmless until it opens its mouth to eat us, such as that of a person spreading malicious rumours or trying to undermine us in some way. Another attack from deep within can be from repressed emotions.

But the alligator or crocodile as a dream creature is not the same as an external alligator. It is an enormous creature from your own depths, your inner self or core self – the part of you that you are not aware of and are frightened of. See core

The alligator or crocodile is similar to the serpent and depicts the power of the emotions, influences and experiences emerging from the unconscious. If you do not relate to your unconscious urges constructively, conflict can occur. Then you may feel fear of these forces within you – fear of being swallowed, or dragged into dark feelings. That is, of being carried away, or possessed, by fears, urges, ideas, arising from within, or fear of the irrational.

The Egyptians worshipped a crocodile as a guide to the dead in the underworld. It represents not only a threat, but also a wealth of wisdom about unconscious things. It possibly represented the forces of the unconscious because of the observation of the crocodile emerging from hidden depths to lay its eggs on the river bank. In this sense the crocodile or alligator in some dreams represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Depending upon the dream, the crocodile may well depict your fears about your inner hugeness. When we meet this it shows a personal awareness of merging with the many lives held in the collective unconscious. It is illustrated by the Christian idea of being cells in the body of Christ. We retain individual life, but know ourselves as part of an eternal life. This is possibly a natural stage in ageing, as our physical prowess and motivations fall away, this immense inner life begins to open to us. See The Life Will

As some people keep pet alligators, there might be a very personal meaning if one has actually kept an alligator.

Example: Now I looked at the large pool where the river surfaced. A woman swam in it, and was going to enter the tunnels. As I watched I saw some huge crocodiles swim toward her. With great speed and confidence she swam away, obviously being able to match the threat. A group of people in the pond, through their group strength, also dealt with the crocodiles.

Example: I can remember that in the dream another person and I, a male but very indistinct and shadowy, were facing mythical creatures in some sort of odyssey. A strange sort of crocodile or alligator type creature was supposedly attacking me. I had mixed feelings about this. Partly I felt there was nothing to fear about the creature, but another feeling was that it might be able to do some damage. In fact it was biting me across my chest, but all I felt was a very strong tickling feeling that made me laugh.

Example: Now a huge unknown creature began to enter into my awareness. I felt the presence of an enormous creature rising to the surface of something like a swamp or a body of water. At first I thought it might be a whale, but as I paid attention to what was happening it defined into a huge crocodile.

This huge creature looked at me and said, “Mathew, join me.”

I laughed at this because it was so huge, and with so many associations of swallowing things, that I said something like, “What do you mean join you? Don’t you mean that you want to eat me?”

The creature replied to me, “No. No, it’s not like that, I’m just like a submarine. I have all these lives in me. I have many, many lives in me. I am life. I contain the many. You can swim this ocean alone Mathew, if you wish. Or you can join me, you can join the many. You can always, if you choose to live your independent life again and  leave us.”

I laughed here because I had the image of me being independent, stripping off, diving over the side of the boat into the ocean and swimming off. It is something I have often done in the sea, swimming long distances alone, or off to an island out to sea, by myself.

I began to give myself to that great creature which I now understood as the collective unconscious, the unity of lives. It felt as if it was absolving me, much as I had experienced earlier on. (One of those strange and beautiful, and also moving coincidences just happened. I am reading this in using voice recognition, and it is proving to be very accurate. But in the sentence where I said that I felt it was – and the word was supposed to be absorbing me – the software used the word absolving. And here I am again, back in the ocean, weeping as I know there is no judgment on the life I have led so alone and cut off.)

 

Useful questions and hints:

What does the alligator represent to me?

What do I know about them?

Am I feeling threatened or carried away by any fears?

In what way is my intuition or awareness reaching beyond myself ?

Do I feel myself part of a larger whole?

See See Summming UpReaction to the unconsciousSecrets of Power Dreaming

Allow Allowed

This is a very powerful word. It usually deal with what you allow yourself to be, to express, to do and to dare. It can be the huge divide between satisfaction and a life of frustration. It also links with our decision making, how we decide to allow our sexual feelings, our love, our energy and our life to be. It also rests upon what we understand about yourself. Without a good understanding of what we are and how we work we can make a terrible mess of our decisions and what we allow. It is important to read What we Need To Remember about Dreams and Life also The Mammalian and Reptile Brain. The reason being that if we do not understand where our urges and drives emerge from we will not be able to decide what to allow to express and what to avoid, and that can lead to terrible results in our life.

The other thing about allowing is that if you have an allowing attitude to your core self or highest self it can bring amazing things to you because it allows you to grow beyond yourself. See The Keyboard Condition and The LifeStream.

Example: In fact I can allow myself to be free to wear something beautiful the way I feel about myself changes. It isn’t that I have to make a big effort to be good, I realised many years ago that growth happens naturally, and if I allow it the goodness shines out by itself.

Example: Actually the thing is I had to break up with my boy friend almost two years back because my parents didn’t allow me.

Example: I am in a room with 3 other women. I’m tired. It’s late at night. I sit on a woman’s lap. We are wearing costumes of some kind. She has her arms around me and kisses me. She tries to “French kiss” me. At first, I don’t let her. Then I do. It’s not a French kiss, like with tongues. It’s like touching the core of something. The lips, a regular kiss, were there and in the center, like in the center of a flower, was a moist, tender, very sensitive to feeling something. We touched “cores.” I felt slightly repelled but allowed it to happen. Something in my mind was assuring me this is O.K. It’s always been forbidden but now it is O.K. and nice to do. It is important to do. She holds me in a caring way.

The examples illustrate the differences between allowing and not allowing. The last example shows how the woman allows herself to experience her core self.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream are you allowing or not allowing?

If you are allowing what is it you are allowing – ask yourself where does the impulse come from?

In the past when you allowed this to happen what was the results?

See People’s Experience of LifeStream and Talking As.

Alone

Being alone in a dream expresses one’s sense of isolation, feelings of loneliness or independence, depending on dream feelings. Feeling alone can be a sign of dependence, you need someone else to feel complete – though this seldom works out. See Beware of Love.

In many dreams being alone expresses a fear of attack or being overwhelmed. If you feel happily independent then you have achieved a great deal. See Individuation.

Idioms: Go it alone; alone together; alone = all-one.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel okay about being alone in the dream or in waking life?

Are any feelings or fears about independence indicated or relevant?

What is the theme and drama of the dream adding to the aloneness?

See The Trackless Way; Identity And Dreams.

Alphabet

May refer to something basic to learn, being learned, or that you learned in childhood. It can also link with separate things that when put together in the right way can lead to an understanding or meaning.

But like numbers, the alphabet is the pieces outof which we make words and can express ourselves with. So it is the buildign blocks of enormous creativity. The thing is, can we put them together?

Useful questions are:

Could this be about ‘lessons in life’?

Am I or do I need to learn something from the beginning?

Are you feeling like a child in some way?

If you put the pieces of your experience together can you arrive at a clearer understanding?

Can you be creative?

Altar

Symbolises the sense of awe in face of life, nature or God. Also willingness, in face of this, to sacrifice some personal desires, to that of a universal desire. Schweitzer has said that a man who picks a worm out of a puddle is acting for life as whole, not just personal self.

Self giving – this can be a very positive action, or a sort of self punishment out of guilt. It can also represent standing before what you feel is of immense importance in life. Altars can link with a place of death, but also of rebirth, and thus a meeting with the universal life of which you are a part, and an connection with it through self sacrifice or surrender. The altar may be used to represent your feelings about other people sacrificing you to their needs. In which case you need to define what your needs are.

Standing before the altar is something we do on special occasions such as getting married, communion, birth or dying. So depending on the contents and context of the dream, there may be a reference to one of these. In this sense the altar is a link between the visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious elements of you. Like the sarcophagus it can also represent death and rebirth. As such it is a place of change, and may be a play on the word ‘alter’.

What is on the altar: As the altar is basically a point of transformation and sacrifice, what is on the altar may suggest what you give the highest value to in your life, and what you worship; perhaps what you are sacrificing.

See: death and rebirtharchetypes; church.

Gradually my being became quieter and quieter. My breathing slowed down so much it seemed almost non-existent. I had a feeling of my peripheral, changing self, slowly dying in ashes to reveal what all the world is seeking. I felt that as my peripheral self died, there was the possibility of this other part of my being shining through more brightly. Brenda was still beside me, and I had the sense of my body being an altar on which the exterior me had burnt away, revealing an eternal quality, and Brenda, other people, receiving it, worshipping it. There was nothing personal or worthy of self praise about this, because all had this central being. But I never really seemed to experience this thing. It never shone out. In the end I wondered if what I was experiencing was yet another cul-de-sac one is led to believe the Self is found through – that is by letting the outer self die.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I ‘giving up to God’, or some higher power?

Does this represent something I hold in the most high esteem?

Is there a transforming influence in my life?

What is being altered?

Do I feel I am sacrificing myself in some way?

See Processing Dreams.

Ambulance

Most dreams about an ambulance involve feelings of emergency, or panic. Often the dream involves some injury or life threatening situation to someone, so therefore concerns the stress felt by some part of our personality. See: accident.

How to deal with such anxiety is important and it can be done – but not without work.  

Useful Questions and Hints:

What has happened, or is happening, to make you need external help or feel in an emergency situation?

Are you feeling anxious about a family member of someone close?

What emergency or injury is shown in the dream, and how might this relate to your daily life?

Is it easy to get help in the dream – if not are you feeling alone and unsupported? It might help to read and use Dealing with Fear.

Ambush

If you are being ambushed: Anxieties about how other people are relating to you. It could be you are suffering paranoia about being a victim; or possible difficulties in relationships or work. Certainly it seems as if you feel you are in a difficult situation and maybe surprised. You can try using the following to change the situation: Carry the Dream Forward.

If you are staging an ambush: Desires to get the upper hand of a situation, or trying to outwit or take advantage of some aspect of yourself or someone else.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel trapped or compromised in any way?

Do you feel somebody is trying to get the better of you in some way?

Are you in some sort of battle with someone or an organisation?

Perhaps this is a time to look around carefully and access the situation?

Try using Processing Dreams.

America

If you live in America then it expresses your feelings and experiences of the culture and politics you are immersed in. What is  America for you, a land of opportunity and freedom, or a land of subjugation? It will help to define what it is by using Talking As.

If the dreamer does not live in America and is not American: Could associate with opportunity; material wealth; dreams to do with success, whether in love or business; recognition; extremes. See: abroad.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you associate with America?

What is my view or experience of it?

What are the events and setting of the dream saying about my relationship with America?

If I take out the word America from the dream and write down what my feelings are, what would I say?

It might help if you use Processing Dreams.

Amethyst

Common beliefs about the amethyst is that it has an influence connected with healing; and dreams. Moses described it as a symbol of the Spirit of God. It is also said to offer protection against drunkenness – in fact the Greek word ‘amethystos’ mean ‘not intoxicated’. See: jewels.

Like any jewelery it can have a lot of personal associations, such as who gave it, what associations with family, etc.

It is said to be a bringer of dreams and visions and protection against being carried away by spiritual elation or inner influences. Also a healing influence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feelings about the amethyst in the dream, and how can I translate that into my waking life?

Can you define what you believe the jewel’s influence is before you dreamt of it?

Does it have anything to do with wealth?

What happened in the dream that might give clues to the dream meaning?

What part is the amethyst playing in the dream, and what does that suggest?

Use Processing Dreams to aid in doing that.




Ammunition

This may indicate pent up feelings that if expressed could be harmful to yourself or someone else. Or it could suggest information or feelings of being ‘armed’ against someone else’s attack or as protection against the world. As such it points to attitudes or strong feelings that you use to protect your own feeling or vulnerability.

If it is something someone else has: Things that you feel others can use against you, such as lies, criticism, anger, etc.

If it is something you have: Attitudes or thoughts you use to bolster your confidence; things you feel or think that could be used to wound other people or even yourself; ways you defend against other peoples attack.

Lacking ammunition: Feeling without hope regarding a difficulty you are involved in, perhaps an emerging conflict with a partner or at work.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the ammunition play in my dream, and can I identify what that reflects of my daily life?

What do I feel about the ammunition or bullets, and where does that feeling arise in my life?

What might this do to me, or how am I reacting to it?

What am I using or planning to use the ammunition for or against?

Am I using the ammunition in the dream – if so what against, and how does that relate to my waking life?

What do I feel about the ammunition in the dream, and when do I experience those feelings in waking.

Use Talking As to help define the dream meaning.

Amnesia

The example below says only too clearly how one may often forget things that are so important, and fall into old habits. The woman David was sleeping with was someone from his past he was unhappy with. A dream may often show this forgetfulness as the experience of sudden recall after a long period of not remembering. Both the loss of memory and the recall illustrate very real ways the mind works. Things that may have been of great importance to us, or caused powerful feelings at one time, are subsequently forgotten. Such experiences may not even be taken into account when making present decisions, and so literally one has a sort of amnesia regarding them.

Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.’ David H.

And here is another example of forgetting the awful things we have done.

Example: I was in a large house – probably the kitchen. I discovered a lock, bright and sparkling, that had its keyhole covered up. On it were drawn pictures of a young woman. I felt it was a part of the puzzle regarding the big house, and belonged to a room that was now so locked, and even the keyhole covered, that it had been forgotten and lost. Finding the lock was rediscovering the mysteries of the house. The room and lock associated with love for the young woman depicted on the lock – a very sentimental love. I felt very emotional just looking at the pictures. This part of the dream is very difficult to remember clearly, but there was a wooden snake and a rat that were eating breadcrumbs. I felt that the snake would have swallowed the rat if it could have moved faster, but it was hindered by its woodenness.

Then I was looking in a big cupboard, and found a clue to where the room of the lock was. This was to the number of salt sellers or something in the cupboard. A young man came in, he was Lord Montague, a homosexual. He said something like, “Hello, been up all night?” I couldn’t understand at first, then saw that the curtains were drawn, and it was daylight outside. I was surprised, and thought I must have been in unconscious, or in amnesia, and not known what I was doing. There was also something about having had homosexual relationship while unaware of what I was doing. The next thing was that I, as someone else, entered the “lost” room, with Montague. In it a young refined and lovely woman was kept prisoner by myself. This was because of a supposed adultery, of which she was in all likelihood innocent. I treated her as a prisoner, a thing, a coarse animal, to be hurt and belittled emotionally in every way my sentiments could. The servants were told that she had chosen to live the life of a nun. I made her strip off her clothes in front of the other man, and washed her, roughly. She was terribly sensitive about this, but endured it. Montague apologised to her again and again for the part he was playing in this. She told him not to feel too guilty. He also asked her how she did not go mad. She said not to talk of madness, as it was always a threat, but she had developed a true religious outlook and patience, that protected her.

One of the easiest ways
To find out who is a psuedopod
And who is a real person
Involves a simple memory test.
Ask the person if they
Can remember their childhood.
If they say, “Oh yes, I remember
My aunt Nellie telling me how I
Used to wet the bed.
I remember that.”
Well that is not real memory.
It is more like having photographs
That you are acquainted with.

Ask them if they remember being a baby.
Ask if they remember being in the womb.
Ask them if they remember their life in eternity.
The real self remembers all this.
After all it emerged from eternity,
Lived in the womb,
And experienced all those years until the present.

If you are suffering amnesia,
You are probably a psuedopod.

As for me, I was desperate to find my way back.
I saw the signs of my maladjustment
Everywhere I looked.
It was difficult to accept those signs.
Painful!
They were like being stabbed
With a hot knife.
They were in places
You don’t want to be dug.
They hurt too much – old wounds.
That is my story.

This is ground zero.
I am a reporter on the scene.
It’s rough going at the moment.
Maybe we are both pseudopods,
But I hold out my hand to you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting I have forgotten?

What has led me to forget this?

Is there someone or something I want to forget – and if so why?

The technique Talking As may help.

Amoeba

May relate to blind urges; basic cellular processes in your body; fundamental levels of awareness – i.e. being barely aware of something, but acting instinctively, or it could relate to sperm or ovum or reproduction. This might also relate to feeling your way instinctively in what you are doing. Amoeba’s engulf their prey, and if you know this it might figure in your dream in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I sensing from my body that links with the dream action?

Are there clues in the theme and drama of my dream as to what part in my life the amoeba is playing?

If I imagine myself as the amoeba what do I feel or experience? For help doing this see Processing Dreams.

Amputate Amputation Amputee

To lose the use of, or cut off by repressing, whatever the limb or body part represents. It can also suggest a loss of skill, ability or adequacy, sexual or otherwise. The amputation could also depict a fear of losing or of having lost whatever the limb or body part suggests. In some cases a depiction of old trauma that has left one less than fully capable

The dream might also express a desire to be inadequate in order to have an excuse to withdraw from the demands of life.

Amputation dreamt after having a broken limb or the cast removed: Fears regarding being inadequate after having only one good limb; the difficulty of having to adjust to being healthy – more can be demanded of us when healthy.

Example: This is not a dream, but is a powerful example of how the unconscious can produce very real sense of experiencing something as physically true, that is a mental phenomena. The account is by Phillip Zimbardo in the book Psychology and Life, published by Scott, Foresman and Company.

It was my first day back to work after recovering from a traumatic automobile accident. I was lucky to be alive with only torn ligaments in my leg and a concussion: the driver had been killed by the impact of a head-on collision. As I hobbled up the three flights of stairs supported by a crutch, my initial joy of returning to school was suddenly suspended. With each step I took a strange sensation occurred: I could ‘feel’ myself BECOMING my younger brother, George. Not IMAGINE ‘as if’ I were George, but being transformed physically to be him.

I perceived my face changing to be his face and my body doing likewise. My limp became more pronounced, and it took great strength to climb the last flight. In a panic, I shut myself in my office, not wanting anyone to witness this strange transformation. I avoided looking at my reflection in the window for fear I would see his face and not mine. Had I really become my brother or was I MERELY hallucinating?

Time passed during which I tried frantically to relax, ‘to pull myself together,’ and make sense of my distorted sense impressions. After all, I was a normal, serious scientist type not given to such flights of fancy. I lived by the reality principle.

My secretary and colleagues knocked and came into the office before I could say I was busy. They were worried by my abrupt disappearing act. They were relieved to see I was ‘my old self again,’ and I was relieved to see them responding to me as if I were Phil and not George. A glance at my reflection confirmed my hope. I had changed back, ‘or was no longer George….or George was no longer manifesting himself in me.’ Whatever? Weird, no? But why?

When we were children, George had infantile paralysis and for a time had to wear leg braces and walk with crutches. I would accompany him to therapy sessions and observe his frustration, embarrassment, and anger at not being able to function normally. Since we were only eighteen months apart in age, I could readily empathise with his feelings. I may have also felt guilty at being glad I too was not crippled. Once I recall volunteering to exchange places with him in the swimming pool exercises, but the nurse chided me, ‘being crippled is not fun and games young man.’ I was about four at the time.

As I hobbled up the stairs to my office some twenty five years later, the pattern of feedback sensory stimulation reactivated this pre-recorded motor action plan. Memories of George’s posture and movement were enacted. I had retained mimicry responses of his motor activity that I had observed so intensely. Now I was changing places with him, but not consciously and not volitionally. The suddenness and vividness of the hallucination was frightening because it was so real, yet at the same time contradicted my knowledge of reality. See: Body.

Amputating someone else’s body part: The other person could easily represent a facet of yourself you are denying full expression. If so define what you associate with that person by using the amplification method or role playing. It could also suggest a desire to injure someone; or a way you cut off their ability to interact with you or communicate.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I denying or repressing an important facet of myself?

Do I have any sense of not being adequate in any way suggested by the dream?

Am I angry or hurt about something enough to deny my full expression?

Have I made a decision at any time never to allow certain things in my life again?

Use Talking As to help.

Amulet

This may indicate something like the placebo effect, in which your belief acts as a healing and powerful support. The amulet focuses your feelings of confidence and gives you power to live and act more fully.

Useful questions are:

What is it the amulet is protecting me against?

Do I feel the amulet has any power – if so what is it protecting me against?

What is the action of the dream suggesting?

Amusement Park Carnival or Arcade

The playful or childlike exploration of experience. But it also has elements of the unknown or dangerous hidden behind a colourful exterior. In some dreams it might suggests the escapism we enter into sometimes in a relationship or in general, immersing ourselves in the noise and colour of life. The fairground can also be a testing oneself to define self image. This because some rides need a certain amount of courage or ability to face new experiences. There is also great variety here, and so might point to the varied experiences we are meeting and trying to find our way through or understand. See: fairground.

Particular rides:

Things like the merry go round might suggest a whirl of events, or even things spinning out of control. The dodgems or bumper cars involve the way we interact with others and avoid or bump into them. The rollercoaster might depict thrilling or dangerous risks you take or are exposed to, or point to sexual excitement. The ghost ride is to test your courage and to seek a partner.

Fear arising: You have a sense of the pervading dangers underlying the surface impression of events. Perhaps there is a fear of the unknown emerging even in what appears to be pleasurable.

If enjoying yourself: Enjoyment of the varied experiences being met at the moment.

Example: For the past year I have had recurring dreams about fairground rides. Occasionally members of my family, including my father have died on the rides. When I’m on the ride I’ve survived, but I can sense danger all around me. This dream is beginning to bother me. I am 15 years old. Laura

In the dream Laura is most likely trying to develop her own independent stance in life. About the age of seven through our teens we confront the realities of the external world. We realise family will die at some uncertain time as we age. The stance needed is one that enables us to live life fully, without being crippled by fears and insecurities. The fairground represents the ups and downs of life, its variety and uncertainties. There IS danger in almost everything we do in life. But there is also opportunity and the possibility of deep satisfaction. The challenge is what YOU will make of it? How will you play your part? Will you forever feel surrounded by danger, and thereby not fully express yourself? Or can you laugh and love while the ride goes on?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there situations in my life that I take seriously, but may only be superficial?

Is there a menacing aspect in my life that appears harmless on the surface?

What am I doing or looking for in this place?

Do I have a satisfying relationship with what I experience, or can I improve it?

What is happening in my life that connects with its up and downs and variety?

Use to Acting on your dream explore the many possible meanings.

Anaesthetic

This suggests an attitude or experience that is making you unconscious of what is going on. Something is deadening your feelings and sensitiveness.

This might indicate an experience of what it is like to die, or show an avoidance of painful emotions. Or it may depict you are deadening pain, or that there is great pain to deaden.

Being anesthetised can also be a way a dream illustrates the shifting from waking awareness to meeting the very different world of your unconscious inner world.

The reason anaesthesia may be linked with death is that the ego feels itself overwhelmed and thrust into the unknown or unconsciousness by the action of the drug. This may be felt as pleasant or unpleasant depending upon how well you relate to the loss of your waking power or will. See the two powers.

Films often use chloroform or an injection of an anaesthetic in a scene where the person is overpowered, and it can have the same meaning in your dream.

Useful questions are:

Am I ignoring feelings and emotions, or feeling emotionally numb?

Is something leading me to feel overpowered?

Does my dream give me an experience of what it is like to die?

Did this lead me into a shifted awareness – an entrance into my unconscious?

Try using Processing Dreams to understand your dream more fully.

Analyst

If someone who is helping you analyse your dreams appears in a dream, they usually represent the wisdom of your unconscious, or the difficulties you face in yourself.

An analyst, psychologist, psychiatrist in our dream depicts our self assessment. Depending on the dream, the self assessment may be supportive or self destructive. Our mind can transform itself in a number of ways. Sometimes one new piece of information, or a new mental discipline, can change the quality of all mental life. The analyst represents such power to transform, as well as the often avoided self awareness. Can also suggest fear about ones own mental strength and health; a source of wisdom; insight.

But it depends on what you feel about an analyst. Do you feel your relationship with the analyst it good; or is it a lot of money for a lot of talk; or is it paying through the nose for having someone listen to you? See: Psychoanalyst

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I getting real insight from my inner analyst?

Could I use him/her to give me more information by having a dialogue with my dream analyst. See Dream Dialogue.

Can I use any information to my advantage?

What is the subject of the dream – i.e. what aspect of life or behaviour?

Am I in conflict with the analyst – if so what is it I am fighting against?

Use Processing Dreams for more information.

Ancestors Forebears – Dreaming Of

The cause and intricate web of cultural and family influences, physically and psychologically, that your body and personality arose from. If it is a particular ancestor you dreamt of, then the personal associations with that person need to be explored. See Explore Dream Character

For instance an uncle may have been renowned for womanising, so would represent that tendency.

Ancestors can also link with deeply buried tendencies we have unconsciously inherited from the long past. Sometimes they point to the fate/karma we are dealing with – they are the difficulties or wonderful traits that arise in our life, that we cannot honestly see have been developed or collected in this lifetime. See: Conjuring Trick – guardian of the threshold.

Just as a fox cub ‘learns’ how to hunt from its parents without words, so we absorb the deeply etched negative and positive survival strategies of our parents simply by being around them. It is passed on for generation after generations. They never need to talk about it because usually the parents are unaware of it themselves. If genes come into it anywhere, they perhaps create the reflex response that instinctively draws in the survival tactics that perhaps even our parents themselves have never really been aware they live by. In doing this the higher animals learn what cannot be passed on as instinct, what is not ‘hard wired’ into them. This holds in it a tremendous advantage because ‘hard wiring’ takes a long time. Through this faster method we learn what to be afraid of, what to eat, how to hunt, because the lessons learned by pain through many generations are exhibited in our parents behaviour in dealing with events. This is the information we may obtain through dreaming of our ancestors. See The Conjuring Trick

We also have a huge heritage from the seed that grew in our mother’s womb. That seed didn’t suddenly appear, but was the collected experience of life from the beginning of life on Earth. So you as a personality are mostly the memories of this life stored in your brain, but without knowing it, you unconsciously have a huge past.

Example:  When I opened the door of the room I was overwhelmed by such a huge awareness of what had been left me as an inheritance by my ancestors that I sobbed for many minutes.  It wasn’t pain causing me to weep, but the intensity of what I experienced.  The strength, persistence, ability to love, as imperfect as it was, the sharpness of mind, the ability to exist within a modern community, were all gifts hammered out of raw human material by my forebears, enabling me to take the few further steps in life that I have. See House of the Ancestors for a fuller explanation.

Example: One of the things I am seeing at that the moment about symbols and dreams is how beautifully they hold tremendous amounts of information and meaning. I am thinking at the moment about the soil, the garden – they are so rich in meaning. Whatever our forebears did, whether they were deceitful and lying or courageous and strong, whether they had honour or were cowards, whatever they did, and perhaps over time they did everything, their lives were the drama that brought us into being. Their lives have given us the substance of our body and our personality. We are the heirs of that drama. What we grew from is what they left us. It was the heritage from the past. In dreams this is often represented as a piece of land, a garden. It was the piece of land – is the piece of land – that you inherited. Whatever that land might be, whatever its condition, that is what you have. Whether it is beautifully rich with orchards growing on it, or whether it is covered in rocks and brambles, that is your heritage.

Bemoaning the condition or being proud of the condition doesn’t change it. The thing is to take up your tools and develop that land. Let us fertilise it. Let us honour it. We can make it rich. We can enrich it because it is the real stuff and has in it all the potentials of life. Because of that, as rocky or as thorny as it might be, we have all that we need. On that land we can let the tree of life grow.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I learning or feeling about the ancestor?

Does the theme of the dream point to a facet of my life my ancestral connection is linked with?

If I imagine myself as the ancestor or ancestral dwelling, what arises in me?

Try Talking As to gain real insight into the ancestor.

It is so important to know the message of your ancestors that it is worth while using Processing Dreams.

Anchor Anchored

Some part of your make-up that holds you firm to a task or code, such as determination, love, etc. But it has a deeper meaning, for the anchor reaches the sea bed, or deepest part of your unconscious self, or inner self. Thus it suggests a power of resolve coming from deep within. Or it might suggest being tied down.

By itself the anchor represents stabilising influences, hope, steadfastness, perhaps attitudes or qualities, or even a relationship, which bring about the ability to ride changes and destabilising influences.

The anchor might also suggest reaching deep into the unknown of the ocean – the unconscious. See: boat.

To be anchored to something is different to anchor. It means to be fixed and in a position of influence. It can mean a relationship or situation to which you are fixed in a powerful way, positively or negatively.

If the anchor is not holding firmly or is not sound in any way, it suggests weaknesses in ones ability to meet changes and currents which influence the dreamer. Influences that are weakening your security, or difficulties in meeting the influences pulling at you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is your dream anchor secure or shifting – if it is, try to determine what powerful influences are influencing you?

Has something given me a greater feeling of security?

Is something preventing me from going places?

Try Talking As to gain real insight into the anchor or dream.

Ancient Antique Old

Anything old or ancient suggests it has existed for a long time, so it carries an enormous amount of experience, an enormous imprint of the past. This often links with wisdom or treasures of realisation, perhaps revealed by intuition.

But the dreamt of ancient or old thing may be pointing to a period of your life relating to the period the ‘old’ thing or person represents. It may also depict an attitude or way of life you have seen portrayed in historical drama or in a book or film. It can point to your past and the different lives you have lived – baby, youth, lover, parent, provider, or what is established and well worn, such as tradition and wisdom of folklore.

An old or antique building or place can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage. See The Conjuring Trick; ancestors.

But old can be connected with many things. In looking through a collection of dreams I find ‘old clothes’ which related to old attitudes and behaviour; ‘old shells’ from the war which indicated past difficult feelings and experiences; an ‘old woman’ who turned out to be a mother; his ‘old inadequate self’; ‘old group’ was about confronting my old social values; a ‘lady with big breasts and hips’ who has sex with the dreamer; another ‘old lady’ who is told to start work. This turned out to be an expression of the energies tied up negatively, the female love energies, the emotions, so they are no longer knotted in the problem, can work in ones outer relationships and activities, and so on. So it is important to see if you can feel any connection with the old thing or person. Perhaps using Being the Person or Thing; Talking As will help.

Old building: Past way of life; former life with family or another person. It can also sometimes link with ‘past dwelling places’. In other words old ways of life or even past lives. If it is very old it could be considered a house of the ancestors. See House of the Ancestors.

Old House or house previously lived in: A previous set of values or way of life, sometimes even a suggestion of influences from lives previous to your present one. If you can date the time you lived there, it probably is about the important developments or experiences that occurred there.

Old people: Wisdom; mother or father; past experience; traditions; old age or feelings about ageing; death. Also to do with what might be old and no longer useful in your life.

Old things or furniture: Past or outworn ways of life or activities. Or attitudes and a way of life lived at the time.

Example: ‘I am standing in a book shop. It is a long established business. As I look at the books I find two which are about the life of Christ. They are leather bound and hand written – quite ancient. Both seem to me to be about the author’s own inner life. I believe one is written from a religious viewpoint and the other from a more occult one. I am not attracted to either.’ Bill O.

 Bill is looking back on past attitudes, one religious, one occult, which had been big parts of his earlier life.

 Example: I am in an unknown old building with unsafe floors. I vaguely feel it belongs to my long dead father. Around me are rats, which have young. I am hysterical because they keep multiplying. People with me, unknown, although my husband is there, don’t seem to care about them. I usually wake shouting because one of the rats touches me. I am not frightened of rats when awake. Dorothy C.

The age of the building suggests there is some connection from a long time ago. The dream goes on to say the connection is with the long dead father. This is unclear because Dorothy has not yet made it conscious what the fear is that arose in herself from her relationship with her father.

ancient Usually suggests contact with parts of our being older than the development of the conscious self – such as cellular wisdom; life processes; accepted traditions or ways of life; wisdom of the unconscious.

antique Elements of our past experience which might be worth keeping; wisdom of unconscious. See: age.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How did I feel about the old or antique in my dream?

Have I any difficult feelings about my age or getting old?

Where did the antique appear in my dream?

See Being the Person or ThingThe Conjuring TrickLife ChangesBackground

Angel

This can indicate the positive side of relationship with your mother,  or it can be about your religious concepts. Sometimes it deals with feelings about or insight into death or even a need for a parent figure to guide or instruct in decision making, such as wisdom arising from your wider awareness. The Hebrew word for angel is malak, meaning messenger. As a symbol it would therefore represent your intuition of a wider truth than that encompassed by your present personal experience.

Traditionally there were many angels, and some of the greatest were said to be messengers for particular things, like the angel of death, or the angel of love. Such old concepts still hold sway in our unconscious, so it is helpful to consider if the angel in the dream has some particular quality, or is communicating a particular message. Also consider whether you are in accord or in conflict with the angel. If in accord it suggests that some deeply felt intuition is accepted by you. If in conflict then something that is powerfully influential deep within you is being rejected and is creating an internal conflict.

In a real way, because dream images arise from our own potential and are in some way expressions of us, angels are about the conscious use of our own faculties without the waving of magic wands. There is no need to attempt conjuring of spirits or angels. We are an expression of life and as such hold all possibilities within us. So the question is, how can we work with ourselves here and now, with our own psychological and biological processes? How can we help our being to heal itself and move further? See messengers

Well, even if we take that point of view, it is still helpful to enlist the help of such dream images. After all, dream link with a very deep part of us, a part not limited by logic, thinking and the past experience. As Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. So use your imagination and follow it where it leads. See Travelling Your Dreams and Using Visualisation.

Example: Then I was involved in the second group and at some point felt that I needed to demonstrate the ability to fly. So I ascended into the air and flew around the room. Hardly anybody took any notice of this except toward the end one small boy with large brown eyes was looking at me out of a large window somewhere above the hall in which the play was taking place. He was leaning against the glass looking at me. So I looked him straight in the eye and rose straight upwards with the most wonderful feeling of exhilaration shared with the child.

Then I became lucid and began to shift the dream in a particular direction. Firstly I brought the man and his wife together with myself in a communal embrace. Then together we lifted off into the air in flight, and in front of the children performing the play we did the most beautiful and colourful aero acrobatics. As we did these we were able to produce coloured lights flowing from us. Then in the end I created a great ball of coloured light that I broke into angels flying in the air and descending to touch the watchers. Then again into the ball which shattered into tens of thousands of coloured and shining pieces that gently fell like snowflakes touching those watching and disappearing into them sharing the wonder and beauty I felt flowing through me.

Example: Dreamt I was dead and was now an angel, but I was asleep. I seemed to be a separate witness to this, watching my sleeping angel self. The angel self also seemed to be neither male or female.

Example: Before I knew I was ill with cancer I dreamt that an angel came to me and explained that before we are born we are all angels and are without limitations. When we are born we take on a life of limitations in order to learn something important to us. Then when we die at the end of that life we return to being an angel. All the limitations of life then disappear again.’

Idioms: Guardian angel; like an angel; on the side of the angels; fools rush in where angels fear to tread. See: religion and dreams.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How does the angel appear and how?

What is my own belief about angels?

Am I aware of receiving a message or information?

Did the angel, even without words, communicate something to me?

Use acting on your dream to explore the wonder of it.

Angels

This can indicate the positive side of relationship with your mother,  or it can be about your religious concepts. Sometimes it deals with feelings about or insight into death or even a need for a parent figure to guide or instruct in decision making, such as wisdom arising from your wider awareness. The Hebrew word for angel is malak, meaning messenger. As a symbol it would therefore represent your intuition of a wider truth than that encompassed by your present personal experience.

Traditionally there were many angels, and some of the greatest were said to be messengers for particular things, like the angel of death, or the angel of love. Such old concepts still hold sway in our unconscious, so it is helpful to consider if the angel in the dream has some particular quality, or is communicating a particular message. Also consider whether you are in accord or in conflict with the angel. If in accord it suggests that some deeply felt intuition is accepted by you. If in conflict then something that is powerfully influential deep within you is being rejected and is creating an internal conflict.

Angels do not need wings to fly, but the church has added them and also the image of a male god up in the sky. Also most angels are shown as female, but again that is make believe.

Example: Dreamt I was dead and was now an angel, but I was asleep. I seemed to be a separate witness to this, watching my sleeping angel self. The angel self also seemed to be neither male or female.

This story, which was told to me by a doctor who wit­nessed it from beginning to end in the small Idaho hospital where it happened. A woman hed given birth to a baby with severe complications. When the child was delivered, he was found to have a severe brain hemorrhage.

The child spent several months in the intensive care unit of this small town because the mother did not want to transfer him to a large city where she would not be allowed to spend full time with him. Doctors decided not to encourage her to move the child since they felt the injuries were so massive that no treatment would be possible.

The child had severe cerebral palsy secondary to brain damage and a seizure disorder that had shown up on an abnormal EEG. These are afflic­tions from which children simply don’t recover. If they survive infancy, they spend their lives severely retarded.

The doctors told her their prognosis, but still the mother stayed with her child. By all accounts she was with the boy almost twenty-four hours a day for sev­eral months. Perhaps it was the strain of the ordeal or sleep deprivation that led to what happened next.

Late one night, she said, a Being of Light came into her hospital room. Later she described it as having the shape of a person, but not the features of either a male or a female. It glowed with a cold, gray light as though light were being beamed through an ice cube.

“Your son will be all right,” the being said.

The woman said that she felt as though love were being poured into her body. “It was marvelous.”

The next day she shared this vision with her medical team. She was especially excited because the being had assured her that her son was going to be normal. Could they please do another EEG to see if anything had happened? They repeated the brain-wave test and came up with the startling results: normal. The child had made a full recovery.”

“That the Divine is the same in things greatest and least, may be shown by means of heaven and by means of an angel there. The Divine in the whole heaven and the Divine in an angel is the same; therefore even the whole heaven may appear as one angel. So is it with the church, and with a man of the church. The greatest form receptive of the Divine is the whole heaven together with the whole church; the least is an angel of heaven and a man of the church. Sometimes an entire society of heaven has appeared to me as one angel-man; and it was told that it may appear like a man as large as a giant, or like a man as small as an infant; and this, because the Divine in things greatest and least is the same. ” Eckhart

In a real way, because dream images arise from our own potential and are in some way expressions of us, angels are about the conscious use of our own faculties without the waving of magic wands. There is no need to attempt conjuring of spirits or angels. We are an expression of life and as such hold all possibilities within us. So, the question is, how can we work with ourselves here and now, with our own psychological and biological processes? How can we help our being to heal itself and move further? See messengers

Well, even if we take that point of view, it is still helpful to enlist the help of such dream images. After all, dreams link with a very deep part of us, a part not limited by logic, thinking and the past experience. As Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. So, use your imagination and follow it where it leads. See Travelling Your Dreams and Using Visualisation.

Example: Then I was involved in the second group and at some point felt that I needed to demonstrate the ability to fly. So, I ascended into the air and flew around the room. Hardly anybody took any notice of this except toward the end one small boy with large brown eyes was looking at me out of a large window somewhere above the hall in which the play was taking place. He was leaning against the glass looking at me. So, I looked him straight in the eye and rose straight upwards with the most wonderful feeling of exhilaration shared with the child.

Then I became lucid and began to shift the dream in a particular direction. Firstly I brought the man and his wife together with myself in a communal embrace. Then together we lifted off into the air in flight, and in front of the children performing the play we did the most beautiful and colourful aero acrobatics. As we did these we were able to produce coloured lights flowing from us. Then in the end I created a great ball of coloured light that I broke into angels flying in the air and descending to touch the watchers. Then again into the ball which shattered into tens of thousands of coloured and shining pieces that gently fell like snowflakes touching those watching and disappearing into them sharing the wonder and beauty I felt flowing through me.

Example: Dreamt I was dead and was now an angel, but I was asleep. I seemed to be a separate witness to this, watching my sleeping angel self. The angel self also seemed to be neither male or female.

Example: Before I knew I was ill with cancer I dreamt that an angel came to me and explained that before we are born we are all angels and are without limitations. When we are born we take on a life of the limitations of our body in order to learn something important to us. Then when we die at the end of that life we return to being an angel. All the limitations of life then disappear again.’

Idioms: Guardian angel; like an angel; on the side of the angels; fools rush in where angels fear to tread. See: religion and dreams.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

How does the angel appear and how?

What is my own belief about angels?

Am I aware of receiving a message or information?

Did the angel, even without words, communicate something to me?

Use acting on your dream to explore the wonder of it.

 

Anger Angry

Whether you show or repress anger in dreams it is important. This is because like any other basic or instinctive response, anger uses tremendous resources of emotional and physical energy. The repression of emotional energy can be a key factor in the breakdown of health, and in the lack of positive and creative self expression. Blocked emotional energy tends to attack your sense of wellbeing and body if it is stopped from external expression.

In some dreams enormous anger is expressed, but it is accompanied by a sense of frustration because the anger brings no satisfaction. This may indicate it is still linked with childhood dependence, when our personal well-being was intricately bound with our parents, and we depended upon them for our good feelings. Of course, in some extreme situations in adult life, such as being a prisoner who is maltreated, our anger may actually be incapable of changing things, but expressing it in a safe way can do wonders.

Anger may be a way of hiding ones vulnerability or real pain. In this case, it is important to feel the anger and discover what is underneath it. Sometimes deep feelings from childhood emerge once the anger has been felt. Such a surfacing of encapsulated emotions usually brings about deep insight into why certain traits are so powerful in your nature.

Holding the idea that you do not need to restrain your anger in dreams can produce enormous changes in your dreams and in your everyday life. Tests with women who had dreams in which they failed to express anger, and who, in everyday life were passive in situations calling for assertiveness, showed that when they learned to express anger in their dreams, they became more easily assertive in daily life. See: aggression as it has useful information; hostility.

As an example of what anger can do in the body, I quote a piece from a man’s journal.

William massaged at the area and discovered a pea sized nodule. It was like a concentrated lump of pain. When he pressed I started moaning, crying, and that one point, laughing. I realised that not being influenced by anyone was a defence. Underneath that was the laughing. As William continued words started coming up by themselves. The cries of pain were real, but without linking with feelings. I felt this massage method could release the pain, but it would be like a dry labour, long and unnecessarily painful.

Later I found quite few of these nodules of pain on my back, and then I learnt how to really express anger from my past by beating hell out of cushions with a stick. Then slowly the nodules disappeared.

Example: Dreamt I was in the house in which I has lived with my with my ex wife. A toilet leaked out of its back. Beyond it I saw a room I had not known before. There was an old range fire. I thought it would heat the house. The room is cold and dusty, but I felt I could make it into a workroom for therapy.

While exploring the dream about a leaking toilet I discovered the following feelings and memories. For a long time I could get no feeling response about the dream. Then I drifted into a fantasy. In it I remembered times when I had frightened my two young sons by suggestions of my unexpressed violence; like the time I held my sons neck. I looked into his eyes and knew that with a flick of my fingers I could kill him. He looked at me and knew. My children must have known they were dealing with a dangerous animal. Survival for them meant the cunning, bravery or abasement necessary to deal with such a creature.

With these feelings alive I got into the room that was previously unknown and the toilet. The toilet was all the undealt with shit which arose between my wife and I while we lived together. The room immediately reminded me of the way I had described my awareness of my sexual stagnation during the first dream – like a room that had been closed for years and had been unopened. Everything had been left as it was. Perhaps a murder had taken place, and the powerful aura pervaded the whole place.

I had wanted to murder my wife. Unable to leave home because of my strong parental drive to shield the children from the agony of my going – unable to love my wife in my staying – torn between my own urges, I had wanted to kill her – truly a dangerous animal.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I satisfy my anger in the dream? (If not it is worth expressing it in some way while awake. Use a rolled up newspaper to hit an armchair or cushion with. See if you can get the feelings in the dream flowing.)

Can I feel what this anger connects with in waking life.

Is there a way I can assert myself without destructive anger?

It may  be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward and us Processing Dreams.

It can help to deal with anger and aggression by using The Cushion Technique.

Angling

This shows you creating a receptive state of consciousness that allows the deep insights or processes within you to become known. You are literally dipping into your unconscious levels of awareness to bring insights and intuitions to the surface. So you are trying to find spiritual nourishment, ‘fishing’ for ideas or information. You might even be fishing for compliments. See: fish and sea creatures.

When we fish in a dream or usually represents us creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the us to find things that are usually difficult to ‘catch’ with our normal mind. So it is like trying to bring things up from our memory that we have either forgotten or perhaps never ever realised before. So it is like trying to find spiritual nourishment. It might in some dream show us ‘fishing’ for ideas, compliments or information; seeking intuition.

Fishing rod: Male sexuality; personal power, or feelings of impotence.

Getting a new fishing rod: In a man’s dream might mean feeling anxious about his ability to ‘hook’ a woman. For a woman it could mean a desire to ‘catch’ a new man. In general the rod suggests the means of pulling something out of the unknown of life or your mind. So it could suggest intuition or skill in acquiring creative ideas, or something that nourishes.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What are your trying to catch, a partner, inner wisdom, something to deal with hunger?

Have I been looking within myself lately for creative ideas or understanding?

Has anything been caught, and if so what do I feel about it?

What do the events and environment of the dream add to my understanding?

Did you catch anything, and if so what did it make you feel?

Where you trying to hook objects –  if what memories do they link with?

Try talking as to define your dreams meaning.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are your trying to catch, a partner, inner wisdom, something to deal with hunger?

Have I been looking within myself lately for creative ideas or understanding?

Has anything been caught, and if so what do I feel about it?

What do the events and environment of the dream add to my understanding?

Did you catch anything, and if so what did it make you feel?

Where you trying to hook objects –  if what memories do they link with?

Try talking as to define your dreams meaning.

Anguish

To feel anguish in a dream seems to be that you are faced with something you cannot deal with emotionally or mentally. It can be the result of conflicting forces raging in you. Or it can be the surfacing of emotions from early trauma. See: emotions and mood.

Example: I had been in town all day with a woman I had fallen in love with. Then we had eaten out and it was wonderful to be together. We were waiting at traffic lights to change when she suddenly asked me to go into the hotel and she would be along shortly. So I went into our room and read a book, but my impatience to be with her got hold of me so I stood looking out of the window hoping to see her. But a terrible fear filled me, a fear that she had gone off with someone else, and as time passed I was in terrible anguish. I went out of the hotel and search for her without success. Then anger and anguish mixed into awful feelings. When I found her in the hotel shop nonchalantly browsing I felt like hell. But I recognised the feeling. It was the murderous rage I had felt when I was suddenly abandoned by my mother. So I felt I could not face her, but went for a walk till I calmed down. When I entered our room I was calm, without the raging volcano that had erupted in me. She asked me what had had happened and I explained as simply as I could, but was met with disbelief, and was accused of being angry with her. In fact I held no grudge against her, fully understanding my own inner torments. But she had come from such a loving family that she had no experience of such traumas, and had no way of understanding what had happened.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the cause of the anguish, and could you get beyond the surface feeling?

Was there an event which triggered it, or so are there any clues to it?

Is this an old feeling you have often?

It may help to understand if you read people’s experience of lifestream.

Also try using Processing Dreams.

Animal Situations

As a baby you were a small vulnerable animal, with all the natural instincts to feed, to survive, and to bond with your mother. This natural and spontaneous part of your nature is the foundation of what you have become now as an adult. Not only were you born with an enormous natural instinctive wisdom gained through millions of years of evolution, but your newborn self also carried protective responses such as fear, anger, and sexual longing. These are all built into your nature without any recourse to a self-aware personality. But our animal self has the inherited wisdom about survival and relationships, parenting and finding a mate. There is a lot to learn from it, and it is a wonderful resource. See Animal in your Brain.

But what many people find is that they are frightened of their dream animal, or have never learned to help it evolve into the human world. This means that many people have a great lack in themselves and in their dreams they have to meet and work with the animal in them. As a child we are often told not to do things that would allow to mature with our animal self intact. Dream images are our fears, angers, love and thoughts clothed in pictures and drama. If you are frightened of a dream animal it is your fear clothes in the image of an animal. See What do You bring to Your Dreams?

These inbuilt traits are represented or depicted in your dreams by various animals and the situations your dream process places them in. Without feelings of fear for instance, you would, especially during childhood, enter into situations that could be life threatening. These dream animals illustrate the many natural responses you have to events and people you confront. Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in your dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning.

Useful questions:

What feelings are connected with my dream animal – fear, anger, love, wisdom – and in what way is that entering my life?

Is this an animal I know in life – if so what are my feelings or experience of it?

What is the dream animal doing, and metaphorically, wha is that suggesting?

Perhaps try the suggestion here Talking As

Animal with its young: Parental feelings; your basic childhood needs; your childhood experience of being parented.

Animal you love killed or died: This can often suggest great emotions being faced, Sometimes the shock is almost as if you have lost a child.

The difficulty might be trying to balance the mass of experiences of sharing you had the the loved animal. Suddenly you are faced by a complete contradiction, the living and the dead animal you are no faced with. It might be helpful to sit quietly an remember what feelings you had inside you as you hel or were near to each other, and then dwell in them.

Love can change the way dead pets experience their life after death, as this example illustrates.

Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!

Attacked by an animal: See: Wild animal(s) attacking.

Attacked sexually by an animal: This might be showing you feelings about sexual assault. If it does the animal side of the person who attacked you is probably indicated in some way. If you can meet it with your own anger it might have a healing effect.

Baby animal: A baby – sometimes connected with pregnancy; yourself when young; feelings or memories concerning your experience of babyhood; desire for babies; vulnerability; fundamental survival behaviours such as dependence, crying and bonding.

Domestic animal: Urges in yourself that you have learned to meet and direct with reasonable success. They still have to be cared for though, or they may react against what you ask of yourself. A horse for instance is broken in, or socialised, when it is young, as we are. But if we are keeping a horse, we must still make sure it has proper food, exercise and rest, as well as an expression for its herd instinct and sexual needs.

Eating the animal: Integrating your natural wisdom and energy; absorbing strength from sources other than your conscious personality; sensual pleasure and nutrition.

Fear of animal: This shows a fear of your natural impulses, or that you have been trained in childhood to repress your anger or curiosity. But some people have phobias about animals in waking life, perhaps through never relating to an animal when young, or from being attacked.

Herd of domesticated animals: The domestic animal depicts the urges in yourself and society, such as the sexual drive, aggression and self interest that have been directed socially for thousands of years, and is usually amenable to finding some level of social integration.

Herd of wild animals: The wild animal depicts your own urges or feelings that you are uncertain about controlling or directing. A herd of them therefore suggests you are meeting aspects of yourself you have not yet learned to direct or usefully integrate, and the herd might refer to your relationship with your own ‘herd’ or people around you.

Hiding from or trapped by an animal: Feeling controlled or threatened by your urges or emotions. See the wolf entry.

Killing an animal: This shows you killing urges or needs you have that are natural. Mostly this is injurious to your wholeness, but occasionally has to be done to deal with special life situations. The killing might also point to feelings of pain and conflict, as when we kill out something in us that is natural or even beautiful.

Licking: If an animal is licking you in some way it is an indication of love and even healing or a blessing. But if it is an aggressive type of animal it might suggest anger is being transformed into love, or strength being expressed as love or care.

Making love with an animal: This is usually about a meeting with your most primal and natural feelings, outside of social programming.

Neglect, mutilation or killing our ‘animal’: A common theme. In the example below, Lynda’s feelings show how she senses what she is doing to her inner nature, but she dismisses this by convincing herself such feelings are not ‘true’. But we have a responsibility to care for our animal drives, to see our sexual, nutritional and body needs are met, and the neglected animal shows us failing in this.

Example: ‘I am given an animal to look after, usually somebody’s pet while they are away on holiday. I then completely forget the animal, go away and when I return the animal is either dead or very dried up or has been got at by another animal and is in the throws of dying. When I wake from the dream I feel most dreadful and it is only when I am fully awake and realise it is not true do I feel better.’ Lynda E.

There are often dreams of mutilation or burned, starved, frozen, or beaten small amimals. They may not be things you have done to yourself but are things done to you by others, even parents. If you explore these dreams it gradually makes clear who perpeptrated the damage. You may need help in facing this.

Running away from or chased by an animal: If you are chased or running from an animal you are almost certainly feeling or exhibiting anxiety. If you take time to consider what an anxiety is, it is part of your own natural responses. Every animal feels anxious or afraid; it is its instinct to survive.

So the dream dog or animal is an image that clothes your feelings of anxiety. This may be difficult to grasp because the dream is an explanation of what you are facing in your self or life.  It is chasing you because it is part of you and you are running away from your own feelings.

To make this plain, the animal IS your feelings of anxiety. You see yourself running away from the animal because you are scared of your own feelings. Most of us don’t like feeling scared, so we run away from such feelings.

What can you do about this? Well you can imagine making friends with the animal, getting it some food, and direct its aggression or energy to be on your side. Or you can face your anxiety instead of running away from it. This, if you can do it, can radically change you.

Talking, white, shining, holy or wise animals: This shows important intuitive information; a meeting with the gathered wisdom we have unconsciously. This is one of the sources of religious inspiration, and many older cultures represent their origin of great learning or holiness as animals or animal headed beings. This is most likely because a great deal of innate information is held unconsciously. Our animal or instinctive self holds much of this, so communication with it can lead to enlightenment.

Taming or loved by a wild animal: Learning to relate to urges and energies in yourself that were previously unavailable to your will or needs. For instance some people face difficulties and their mind and body does not appear to support them. Instead emotions of anxiety rage within and they become ill. Other people have such a good relationship with their emotions they manage good health even when meeting stressful events.

Sacrificing animal: For long ages in human history animal sacrifice was practised. In a dream it might suggest the offering of ones sexuality or instinctive urges and needs to the influence of the life process within. It can also indicate, depending on the feelings in the dream, that you are killing a natural and innocent part of yourself. In a wider sense, life sacrifices itself to life. To exist, living forms devour each other. So the sacrifice is toward, and part of, the flow of life.

The traits, power or wisdom of the animal concerned; the instincts – for example yogis are often depicted sitting on an animal skin. This means they have mastered their instincts and gained the wisdom and power latent in them.

 Skinned animal: The maltreatment of your supportive instincts and the life processes that give life to your body and supports your personality. Feeling vulnerable at the basic levels of your being, and having no protection against the things touching or impinging on your life.

Wild animal: Urges and spontaneous feelings that may not respond in the way you, or your social training, may wish. Wild animals in dreams are not something ultimately different to your personality. They are an expression of energies and needs that you have not previously related to in a co-operative or mutually helpful way.

Wild animal(s) attacking: The wild animal represents your unrepressed instinctive reactions such as sex and anger. In the attacking mode however it shows unleashed aggression. In some dreams being attacked depicts what we feel in relationship with other people. The attack, the criticism and malign emotions directed at us by others are frequently shown as an animal attacking or biting us. Sometimes we may be aware of this, but often remarks are made which we miss, yet are sensed as an attack by our unconscious.

Wounded animal: A hurt that has caused instinctive reaction, such as unreasoning reactive anger or fawning submission.

Animals – dealing with dream animals To understand your dream animals, it is helpful to imagine that you are the keeper of a prehistoric type of human animal. As such you would need to be aware what the correct diet is for this big creature; what type of dwelling it needs; what are its sexual and emotional needs; what frightens it or causes it stress; what amount of exercise keeps it healthy, what its stages of growth are and how it can best develop through those stages; and what satisfies it in relationships with others of its kind? Your animal dreams are showing you exactly those issues. They are giving you insight into how to care for the instinctive, the spontaneous and natural in you.

Therefore ask yourself the following questions about your animal dreams, and write down any responses. If the answer is no to a question, move on the next one:

 

Depending upon how the animal in your dream is presented, and what it is doing, dream animals represent your fundamental drives such as the fear reaction, anger, need for food, urge to breathe, sex or procreative drive, parental urges, drive for recognition or dominance in groups; survival drive; love of offspring; spontaneity; home building. They depict these drives perhaps stripped of their social forms of expression.

As such the animal can portray your relationship with the fundamental life processes in you. Dreams depict these processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digest, beat your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ is you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to depression or illness. Remember that in looking at the animal in your dreams you are yourself an animal. You as a person are a tiny spark of consciousness, a little bit of self awareness riding an incredibly ancient animal you call your body. Remember that your body has formed from cells and genetic information that has gradually developed over millions of years. It holds that information in it unconsciously. The animal in your dreams depicts this ancient wisdom and how you relate to it. It shows you how you are dealing with the urges in you that are natural, but might need to be helped into modern life or transformed in some way, not killed out, maimed or tortured. See: The Rock Beast.

Animals are one of the most frequent of symbols that appear in dreams. Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in our dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning.

As we project these characteristics onto animals, we may dream of an animal to represent the feelings we have about a person. An attacking dog for instance may be used to depict how we see someone who is being aggressive toward us.

Thus dream animals are complex symbols, and they portray many shades of meaning. Some animal dreams for instance display personal need for affection, desire to be touched, or the need to care for another creature and thus feel needed. Sometimes they depict pregnancy and parental caring. Because of these huge variations, the long commentary at the end of the individual description of animals has been added to help awareness in looking at such dreams. Each animal is also given an entry, as the character of the various animals suggests different things to us. Pets, for instance, have given to each of us very different experiences. We therefore have personal associations and feeling responses to pets we might dream about. See excellent example of this in the example under ferret. See: ape; birds; creatures; pet; reptiles and snakes; the unconscious.

 

Animals

Animal Situations – Click on that for things like baby animal and fear of animal. But please search for single animals by name – for instance Bear, Lion, Cat, TigerHorse and Dog.

When we were growing in our mother’s womb, we passed through the whole spectrum of evolution. You grew from a tiny seed in your mother’s womb, and as it did so it took you through the whole process of evolution. You started as a single cell at he beginning of life on this earth. As such you are eternal for those cells never die, but constantly produce copies of themselves, but with each new copy they carry what was learnt or experienced from the past. We call that evolution, so they evolved through the vegetative phase as cell division. Then they evolved into a creature with gills and then the reptilian phase and up to the mammalian. Then when you emerged as a human baby, you entered the time when you learned the amazing computer like program called language, up until then you were a little animal. See animal children

In fact you ride an ancient beast. The ancient beast is your body which evolved in a continuous line from the single celled creature, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. Without understanding our inner animals we are only half functioning. See Brain Levels and Dreams

In older societies this was recognised and was part of children’s education/initiation. East Coast Africans saw the uncircumcised as animals; meaning that they had not integrated and grown beyond their animal and instinctive self. They had not made conscious the human or the animal aspect of an uncircumcised boy’s life. If that were not done the animal or instinctive nature could dominate the person. This is evident in our present world where enormous killing of another race or people of another belief system is seen. Ox Herding The ancient heritage that dreams portray as our animal is not simply a psychological belief. It is built into our body and is very evident in the fact that we have three interwoven brains. 

The second part of your brain is called the Limbic System. This is wrapped around the R complex, and is something we share with other mammals such as cats, dogs and horses. It developed about 60 million years ago and deals with your emotions, feelings responses to people and events, the subtler inner life you feel in love and sex, and it provides a deep wisdom about social and individual relationships.

Dreams often use mammals or apes to portray the influence in your life of this part of your unconscious drives and intuitions. The third part of your brain is the Cortex. This is unique to humans and takes up five sixths of the brain mass. It deals with all the things that are distinctly human, such as logical thought, writing, analysis, self awareness and conscious movements.

HERE WE CAN SEE THE THREE BRAINS

The Limbic is the Mammalian Brain and the Neo-Cortex is the Human Brain.

It also is a clear example of our evolutionary past and our heritage from mammals and reptiles. As can be seen the limbic developed out of and enclosed the reptilian, and the neo-cortex superseded the limbic.

An American advertising company, describing these three brains in its instructions to planning advertising campaigns says, “Our Reptilian Brain is more powerful than the Limbic (emotional) Brain, which in turn is more powerful that the Cortex (thinking) Brain.

It is best to take all three brains into account when planning a marketing/branding campaign.” Connecting this with the animals we dream about, waking animal phobias, unless rooted in an actual encounter with an animal – for instance being bitten by a dog – may still represent our personal struggle with and fear of our own instinctive reactions and feelings. It is also probably true that all of us, left-handed or not, experience deeply moving feeling reactions such as anxiety in response to many events of our everyday life. But as findings suggest, some people are physiologically, and thus also psychologically, better equipped to deal with such high levels of impulse than others.

This can be thought of as a stronger or more resistant threshold for impulses such as fear or aggression to pass through before they impact upon the conscious personality. Therefore, in some people, such as women in general, and the left-handed in particular, their ‘animal’ is a much more insistent beast in their dream life. See Animal in your Brain.

Example: A huge black panther chased me. I fell and it clawed my back. It was about to chew my back to bite me. I didn’t know whether to relax or struggle. After being floored by the Panther I managed to get up. I later imagined being the panther. I allowed the panther to eat me, and I thus became the panther. Then I, as the panther, noticed a tiger. Feeling enormous temper – anger – hate I leapt upon the tiger to claw and devour it. I really felt strong temper. It kept really appearing to get smaller and smaller. Eventually I saw it as just a toy cuddly tiger. Then its head came off as a pantomime horse does, and I was amazed to see that my cousin Sidney was inside it, who I felt had mercilessly teased me as a child. The panther was my own feelings of anger.

Example: A 35-year-old man told me that, until he became interested in the metaphysical, he dreamed persistently that he was being eaten by a lion. Even as a child he had this dream. The lion represented his bad temper. He had never tried to control it until he began to work on himself, at which time his dreams of lions ceased.

Example: I wondered what the arrows and javelins could be, and was it I throwing them, firing them at this beautiful beast? Gradually it clarified that we continually injure this wonderful natural process in us. Being aware is a special state that acts in all manner of ways for this great ancient beat that is our body or process that is behind our existence. It is the process of life which is there with us as we go through our conception. As that we are simply a mass of cells, which then slowly evolves into an aquatic creature with gills, and slowly on to form a body that can breath air. So we are very much an animal who has only recently become self aware.

Consciousness is its eyes and ears, its fingers and mouth, its means of experience, and its way of learning. And whatever we feed back to that fundamental part of us is deeply felt. Perhaps this is not a very accurate description, but it is like a loving and willing dog that out of its instinctive being tries to do all that we ask of it, tries to grow, tries to learn. But it is so sensitive, so when we are angry with it, or frustrated, or direct criticism at it, it cowers, it feels failure, its exuberance diminishes. So also with this great wonderful beast within, this mysterious process of life that is at our core. It withdraws. But we can also call it out into further expression, enabling it to extend beyond its previous capabilities, by loving it, by acknowledging its wonder, by calling it forth. That is a wonderful way to lead our inner being forward, by loving it and working with it toward being more that we were. But what many people find is that they are frightened of their dream animal, or have never learned to help it evolve into the human world. This means that many people have a great lack in themselves and in their dreams they have to meet and work with the animal in them. As a child we are often told not to do things that would allow us to mature with our animal self intact.

These inbuilt traits are represented or depicted in your dreams by various animals and the situations your dream process places them in. Without feelings of fear for instance, you would, especially during childhood, enter into situations that could be life threatening. These dream animals illustrate the many natural responses you have to events and people you confront.

Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in your dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings are connected with my dream animal – fear, anger, love, wisdom – and in what way is that entering my life?

Is this an animal I know in life – if so what are my feelings or experience of it?

What is the dream animal doing, and metaphorically, what is that suggesting? Perhaps try the method of talking as.

Example: Ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorized that cave paintings of beings combining human and animal features were not physical representations of mythical hybrids, but were instead attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts or poweranimals. Religious historian Mircea Eliade has observed that beliefs regarding animal identity and transformation into animals are widespread. The iconography of the Vinca culture of Neolithic Europe in particular is noted for its frequent depiction of an owl-beaked “bird goddess”.

Depending upon how the animal in your dream is presented, and what it is doing, dream animals represent your fundamental drives such as the fear reaction, anger, need for food, urge to breathe, sex or procreative drive, parental urges, drive for recognition or dominance in groups; survival drive; love of offspring; spontaneity; home building.

They depict these drives perhaps stripped of their social forms of expression. As such the animal can portray your relationship with the fundamental life processes in you. Dreams depict these processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digestion, beats your heart, rebuild damage tissues and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ is you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to you experiencing depression or illness.

Remember that in looking at the animal in your dreams you are yourself an animal, a living mammal. You as a person are a tiny spark of consciousness, a little bit of self awareness riding an incredibly ancient animal you call your body. Remember that your body has formed from cells and genetic information that has gradually developed over millions of years. It holds that information in it unconsciously. The animal in your dreams depicts this ancient wisdom and how you relate to it. It shows you how you are dealing with the urges in you that are natural, but might need to be helped into modern life or transformed in some way, not killed out, maimed or tortured. See: The Rock Beast.

Animals are one of the most frequent of symbols that appear in dreams. Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in our dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning. As we project these characteristics onto animals, we may dream of an animal to represent the feelings we have about a person. An attacking dog for instance may be used to depict how we see someone who is being aggressive toward us.

Thus dream animals are complex symbols, and they portray many shades of meaning. Some animal dreams for instance display personal need for affection, desire to be touched, or the need to care for another creature and thus feel needed. Sometimes they depict pregnancy and parental caring. Because of these huge variations, the long commentary at the end of the individual description of animals has been added to help awareness in looking at such dreams. Each animal is also given an entry, as the character of the various animals suggests different things to us. Pets, for instance, have given to each of us very different experiences. We therefore have personal associations and feeling responses to pets we might dream about. See excellent example of this in the example under ferret. See: ape below; birds; creatures; pets; reptiles and snakes; the unconscious and  A Childs amazing connection to wild animals – Unbelievable Friendship! People and Wild Animals

 

Animals – Being Neglected or Killed

Such neglect usually shows how we misunderstand our own basic needs. After all we are an animal, with all the needs for care, sexual expression, affection, shelter and food. Considering how much society makes such needs and meeting them terrible difficult, it is no wonder we dream of neglecting or torturing our animal. Remember that our body is an vary ancient thing, and in its growth went through all the stages of life from a tiny cell, an amphibious creature, toward humanness. So in meeting such dreams we need to treat our animal with care and love. This can be done by visualising the animal and creating a different feeling and situation in your imagination. This will gradually change the dreams or neglect.

In the example below, Lynda’s feelings show how she senses what she is doing to her inner nature, but she dismisses this by convincing herself such feelings are not ‘true’. But we have a responsibility to care for our animal drives, to see our sexual, nutritional and body needs are met, and the neglected animal shows us failing in this.

 Example: ‘I am given an animal to look after, usually somebody’s pet while they are away on holiday. I then completely forget the animal, go away and when I return the animal is either dead or very dried up or has been got at by another animal and is in the throws of dying. When I wake from the dream I feel most dreadful and it is only when I am fully awake and realise it is not true do I feel better.’ Lynda E.

Example: “I am your child and your mother. They call me the ‘connecting animal’ because I connect people, animals, and even stone’s with one another if I enter them. I am your fate or the ‘objective I.’ When I appear, I redeem you from the meaningless hazards of life. The fire burning inside me burns in the whole of nature. If a person loses it, they become egocentric, lonely, disoriented, and weak.”

Example: As I walked the meadow my dog was running free. I felt I must call him to heal, as there were grazing animals about. I called him and saw him coming, almost wraith like, or like a spirit form, shadowy and powerful looking. He was running behind a wonderful looking beast – a mixture between a sheep a gazelle and a deer. The remarkable thing about it was its colouring. There were bright blues on its hindquarters, and radiant almost transparent colours elsewhere, perhaps on its head. I shouted to stop my dog frightening the creature. The creature ran towards me and jumped into my arms, very fearful, but relaxing and feeling safe as I held it. I could sense its emotions of terror. I seemed to feel what it was feeling inside. It was a creature without any means of defence except to run. So, it was frightened for its life. This sense of its inner condition was impressive as I knew what it was like to be that creature when hunted. I also could feel how it could feel safe in my arms because somehow it was like handing over its defence to a sort of mother, as a baby might.

Often the hurt or terrified dream animal is actually your own feelings as a baby or child. The man in the above dream said, “I seemed to feel what it was feeling inside.” This is a sign that he was feeling his own animal/child feelings. So it would be good to see if you can connect with those feeling in your dream yourself – the feeling of being abandoned, forgotten, in pain, being exposed to abuse, or any of the intense emotions and sensations a child experiences. See Baby and Child – Meeting Them –  Programmed – Child – helping and healing

Ankle Ankles

This might relate to the ankle or to the Achilles tendon, both of which are vulnerable areas. In some dreams this is where one is bitten by a creature or hit, suggesting being got at in a vulnerable area. But it is also a part of the body near to the ground and so open to either being out of sight, bitten or injured.

Having a damaged ankle would not be incredibly disabling, and would certainly make it more difficult to get around, and this is probably the meaning in a dream of injury.

Looking through all the mentions of ankle in the dreams I have collected, the mentions of vulnerability is tops, but there are many others. People often mention stepping into ankle deep water or mud, so perhaps a measurement of difficulty. Or they have their ankle taped or roped to imprison them. Perhaps they overcome the vulnerable ankle problem and so show their problem solving ability; or else they wear jewellery around their ankle like a slave girl.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is disabling in the dream, what does it suggest about my daily life?

Is this just a little thing saying that there is an influence that has entered my life, but it is not serious?

In what way am I vulnerable, and what is effecting that vulnerability?

What does it mean to me to have jewellery around an ankle?

What did I feel when I stepped out into water or mud?

Try using Processing Dreams.

Another

The word ‘another’ is used often in dream descriptions and in context with so many things it is difficult to give a useful definition. Here are just a few taken from dreams: another part of my nature – I landed another blow – another kind of beauty – another box of books – her words fell over one another trying to mean something – walked from one world into another – about reincarnation or another life – I pick another spot and my friend joins me – another Oriental girl tries to edge her way in – and another was cuddling and breast-feeding a baby.

I included this word because so many people have searched for it in vain, so would suggest looking up context and seeing what else it links with. For instance in the cuddling and breast feeding the word another obviously points to a group situation, and the words cuddling and breast feeding. If it is pointing to another situation or another person ask yourself what that indicates.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Consider what the word ‘another’ is indicating.

What is the drama or theme of the dream indicating – see drama plot and theme

Use Processing Dreams to define what the dream is about.

Antique

Anything old or ancient suggests it has existed for a long time, so it carries an enormous amount of experience, an enormous imprint of the past. This often links with wisdom or treasures of realisation, perhaps revealed by intuition.

But the dreamt of ancient or old thing may be pointing to a period of your life relating to the period the ‘old’ thing or person represents. It may also depict an attitude or way of life you have seen portrayed in historical drama. It can point to your past and the different lives you have lived – baby, youth, lover, parent, provider, or what is established and well worn, such as tradition and wisdom of folklore.

An old or antique building or place can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage.

Old building: Past way of life; former life with family or another person.

Old people: Wisdom; mother or father; past experience; traditions; old age or feelings about ageing; death.

Old things or furniture: Past or outworn ways of life or activities. See: old house example under age.

Example: ‘I am standing in a book shop. It is a long established business. As I look at the books I find two which are about the life of Christ. They are leather bound and hand written – quite ancient. Both seem to me to be about the author’s own inner life. I believe one is written from a religious viewpoint and the other from a more occult one. I am not attracted to either.’ Bill O.

Bill is looking back on past attitudes, one religious, one occult, which had been big parts of his life.

ancient Usually suggests contact with parts of our being older than the development of the conscious self – such as cellular wisdom; life processes; accepted traditions or ways of life; wisdom of the unconscious.

antique Elements of our past experience which might be worth keeping; wisdom of unconscious.

See: age; ancient.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any lessons from my past hinted at here?

What is the old thing or person and what ties or links do I have or had with it?

If it is a person it would be helpful to use Talking As to clarify what it is about.

In any case using Processing Dreams can be of great help.

Antlers

Because they are the growth and protective tools of some male herbivores, they may represent conflict between males or protection of the female. The male often links with bold and powerful masculinity and sexuality in a natural and potent form. They can also suggest supernatural power when worn by shaman’s or in initiatory rituals. Also, because they are the sign of a male seeking a mate they might be linked with power over nature and fertility.n also be seen as a wall trophy of the hunt for a woman – or just as a sign of male prowess. They are also a sharp and defensive weapon, either against other males or to herd females.

The following dream by a woman is obviously about her feelings about mating.

Example: The three of us were on our way to a lively night out and I suggested a short cut through Richmond Park. Suddenly this old man stepped out and advised us not to do so as stags were rutting. I thanked him and replied they would be too busy to care about us. As we walked through, trying to ignore the fact the stags seemed to be stuck together, we felt relieved. Suddenly an enormously big stag with tremendous horns and a leering and vicious expression came swaying toward us after breaking free of a female deer. Jasmine C.”

“In the Trois Freres cave in France, a man wrapped in an animal hide is playing a primitive flute as if he meant to put a spell on the animals. In the same cave, there is a dancing human being, with antlers, a horse’s head, and bear’s paws. This figure, dominating a medley of several hundred animals, is unquestionably ‘The Lord of the Animals.’

The further back we go in time, or the more primitive and closer to nature the society is, the more literally such titles must be taken. A primitive chief is not only disguised as the animal; when he appears at initiation rites in – full animal disguise – he feels himself as the animal. Still more, he is an animal spirit. At such moments he incorporates or represents the ancestor of the tribe and the clan, and therefore the primal god himself. He represents, and is, the “totem” animal. Thus, we probably should not go far wrong in seeing in the figure of the dancing animal-man in the Trois Freres cave a kind of chief who has been transformed by his disguise into an animal demon”. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Jung. See Mammal Brain; ShapeShifter.

The following dream is about a woman seeking the spirit of manhood to carry her off.

You helped me a bit with my dream. In my dream I was in a forest, and in front of me was a herd of deer. They all ran away except for a single stag. Suddenly I was beside it, and in my head, I asked if he wanted me to ride him. I saw his eyes and then climbed on his back. As soon as I grabbed on to his antlers, he ran off with me.

The next dream is an encounter with the energy we have within us that is our inner animal. But it is communicating you must not go this way until your personality dies. Death is a part of initiation because the usual human person cannot open to the enormous world of the unconscious because they are frightened of it, and so have to let themselves completely enter their inner world to become a different person.

I dreamed that I was driving my car on the highway and I saw a huge moose on the road. So, I stopped, hoping the moose would move. Then all of a sudden, the moose charged at me (at this moment I thought: I’m going to die), then the moose charged right through my windshield with its antlers. I went flying back with glass exploding everywhere, and then I woke up.

The next dream is an example of this death and its transformation.

There was another big hill, but this one was covered with vines, grass, and tree bark maybe half a foot deep. I was watching a bunch of elk with weird antlers eating when I noticed a big ball of fog roll in. It was at the bottom of the hill, which was connected to the ocean. The fog turned into what looked like dandelion seeds and they multiplied by the thousands until it was a solid, floating mass that not even air could fit between. It started spreading toward me, so I tried to run up the hill. I couldn’t, though, because of all the forest debris in the way…it was like quicksand. Then some seeds got into my lungs, populated, and suffocated me. Then I died and somehow transformed into an elk and started eating grass.

The following is an attempted interpretation.

The ocean is that from which our life has sprung, and so it is the source of the enormous urge to promulgate. I see the dream as a way of illustrating your desire to attain and to meet with the extraordinary urge to promulgate, to populate. But the urge is not just to procreate with a child but to express your essence and make it real in the world. When you realised the cloud was too much for you to deal with you tried to climb above it, but the bark was in the way. I see the debris as all the thinking and words you have collected and are bogged down by. Like words they are lifeless protective things that fall away. You tried to grow or rise by thinking or trying too hard.

But then you died – you no longer expressed your ego -because the seeds suffocated you. The path you are trying to walk is up the hill toward a greater awareness. But death is a necessary part of that. Your personality that has been raised on words and thinking has to die to make way for growth. This type of death is like the spider that sheds its skin because it has grown too tight. So, death is like recognition that we have grown as far as we can in our present mind state. That mind state has to die to give birth to another one.

And then you meet and become your totem animal. This is very much a Native American dream theme, and according to tradition it means Moose represents self-esteem and is also about the magick of life and death. Late autumn and early winter is moose’s cycle of power.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the qualities of the deer in your dream?

Does it link in any way with a feeling of entering the magical realm of nature or the unknown?

Are you feeling about it as you would with a female?

If a stag, are there symbols linking it with sexuality, such as its horns or its attraction to you?

If you use Talking As it may help you discover the natural part of you.

Ants

Like many insects, the ants might depict small irritations or criticisms things that have got into you in some way. Ants have been used in dreams to suggest sperm also. Also when we look at an ants nest we see massive work going on, so it can reflect our work.

In some dreams there is a play on the idea of the ant representing the  small and insignificant and the giant who apparently rules the world. It might also show how the small and insignificant can bring great changes or catch the attention of the dreamer – the giant.

Our life does not depend upon any wrinkle cream, or “we deserve it” shampoo. Our life depends upon the tiny creatures of this world and their health. It depends upon the tiny bacteria, the tiny lichens, the small lives in the billions and trillions upon which the edifice of our life is built. And they in turn depend upon sex – upon that open receptiveness that the earth has with the sun. The big needs the small.

“I dreamed I saw an army of ants. There were millions and millions of them marching in columns. And they were carrying a noodle. Then they came to a short brick wall, but instead of going over the wall as I expected, they went through it. I cried “EEK! ANTS!” and grabbed a can of insecticide and sprayed them. But the spray turned out to be a foam and foamed up all over them. It killed them just the same.

Then the scene changed and I was looking into a pool of water. There was a kitten suspended halfway between the top and the bottom of the pool and I had a strong feeling that it was neither dead or alive. Strangely enough, I felt sorry for having killed all the ants and immediately the kitten rose to the surface and cried. And its fur was orange!

This was followed by another dream: “I met a friend. She asked me how I had “got my baby”. I told her it was easy, I got it out of a vending machine. Then I told her, “I’ll show you” and I put a quarter in the machine. But instead of a baby coming out, a kitten appeared!”

This dream was something of a puzzle at first. Fortunately, the Ant Dream arrived soon afterward and it became immediately clear that its main purpose was to set a precise meaning on the symbol of the kitten, which also figures prominently in the Ant Dream.

In the Vending Machine dream, the meaning of “kitten” (for this dreamer, in this dream) is well established when the dreamer goes through the motions of expecting a baby to appear from the vending machine and is instead presented with a kitten. In other words, Kitten = Baby.

The ants are symbolic of sperm cells and the wall represents the egg. The noodle is a phallic symbol, representing the male gender. To continue with this line of thought, the insecticide is seen to represent commonly used foam contraceptives. The pool of water, with kitten, is symbolic of the womb, filled with amniotic fluid and containing an infant. Since Ruth felt that this kitten, or infant, was neither dead or alive, this is seen as an infant not yet born. Perhaps not yet conceived. When Ruth felt sorrow for having killed the ants, or in other words regretted using a contraceptive, the kitten comes to life and cries. Symbolic of the cry of an infant being born, of the moment of birth. This kitten had orange fur, the same color as her husband’s hair. This identifies the infant-to-be as her and her husband’s unborn child. My feeling on this, and it is quite strong, is that “The Ant Dream” is a direct communication from the spirit of the unborn child depicted in the dream to the person who could become his mother. Quoted from Sundance Magazine, written by Aurelius,

 

Useful Questions and Hints: 

What part do the ant or ants play in my dream, and what does that suggest?

Is there any suggestion of size in the dream?

Try being the person or thing as it may well open doors within you.

Anus

The area of our nervous system around the anus and genitals is highly sensitive in babyhood. So it may link with the self expression, the pleasure, and the feelings of deep connection the baby feels in this area. As it also links with the huge experience of learning self control, and how ones parents dealt with you going to the toilet, so it can also connect with holding on or letting go; control or relaxation; pleasure or guilt. This in turn could involve feelings of success or failure. Therefore it associates with your WILL. feeling punished and treated like a child, to feelings or arousal and sexual pleasure.

The anus also deals with what we get rid of that our body does not use. So it can link with the experiences or the attitudes that we want to or need to get rid of. These are the waste products of our life. But our dreams often see what we pass out of our body as ‘waste’ is a wonderful enriched gift we are giving the earth.

Example: The therapist encouraged him in the fantasy, and soon he was joyously lost in the slime—and the mussels had turned to excrement. No longer repelled, he abandoned himself to a search for a treasure he felt must lie within the darkness. When he came up he held in his hand a pink pearl that glowed like the clouds of dawn. Then he remembered how he and his brother had fought over a pink pearl which was to be given to their mother. The pearl stood for her. Those children, wallowing in the mud beside the willows in the hot summer sun, had been performing an ancient and sacred rite, returning to the source of life and their beginnings under the sun.

These things help to explain the great importance of the anus to the psyche, and why the sexual fantasies of most children center on the anus rather than the vagina or the penis. Later, with more specific knowledge of their origins, children replace the image with the vagina and penis, and a new series of sexual theories appears. Most patients deal with their birth fantasies at this level, and there is much dealing to be done before the simple animal facts can be accepted. Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W V Caldwell

If relaxed: Easy self expression.

If tense: Not letting go of feelings you might be judging as ‘shitty’; feelings to do with being hurt or holding back. The holding back might link with sexual pleasure or performance.

If playing with or being entered by penis or finger: Introverted sexuality; self pleasure; narcissism. Perhaps self examination.

Excrement: The negative emotions and ideas we might not want to let go of; sometimes money; worry over something judged unclean; a cleansing or need for cleansing of inner feelings, such as guilt, inhibitions, resentments, hate, worry, or fear.

Holding or letting go: How we give of ourselves; whether we can ‘let go’; our generosity or lack of it.

Idioms: Talking out of arse; pain in the arse; an arsehole; head up the arse; disappears up; all tits and arsehole – no ability to reason. See: excrement.

Useful questions are:

Does this in any way relate to childhood feelings, and if so what are they?

Is there any connection with sexual pleasure in the dream?

Is anything emerging from the anus, and if so what does it suggest I am discharging?

Use Acting on your dream

Anxiety

One of the most frequent dream themes is that of anxiety in some form. This may not be because most dreams are about things we fear, but simply because we remember those more than bland dreams. In our dreams, all that can possibly disturb us are our memories, disturbing images and our own emotions. Our dream may be about a snake, or car accident – frightening things that in the dream appear to be exterior to us.

Freud (1) in the early years of the last century pioneered explorations into man’s unconscious life and drew the attention of an organically minded profession to the role of inner unconscious conflicts in deter­mining the sources of neurotic anxiety.

On the physiological side, Cannon (2) brought the holistic view of the organism into the situation and recognised that “anxiety may be produced by a variety of events, which have one common element. There is always a discrepancy between the individual’s capacities and the demands made on him which make self-realization impossible.” Cannon did outstanding work in the field of homeostasis and more recently other writers have enlarged our concepts although clearly there is marked discrepancy between their basic philosophies except for the recognition of the supreme importance of emotional factors in human adjustment.

But whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

Even so, it is our emotions about the image of the snake or situation that disturbs us, and these can be changed. The image is only a mask on the surface of our emotions to enable recognition and enhancement of the raw feelings. If we can recognise what an enormous power our imagination has on our emotions and body, this can start the process of lessening anxiety. Many anxieties can be met by imagining changing the dream, confronting the fear, challenging what oppresses us.

Some of the clearest examples of what stress or the causes of anxiety are, however, can be seen in looking at the body in stress situations. For instance if we fall into or swim in icy cold water, this places the body in stress. What this means in plain language is that because the body needs to maintain it’s temperature at about 98.4 F, being exposed to cold for too long could be fatal. The condition between easy maintenance of body temperature and death through exposure to low temperature is stress.

Therefore, some causes of physical stress could be exposure to extreme heat; taking poison into the system; lack of oxygen; high levels of carbon monoxide (car exhaust fumes) etc, in the air we breath; lack of food; lack of vital nutrients such as iron, protein, etc; insufficient sleep; and so on can lead to enormous anxiety.

When we fall into cold water our body attempts to deal with the stress through its self-regulating or homeostatic processes. The glandular system will probably secrete adrenalin into the blood stream, causing the heart to speed up. But many other activities try to meet the emergency, even to such small things as the liver releasing more vitamin A to deal with the shock to the immune system. See Fear – Self-regulation

Example: It was only after my return to live in a block of flats in London that I realized how infrequently one hears a baby crying in India, how frequently in Britain.  I have already suggested that the early weaning of our babies may be responsible for the slight bias towards pessimism which colours our outlook. Among the Hindus whom I studied, the opposite bias prevailed; they seemed to live in constant expectation of a stroke of good fortune. Each new acquaintance was scanned hopefully as if he might be the agent of their material and spiritual salvation; and in spite of many disappointments, these hopes would rise again.

Pessimism is closely allied to anxiety and clinically these two character traits merge into one another. It is not suggested that basic anxiety and its multiple psychosomatic manifestations are the direct sequence of our breast feeding habits but that cultural patterns in infant care contribute towards the tension and anxiety which is frequently accentuated by their experiences and by parental attitudes.”

Melanie Klein (8) has also clarified our outlook by stressing the importance of identification with the parents which is carried into adult life. At every stage the ability to identify makes possible the happiness of being able to admire the character or achievements of others. The ability to admire another person’s achievements is one of the factors making successful team work possible. Klein’s work with children has shown that even from babyhood onwards the mother, and soon other people in the child’s surroundings, are taken into the self, and this is the basis of a variety of identifications, favourable and unfavourable.

An Aspect of Anxiety

 Any attempt to stress the nature of anxiety must incorporate the contention that anxiety is a natural phenomenon which the individual experiences when values essential to his existence, his sense of being and his identity are threatened. It is to be distinguished from fear in which the threat is peripheral, the intactness of the sense of being is not being threatened, the danger is objective and the individual can evaluate it and can act either in terms of flight or fight in coping with it.

Useful questions:

Can I recognise that the frightening dream is simply an expression of my emotions and has no power to harm?

What emotions am I frightened of, and do I want to continue to run from them?

What I run from controls me, can I therefore imagine turning around and facing the scary images?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming Avoid Being VictimsFacing Fear – The Slow Breath

Apartment Flat

Suggests your basic needs such as shelter, warmth, nourishment – but usually in the sense of what you have created as your basic way of life; the values, standards, goals you have accepted as normal, or are ‘at home’ with. Also your private and personal place of comfort and ease – unless there is stress associated with it.

This will have a slightly different significance if this is a dream flat, and is one you have lived in in the dream. Therefore the questions need to be asked as to whether you lived/live alone in the dream apartment or the real apartment? Did you share the apartment with others? What was living alone or sharing like? These form the associated feelings connected with the dream apartment. See: Associations Working With; house.

Living alone: This suggests you have achieve a level of personal independence. It is a first level, but shows you have mastered the ability to earn your own way, to function as an individual in society.

Living together with another: Shows you moving toward independence but need the support of others to manage it. It might also mean you are learning the lessons of sharing and adult behaviour.

Block of Flats: Communal living but with personal space. An atmosphere created by a group, as in second example. Meeting with and dealing with or failing to deal with your relationship with others.

Example: I am in a block of flats. Lee from college has run off owing me money. Old flats I am on 4th floor; there are a few kids and dogs playing on. The roof is the same level.  I realise that I can live in any of the block as they are all empty. I tell myself that I will not take any more shit from no one as I return to 3rd floor flat. As I enter I hear movement from behind door. I shit myself. I wake up and think of the c*** who robbed my cottage. I felt I had no power.

Example: I was walking near big, old, blocks of flats. I noticed one was called Matins, and thought they were for Roman Catholics. They were very worn, almost slums. I then noticed that it was all black people in these blocks. Really jet black. One called out from a balcony asking what I wanted. There was a slightly hostile feeling as they all looked at me to see what I would do or say. I was then partly my father, and said I had come for a blow, (i.e. on the saxophone or clarinet). Everybody was now friendly and crowded around. They asked me if I had my brushes with me – that is, drum brushes. I said no, and then started playing the clarinet. It was completely spontaneous, moved by the spirit, and was wonderful music.

Example: I went up to a place – either a room or cliff top – where two old women lived. They were supposed to be insane, and I was a little apprehensive, but felt I could cope if things went wrong. In the place were too large packing case things like rabbit hutches – the women were in these. I just stood about, and felt I was company for the women. I noticed a hole in the sacking that covered one box, and saw an eye looking at me through the hole. Then both the women were out, and were completely naked. One of them came up to me and looked at me. She was short, old, with a funny little face, but brown live skin, not repulsive. She said something to me, which may have been a request to be attached. I said, “What, you want to be attached here?” And put my hand on her vagina. Then she came close to me and I felt like having intercourse with her, but refrained. It seemed as if her vagina was a black void. I then went away. Later, I came back. Everything had changed. It was now distinctly a block of flats they lived in, on the top floor. I climbed up, very worried that they had gone, or been misunderstood, or something. When I saw them I realised how much had altered. They were dressed, sensible, more intelligent and generally sociable than before. I was so relieved to see this that I ran forward into the old woman’s arms, and we wept uncontrollably to be reunited in this way.

Here the dreamer is probably dealing with his feelings connected with his mother – the old woman.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the atmosphere of the apartment or what am I doing in connection with it?

Am I involved with other people, and if so in what way?

Is this apartment one I have lived in – if so what were the major experiences or life I experienced there?

Try Being the Person or Thing or Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ape

Impulsive unreasoned urges such as self centred grabbing of food or sexual expression without concern for the other person; mischievousness; mimicry; instinctive or intuitive wisdom about relationships, social interactions and life; folly or foolishness or feeling an idiot.

Can represent a world of experience human beings have lost and feel sorrow at its absence. Many humans have also lost the wonderful directness and ability to express their wide range of responses to life and people. In developing self consciousness, with its labyrinth of ideas and decisions, humans lost a sense of oneness with life around them. Animals have enormous remembered wisdom; remembered through instincts and complex social codes. Without it humans can feel alone in the world, a meaningless existence in the midst of uncaring circumstance. They are confronted by choices which, because they have lost an awareness of their instinctive wisdom, they often feel inadequately equipped to deal with. This wisdom is still accessible to humans who know how to listen to the unconscious, and thus discover the enormous wealth of information they have about such things as social behaviour and body language. The ape can depict this wisdom, especially if it is white haired. Or it might show the personal folly of trying to let instincts dominate us now we have self awareness. Idioms: He is just aping.

Animals have enormous remembered wisdom; remembered through instincts and complex social codes. Without it humans can feel alone in the world, a meaningless existence in the midst of uncaring circumstance. They are confronted by choices which, because they have lost an awareness of their instinctive wisdom, they often feel inadequately equipped to deal with. This wisdom is still accessible to humans who know how to listen to the unconscious, and thus discover the enormous wealth of information they have about such things as social behaviour and body language. The ape can depict this wisdom, especially if it is white haired. Or it might show the personal folly of trying to let instincts dominate us now we have self awareness. See mammal brain; animals.

Idioms: He is just aping.

The following is taken from a man’s dream journal, in which he describes how he feels when he identifies with the image of an ape.

EXAMPLE: I feel like a powerful ape at the moment. I am not holding myself back in regard to my fellow creatures. I am ready to fight, play, love, laugh. All the different bits of me are available. The question I am asking myself is how do you get people to feel it – that basic animal experience of oneself. The wonderful experience of existing, of being alive with all the powers of a living creature – physical strength, emotions of anger, tenderness, passion and sexual excitement, curiosity, awe and wonder in meeting life and the stars.

Useful questions are:

What is the non verbal, spontaneous and responsive part of me doing in this dream and in my life?

Am I on good terms with this natural part of me?

What does my dream ape want, or what is it expressing?

What can I bring to my daily life from it?

See If you use Talking As it may help you discover the natural part of you. Or Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ape-man Half man Half Monster

This is a very important figure in dreams. As much as we would like to think of ourselves as civilised and refined humans, we are still governed by patterns of behaviour obvious in animals. We fight, kill, lie and cheat for the sake of sex, follow leaders and generally are obviously still animals. Part of becoming a really mature human is to meet and transform the animal in us. That does NOT mean kill or suppress it. It means allowing its enormous potential to be met and released. It means healing the internal pains and conflicts that inflict that deep level of our being. It means meeting the enormous power of fear, sex and anger, and redirecting their energy into creativity and human action.  See: ape and animals.

The ape-man or half animal represent the part of us that is still partly animal, and can, if not met and transformed create a lot of emotional confusion and pain. The reason is that it is a powerful part of us and can influence us without us being aware of it in us. But when made conscious and understood can be a wonderful strength and source of insight. See the quote by Jung in antlers; and also mammal brain.

Example: Dreamt I was in a room, or storeroom, full of chimpanzees. I had to leave them. Some of them opened the door. It was not locked, and I didn’t lock it, but I went back in and asked them not to open the door, as there was a busy road nearby, and they might get run over. As I spoke, one was standing near me who was now almost as tall as myself. The features had become almost human, female. She seemed very sad, perhaps because she was only half human. I felt deep links of sympathy.

A beautiful dream showing the deep connection we have with the animals. Talking to them shows a respect and awareness of them in ones life, and it communicates and helps bring together the instinctive drives that may have been neglected and so  could not adapt to the world we live in.

Example: I was saving a very young white wolf from a half man half wolf monster. Someone was with me and we were working together to save it. Finally after much struggle I coaxed it up the wooded path and it ran up the street. I went back to the monster to distract it. I glanced behind me one more time and saw the young white wolf was fully grown now. And that’s where my dream ended.

A wonderful example of accepting and helping the animal that we are to grow and mature in our life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of this part of my nature? See animals for more information.

What are its influences on me – they could be aggression, sex, non rational behaviour?

Read conditioned reflexes to understand how the animal in us can alter our behaviour.

See Street Wisdom; Levels of the Brain –  Programmed Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Aphrodisiac

Stimulating someone or being stimulated sexually. If taking an aphrodisiac, possibly showing that you have been sexually stimulated by an event or meeting with someone. This may be something like going to a party and seeing someone who arouses you, or watching a film or reading a book – or possibly that ones imagination is doing the stimulating. It could also suggest you are feeling you need stimulus or that your natural sexual drives are lacking or low.

Useful questions are:

Is my dream about feeling turned on or needing external stimulus?

What is it in the dream that is the aphrodisiac, and what does that suggest?

Am I meeting something new sexually here?

Apnea

40 million Americans are estimated to be chronically ill with sleep disorders. Few people recognise their condition and its cause however. Signs of it are chronic tiredness needing constant stimulants to keep going during the day; constant falling asleep during work, talks, driving, inability to wake easily in the morning. As sleep plays an equally important part in healthy long life as nutrition and exercise, it is important to assure its quality. If our pattern and quality of sleep is disturbed, we may fail to notice the influence of such drinks as coffee, chocolate and alcohol, all of which disturb sleep.

One of the major sleep disorders is called sleep apnea. This condition causes the sufferer to stop breathing for periods of ten seconds to a minute or more. The person is therefore aroused to waking state, or near it, over and over during the night. This may underlie the recurrent nightmare some people have of feeling suffocated. This condition, if suspected, needs a doctor’s help.

About 60% of all cases of chronic insomnia stem from mental or physical ailments.  These include depression, sleep apnea (a disorder in which breathing stops dozens — even hundreds — of times a night) and periodic limb movements (which usually involve leg jerks, repeated every few seconds for hours on end).  Sleepers may awaken numerous times, but so briefly, awakenings go unremembered in the morning.

The benefits of considering 24-hour sleep patterns in patients who complain of excessive daytime sleepiness become apparent in workups for sleep apnea, a sleep-induced respiratory impairment.  Many patients who complain of nighttime snoring-snorting episodes and daytime sleepiness do not connect the two.  A focus primarily on a patient’s daytime sleep problems may delay the diagnosis of sleep apnea for months or years, and the possible serious effects of the condition call for prompt diagnosis.

The most likely candidates for sleep apnea are middle-aged overweight men, but apnea can occur in either sex and at any age.  Sleep apnea is strongly linked to cardiovascular disorders such as stroke, hypertension, and coronary artery disease.  In addition to the snorting, gasping, and bouts of hypoxia during the night, the total sleep profile of a patient with sleep apnea includes
excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep attacks, marked movement during nighttime sleep, diaphoresis, enuresis, morning headaches, decreased sex drive, and occasional cognitive changes if the condition persists untreated.  Apneic patients usually have little trouble falling asleep–and thus seldom complain of insomnia–but their sleep may be interrupted upwards of 100 times a night by the episodes.

Apocalypse

The end of the world, and the fears that go with it, depict the powerful and threatening inner and outer changes that accompany major transitions. The transition from childhood to adolescence for instance is the end of the world that existed for the whole lifetime of the individual up until that point. Such points of transition occur several times in the life of anyone who dares to grow and adapt. Menopause for women, the leaving home of children, the loss of a job, retirement, can all be represented by the end of the world – or a world.

Social changes also bring enormous stress and the ending of a way of life to many individuals. Some changes, such as the end of social welfare would be the end of the world for that individual.

Useful questions:

What is it that is radically changing in myself or my environment?

How am I meeting the changes going on in my life and circumstances?

What is the dream showing me about these changes?

See: end of world.

Apologising-Apology

Remember that apologising is different to saying sorry.

Nearly always when people dream about someone they know they automatically believe the dream is about that person. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them.

Your dreams are not a good indication about what other people think and are usually a reflection of your own feelings and desires. We desire to have our difficult feelings justified or acknowledged, so maybe that is what your dream depicted.

Dreaming of apologising: This suggests a feeling of inadequacy in some department of life; feelings of having acted against, or thinking of acting against your own strongest drives; a sense of not having lived your best; a sense that you are not living up to other people’s expectations, or that you are not liked by, or not as good as, other people; realisation of a mistake or lack.

Being apologised to: A recognition that some aspect of a relationship or experience has been, or is, unjust or unwarranted according to yourself. Your dreams are not a good indications about what other people think and are usually a reflection of your own feelings and desires.

Useful questions are:

What am I apologising for and does this apply in any way to waking events?

Is this an apology I am giving or receiving, or is it an expression of guilt?

If being apologised to are you accepting or rejecting the apology?

Apparitions

Apparitions are often images that have been repressed emotions and are now pressing for attention. They are often accompanied by fear or scary feelings. The fear is way to hold off the actual feelings that we do not wish to feel.

See: ghost.

Appendix

Something within yourself that may become a problem; an internal problem; possibly referring to the appendix itself. But it is often a psychological or a physical or energy problem as the following example shows. The man was using LifeStream.

Example: The movement involved not only the hips swaying left and right, but also the shoulders, or at least, whole rib cage, swinging left and right, in opposition to the hips. The result of this was an extraordinary amount of pain internally. The areas of pain were appendix area, liver area, left and right side of chest.

So intense was the pain I could only do the movement slowly and carefully at first. I was surprised at the degree of pain, also at the pain in the right of the chest, and area I have never felt discomfort. The nearest I can arrive at a description is to liking it to muscular cramp. As one massages such cramp it gradually melts. Such was the internal feelings, as if the intense pain were being massaged away, broken down, dispersed, as a lump melted.

As the pain was dispersed, the movement became more flowing and active. Last week I had to rest frequently during this movement, but this week it kept on for 30 or 40 minutes causing much heat and perspiration. Since then the pain and appendix difficulty has gone and never appeared again.

If you have had appendicitis: Feelings you associate with that time.

Having appendix out: Inner pain or problem needing attention or being attended to.

Useful questions are:

What am I vaguely aware of that might be a grumbling problem needing attention?

Do I have actual discomfort in the area of my appendix – lower right abdomen – if so maybe I should have a check?

What do I need to remove from my attitudes or from my past experience?

See Life’s Little Secrets and Easy Dream Interpretation

Applause

Desire for acclaim or giving oneself acclaim; something that you feel is worthwhile or praiseworthy – define what it is from the dream events; approval or need for approval. Such a need may be covering a deep personal uncertainty.

Useful questions are:

Am I giving or receiving applause – whatever it is can I define what it is for?

What is it my dream is suggesting is praiseworthy and how does that apply to me?

Do I feel the applause is deserved and why or why not?

Apple

Because of the way Genesis was presented it often represents temptation and the Garden of Eden. It can also link with the fruits of ones action, or the consequences of action, the fruit of ones labour; also pleasure, food or sustenance. See: food.

Here is a re-translation of the piece about the apple and the Garden of Eden.

It entered their consciousness asking, “Did Elohim really mean that I should not totally experience material existence? Surely, if I entered the sphere of opposites I would gain knowledge and experience from it?

And the divine wisdom in men warned them of the consequence of this, saying, you must not centre your consciousness in matter, for by that you will die to your cosmic awareness and have only consciousness through physical senses.

But the forces of individuation, flowing into matter, seemed to say that if they allowed their being to enter into and experience physical life, how could they lose their eternal consciousness? Instead they would gain knowledge of the opposites, of the paradox that Elohim knows.

Then the desires for this fired their will, for many spirits wished to know life in physical realms; to experience fully the knowledge of time and space, of the incompleteness of being just male or female, of looking out through the senses of a physical body, and knowing the feel of winds and water, separation and aloneness. Thus came about the fall of the angels, and many spirits fell into life within a physical body.

Here are two example showing how apples can be used in dreams:

Example: I was on a plane or a journey. On my right sat an American, very flabby, with a paunch. I was eating an Apple, (I had been on a fruit fast during the day), and my elbow sometimes touched his paunch, it felt lifeless, lacking vitality. I told him he ought to eat only apples for a while, and all the dead flesh would fall off him.

Then a young Chinese man came to me and pointed out a line marked on my apple, on the green, less developed side. He said every apple had it if one looked, and under the line was a hair, “hair of discontent.” He said this was poisonous, and best not eaten. I slid my fingernail under the line, and pulled out a long hair. I thought this was wonderful, and that I had been given real wisdom of the East.

Example: The words then came, “Eat not.” I have a strong feeling this was the forbidden apple, and in some old way, this was why I had not been able to eat apples lightly, because for the past few months, if I ate apples I suffered strong acid indigestion. Something seems wrong with my digestive system anyway, as I have had acid indigestion, pains, and now piles. I felt, though, that the apples could now beaten, and have in fact being able to eat them without ill effects since this session.

Idioms: American as apple pie; an apple a day keeps the doctor away; apple of his eye; bad apple; Big Apple; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; upset the apple cart.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream was it a fruit you enjoyed, a temptation or something else?

What were you doing with the apple, or how did you use it?

What did you feel in the dream about the apple?

Try using Talking As, as a way of understanding the apple in your dream.

Appointment

Reminder of something we unconsciously feel we are about to meet, or something we need to meet. This can be about the importance of a relationship, or of taking care of a person or situation. An appointment can suggest the need to ‘get together’ with someone or that aspect of yourself, or that there are important things to deal with. See: romantic date for romantic appointment.

It depends upon what led to cancelling or missing the appointment, ask yourself was it something that you really wanted or was it something that you wanted to avoid.

Probably an agreement or agreements that you yourself wanted.

This is usually about something that is important and so take notice of it.

Usually it refers to you meeting the feeling you have about death. If you continually avoid the appointment it points to you fear of death – best to meet it. See near death experiences.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this dream about trying to live up to the imperatives of work, other people’s needs or deadlines I have set myself?

Is this about remembering something such as the importance of something in my life?

Have you agreed to do something and forgotten?

Try Talking As or Processing Dreams to see if you can get a clearer idea of the message of the dream.

Apron

It might point to the mother role, household work, or getting to work on a family situation. It is therefore an indication in some dreams of being capable and of getting things done. It is sometimes linked with an elderly woman in the dream and depicts motherhood, or a grandmother power in your life.

Apron’s are sometimes worn by workmen or women in a restaurant or service situation, so it might indicate a role you are in or a situation you are involved in.

Useful questions:

In what situation is the apron appearing – work, housework, or as a memory of someone?

What are my feelings in connection with this, and what part of my life do those feelings connect with?

Is there a feeling of capability in the dream – if so, capable of what?

Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Aquarium

Your inner world of feelings, thoughts and intuitions. It probably represents the ability to see or understand some of the usually unconscious processes in your body and yourself. It can also relate to the unconscious processes going on under the surface. Being empty or full suggests whether you are allowing your inner feelings to become know or remain empty. See: fish and sea creatures.

Example: During the weekend I had two dreams, although I was lucid at the time. I was in a huge indoor aquarium. The water was very clear, but had a slight yellowish or straw colour tinge to it. I was swimming under the water looking at the many creatures. I had a sense of being within a very ancient environment. The creatures were all primordial, each functioning in its own distinct way, some of which would be dangerous to me if I related to them wrongly – i.e. if I let them contact my skin, or get into my cavities. But I was fascinated and felt a sense of wonder and privilege. As I swam I began to feel that I was actually looking within myself to the ancient processes of the blood and cells. I had a sense that we are all the time immersed in this ancient aquarium, relating to its creatures one way or another.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I becoming aware of within myself?

What does the theme of this dream suggest about my inner feelings?

What creatures are in the aquarium, and are there poisonous or dangerous things in me or is it beauty?

Use Processing Dreams to explore your dream.

Arab

This depends whether you are of Arab or Islamic ethnicity. If you are then it is depicting an aspect of yourself. If not, then you need to define what your feelings and associations you have with Arabs and particularly the dream figure. In general it may represent masculinity, passionate manhood, possessiveness. See: Abroad.

Useful questions are:

If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role under peerdream work.)

What is my relationship with this dream character and what might that represent in my waking life?

What am I doing in the dream – running; waiting searching; bargaining; pleading; looking for love – and can I see that in my life in any way?

Archaeologist

This is primarily about uncovering or discovering your buried past, things you may have long put behind you or tried to forget. Sometimes this links with your far distant ancestors or aspects of your present personality you carry from the far past. But even so it is about finding or becoming aware of aspects of you from the past.

Freud didn’t actually explore very far into this amazing underworld. If we think of his journey as something like an archaeologist digging into a great tomb, then what Freud ran into was a mass of rubble blocking the way to further exploration. It was rubble that in general has to be cleared before the vastness of that interior can be appreciated. The rubble, in fact is made up of the massive amount of experiences, feelings, angers, urges, that we manage to keep below the surface of awareness; that we hold beyond the threshold of waking, imprisoning them in the darkness of the unconscious.

Depth psychology began to explore beyond the boundaries that Freud reached. Its practitioners discovered that not only were there dark memories and hurts in that realm; not only repressed and forbidden behaviours and fantasies, but also huge areas of what was later called transpersonal experience. By this they meant that in that dark realm our personal self links with our family, with humanity, and with the hidden forces of the universe. This was particularly explored and mapped when LSD was used for psychotherapeutic purposes, and an unaccountable number of people could look into the realm themselves.

So in dreaming of archaeology we may uncover scenes of past murder, or babies left and our real self buried alive, but beyond that is the uncovering of vast cultural treasures, of an amazing expansion or personal knowledge.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the archaeologist doing and what does that suggest?

Is something being uncovered or dug up, and if I describe myself as that what do I define about myself?

What are my feelings in the dream?

You can be an archaeologist by exploring the buried message of your dreams by using Processing Dreams and Peer Dream Work.

Archaeologist Archaeology

If you are an archaeologist or involved in the work, then it relates to whatever is concerning or interesting you at the moment. But it will still probably have a more interior meaning.

It links to the process of gradually bringing your past experience to consciousness. Literally it shows you digging into what are usually your unconscious layers of yourself to unearth personal meaning and perhaps deal with past problems that were buried. See archaeologist.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been ‘digging’ into myself in any way – if so what have I uncovered?

Have circumstances or events uncovered what was previously buried in me?

What part of my past are my dream images suggesting?

You can be an archaeologist by exploring the buried message of your dreams by using Processing Dreams and Peer Dream Work.

What is the archaeologist doing and what does that suggest?

Is something being uncovered or dug up, and if I describe myself as that what do I define about myself?

What are my feelings in the dream?

Have I been ‘digging’ into myself in any way – if so what have I uncovered?

Have circumstances or events uncovered what was previously buried in me?

What part of my past are my dream images suggesting?

Archer

It is all about the person who has the bow and what it is used for. It could be used for competition archery; it could be for hunting; it could be for killing someone; it could be for warfare; it could be for fun.

It helps to see what the role is and to see what that suggests – so what are you in competition with; what are you hunting; who are you wishing to kill; what is the conflict you are engaged in; what is the fun? You could use Stand in role to find out more.

Many boys who live in the country make bows and arrows as they go through a phase of being hunters and attaining manhood. Many youngster go through similar phases as they become independent – so scooter, bicycle and skate board.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the archer you or a dream figure?

If you what are your motives – or if not you use Stand in role.


Archer

See: Aim.

Architect

Here is the image of the process or function in us that plans, that designs in a creative and perhaps considering way. It may be about plans for a better or different living condition, or about business or even a relationship. The architect is also pointing to a process of checking and directing progress.

This might be about how you wish your ‘space’ to be, or how to use the space you have. So it might relate to your mind or attitudes. Or does you dream show you making an architects plan of your inner life or even your future?

As an architect you or your dream character can be the architect of future change.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I planning to change or build in my life, and does this dream relate to that?

Does this dream reflect or comment on any of my dreams or goals in any way?

What is the architect in my dream doing, and what can I gather from that if I translate it into everyday life?

Find out more by using Processing Dreams and Talking As.

If I imagine my self as the architect how do I describe myself. For help doing this see Standing in Roles.

Architecture

My exploration of dreams suggest that the external objects of culture such as houses and towns we see around us and take for granted, actually produce in us the release of a massive amount of information and deeply felt experience. Most often however, we fail to appreciate this as it is covered, obscured, by the dominant sensory impressions and taught responses.

In fact any architecture in a dream can be a wonderful entrance into our history and our past. We tend to understand from the shape and quality of the building things we seldom put into words, and yet are very powerful inwardly.

Pregnant women frequently dream about houses, architecture and planning a new extension. That pregnant women’s dreams might hold some special significance was first recognised as long as 4,000 years ago. According to ancient Mesopotamian texts, the Hittites performed cleansing ceremonies on women considered to have been “contaminated” by dreams they had before giving birth. Modern analysis of pregnant women’s dreams has increased since the 1960s, with researchers collecting dream reports from hundreds of women in various stages of pregnancy.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you feel when you see buildings or a house in your dream?

Can you put into words what you feel or sense in the architecture?

The questions in The House in Your Dream may help to define what you know unconsciously.

It could also be a help to  use Standing in Role and also Talking As.

Are there dangers in spreading your wings?

There are dangers in virtually everything we do in our everyday life. People die from normal activities such as driving a car, eating out and the electricity in their home. We take it for granted that knowing and avoiding such dangers is a regular part of life. So it is good to look at the possible dangers of crossing the frontier into wider awareness and transformation. 

Years ago a young man talked to me about developing his intuition. He was going to use a crystal ball to do this. I discovered he was convinced pictures and scenes actually appeared in the ball, rather than it being a focus for his mental imagery. That lack of understanding could put him in a dangerous relationship with his own imagination and imagery. He would not arrive at a balanced evaluation of what he was experiencing.

 The danger of this lack of understanding applies to lucidity also. You are dealing with powerful mental, emotional and spiritual processes. It is important to understand what the dream process is capable of and what it does. Remember, a dream is a full surround virtual reality activating all your senses and abilities. When you are in it, it is just as real to you as the physical world. But there is a huge difference. The environment, people, animals and objects are all projections. In the film Matrix, the hero is at one point put into a lucid virtual reality called ‘the construct’. He cannot understand what is happening to him, and his guide says, “What you see now is what we call residual self image. It is a mental projection….” Your dream is exactly that, an amazing moving and living projection in which you act and interact with YOURSELF. There is, in the widest or cosmic sense, nothing else. The dream process transforms your emotions, your beliefs and hopes, your fears and traumas, your intuitions and creative visions, into people, environments, animals and events. Understanding that is vital. 

The second danger is avoidance. Because everything you meet is an aspect of yourself – either your small or cosmic self – any avoidance of a frightening dream figure, a difficult environment is an avoidance of yourself. The figures and environments are created out of your own mental, emotional and sexual energy. Avoiding them means losing portions of your potential and your physical and emotional energy. I know this as a vital personal truth. At one time I suffered what is now called ME. I was so tired I barely wanted to stand up. As I reclaimed my dream figures the tiredness disappeared. 

Your dream characters and animals are intelligent and purposeful. They have a semi independent life within you until you integrate them. You create them unconsciously using your energy, positive feelings and motivations. Avoiding them leads to the loss of your full potential and health. I am not suggesting you immediately meet and integrate all your many aspects. That takes time, courage and a form of strength that only grows as you mature in this new environment. What is important is to remember your goals – integration and wholeness – growth into a new level of ability and maturity, a new connection with others and yourself. You do this by claiming and loving all that you are. 

The third danger is the lack of understanding about your own growing abilities. In crossing the frontier into your fuller life, you have opened a gate wider than you have in the past. Usually only a few dreams and feelings have been allowed through into waking life, and for some people not even dreams have emerged. So it is important to remember that the world of lucidity can sometimes emerge into waking life if it is important enough. Sometimes there is an urge from within that needs to be known. This breaks through in the form of a waking dream. That sounds easy, but remember that a dream creates a full surround virtual reality. When the breakthrough occurs you see people, perhaps hear a voice talking to you, or see an animal that is not physically present. If you do not understand the process you may develop crazy anxious ideas and feelings about it. So take this in and make it something you understand. A vision, a hallucination, is the dream process occurring while you are awake. It is not a sign of madness, but an indication that you are now able to access your intuition and unconscious senses more capably. 

The fourth danger is in not knowing your territory. This is not a big danger, but it can be disturbing if you are suddenly in an environment you have no understanding or concept of. So recognise that there are five major levels of consciousness, each producing very different ways of experiencing yourself.

  Dreamless sleep – usually experienced as unconsciousness. If entered lucidly it becomes an infinite ocean of awareness in which you are an integral part of the cosmos and all that exists in it. Here there is the possibility of gaining insight into how your present personality was formed out of this ocean of possibilities and collective experience.  

Arena Amphitheatre Coliseum

This usually represent the focus of attention on whatever is happening in the arena. It is a mental ability to bring an unimaginable number of associated bits of information and experience together in considering something. The many people in an arena therefore show the amount of interest. It can also suggest an area or focus of conflict or contest.

The arena is also a place of drama, where the deepest moments of life are played out or examined. It therefore suggests something being dramatised or considered by you, something being witnessed, or a testing of oneself, as in a sporting event, especially if the area is a stadium rather than an arena. It can also show participation with others in life or endeavours. See: theatre.

If it is a coliseum type arena it often has associated links with being killed by wild animals or gladiators, or being in the role of gladiator. Usually it is about releasing fears or struggles from within you that you had not met before and may be frightened of or even terrified. As I often explain, whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things can hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

Sometimes the entrance to the arena through a dark tunnel can be fears, struggles, or meeting powerful sexual urges and either be beaten down by them or deal with them. See Meeting yourselfEnergy Sex and Dreams

It is a place in which you can be a spectator, a judge or centre of attention.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a big issue in my life I am in conflict about, examining or rehearsing in some way?

What is my attention focussing on at the moment or my dream is showing as important?

Am I involved with others in a way that is now being felt as important?

Use Acting on Your Dream to see what it suggests.

Argue Argued Arguing

This could refer to something you are feeling conflict about and have different but conflicting feelings about. Or it might show you releasing feelings about someone that you do not tell them to their face. It might refer to feelings about parents arguing, so depict the anxiety or anger you felt at the time.

Conflicts can occur between the many facets of oneself such as your body needs and your intellectual ideas about life; your sexual or instinctive nature and your sense of what is right from your upbringing; between your fears, and your appetites and desires emerging from vulnerabilities and neurotic behaviour, and your deep core of life. See The Life Will and aggression.

Arguing with opposite sex: This might refer to a tension existing between you and your partner, about memories of difficulties with an ex partner, or about a conflict existing between your rational outgoing self and your feeling intuitive self. See Dealing with an Ex.

Arguing with authority or police: Might show a struggle you are experiencing between the pressure you feel from society or expectations of others and what you want or feel. See police.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What or who am I arguing with in my dream, and what connections can I make with that?

Do I resolve the argument, and if so what are the key factors of the resolution?

If I do not resolve the argument, how can I resolve it in my mind and feelings now I am awake?

It may  be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward and use Processing Dreams.

It can help to deal with anger and aggression by using The Cushion Technique.

Arid

This suggests that little or nothing is growing in your life or activities. It may refer specifically to your relationship(s). On occasion it might refer to attempts to conceive.

The lack of water also may mean that you are not allowing your emotions to express. See: desert.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling empty or meaningless at the moment?

Am I questioning what is emerging from my life?

What would I say are the fruits of my life?

Try exploring your dream with Processing Dreams. Also try reading What we need to remember about dreams.

Arising

This difficult to answer as it could be about something new arising in your life, the pain arising from abandonment, the habits arising from ones cultural heritage, the needs arising from your own childhood emotional dependence or your need for warmth and love as a baby, or even impressions arising from this mental realm, or it could be a building arising, or any of a thousand other things. So first see if you can find an entry about what is arising, such as abandonment, dependence, or sexual feelings.

See flying if you  are literally arising, or if you are arising from a chair it is about a change, an active phase following being inactive. See: postures and body movements.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Ask yourself what the arising is about, and use Processing Dreams to see if you can define it.

Does it link with any feeling you have experienced lately?

If you imagine yourself in the dream, and visualise the action it might bring insights. See Carry the Dream Forward.

Ark

ark An area of yourself that has been shaped by following your innermost urges and intuitions, as opposed to those arising from fear, passion, ambition. Or something can come out of the ark and thus be old fashioned. For some people the ark represents a survival aid in times of stress. So it might depict a means of escape from a difficult situation.

An ark is a safe refuge, therefore feelings or attitudes that have some strength and survival value.

Example: The ark is obviously connected  with religious beliefs, and I see Christ as an Ark. The only way I can explain this is to ask you to imagine a being that has been able to develop a symbiotic relationship with all life forms at the level of sentience or consciousness. In our own view of life, such a being is incredibly highly evolved. But also imagine that this being does not have a physical body, existing as it dies outside the limitations of time and space as we usually know it. The image I saw was of an immense being standing in space by earth, absorbing all human experience. This being was an Ark because, from what was being shown me, even if humanity destroyed itself, all its experience would be preserved and expressed again in another time and place. Nothing of importance would be lost. Even such an apparently small thing as a child’s love for its Grandma would be preserved and allowed to live again.

Carter uses the image of the ark in his poem So That We Build, and suggests a mistake or a transgression prior to deliverance. So it might be that in your dream is might say you have survived a transgression.

This suggests that the bonds we create and live by are a part of the system itself. What survives is to create a bonding system which actually survives and perpetuates itself. It cannot do this without utilising the hidden but powerful underlying systems in cosmic processes. There is another fundamental action – it is that when we move against an implicit social conditioning, we feel the pressure or pain of that – whether it is sexual, clothing, or whatever it is. When we actually face the discomfort of that we actually meet consciousness. We discover the underlying feelings and forces that have created the conditioning in the first place. So in facing out discomforts we may uncover a new person we can become.

The biblical account of Noah taking pairs of the animals aboard the Ark to preserve them suggests the preservation of our animal instincts not the repression or destruction. The meaning of taking pairs – one of each sex – is that we can uplift these animal tendencies we find within. This says that if we do this then we are the ark, and our body the structure of the ark.

Exampl: Hello Tony I am puzzled by this recent dream as it seems so at odds with my conscious understanding: I return to my home town, a small seaside place and find that where the Church I used to attend, which was close to my mother’s retirement home, stood, my Mother had had it demolished and built a small supposed to be luxury but, actually in places, a bit over the top modern hotel. I went into the new place looking for my room but it was a new hotel room full of sports – wear.. in the dream it had the name of my second son …Roddy’s room. Although the space the hotel took up was large the 3 bedrooms were close almost crammed together at the end of a long hallway.

As I explored I came upon people building a strange boat type ark. It was ready to go to sea and after some indecision involving a man who said I could not go, I leapt on but all the doors were shut so I sat right at the front on a sort of step. The boat was on the promenade and then turned sharply onto a slipway and began to move quickly down the slip-way. I looked at the sea hoping it would be calm as I was on this exposed bit and as I looked I saw that the sea was a massive wave, tall as a skyscraper very dark and huge and we were racing towards it. I realised there was a young woman beside me and as I frantically thought how to escape she said “What a sadist to send us this wave.” I woke myself up very frightened. S.

S. – I see that despite all the promised luxury your actual living space is diminished – the three rooms at the end of a long hallway. The ark suggests a way out of the mess, based on old ideas of religion. But in fact the door is closed to you and as the young woman remarks, “What a sadist to send us this wave.” Yet I feel that the wave is the way out, even though frightening. This may not seem a very good idea, but you have to remember that when we dream we are creating images that clothe feelings and emotions. If you can see that facing what is an uncomfortable feeling and going through it frees you from it. Either that or you could visualise other alternatives

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a difficult situation I am trying to escape from?

What am I trying to save or salvage from my present life?

What part in my dream is this ark playing?

Am I in some way the ark? Using Processing Dreams may help.

Arm

Arms usually refer to your ability to love, give, take, create, defend, reach out. Our arms, especially the arm we use most, can also represent all the struggle and effort we have put into life, what we have given and taken, what skills we have learned or created in the work and labour of life and love.

Arm or arms reaching toward you: This can mean an extension of love or even aggressiveness. You would know from the feeling the move stimulates.

Example: Tonight it happened again and several memories kept pushing into awareness. One in particular is a memory of you as a baby too young to able to speak. It was when mum and I ran a guest house and we had you in a pram in the front garden. One of the guest, a woman who looked okay came and said she wanted to walk you in the pram down the road. She started to push the pram, suddenly you looked at me without making a sound and stretched your arms toward me. It was a signal that hit me so hard emotionally I ran and took the pram from her. I think she was mortified by my actions. I don’t suppose you have any memory of it but for me it was a powerful enough to  remain imprinted in my memory.

Right arm: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do.

Left arm: The left arm is those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm – our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represent confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish.

Example: Dreamt Pete was in my father’s shop in London. Someone had shot him in the left bicep and I was trying to help him. I had a small box on the counter and there was fluid or blood in it, and I put the hurt muscle in it hoping to heal it. When the gunshot flesh was in the blood the blood bubbled and effervesced, becoming hot. I felt the flesh would not be of any use now, but wasn’t sure. In the end though I was considering cleaning away the injured flesh from the arm. All I could see were the sinews with a small amount of flesh on them – no muscle in between. But I began to feel that gradually new cells might grow and develop into a new muscle – granulate.

The dream was explored, and it was seen that it was the dreamer himself who was injured. His father had never shown interest in him and this had undermined his confidence. It led him to weep with the pain of this. He was in his forties, and felt a complete failure, yet the dream promised new growth which turned out be true.

Injury to: Loss of confidence or ability to reach out or create; loss of or psychological trauma regarding those abilities. Left is the supportive feelings. Right is extroverted activity.

Tied up: Sense of restriction to activities.

Bicep: Strength; sense of being capable.

 

Idioms: Chance one’s arm; give one’s right arm; arm twisting; keep at arms length; with open arms; one arm tied behind back, babe in arms; strong arm tactics. See: left; right; body; Example under white.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If my arm is injured, what in my life am lacking or I feeling inadequate in?

What am I doing with my arm(s) and how does that link with waking life?

If this is a positive dream, what of myself is it bringing my attention to?

Explore the depths of the meaning by using Talking As.

Armageddon

The aim of the Dream Dictionary is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. This is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions with which life confronts you.

Your Guru the Dream

Your Guru Your Body

Dreams are one of nature’s miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the process of life, our core self and our conscious personality. Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millions of years of Life experience.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life – such as breathing, digestion and the thousands of other life sustaining activities and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, Our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See  – Brain Levels and Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To meet this ancient self try using Opening to Life

That suggests that dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying traumatic and disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

I know how much you might like to skip the Introduction to Dream Dictionary, and if you are tempted to do so, I wholeheartedly ask you to read Summing Up. Without understanding the things given there you are likely to completely miss the point of understanding your dreams. The best technique to enter you dream world – Peer Dream Work

You can start using the Dream Dictionary by entering the word you wish to research into the Search Box on the top right of most pages and clicking the search symbol – or you can read some fuller information below about the dictionary and how best to use it.

But the quickest way is to put your word in the search box. 

It is important in reading the definitions of dream images to realise that not every possible meaning can be covered in this dictionary. So please see if you get the idea of what is being said and allow your own imagination/feelings to fill in the meaning.

There are several ways you can understand the meanings held in your dreams, and there are several levels.

The first is an easily understood level, followed by greater depths:

For instance, speaking as an object or dream person, one needs to take time with it. Learn how to actually describe what you are as that dream object or person. If I dream of a dog, don’t simply describe what you think a dog feels like, but actually take time to tune into the dream image and describe the dog dreamt about. Is it an old or young dog? What is it doing in the dream? Listen to your feelings and describe what it/you feel. Remember that each image is a creation of your own mind and unconscious, so you are really describing yourself. Say whatever comes and consider its value afterwards. Below is a quote from Tiziana Stupia’s book Meeting Shiva 

So below are listed several ways to gain insight and information from your dreams. Take your time with each approach until you get the feel for it, and then experiment with other approaches.

You can enter a key word in the search box. The Dream Dictionary contains interpretations on almost any type of dream subject. So, if you dreamt of a flying saucer landing in a field, and aliens getting out and taking a baby, a snake, and a pregnant dog back into the saucer, you could search separately for each of these subjects in the Dream Dictionary. Find the entry for flying saucer; then the entry for dog, babysnake, pregnant, and so on. For each entry, find further related entries by looking under ‘Similar Articles’ on the right-hand side of the page. Then see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams.

Each entry gives the general meaning of the dream subject, just as an encyclopedia or dictionary does for a word. Several possible meanings are given. This is because as with our speech the position of the word – the context – gives it special meanings. So, a hot dog would be quite different to a black dog, dog-end or dead dog. Therefore, when you read an entry which has several different meanings, sometimes with a ‘;’ between, it simply means any one of them could apply, which means you need to think about the feelings in your dream, the context, the other imagery used. Please do not fall into the trap that one reviewer made of saying that the whole dictionary is about sex. Of course, sex is one meaning among many others. So, use your own sense of your dream as well as any definitions given.

To really explore the meaning, it is useful to use the Dream Dictionary as it is designed, rather than arrive at a ‘thought out’ interpretation. To see a working example of this see Dream Interpretation Example One

Forest-A

I no longer offer a personal dream interpretation service, but only occasionally if you manage to send  an interesting dream I will respond – the reason is I am getting past my sell by date being 84.

Note: comments that have any adverts or links to other sites will be deleted.

In the meantime, here is a way to work out your own dream – Getting at Your Dream’s Meaning.

Please note: this a not-for-profit site and it offers real dream interpretations, not dream dictionary features that are not real interpretations. We ask no payment for these interpretations, but it would be a great if you wish to donate anything. I do not ask a fee for what I do, but if you wish to donate you can click on this Paypal Donation  

I have been interested in the health of mind and body since my early teens. I began writing about these subjects in 1956. My fascination for what lay under the surface of the mind led me personally to explore the unconscious using dreams and other mental and physical disciplines. From 1972 – 94 I worked as a psychotherapist using an eclectic, Humanistic Psychology approach which included dream work and releasing the secrets the body holds. My books include Do You DreamMind and MovementThe Instant Dream Book; Dream DictionaryLife’s Little Secrets –Liberating The Body  – and many more. See My Books.

Throughout more than five decades I have been involved in a personal search for the secrets of mind and spirit. In those years I have also taught thousands of people techniques of deep relaxation, meditation, and methods of self exploration using dreams. Wanting to dig deep I explored the use of dreams and taught individuals and groups of people how to use these visions of the night to discover and heal the deepest issues in themselves, and to touch the high ground of their spiritual awareness. I worked for twenty years as a psychotherapist using several approaches, one of which was a way of honouring the body as a doorway to the unconscious mind, the emotions and spiritual experience. See Self-Regulation –  Recognition – Life’s Little Secrets – The LifeStream and Opening to Life

During the sixty years of seeking the wild wondrous beasts of the mind and spirit I dared my own inner adventure. But I also travelled with other people as an ordinary person, not a therapist, sharing their experience of fear and wonder as they unveiled and set loose their fountain of perception. I have travelled countless dream pathways, traversed the timeless with those using awareness enhancing drugs, and wrestled with the vitality of the body as people mimed and shouted their deepest intuitions through movement, dance and voice. See Tony’s Biography

My aim has always to share my findings – actually what I was shown or given from within – was given freely; I never had any teacher or attended a course, of course I read an enormous amount, so I cannot ask for money. If you wish to donate anything to the running of the site you can do so by clicking on https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JYTWAMC4LQLQ4&source=url 

My teacher has been from exploring dreams and occasionally touching the wonder we were born as – not from words written in books about that but by meeting it. See Enlightenment  

Forest-A

Profundización de la comprensión de un sueñoIntroducción

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

So how can we get into this magical world of our dreams and start to harvest the possibilities held there? The following pages of this book are designed to help, guide and inform on how to do this. The book is also a counsellor on what you may find in your dream adventure.

The information about dreams presented in this book has been gathered during fifty years of working with and studying dreams and the dream process. It synthesises the experience of personally helping hundreds of individuals explore their dreams. The examples used have been taken from a collection of over 8000 dreams put onto a computer filing system. The filing system was also used to define general associations with commonly used dream images.

The major input for definition however has arisen from the actual exploration of dreams undertaken by individuals. These are either people I have worked with personally who have deeply felt the emotions and issues behind their dreams, not simply talked them over and come to an intellectual interpretation but a deep insight, or are people who have written up their findings arising from similar work. Added to this is the commonly held associations we have through our language and the way we use imagery within speech. Of course your personal dream imagery may not be using the commonly held associations, or those used by other people, and so you must read the definitions with care and consider if these fit what is implied or dramatised in your dream.

In the entries in the Dictionary are explanations of the many different types of dreams and dream images. Despite some people’s attempt to explain dreams in one simple formula, dreams cover a huge range of phenomena and human experience. Amongst subjects covered in the book are thousands of entries on the researched meaning of the things, people, creatures and places we dream about. There are also many entries on special subjects such as symbols and dreaming; interpreting dreamsrecurring dreamsnightmaressex while asleepteenage girls love dreamsprecognitive dreamstalking in ones sleepthe dream as an adventure; Occultism and Dreamsscience sleep and dreams; and many more.

There are a compete list of these Features and the  Archetypes covered.

Therefore, if you have dreamt of such things as your teeth falling out; being chased; or your marriage partner dying, you will find an explanation of your dream in the following pages.

The aim of the book is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. The book is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions life confronts you with.

But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary – or better still read Meaning of Your Dream

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. It is as if all your deepest feelings, hopes, fear and wonder are projected outward onto a multidimensional screen. It is a world of virtual reality that you feel is real. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us.

But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiments of our fears; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

Our Core self is that amazing part of us existing beyond time and space, and was within us from the start of our universe.

I suggest you only try one method at a time and use it until you are capable or it or it doesn’t work for you, then move on to other methods taking time with them until you find what works best for you.

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

Dream Processing – The following dream needs no deep techniques of processing. The word ‘processing’ is used throughout the book instead of analysis. Analysis has the connotation of giving our own thoughts or opinions to the dream. Processing is used to suggest extraction of information which leads to insight. With this particular dream, all it needs is a few facts brought to it to make clear what information it holds. The dream is that of a young woman, Mrs C. L.

It is a bright sunny day. I am walking across a large concrete car park. It is empty except for a huge trailer from a truck. It has BOOTS written on the side, and stands high off the ground. Being 4’ 9’ tall myself I decide to walk underneath. As I am half way the trailer starts to be lowered on top of me. I try to shout but cannot. I get onto my hands and knees and the trailer still kept coming down. I am now lying on my stomach, convinced it is going to crush me. Then it suddenly stops a couple of inches from my head. I wake feeling terrible.

The dream is interesting, although the information it holds may at first not be obvious. But with a minimum of processing the dream information will become clear. The first technique of processing the dream is to recognise some of the key statements within it. These are I AM WALKING – I TRY TO SHOUT – CONVINCED IT IS GOING TO CRUSH ME.

The reason these are key statements is because the dreamer is saying ‘I am walking’ – ‘I try to shout’ – ‘I …am convinced’. The word ‘I’ is important.

This form of processing has not added anything to the dream. It has simply drawn attention to the information already there in the dreamer’s description of her experience – this is why it is useful to write the dream out fully. If we add a little more information which the dreamer herself connects with the dream, then it becomes even clearer. Mrs C. L. says, ‘I work for BOOTS the chemist. The employees at the shop I work in were told at the beginning of the year that Boots are selling our shop. When that happens I will be made redundant. We were supposed to finish on May 26th. It is now the end of July. The deal fell through so we are now just left hanging indefinitely until a new buyer comes along. I feel very unsettled as I can’t make any plans for the future.’

Having read these comments, it would be difficult not to see the dream as relating to the woman’s work situation, and to her strong anxiety connected with it. She herself says – through her dream – she is ‘convinced it – the situation – is going to crush’ her. She also feels her strong emotions about this – expressed in her attempt to shout – are not being expressed or ‘heard’. From just this one dream, we can be forgiven if we assume that dreams may express in dramatic form our feeling reaction to the circumstances of our everyday life. Taking this dream as information, Mrs. C. L. could see she is feeling crushed by the situation, yet not stating her feelings loudly enough to be heard. She might therefore speak to the manager to clarify the situation for herself.

Here is an even shorter and less complex dream. It has been left just as it was written so its information is immediately apparent. The key words here might be TRYING TO CONTACT HIM and NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY HE LEFT ME. The dream is from Mrs C. J.

Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him, not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

On speculating about the dream from what is immediately apparent, we might say that although it is irrational to continually  try to contact her husband when there has never be any success, nevertheless, her desire to be with him continues year after year. This same part of her cannot understand why he died. We might put such feelings into words as, ‘But what had he done to die so young? Why should it happen to me twice?’ We can also assume that her desire to understand these questions, which is what contacting her husband represents, is expressed in the dream as the telephone.

The dream process has dramatised her situation and inner feelings – given them form and made them experiential. Looking at this dream helps us see how an image, such as the telephone, performs exactly the same sort of function as a spoken word, although in a different way. Namely, it represents feelings and thoughts. That the woman’s questions remain, that her problem is unsolved, is apparent from the fact she does NOT make contact on the telephone, and does not find peace. Understanding her dream shows her the importance of the questions she continually asks herself, and the need to release the emotions behind them. With this she could be free of the dream. If she cannot manage this by herself, taking advantage of the professional help of a therapist might help.

To make it clear how everything is a dream holds personal information, to give an example, I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

For fuller Dream Processing – Below are described simple techniques that make it possible to quickly gain information from your dreams. They have been put as a series of questions. If you take time to consider and answer the question you will find your way into a new experience of dream understanding.

Read it in: Processing Your Dream  

Acting on your Dreams – Extracting more from your dream by letting your body and feelings express it can provide a remarkable release of insight. There are several ways of doing this.

Do see the instructions see: Acting on Your Dreams

The Peer Dream Group – This method is the most powerful and deepest method. It includes some of the other techniques mentioned.

The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams and into oneself if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream  and themselves but only when we break through to what is usually unconscious mental states, and when treated as such, and supported in their investigation of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.

To use it see: The Peer Dream Group and What I Have Seen In Dreams

For the Dictionary put the word you want to look up in the search box at the top right of all pages 

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Armchair

Usually associated with rest or relaxation. A particular armchair might link with certain memories, such as courting or love-making. It might link with a person because of where a family member or friend sat. But any item or furniture can also associate with likes or dislikes, or a particular relationship or time of life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my memories or associations with the armchair?

If I don’t not know this armchair, what do I feel about it in the dream?

What would I say is the function of an armchair, what is it for, and does that define it in the dream?

Use Talking As to define what the armchair means.

Armor Armour

The emotional and intellectual rigidity we use to protect ourselves from hurt. Can depict muscular tension which blocks free flowing sexuality and feelings; or our defence systems, such as frantically arguing for our beliefs, or killing out our feelings in a relationship; fear of getting hurt – but also ability to protect oneself from hurt or attack. So it can be the attitudes or feelings you use as a barrier to stop other people ‘getting through to you’, a hardness or rigidity of attitudes; defensive attitudes; self doubt; inner conflict.

If the armour is seen as defensive, it may point to deep anxieties in regard to what is suggested by the dream action – such as relationship, work, health.

Shining armour: Idealism; the strength of ones beliefs or resolve. In a woman’s dream, feelings of romance about finding a male who is strong enough to care and help her meet the difficulties of life.

Example: I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin’s hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenceless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Charles Kingsley – from Alton Locke, 1850.

Kingsley’s description is a magnificent picture of the softness and vulnerability we use our ‘armour’ to defend against. But the next dream gives an entirely different use of armour. The dream shows how new life can arise out of the death of the old, and how failure can become victory when we find our golden armour arising from awareness of our core self beyond death.

While heavily pregnant 11 years ago I dreamt I and thousands of Japanese-like soldiers had been at war and lost. Our punishment was beheading. Not wanting to see my comrades killed I went to the front. I was dead, outside my body. Dressed in golden armour with a lion symbol. I told my comrades they outnumbered the enemy. They won and took my baby from my dead body. BMW. #

Here in the way of all Life, death is followed by new life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What use is being made of the armour, and what do I gather from this about myself or my attitudes?

Am I using the armour as an intellectual or emotional barrier?

If I am wearing the armour how do I feel without it, and how does that reflect in my life?

Here are some ways to move beyond vulnerability – Methods of Awakening Life’s Little SecretsFacing Fear.

Also see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Arms

(Such as weapons – See: Arm for body limb) Guns, spears, usually symbolise aggressiveness and destructive urges and wishes. Or male sexuality. If you are being attacked they depict your own fear of being hurt or dominated, either by your own emotions or those of someone else. See: weapons

Army

This suggests some form of conflict, internal or otherwise. The army might be depicting the forces or qualities you muster to deal with difficulties – i.e. courage, information; aggression or anger. They might be attitudes necessary to face anxieties such as determination or confidence in your core self.

The army is also an organisation and the dream might be about how you are relating to being organised, being told what to do, being under orders, or working within an organisation amongst many others. So it is important to recognise how you feel in the dream. Do you feel trapped, part of something, alone in a crowd, or a meaningful part of something bigger than you?

Sometimes army dreams occur when you are ready to confront the internal traumas and conflicts you carry. The important aspects of such dreams are about what they show of your attitudes or feelings about the army. But it is often necessary to read the entry on war, as the army dream might be mostly about the fighting. See: soldier; war.

Example: I had a series of dreams about being a soldier marching to the front with an army. Then came a day when I dreamt we were in the trenches waiting for the signal to go over the top. It came, I leapt up out of the trench and ran through the flying bullets to meet the foe.

The dreams came at a time when I was getting nearer facing internal traumas I had carried since childhood. After the last dream these broke through into waking life very dramatically, and I relived a tonsil operation experienced as a six year old. Anthony.

There is a great battle we are all part of, the battle to grow into the full beauty of women and men; the battle against the lies we live in; the battle to realise who we are.

This forgetfulness lies upon the world like a blanket of fog, a daytime night. We walk in it and call our darkness light. Believing in what we have as knowledge, we label the gleams of light reaching us, myth, legend, poetry, religion or mere nonsense. Yet the legend and dream persist in man’s awareness through all the changes of his so-called rational beliefs, his science, and his logic. Scientific attitudes constantly change, and with them the logic which depends on them, but fairy stories are as old as time. Or, to be more precise, the living experience in the story remains forever within us, though the outer details change. Thus the underlying essence of the stories of Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Baldur, Mithras, Osiris, and the others, are strangely alike. Echoes of our lost names, perhaps?

Ah yes, “We are shattered, tattered, demented remnants of a once glorious army. Among us are Princes and Captains of Armies, Lords of Battle, amnesic, aphasic, ataxic, jerkily trying to recall what was the battle the sounds of which still ring in our ears: is the battle still raging? If we could make our way back to join the main body of the army. Gropings, orientations, crumbs, fragments, bits of the jigsaw, a few demented ravings that may help the reconstruction of the lost message. I am just beginning to regain my memory, just beginning to realise I am lost, just getting faint sounds of old familiar music – snatches of old tunes, moments of deja-vu, a reawakening of a long-numbed agony – an unendurable realisation of what a debacle it was, what a shambles, what betrayal, horror, stupidity, ignorance, cowardice, craven lust, wretched greed. Faint recall of a raving nostalgia, for the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Paradise lost.” (The Bird Of Paradise by R. D. Laing – Quoted from my book Yield.)

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings about the army, or being in the army?

Is this army fighting for something, if so, what? How does that link with myself?

Am I avoiding or being part of the group?

Here are some ways to meet the conflict you face – Methods of Awakening Life’s Little SecretsFacing Fear.

Arrangement

This is one of those difficult words because it can mean many things. It can be a flower arrangement, an arrangement of your living area or furniture, it can be an arrangement you make with someone, a marital arrangement, an arrangement of who has what, seating arrangements, or arrangements for a journey, arrangement for where you are going to be buried, old arrangements or new arrangements, and so on.

So it is necessary to see what the arrangement was in connection with. If it was in connection with furniture then look up furniture. If it was connected to someone else look up relationship – and so on.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Ask yourself if the arrangement was to your liking or not.

If not to your liking ask yourself why not.

Use Carry the Dream Forward to find satisfaction.

Arrested Arresting

It often suggests a restraint of your natural expression by moral judgements or questions of right and wrong. Depending upon the rest of the dream it can also depict restraint of your anger or sexuality, or other ‘unlawful’ feelings. Because such dreams often include the police it can be about feeling that circumstances or social pressures are holding you back; or that your development or growth is held back.

If you have difficult feelings about police or social authority, the dream could point to the way you restrain yourself due to those feelings. Such dreams are often experienced by people who have survived harsh political regimes and know the terror of being arrested. See: police

Arresting someone else suggest that you are trying to hold some part of you that you feel you must control – as example:

I am with some black kid/guy who probably won’t have a full life and I feel so sorry about that. So sorry. We are in a toy store and he is looking for toys – inspirational books/movies – a train set to take my/his mind off the sadness of it all. The black kid scares me because he is so wild, so out of control, so energetic, so untamed. I hold onto his hand. I have arrested him – for much of the dream. I have to threaten to shoot him to bring him under control.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What of my feelings or motivations does my dream suggest I am ‘arresting’?

If it is someone else being arrested, what do they depict of my own urges or traits?

Does my dream indicate I am feeling guilty about something – is so what?

Do past experiences with authority lie behind this dream?

Use Talking As to define what the dream means for you, or Processing Dreams.


Arrogant Arrogance

It seems from looking at the dreams where arrogance is mentioned it is usually because we fail to see who we really are and so act in a way to get ourselves in trouble. The following example shows this.

By the way, I ultimately said “no” to antidepressant drugs that were recommended to me. Are these drugs as disastrous as I think they are? It seems to me they are impeding the evolution of our race by keeping tens of millions mentally and emotionally “stuck”. Sure, they reduce the pain, but for most people, an absence of pain decreases the motivation to explore their inner selves and return with some jewels of discovery.

I am quite certain that I released my demons prematurely – before I had sufficiently developed my strengths and skills. This happened because I didn’t listen to my inner self’s messages. In my arrogance, I actually thought I knew better. This led to my depression and opened the gates to my inner demons. So…I am now forced to fight a premature battle. In such a case, is there any room for the argument that antidepressants can act as a crutch to help your mind heal? The argument is that you can later get off the drugs and be better prepared to take your inner journey. The logic makes some sense. But something inside me just doesn’t sit right with this position. Artificially tampering with brain chemistry seems dangerous under any circumstances.

Here is another example of losing sight of ones common humanity, a vital factor in dealing with life.

I was once extremely beautiful. The kind of beauty that we foolishly wish for and our society demands. I was married to a wonderful, wonderful man and we were profoundly happy. So much so that it made others jealous. He was murdered trying to protect me from someone close to us and I was raped and left to mourn him. My beauty had been my curse and the reason he was taken. Actually, it was my arrogance over my beauty that was my transgression. The pain is unimaginable – KNOWING that I caused this. The universe does not see time as we do and holds us accountable from one life to the next.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way was the arrogance shown and what its results?

Do I identify with the arrogance shown in the dream or disown it?

Can I place myself in the role and feel it? See Standing in Role.

Arrow

Something that has really got into us, like hurtful words or actions; or being pierced by a powerful emotion such as love. It could suggest the action of turning our feelings  inwards in a wounding way. Sometimes it means a message, perhaps of love or endeavour.

This is made clear in the following example.

As I looked at this beast I noticed that its eyes were being hurt. Arrows were being fired at its eyes, and javelins thrown. I wondered who could be doing this, and stepped forward to take out the javelins and the arrows.

I wondered what the arrows and javelins could be, and was it I throwing them, firing them? Gradually it clarified that we continually injure this wonderful process in us. Being aware is a special state that acts in all manner of ways for this great ancient being or process that is behind our existence. Consciousness is its eyes and ears, its fingers and mouth, its means of experience, and its way of learning. And whatever we feed back to that fundamental part of us is deeply felt. Perhaps this is not a very accurate description, but it is like a loving and willing dog that out of its instinctive being tries to do all that we ask of it, tries to grow, tries to learn. But it is so sensitive, so when we are angry with it, or frustrated, or direct criticism at it, it cowers, it feels failure, its exuberance diminishes. So also with this great wonderful beast within, this mysterious process of life that is at our core. It withdraws. But we can also call it out into further expression, enabling it to extend beyond its previous capabilities, by loving it, by acknowledging its wonder, by calling it forth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been pierced or pierced others with arrows?

What do I feel about the dream?

What is it like to be the dream arrow or arrows?

Try Talking As to find out.

Art Artist

The exteriorisation of some inner idea, feeling or direction. The expression of inner content, and thus a source of self realisation. The artist may represent the urge toward fruition, toward self-realisation. The art object however, can depict some meaningful realisation within yourself, that is as yet not clear enough to put into words. This may be because it is pre-verbal experience, or is still barely conscious.

The aspect of oneself that is in contact with the irrational, creative side of the unconscious. The desire or ability to be creative; the drive to express something of oneself, that may be repressed. Maybe the desire for public recognition – or a chance to demonstrate your skill or quality; the impractical aspect of self. For some the artist represents somebody who is impractical and out of touch with real work or life

Meeting an artist: Becoming aware of a creative idea or an aspect of self that is creative.

Watching an artist at work: Recognising artistic or creative ability, but being passive about it.

If you are an artist: This might well be showing you another facet of your artistry, or be exploring in a creative way, or looking at problems you have, depending on dream theme. See: Painting; art in dreams; archetype of artist.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this creative expression of an inner idea?

What is the theme involved?

What feelings do I express in the dream?

Try using Acting on your dream to define dream meaning

What is the artist doing in my dream, and what might that represent in my life?

What is my relationship with the artist and what can I understand from that? See key words for help with this.

If I imagine myself as the artist what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role under peerdream work.

Art gallery

The gallery suggests your experience of dreaming or creative imagination and self-expression. It shows the results of your creativity, your innate skill as an artist of your own live and love.

A gallery is also usually a public place, and so would suggest your interaction with others, perhaps involving acclaim or criticism.

 

Useful hints and questions:

What is displayed in the gallery, and in what way does it comment on me?

Do I recognise the art as my own, or am I seeing it as someone else’s?

What is the theme of the art, and is that an insight into my own passionate direction?

Artery

The flow of life giving process in you. It could indicate what you are seeing or realising about the process of life and how it upholds your existence without you being aware of it.

An artery also can indicate vulnerability, because if it is injured you may die. So the dream might be pointing to such a vulnerability that could lead to your feeling hopeless and without purpose.

An artery to the head in a dream needs careful consideration. It could if it shows blockage be a warning of stroke.

If the artery is bleeding it suggests a situation that needs urgent attention. This is not usually physical, but about emotional traumas that drain your motivation, joy of life and sense of purpose.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I aware of that is life giving and how can I care for it?

If my dream shows injury, what in me depletes my energy to live and thrive?

What in waking life brings these feelings that I meet in the dream?

See Acting on your dream also Easy Dream Interpretation

Ascending Ascent

Whether the ascending is in a lift, flying or climbing a hill, it can link to the rising feelings of passion or sexual pleasure, or the transition from expressing energy genitally to expressing it in self awareness. Such a shift from a lower mood or sensation to one felt as exhilarating or lighter is often shown as ascending.

In many past cultural traditions ascent was associated with purification or refinement – as in the ascent to heaven, or a holy mountain. It also suggested becoming more detached, or finding a different perspective. We could see it also as evolution of ourselves to a newer level. Because we often move to a wider view of things, becoming more aware of our situation or surroundings as we get higher, ascending is often linked with change, and perhaps leaving things behind, the dropping away of what occupied you below. It can also be an attempt to remove yourself from the difficulties or experiences of the world – there may be a link with losing touch with reality. See Altered States of Consciousness.

Example: I was dreaming that I was walking around a small cul-de-sac early in the morning. I came up to a group of old women dressed in black huddled around a pentagram chanting something. I was terrified of them. For some reason I thought they were witches so I turned to run away. That is when they saw me and they started chasing after me. I started running but I wasn’t fast enough. They were right behind me. Than right before they were about to grab me I shot up into the air. Shortly after I was flying; it felt so freeing. Than for some reason I started trying to find god. I was shouting out for him and calling his name.  As I was calling out to him I saw a giant face in the clouds. It felt really powerful. It was a perfect face and I thought my call had been answered. – In the example the dreamer ascend to escape from terror.

The term ‘upwardly mobile also links ascent with success or a change toward greater fortune; moving toward achievement.

In some dreams or out of body experiences, the clear awareness of OBE is sometimes preceded by a feeling of rapidly moving upward. In such cases there is a sort of awakening, and ascending may in fact be an expression of nearing wakefulness. So ascending would be a move to waking, and descending moving toward deeper sleep or knowing the unconscious.

Jung points out that the theme of ascent is part of many ancient religious rituals and beliefs. In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however, whereas the ancient belies saw it as a continuing cycle. See: flying; up-upper.

Example: Genesis 028:010 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

Ascending a hill or mountain or tree: Often shows having a more inclusive view or understanding of one’s activities and place in the scheme of things. It also signifies purification or personal evolution. Ascent of a hill often appears in dreams of people in or approaching middle age, and depicts their life so far as an ascent. Usually there is a descent following. See: hill.

Ascending into the sky: Upliftment in some form; attaining a wider view of ones life situation – where you are in life; death, as in ascending into heaven. It appears in some dreams showing a change in them leading to a wonderful talent or opportunity. It can occasionally depict a manic state where the person cannot get back down so is a way to escape from everyday life by taking on a more ‘spiritual’ attitude, but often it is so unbalanced it leads to no real satisfaction.

Climbing stairs, going up in an elevator or lift: Movement toward waking or becoming more aware; the mental; or an escape from anxiety or being ‘down to earth’; sexual pleasure, or mounting feelings of love and attraction. It can also indicate going up in the world, so may link with ambition or achievement. Overcoming difficulties such as anxiety to reach a goal; in some stair dreams there is a tremendous amount of anxiety and feeling of insecurity. This may link with the babyhood fear of falling down stairs, and not yet having the skill to deal with stairs easily. See: example in lift under house and buildings.

If the lift goes out the top of the roof, or the connection with base is missing: Can show a critical situation of the mind being split from body awareness; schizoid or manic.

Watching something ascend – such as an object – or something emerging from the sea: Something you are becoming more conscious of; something emerging from unconsciousness.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling as I ascend, and where does that feeling appear in my waking life?

Is there a particular situation or difficulty I am moving away from, and is that in my life also?

What method or attitude am I using to ascend? Is it will power or some other influence?

Read Processing Dreams to help define the dream meaning.

Ascetic

Restraint of physical desires, usually in an attempt to realise inner self, but often from inner personal conflicts with such things as sexual urges or anxieties.

Conflict with natural drives; desire to be less dominated by same, so may lead to avoidance of sex. I could also be an attempt to find the spiritual, or it could be an inverted fear of one’s unconscious or a bid for power to control. Preventing one natural urges is also a way to the development of will. See archetype of the ascetic; religion and dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any fears or difficult feelings connected with sex or eating?

What attracts you or repels you in regard to asceticism?

Do you see it as a way to spiritual advancement – or an escape from things?

Try exploring your dream to deepen your understanding of it by using Processing Dreams.

Ash Ashes

What remains in your experience, perhaps as memory or wisdom, after the event or person has gone. Purification. Something that once moved you or troubled you, but the feelings have burnt themselves out; death or fear of it. Ashes also fertilise after a period of decay, death or destruction. Something that is empty of life; or an endeavour, relationship or dream that nothing came of it or that has ended.

Ash filled air: Enormous changes going on; great emotion, or emotion filled events, creating confusion and perhaps danger.

Ashes of someone or something: Something or someone that existed in your life and were a living part of it, but have now gone. Perhaps feelings have burnt out and left only a shadow, ashes of what existed before. The ashes in the case of cremation suggest the loss of the physical body, and what is now living is the influence of that person still existing in your life.

Ashtray: The way you get rid of old feelings, habits, memories; collection of past burnt out feelings or results of relationships; connection with smoking habit.

Cigarette ash: Connection with smoking; old feelings or anxieties.

If connected to cricket: Victory – or defeat if losing them.

Idioms: Rake over the ashes; reduced to ash; ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is now ashes, and how does that link with what has gone from your life?

With what feelings are you relating to the ashes?

Is there something that has been burnt out of your feelings or purified?

Try using Acting on your dream.

Ash Tree

Because if its fantastic power of growth and survival it often represent your own personal growth and ability to survive and thrive despite attacks. It has been linked in past ages with protection of children.

Ash staffs have been used as a protection, also as a magic wand to ward off evil.

See: tree.

Ashram

Dreaming of an ashram usually means you are on a quest for your core self. You may receive important instructions or lessons from your own highest level – usually shown as a wise being or guru.

We are all dual beings. The one side of us we know as our conscious self, living in the waking world. That side is only a tiny and usually cut of self. We have another side of us that most people are unconscious of and is best thought of as a massive and integrated consciousness of everything and everybody.

Example: I woke early his morning to pee. As I woke I was aware of having been dreaming, but I could not remember what the dream was. However, I was experiencing a strong feeling of being connected with all things. I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery.

Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naive, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle.

Example: A man – Jesse Watkins – stressed out of his normal awareness said – ““I was more than I had ever imagined myself. Not only was I living my life now, but I had existed from the very beginning of time, from the lowest form of life up to the present. The real me was all that experience. Then at times I could see ahead beyond even the awareness I now had, to where we become aware of it all.” Jesse felt that the new ‘world’  he was experiencing was something humans were moving toward, but most people couldn’t reach at the moment. In that world were beings Jesse called gods, beings who could live and move in that world easily, beings who were not afraid of the enormity of the experience. From this he felt that all the things that happen to us in our life are helping us evolve toward becoming like the gods Jesse met.

In the ashram you are part of the journey into the wider life. There are stages of the journey which are marked by initiations – a powerful l experience that allows you entrance to a new level of sharing the ALL.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you experience in connection with the ashram?

Was it difficult to get into the ashram?

Did you learn anything there?

In what way did you learn?

Try using Talking AsProcessing Dreams


Asian

See China; India; Japan.

Ass

The basic life processes in the body, which uphold or carry us through the years; the plodding long suffering body; foolishness, a sort of living on whims and fancies, or being used and abused by others. Also a foolishness or stupidity arising from a limited view of things; in the bible the ass carries the Christ, and so represents the unconscious automatic functions of the body which can support the wider awareness. In some dreams it represents stubbornness arising perhaps out of long entrenched habits and automatic behaviour, but also out of the hungers and needs of the body. This aspect of the ass also represents humility and patience along with common or everyday life.

If the ass or donkey is being ridden by or pulling someone else: You may be feeling you are doing all the hard work in a relationship, or working like a beast of burden.

Riding a donkey or ass: This may represent humility or feeling in a lowly position. But may simply relate to your relationship with your body’s needs and responses. See Ass/Donkey.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you consider that your relationship with the ass might indicate how you are dealing with your body, what does it suggest?

Are you feeling put upon by the needs or demands of others?

Is somebody trying to make you go in a direction you do not want to?

Are you being a donkey or an ass – i.e. a bit dense or silly?

Try being in the role of the donkey or ass and see what you find – Being the Person or Thing.


Ass Or Donkey

The basic life processes in the body, which uphold or carry us through the years; the plodding long suffering body. Foolishness, a sort of living on whims and fancies, or being used and abused by others. Also a foolishness or stupidity arising from a limited view of things. In the bible the ass carries the Christ, and so represents the unconscious automatic functions of the body which can support the wider awareness.

The donkey can indicate stubbornness arising perhaps out of long entrenched habits and automatic behaviour, but also out of the hungers and needs of the body. This aspect of the ass also represents humility and patience along with common or everyday life.

If the ass or donkey is being ridden by or pulling someone else: You may be feeling you are doing all the hard work in a relationship, or working like a beast of burden.

Riding a donkey or ass: This may represent humility or feeling in a lowly position. But may simply relate to your relationship with your body’s needs and responses.

Example: It seemed to me that there were two children, perhaps adolescents, driving or leading a donkey or ass in perhaps a not very friendly or constructive way. Then a man appeared on the scene and knelt down beside the animal which seemed to be lying inert on the ground. He seemed to be explaining to the children that the best way to help the animal was to see it in its true form and release it from its outer coverings. As he was explaining this he began undoing a zip along the length of the animal’s spine and peeled off what I could now see, was a kind of perfect fitting cloth suit, he repeated this action again, removing yet another suit and I am not sure whether he did so a third time, or how many times but eventually I saw the rich, shiny, chestnut coloured coat of a healthy animal. I am not sure at this point whether the animal was now a horse, it looked like a new born but not like a donkey so I think it may have been a horse. It then seemed that some kind of order had been restored, there now appeared a kind of arena and people were filling the seats to watch some kind of a play, As I watched the seats filling I realized there was not one for me and again I was standing in the sidelines, a watcher.


Idioms: donkey work;

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you consider that your relationship with the ass might indicate how you are dealing with your body, what does it suggest?

Are you feeling put upon by the needs or demands of others?

Is somebody trying to make you go in a direction you do not want to?

Are you being a donkey or an ass – i.e. a bit dense or silly?

See Inner WorldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsYour Core Self


Assailant

See attack attacker.

Assassin

This might link with hidden desires in you to kill certain parts of yourself. For instance sometimes a person destroys their own best interests or creations. The assassin might also show the feelings you hide about someone else or their achievements. See murder.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream showing that the assassin is aiming to kill, and what does this point to in my waking life?

Am I surreptitiously undermining my own or someone else’s activities?

Have I killed out some aspect of my own feelings, love or creativity?

Try using Talking As to understand your dream.

Assault

See attack attacker.

Assistant

See: Helper.

Asteroid

Is a rock that usually stays in space, quite different to a meteor or shooting star.

To dream of it might suggest that some part of you is suspended and unable to act. But your associations with would need to explored as this is unusual to find in dreams. So see Acting on your dream.

It represents something from the mysterious cosmos entering our experience, so can represent awareness or recognition of something beyond our present experience showing itself to us. It begs the questions, where did it originate; what different world of experience does it represent, and how and why did it enter my life? Well it usually is from your core self. So can indicate an expansion of you awareness. See

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening to the asteroid in your dream? See Processing Dreams to clarify this.

Do you feel threatened by the asteroid? If so see Facing Fear.

Is it something uplifting?

Try using Talking As.

Asthma

If you suffer asthma then the dream will probably be illustrating something about the physical or psychological cause of your condition. Otherwise it probably depicts feelings to do with struggling to survive, or being smothered in a relationship or situation, or maybe some form of anxiety.

This dream experience can arise from powerful fear or anxiety and not due to any physical problems. A response to anxiety is sometimes that of holding the breath, but it can also cause difficulty in breathing. See the Example under Nightmares.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I experiencing heightened stress or fear about something?

Am I meeting a fear of death or illness that I am not really allowing to be felt or expressed?

If I imagine myself struggling for breath what emerges; what am I seeking or facing?

Try using Stand in role to clarify the feelings.

Astral

BODY

See: astral body.

Astrologer Astrology

The dream astrologer often represents your intuition or unconscious insights into yourself and others. There may also be a link with a sense of destiny or direction. But perhaps you associate astrology with hocus pocus, in which case your dream might be suggesting you are being misled.

To see, be, or have connections with an astrologer in your dream suggests you are in touch with your intuition, and may be having thoughts or concerns about your future. It can also indicate intuitions concerning your innate abilities or qualities, and where they might lead.

Astrology is a modern version of an ancient realisation about forces of cosmic origin that shape and influence our lives. Unfortunately most of ancient vision has been lost. But any mention of astrology in your dream may suggest that you are now receiving the cosmic impulses in your creative activities, which will lead your life to a fuller expression of your potential.

The more deeply those heavenly signs and their traditional significance’s are studied, the more impossible it appears to consider them as a human invention. In the first place they are more ancient than the earliest records of human history; they can be traced in the earliest dawn of civilisation. The most ancient legends of all peoples are based on them.

Everywhere throughout the world the “Signs,” their symbols, and significance are found practically identical. There are some slight modifications of the symbols to adapt them to local conditions; for instance, the “Bull” becomes an “Elephant” in India; the “Crab” is sometimes a “Tortoise,” in Egypt it was sometimes replaced by the scara­beus, but it remained a “Crab” in the planispheres of the great temples of Egypt at Denderah and Esme; the meanings of the signs were unchanged. The only change of any importance that ever appears to have been made was the substitution of the “Scorpion” for the “Eagle,” and that corresponded with one of the most important facts in the whole story of humanity, which can be more appropriately referred to later.

(During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt, Vivant Denon drew the circular zodiac, the more widely known one, and the rectangular zodiacs. In 1802, after the Napoleonic expedition, Denon published engravings of the temple ceiling in Denderah in his Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte.[5] These elicited a controversy as to the age of the zodiac representation, ranging from tens of thousands to a thousand years to a few hundred, and whether the zodiac was a planisphere or an astrological chart.)

How can we account for these signs and their traditional meanings. There is no conceivable way in which men in the earliest stages of civilisation could have obtained them from observation and experience. Uninterrupted observations over a complete Precessional Cycle, even if possible, would have been insufficient. And what could lead any primitive race of men even to imagine the possibility of any connection between the stars and their lives and destinies? Given the Zodiacal conception, its significance, and the key to “planetary” workings, by some form of “Revelation,” they would of course be able to observe its influences at work in human – and cosmic – affairs, but no human beings could ever have “invented” it. The only explanation of its origin which appears to be possible is that it was “revealed” to men in just exactly the same way as “prophecies” and all other spiritual mysteries, through the perceptive faculty of the unconscious mind at the period of its most complete activity.

 Example: I dreamt my uncle Tony came to me. He asked where the toilet was and I described it. I discovered the sink was overflowing with water. P had left a tap running. When I looked however, the sink was within another sink, thus the floor was not wet. I believe I turned the taps off though.

My uncle talked to me. I noticed he had a wig on, it was also dyed black. He told me, or I knew that a group of businessmen wanted me to talk about astrology. At first I was merely going to give an “off-the-cuff” talk. Later however I began to want to really throw all I had into the talk, both off-the-cuff, and well researched talk.

The dreamer attempted to use intuition to understand the dream by exploring it intuitively not interpreting it intellectually by thinking about or looking up symbols: “The dream brings to your life the present possibilities. Bringing the possibilities to light. There was the time when you were never certain what to do with your life. Life brought pain. When this dream was lived, you were lost within yourself. The dream brought love into your life.

The first part of the dream lifts you from the recent darkness. When your uncle Tony arrives, this represents the coming from within yourself of those possibilities lost when you lost your way three years ago. You lost it them because you tried the path which left the world. There was lost the path your soul came to fulfill. You resisted the urge to teach the word. The word was lost within you. The word was my life calling you. When you resisted the call you decided to leave the world by trying to live the spiritual life. When you (recently) released love on this decision you received the power to speak the word.

The word will live within you. The life you will now live will be the word living in you. The way you live will let my world bring your world my light. The dream promises that you will bring the Star Light to many. The dream promises that you will lift many by telling them the wisdom you received from my word. The dream brings you my world.

There was, last night, the lifting of the mind. There will follow from this the possibility of lifting the mind in others. The dream was lived because you were receiving the power to speak from the word. The part where the water overflows means that the life force now flows freely. Nothing is hurt when it flows over. The present life will allow it to express without harm. It can be turned off or on as wished. The life force flows between the two sinks because they represent the two levels of physical existence, the outer and the inner. See Q’s Big Question

The child – P – represents your present love, longing, and my life within you. The toilet is the creative self now clearing problems by flushing them away which were frustrating it. The wig is the false thinking, the unconscious false thoughts, still prevalent and to be dealt with.

When your uncle brings up the subject of astrology, this means that you are now receiving the cosmic impulses in your creative activities, which will lead you in your life activities. The part where you – plan to – speak to the group, brings your life work before you. When you decide to make this work expression of your thoroughness, then you bring to the cosmic impulses your own gift of self expression”. See Star Beings

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the astrologer give any information about your character or future – if so can you say what it is?

Do I have particular concerns about my future – if so what are they?

Did I seek help from the astrologer – if not why not? He or she represents your intuition and might hold important and useful insights.

See Using Your IntuitionSumming UpBeing the Person or ThingEdgar Cayce

Astronaut

This points to attitudes or feelings, perhaps even ideas, that can take you beyond the ordinary view you have of life and yourself. There is also a suggestion you are feeling the courage to grow and explore what you cannot yet define. See: Space.

This might link with efforts you are making in meditation or exploring your inner world of experiences beyond your body senses. Sometimes it reflects states of mind in which you split off from your body, perhaps in an attempt to run away from or avoid direct life experience.

Useful questions are:

What is it the astronaut or I am doing in this dream, and how might that relate to my waking activities?

Am I learning anything from the astronaut?

If I stand in the role of the astronaut what is my view of life and the world?

Ate

See eating

Atheist

Dreaming of an atheist or being one oneself may simple be that one does not agree with what the organised church teaches, or because the person does not believe in God.

But being an atheist is a form of blindness. The reason is that they are missing seeing what the roots of religion are. The roots are not about worshipping an external and all powerful deity. There is a much more direct and personal reason.

Take for instance your own existence and your origins and continued existence. Can you see that you are a life form that connects with the Earth? Can you also see that as such you would not exist without the existence of the universe? Astronomers are searching for life on other planets because it is so rare and extraordinary. Yet you are a life form that is the survivor of life from the very beginnings of simple life on this planet. You are extraordinary too, yet you probably have no idea of how you work because it is mostly unconscious. Maybe you have read about the body, but that is not the same as honouring and working with the life process that keeps you alive. Can you honestly say, “What the hell am I?” and listen and learn. For you are really what religion is about. You are the great mystery.

I witnessed an atheist talking to a woman he was confronting, “Religion;” he said, “that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

And the woman he was accusing of this inability to face reality said, “You poor man! Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest an awareness of God is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure. Have you never understood that? Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? It can also be something far more even than that. It can be an active loving relationship with what gives you life. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, and a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life. Imagine that; a glorious love affair with the very spirit of life! A love affair with the invisible and forever indefinable. Is that something you are afraid of?”

 

Athlete

This is not about whether you are athletic in an external sense, but about the dedication, the strength or drive to succeed you can tap into in your everyday, or working life and your personal urge to change. A handicapped person who challenges themselves to positively meet life with a smile and vigour is as much tapping into the athlete power as an Olympic winner. This also connects with people who change the health and state of their body through continued exercise and good living.

The negative side of this is the attitude that leads a person to use their strength of body or purpose to bully, threaten or injure others. It may manifest as a form of showing off how strong, powerful or sexual you are – or at least posing as such. See Archetype of the Athlete.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this influence enter my life in a strengthening way or as an urge to dominate or impress others?

If the athlete is acting positively in me, what particular qualities is it bringing to me and how can I enhance or continue to develop them?

It can help understanding if you get into role as the athlete.

Atlantis

Atlantis is no longer either a fact or fiction. It has become something greater than both-a hope in the human heart! It has become a symbol, a quest, the lost continent of oneself. It is all the submerged continent of our Eternal Nature, our hidden but imperishable self. We long once more for the Garden of Eden, and mankind’s original spiritual home, where he lived at peace with our self and our surroundings, and at one with both.

In this particular sense, it matters not whether Atlantis exists as a material fact. There are signs of it here and there if we look about. Like the outer signs we see of our own spiritual nature, they are- tantalising signs promising so much more than they actually tell. They point our attention down under the waters, into the deeps of ourself, and leave us wondering how we may get beneath the surface to actually see for ourselves. Not just to guess, to feel sure because of the signs, but to know through direct contact. But your dream may give you clues how to find it.

Another recent prophet, Edgar Cayce, states the same thing -that Atlantis will rise, and the Great Temple of Poseidia will be seen again. To quote a statement he made in deep trance like sleep, “Poseidia will be among the first portions of Atlantis to rise again. Expect it in ’68 and ’69. This was said in 1940. This hasn’t happened in our outer live, but it has certainly happened in our inner world.

Atom Bomb

This can indicate anxiety regarding the external world, political forces etc, that the dreamer feels at the mercy of. Usually this about fears for the future and what might develop in the external world through the immense forces of politics and national conflict. It is often coupled with the dreamer’s survival strategies. In this way the dreamer might be trying out in the dream things he or she might do in such a situation.

The atom bomb or dreaming of a mushroom cloud can also depict the end of a particular world or way of life for the dreamer; i.e. the end of school life; divorce; loss of spouse; tremendous potential energy, but related to in a way that threatens the dreamer, and is therefore not harnessed. In other words the dreamer is relating to the change as a cataclysmic and destructive one.

It can also suggest fear of the irrational forces of life and the unconscious which may destroy all we have built in our conscious self. See: end of world dreams; anxiety; bomb; explosion.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I reacting to the bomb, and is this of any help – if not what might I do, considering this is a dream and I am dealing with my own feelings or anxieties?

Am I facing a massive or explosive change in my life – if so what is it?

Do I suspect that a situation is developing that might explode in a destructive way?

See Processing Dreams – Being the Person or ThingSumming Up

Attack Attacked Attacker

In looking at many dreams in which attack takes place, it is obvious that there are many degrees and forms of attack. So attack or being attacked can represent many things such as feeling attacked or threatened by ones own impulses such as anger or sexuality; feeling surreptitiously attacked by other people and their attitude to you or their remarks; a subtle sense of being attacked by age, or a serious attack by an illness – one speaks of an asthma or virus attack for instance, but also one may be attacked by a poison, or food if one is allergic to it; one might personally attack an issue or a project, and so a dream might depict one attacking something in this sense; confidence may be attacked; it is a common term in sport or business, and so may refer to attitude or energy. This aspect of attack may also refer to ones beliefs, or to other peoples, which may be attacked and threatened; attack is also sometimes a form of defence, so may suggest defensiveness about some issue or aspect of ones life. A positive side to attack is that we often feel attacked by an emerging new insight or positive personal change. We feel it as an attack because it threatens our old way of life, our habitual way of ding things and thinking about things.

It is important to define or be aware of ones response to threat or attack in a dream. Experiments in connection with dreams in which the person runs away from attack, or is very passive, show that if the dreamer visualises changing the situation and faces attackers, their dreams and even waking behaviour changes radically. Passivity in dream situations may depict the innate feeling that we are helpless in dealing with the feelings involved. This usually dates from past experience, perhaps in childhood, where in fact one did not have the strength or maturity to meet what was happening. See Life Changes.

Occasionally attack in dreams shows a desire to be attacked in order to live out forms of self punishment or sadism. In most such cases this desire arises out of a need to remember, and make fully conscious, punishment or sadism that has been practised on the dreamer.

Being attacked: This dream usually arises because in some way you are repressing, in conflict with, or frightened off your own emotions, sexuality or anger. Occasionally the fear is about ones own potential or expanded awareness.

Attacked by animal: Feeling under threat from external events or internal emotions, impulses or ideas; feeling a victim in relationship to others and self; taking a defensive attitude. The repression or fear here is in regard to your own natural urges. Sometimes our dreams put into animal form someone who we feel is expressing anger toward us.

Attacked by shadowy or frightening figure: Our childhood traumas and fears may take this guise in a dream. So in this case the attack is depicting our feelings of fear and pain surrounding those past issues. How we meet such an attack is important. If we run from it, the trauma may remain largely unconscious, and therefore capable of influencing our behaviour negatively. Better to explore it or change it. (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peerdream work.)

Attacked by animal: Introverting one’s own aggression or sexuality; fear of one’s own natural urges; anxiety about aggression in oneself or other people; feeling attacked by an external person.

Being the attacker: This is more positive, as you are not being passive and hurt in your dreams. But you are still in conflict with whatever it is your attacking. Considering that what you attack is probably a part of your own personality, it might be better to meet it in some way. Positive self expression; defending oneself against something one feels threatened by; attempt to destroy some urge or feeling in oneself or others. The word attack is also used in many ways, so might refer to an ‘attack’ of an illness, or ‘heart attack’. Can express the difference between feeling threatened by a work/relationship/sex problem, or feeling challenged by it in a way to stimulate creativity or research.

Bird attacking: Fear of ideas, ideals or opinions; verbal attack by others; fear of the Self – a view of things that may destroy ones present more limited views or opinions.

Sexual attack: This has many aspects, and can at times be a re-playing of previous sexual attacks, or an expression of fear concerning them. But we also create dreams of sexual attack when we are frightened of our own feelings and desires. Grof gives the interesting account of a woman who experienced many images of sexual attack. He says:-

…. whenever a boy friend initiated even the most innocent sexual approach, such as touching. embracing, or kissing, she was overwhelmed with terror. It seemed to her that when such a situation occurred, her lover was actually changing physically and assuming animal features. Repeatedly, she fled from these situations in a state of panic anxiety and never wanted to see her partner again. Episodes of this kind were repeatedly relived …. with details of the physical setting, as well as the physical sensations and emotions involved. From Realms of The Human Unconscious, by S. Grof. Published by Souvenir Press.

Someone else being attacked: Anger or aggression toward another; killing off an aspect of oneself represented by the person in the dream. If the person is someone you are in relationship with, it suggests an attempt, however short, to distance oneself from them emotionally. See: fight; War.

Example: I had this dream at a time when there was a lot of talk and anxiety in newspapers and on television about nuclear war. In the dream a nuclear attack had been announced. I immediately thought of my children who are away in boarding school. I go out into the street to see if I can get to them, but realise it is hopeless. In the street everybody is walking about as if it were a holiday Sunday. I realised there was no time to get to my children so decided to join the people on the street. John C.

John had this dream at a time when there was a lot of media coverage about nuclear attack. It is therefore most likely dealing with his real fears about how he would deal with such an attack if it happened.

Example: Whilst suffering from nervous exhaustion three years ago. I had a recurring nightmare that left me feeling totally worthless and wretched. In it I underwent an indecent attack upon my person by my father. I was about four or five in the dream. It was not the attack in itself that left me with these feelings, but rather the look my mother gave me shortly afterwards – making me feel like a specimen in a jar. In the dream I sensed she had refused to be his wife fully, until he had got us into our own home again. I sense she is blaming me for not being able to continue with this threat, and that once more she will have to suffer my father’s attentions because of me. There is no one to help me so I decide to leave. I pack a small case, which I believe someone gets for me. In reality I did try to leave home at this age but got no further than the bus stop across the road. Maria.

Maria gives no indication of whether she was abused by her father, but the dream is certainly dealing with the sexual politics of her parents.

Example: Several men attacked me and were trying to drag me off somewhere against my will. As the dream progressed, or replayed, I began to realise that it only appeared like an attack because I was resisting the process. In fact the men wanted to show me something that was important to me. They were being quite gentle, but because of my resistance, it felt to me like an aggressive act. My thoughts about this are that this may represent the way I feel about events. Because of underlying anxiety, I feel events and changes, such as losing my job are very threatening and difficult to bear. In fact no harm has come from these events at all. The dream suggests that I am being led somewhere if only I would go along with things. Albie R.

Sometimes it is our response to the action that makes it appear like an attack. So it is worthwhile entering the dream again in imagination and exploring it – try Acting on your dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I take the images away what are my feelings about the attack, and where am I meeting those feelings?

Is there any way I can change this dream? For help doing this see Carrying the Dream Forward.

What are the underlying issues here?

Attend

Usually shows some form of involvement in the feelings engendered by what is being attended. If it is a lecture or school, it would suggest interest in or need to attend to serious studies or thought. If it is a wedding then there is some link with relationship. Therefore consider what it might suggest or look up what was attended.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling about this?

Are there things I need to attend to, and what does the dream suggest they are?

What is my attitude about what is happening, and how does that relate to my life?

Your body can often be a way to understand your dreams. See Using the Body.

Attic

The mind, ideas, memories, past experience; things that are out of sight or forgotten. It suggests things that are out of sight or forgotten but not really unconscious – the sort of thing you knew in the past but have forgotten or not recalled for a long time. Or a person that you have not recognised.

The attic is often a place of exploration, and sometimes a great deal of sexual feeling is hidden in it. Sometimes if you are high up and have a great view it can represent your ability to have a much wider view of life – like cosmic consciousness.

Also in some dreams it is a very frightening experience where we meet those things we would rather not see or remember.

Example: I was sleeping in an attic. A large dog was with me – a wolfhound like I used to exercise a few years ago. I and the dog would go out together. The dog was wild and free. I enjoyed being with it. together we did things like hunting which felt very real in the sense of not being artificial behaviour. Although I never washed I felt clean and healthy. Leon.

When Leon explored his dream he felt the attic was a place where he could exist but not be involved with people. The attic reminded him of the attic in a childhood house, where his mother never went because of the steep ladder. So he could go there and be alone, free of other people’s presence and influence.

Example: Then I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms. Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it. In fact it was a reflection and dramatisation of an aspect myself

If trapped in an attic: a purely intellectual approach to life. Finding an attic: pleasure at new ideas, discovering potential or wisdom from past experience, or you are dealing with things you previously thought were not important in your everyday life, or are caught up in things from the past, or in isolating yourself from ordinary life

Finding an attic: Discovering memories from the past, or a new space of the mind, perhaps a way of getting away from daily cares. Pleasure at new ideas, discovering potential or wisdom from past experience, or you are dealing with things you previously thought were not important in your everyday life.

Threat from attic: Disturbing thoughts, or something connected with what you have hidden or forgotten.

Hiding in attic: Escape from other people; retreat from everyday life. See example below.

Window or turret looking out from attic: Our sense of connection with the cosmos; wider awareness in which we understand an enormous amount about the world and ourselves we never realised before.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I find or experience in the attic?

What am I rediscovering from the past?

Are there influences from my parents or past family I am noticing in myself?

Do I feel a need for privacy or to get away from people?

What was I doing there?

What memories of attics come to mind?

Try Being the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesThe House in Your Dream

Attitude

See: emotions.

Attraction

See: emotions and mood.

Auction

It could mean you are considering the old attitudes and experiences of your life and culture and wondering about their value. Or perhaps seeing if there is anything of value to be taken into the present or future. Maybe looking for something, deciding what you want and what you will ‘pay’ for it in your life. If you make a living from buying and selling, then the dream would perhaps relate to your work and opportunity.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you buying or selling?

If selling what is it you hope to get a reward for and what associations do you have with it?

If buying what is it you want, and what does that suggest about you?

What are you doing at the auction?

Use Processing Dreams to explore your dream.

Audience

If you are leading the action and not one of the audience, it indicates that you have got the attention of many aspects of you, as when you become excited and enthused with an idea, plan or person. If you are one of the audience then it means you are giving attention to something that is interesting you, but you are not completely identified with it.

Standing in front of: You might be dealing with an important issue in your life which attracts the attention of many associated ideas and feelings – thus audience participation or attention. It might also be about desire for attention; baring one’s soul; self acceptance if the audience is positive – self uncertainty if the audience is negative.

In the audience: Witnessing some emotion or process in yourself; considering some aspect of your life. See: arena; Stage;.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my role here and what am I doing or taking in?

Am I receptive to what is happening?

Am I expressing something important to me?

Use Acting on your dream to really connect with what is going on in the dream

Aunt

To some extent an aunt is a role model. We gather from their success or failure strategies for our own life. Whatever feelings we have about them, whatever we think of them, the dream will use this to illustrate something for you. So consider how you would describe your aunt, what sort of person she is, and how you feel about her. The dream will be using her image to illustrate the role you see her in. If she is a success, ask yourself what in yourself you are facing regarding success. If you feel she is a failure, ask yourself what of your own feelings about failure you are facing.

If she is dead and appears in your dream it can mean that she is still very active in your life as feelings and ideas.

If you are sexually attracted to her it also indicates that you see in her something you want in your life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with and feelings about this aunt, and how does that relate to my life now?

What is the central theme of this dream, and what does that indicate as the feature to consider? Is this really about my mother?

What is happening with you and your aunt?

Is she ignoring you, attracted to you or giving advice? See Characters in Dreams.

What do you feel about your aunt. See Dreams Your Magic Mirror.
Try using Talking As.

Aura

An expression of the level of your being or mind that extends beyond the narrow confines of your sensory perceptions or intellectual understanding. We know now that our eyesight is only aware of a tiny part of the spectrum of light, our hearing only aware of a small amount that dogs and bats can hear, and the radiations from our brain also are unknown to us except if we use special equipment. And all of those radiations are seen as an aura reaching out from our body and can sometimes be seen as colours or what we call an aura.

I know many people say there is no such thing as an aura. But now people are often shown wearing night or infrared glasses. These enable our poor eyesight to extend its range slightly, so the can see the aura of heat that surrounds living bodies.

Another explanation is that people who have a very intense experience of illumination or enlightenment sometimes are seen with an aura.

Sometimes we touch a concept or feeling that has massive connections, so vast they begin to build up beyond usual levels of realisation or sensing. We might call it a mega-concept, which goes on building and generating realisations we have never had before – that is, we have never made those connections before. When your mind is functioning in that way you become a different type of human being, an individual, but connected much more fully with your inner and outer reality.

So an aura around an object, person or animal depicts this function, i.e. that in the dream you are aware of more than you usually are, or more of your potential is being expressed. As such the aura show how much of your potential is shining out of you. The first example below illustrates this. See: archetype of the self.

The aura in dreams is also often associated with death, or the spirit of the person whose aura is seen – spirit being here used in the same way as ‘she had a fighting spirit’. Therefore it might suggest we are aware of wondrous or awful qualities of soul of the person or ourselves. It can also suggest power of some sort – internal energy.

Seeing an aura can link with intuitions or feelings you have about the person you see it around. Occasionally the aura indicates a health problem. In such cases the dream would include some feeling or realisation that the colours or marks in the aura showed an illness or upset in the system.

Example: I was following a woman up a hill. As I did this I experienced a very wonderful feeling. It felt as if light were beginning to shine out of me as if I had a glowing aura. When we reached the top of the hill we were arms about each other, and I had the glorious sense of being wholly myself – wholly a man. I sensed that I had reached a new level of manhood by more fully accepting myself, by more fully giving and allowing more of myself to be available to others. It felt to me as if manhood is a glory, a shining out of life itself through a particular person.

Example: When we came to my sister, I had the feeling she was ill. I can’t fathom why, but I was just about to ask him to look after her, when he stretched out his right hand and gently stroked her cheek. He said to her, “You’re dead aren’t you?” I was absolutely stunned and it was then that I was aware of how cold and white he was. I realised then that he was dead, and so he could see she was dying – due to some aura as her spirit was leaving her body. He then disappeared, and I was frantic trying to find him, to ask him how long before she would die. I was crying and almost hysterical to find him, and that is how I awoke. L. W.

Example I had a dream that I was talking to about 5 or 6 people and I was reading each person’s aura. Suddenly one of them came to me and asked if I could I tell him the colour of his aura. All at once I heard celestial songs and his aura was all white. I awoke feeling like the person had been Jesus. As a result of this dream, I had a pain in my head for several days afterward. ARE dream.

The last example is interesting because the woman dreamer begins to experience something beyond her usual awareness. The pain in the head is a common result of this as parts of the brain that were dormant or inactive begin to operate or develop.

Example: ‘I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD.’ Brian C.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling or realising about the aura?

Does this extend my awareness of something or someone?

If I imagine myself as that aura what do I feel?

See Altered State of ConsciousnessDreams are Virtual RealitiesEnlightenment.

Australia

To have Australia in your dream depend almost entirely on whether you have lived there, born there or whether it is an unknown for you. So you need to ask yourself what associations you have with the land.

But in general it could mean for many opportunity, hard-headedness, practicality, dubiousness about the irrational. See: AbroadAustralian aboriginal dream beliefs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

See Processing Dreams and Talking As to find out what your associations are – also Association of Ideas with Dreams.

Author

This may depict a part of yourself that is creative, especially to do with telling the story of your real self, your real inner passions and dreams, your life story.

An author in a dream suggests they are creative, and are a sort of author-ity.

But is the dream author really a creative person or just saying it for effect.

It might suggest ideas you have about writing, about becoming a writer, about the difficulties of doing the work. But it depends what the author is doing and what your relationship with them is.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it you/the author has written or is writing about, and how does that relate to your waking life?

How would I describe the character of the author or her/his abilities – and does that describe facets of myself?

Is the author ambitious or something – if so what?

What is the action or theme of the dream? See Plot of the Dream.

What is your role in the dream? See Role in Dream.

Am I meeting the things I fear or dislike in my dream? See Fear in Dream.


Authority

Might depict what has arisen in your life out of relationship with father. Or the dream might depict your relationship with authority, or a view of how you use power of authority. See conformity.

An authority figure in dreams can suggest many things, depending on the theme of the dream. So it could indicate your own best sense or intuition; a know it all attitude, which might be ‘I am right and you are wrong because I am the authority’. Or it can be about dependence and wanting someone to tell you what to do and where to go.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I the authority in the dream?

Am I in a passive relationship with the authority?

Am I learning or teaching anything?

See Active PassiveCarry the Dream Forward.

Autism

Virtually all of us have areas of our feelings, or responses to particular situations such as learning or a relationship with the opposite sex, in which we have been hurt or traumatised. These areas or responses may be represented by an autistic child or adult. These withdrawn or hurt parts of self can sometimes express great shrewdness or insight when met in the right way. This may be because within such experience we hold awareness of how pain or difficulty influences life, and what pains other people carry. See: idiotArchetype of the Outcast.

So it can represent your own lack of or inability to express yourself. See I AM

(Thanks Chris)

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I relating to the autistic person, or the autism in myself?

Can I accept that I can learn something from this person or situation?

What are the events of this dream suggesting? See: themes; habits and Crazy As a Jaybird – Sane Reasons for Some Crazy Behaviour.

Autobahn

See: motorway.

Autograph

A symbol of who you are as an outward character. Usually a sign of yourself in someone else’s life.

Often indicates a feeling of importance – as when someone asks for your autograph.

Trying to get someone else’s autograph suggests trying to get some of their influence in your life – like saying, “I met this person”. See: signaturewriting; Name

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is your signature, what or who are you giving your essence to?

If someone else’s autograph, what am I needing or wanting their influence or power for?

What do the events of the dream suggest the autograph is in connection with?

See Processing Dreams.

Automaton

A habitual and unthinking or unconscious reaction; some aspect of the body’s automatic working, or a view of the body as mechanical instead of alive and intelligent. Or perhaps an unfeeling and automatic relationship with someone or something.

If the automaton is like a created figure such as Frankenstein or a golem, then it suggests something that you are now facing that you created out of our own actions and feelings, or is active as an independent force. See: Lurch; monster; robot.

This may be a sign of a trauma from the past which makes one unfeeling and so on automatic responses.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the automaton creative or destructive – and can you see that action in your life?

What is the automaton doing – in my life?

If I imagine myself as this thing, what do I feel or realise? For help doing this see Stand in Role and Talking As.

Automobile

See: Car, or parts of car, such as engine, etc.

Autopsy

A search within oneself or ones life experiences for what has caused something in you to die or to stop functioning.

You could be asking yourself questions, and so examining the past for clues – perhaps for what has brought about present loss of motivation or sense of loss.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I examining in myself or another?

Am I tearing myself open about some issue, or being torn open trying to understand it?

Can I bury this body now it has been examined?

Try Talking As the body being examined, or body.

Autumn

‘The autumn of one’s life’; mellow feelings; gradual but often pleasant decline; maturity; middle age; past the prime; a period of change when the old order of things is fading away, and the new has not shown itself.

This might suggest a time of harvesting what has grown or been developed in previous years or months. Autumn in your dream may also suggest a time which is not good for active creativity, but more suited to ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. The falling leaves of autumn may therefore remind you that many attitudes are outworn – no longer necessary ways of living and working – are falling away and not to be held on to.

Autumn leaves: Old memories, skills, attitudes, things you have developed in life that are no longer performing a useful function due to the changes happening. They can therefore be dropped. It is just a process and like all life is carrying on readying for a new phase.

If the dreamer is in middle age: Represents these years of your life. The details of the dream show what you intuitively feel about these years and what can arise from them. It is therefore helpful to see if you can understand this season of your life and what it brings. It may be a time to rest and let go some of the outer activities of the past.

Mrs C. had the following dream at a time when she started her own business against her husband’s wishes, and one week before he walked out on her. Autumn here depicts the sense of something coming to an end.

Example: ‘ My husband was in a wheelchair, I was pushing him along a promenade. At the end of the promenade was a path which we took. The path went along the top of a cliff. The sea below was pretty rough, a typical Autumn day at the seaside. All of a sudden the path came to an end and there was a steep slope to the right which led down to the beach, I decided to turn right and go down the slope. When we got half way down the slope the path started to give way on the left and I found myself without enough room for the four wheels of the wheelchair. I was desperately holding on, tilting the wheelchair to the right to keep it balanced on the two right wheels when my husband got panicky in the chair and moved. The chair tilted to the left and fell down the rocks. I started running down the path towards the beach, towards my husband and the wheelchair. I never reached the wheelchair or my husband because I awoke and that was the end of the dream. ‘ Mrs C.

Example: My brother had his arm around my shoulder as we looked at the dark blue night sky. A symbol like a witch appeared in the sky. I looked at a tree with no leaves, just three branches. A cat and dog sat on it. The cat was on a branch that veered outwards. The branch broke off and my brother said, ‘Is that the way it’s going to be?’ Kelly 19

This fascinating dream by a young woman of 19 most likely depicts her relationship with her brother. The lack of leaves shows there is nothing now growing between them. The dog and projecting branch represent him, and the cat herself. There is I believe a fairly obvious sexual connection, and the dream shows how she is breaking away from an unconscious male female link with her brother as she matures. The branches come from the same trunk depicting family relationship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the autumn of my dream offering or revealing?

Is this autumn a time of loss or of fresh opportunity?

What are the fruits of my summer that exist in this autumn?

See Identity and Dreams; Plot of the Dream; Individuation.

Avalanche

The power of frozen emotions. We can freeze sexuality by anger or jealousy, etc., and the build up of tension might then release in a dangerous way. A possible build up of tension or circumstances that can be or has been triggered into release.

Associations with an avalanche also suggest that there is something which is delicately poised which if triggered can cause a disaster. The image might involve fear of being overwhelmed by the release of emotions that had previously been held at bay – frozen or denied – and have been or might be released. There is also the possibility of anxiety about surviving a major upheaval or change in ones circumstances.

Threat of avalanche: Anxiety about withheld emotions being released or triggered into expression by events.

Dreamt by person who has been involved in an avalanche: Emotions connected with trauma of past event; anxiety about ones survival.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What has built up in my life that is now released or threatening to release?

Have I been ‘freezing’ feelings that I now have to face?

What can I do about dealing with this in a way to avoid danger or damage?

It might be good to read Facing Fear and Dream as Computer Game

Avenue

See: Road.

Aversion

The dream and its symbols need to be considered to see what the aversion is referring to. What one tries to avoid may be clearly shown in the dream, such as avoiding sex, social contact, or expressing ones power. If it isn’t, look for clues in the events, people or objects of the dream. Often, what we avoid has some difficult feelings attached to it that if dealt with will remove the aversion. One of the most direct ways of meeting an aversion is to gradually confront what is obnoxious until either the feelings underlying it are exposed and released, or the aversion disappears. See: aversion therapy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What exactly am I averse to in the dream and how does that relate to my waking life?

Are there things in life or myself I avoid, perhaps editing them out of my thoughts and feelings?

Is there a situation or person I avoid because I have difficult feelings?

Please use Processing Dreams and also Talking As. It might be helpful to read Life Changes.

Awake Awakened Awakening

This means that you have realised something or woken up to something. Maybe you have woken up to your present situation. It can also show how you are emerging from a period of withdrawal. Sometimes you wake because someone is calling you or you feel threatened. It is important with such dreams to capture the feeling and see if you have felt that before in the past, or who is calling you and why.

Sometimes an awakening happens to mark a future inner growth was taking place. Or you realise as the example that you have ‘been asleep’ to much that you were capable of experiencing and now are awake to it. We can also realise that something has either be repressed since youth, or ha been held back from being expressed because you were involved in dealing with other things snd you have awoken things that you had wanted to do or develop such as art, writing, starting a business or even in the sense of a desires for love and a willingness to face sexual experience, and give oneself to it.

To become aware of something. Not able to let go of conscious thoughts and involvements.

Example: I was suddenly awakened by a feeling I was being attacked. Still dreaming I looked to my right and saw a strange man standing near my bed who I felt was trying to mess with my head. Reaching out I send a bolt of energy at him that exploded in his face. He immediately disappeared, but I sent several other bolts exploding after him. This amazed me because I had never done anything like that before.

Example: I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good.

Idioms: Rude awakening; wake up to something; wide awake.

Useful questions are:

What woke me or involved my interest?

Is there something I am frightened of that keeps me from sleeping?

Have I got a habit of not sleeping?

Award

See: Prize.

Awareness

See: consciousness; Levels of Awareness; Brain Levels and Dreams; Unconscious.

Axe

Power, authority of material nature. Desire to hurt or destroy, or fear of these things. See: Arms; weapons.

Idioms: Axe to grind; to be axed lose one’s job.

Axe

An axe is primarily for cutting things down or for cutting them into smaller units. It is also a formidable weapon; so what part is the axe playing in you dream? See: weapons.

Idioms: Axe to grind; to be axed lose one’s job.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent a power or authority?

Am I ‘chopping’ an idea or situation or even myself into smaller parts?

What am I using the axe for – or what is my relationship with it?

Use Processing Dreams.

Letter B

Baboon

Some people associate impulsive unreasoned urges such as self centred grabbing of food or sexual expression without concern for the other person; mischievousness; mimicry folly or foolishness or feeling an idiot to monkeys. But monkeys can also be instinctive or intuitive wisdom about relationships, social interactions and life. The Egyptian god Thoth as the baboon is a symbol of arbitration, and is also active in resurrection and giving of life and wisdom. He was the power that judges the balance of your life after death.

So the baboon can represent a world of experience human beings have lost and feel sorrow at its absence. Many humans have also lost the wonderful directness and ability to express their wide range of responses to life and people. In developing self consciousness, with its labyrinth of ideas and decisions, humans lost a sense of oneness with life around them. Baboons act so directly and apparently without conscience that it frightens many humans.

Animals have enormous remembered wisdom; remembered through instincts and complex social codes. Without it humans can feel alone in the world, a meaningless existence in the midst of uncaring circumstance. See Animals

Useful Questions and Hints:

What to I feel about the baboon in my dream?

What influence does it have if any?

Does it frighten me or are I at peace with it?

Try standing in the role of the baboon by using Stand in role; also Processing Dreams.

Baby Animal

This can suggest feelings you have about youself when young.

Feelings or memories concerning your own babyhood

Such dreams about baby animals can also indicate a desire for a baby; vulnerability; fundamental survival behaviours such as dependence, crying and bonding.

A baby animal sometimes point to pregnancy or a desire to be pregnant.

Example: ‘I am putting four of our puppies under the grill and cooking them.’ Maureen. LBC.

 Although Maureen hasn’t eaten her puppies yet, her dream illustrates how food is used to represent emotional needs. Maureen is childless, has a lot of mother love, planned the pregnancy of her bitch, and gets enormous satisfaction from rearing the puppies. She is literally hungry for the exchange of love and care she finds in dealing with her puppies.

Baby Babies

 

If you cannot find what you want in the first section, there are a lot of questions answered at the bottom of the page under Comments.

If you have given birth to a baby in a dream, it can represent a new phase of life; a new idea; new activity – as when we say someone has a new baby, meaning a new project or business. This ‘baby’ might be part of you that did not have a chance to be ‘born’ or express before. Or it may be things learned in a rich life that you could not put into practice because of circumstances. The baby in this aspect is the ‘you’ that could have been if you had been free from problems and past hurts.

In real life a baby is a blending of mother and father, and all they represent. A baby is a new thing that has been ‘born’ out of them and the circumstances they are involved in.

Example: My wife and I were walking out in the countryside. I looked around suddenly and saw my four year old son near a hole. He fell in and I raced back. The hole was narrow but very deep. I could see water at the bottom but no sign of my son. I didn’t know whether I could leap down and save him or whether it was too narrow. Then somehow he was out. His heart was just beating.

The dreamer had an argument with his wife the night before and was frightened it had killed his marriage. The baby son represented their marriage and his fear of the end of their life together, but the dream went on to show that it survived.

But the dream baby can also represent one’s own feeling urges at that level of development – such as possessiveness, joy, curiosity, responding to the world without words or formed concepts, innocent love, infant trauma; intense dependence; feelings of helplessness; vulnerability; lack of responsibility; and being cared for. Even as adults many of these early feeling responses still dominate the way we meet relationships and events. It is quiet common for instance for adults to feel intense and destructive jealousy about their sexual partner. This is exactly the sort of feeling we experienced naturally as a baby and child. Unfortunately in adulthood we seldom see such things as an emergence of baby feelings which we have not grown beyond. Instead we accept them as adult behaviour and justify them, often blaming our sexual partner for them – i.e. ‘You made me jealous by showing affection for that other man/woman’. The baby or child often feels murderous rage in connection with such dependence and jealousy, but it is too small to effectively act on the rage. When an adult feels such rage however, it is highly dangerous and irrational. See Beware of Love; victim; personal growth.

Aborted baby: In general something that was developing, a new facet of self, or a new opportunity that has now been lost or rejected. If in a pregnant woman’s dream, usually it is an expression of fears regarding ones ability to carry the child to full term – but it is wise to have a check. See: pregnancy.

Adult body with baby head: Suggests that the way one approaches life, ones thinking, is still immature, even though one is physically mature.

Adopted baby: Adopting a new stance in life, perhaps conceived by, or seen in someone else; taking on the responsibility of something or someone that needs care and help to grow; if you are trying to adopt a baby it would reflect feelings or intuitions about that activity.

Baby body with adult head: Suggests that while one has developed an adult intellect and rational thinking, or an adult self, aspects of ones feelings, hungers and sexuality remain at the baby level of development.

Baby Boy: If you have given birth to a baby boy, it is usually about the principle of maleness entering your life. Maleness is like the sun, it expresses most of its energy outwardly to give life. Whereas the female is like the earth, receiving and nurturing life.

Birth or emergence of a new phase of self expression in terms of activity or achievement. In a males dream may suggest a new self emerging, or new aspect of self.

Baby Girl: If you have given birth to a baby girl, it is usually about the principle of femininity. Femininity is about having the power of creating life within and nurturing its growth.

Baby Dying: The anxiety dreams include such images as giving birth to a baby who is only a few ounces in weight – the baby is malformed – the baby is born dead – the baby is blind or deaf or injured.

Castle was able to follow the dreams of over 200 pregnant women, often from about the time of conception through to their post natal situation and experience. One of his interests was to see if dreams showed signs of information about physical conditions that were not apparent at the time of the dream. He says that many dreams did in fact show that small shifts in the physical state, such as conception, were shown in appropriate symbols in the dreams of some women. So if you have a worrying dream about your baby it is worth making sure you check out its condition, something that with modern equipment is easily done. To quote Castle, “The unconscious mind of the pregnant woman seems able to monitor and detect biochemical imbalances, tissue abnormalities, or structural defects in the uterine environment and communicate an awareness of disturbed functioning through dream imagery, which is sometimes fairly literal, sometimes symbolic.”

Seeing a baby die in a dream can suggest many things. It can suggest that the most vulnerable part of you has been killed by your hidden emotions. Also I have received, over 40 years, many dreams of mothers who dreamt their baby or child was dead, and not one of them died. One woman who explored such a dream with me found that a death had taken place, represented by the child, and the death was that of her love for a man. She had ended a relationship that had lasted for years.

Dead baby: Dreaming that your child dies can have several meanings. In some dreams a parent, much to their horror dreams of killing their child. But our dream 

child can represent many things, and it is useful to realise that any person, object or scene in a dream is not a symbol – it is not dead thing that has to be interpreted – it is a living part of you and can only be understood by relating to it.

So in this way I have found that a child can represent whatever our strongest feelings about them are. It can represent your marriage or partnership because it is what you have created between you. In that case the death of the child can depict something like an awful argument that feels as if it the marriage has died.

A child and its death can also show you how you have killed out the growing or adventurous side of you; or if you see your child as vulnerable and needing protection it could show you the death of that part of your feeling.

If a dream seems to predict the death of your child, it is wise to remember two things. the first is that a said above many dreams about our baby are actually about injury or death of our vulnerable self – See Characters and People in Dreams.

That predictive dreams are very uncommon. But if you are feeling it is predictive remember that the future is not set in stone.  But you can pray for protection for your child and it can change the outcome.

 

Gifted or holy baby: Often shows the dreamer having given birth to parts of their personality which are connected with wider sympathies, or wider awareness, than their own personal ego or self. It may show an awareness of the universal processes of life. It is the same sort of meaning as Christ in symbolism. It can show the emergence of awareness of the levels of existence beyond the senses. See: esp in dreams.

Example: “Was in a basement where my wife and a woman I loved was giving birth to a baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it without a doctor being there. It was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious; then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!” I asked what had gone, and it replied, “The other ego; where has it gone?” I explained that the spirit self it knew before birth was now gone so it could live in the body. The baby was then taken upstairs, and I felt it was a holy and wonderful baby. I was going to rest from the rigours of the birth, but on looking around saw how dusty and dirty the basement was. I began to clean it, and felt I would go upstairs and rest afterwards.”

The man who dreamt this said that he felt afterwards that at the time of the dream he had given birth to the very best of him. This became more and more obvious as years went by. Also he realised that his inner life, his unconscious, needed cleaning, and then began to go upstairs to his wider awareness. It could be helpful for you to use the following Talking As.

If you have given birth without any man involved, it suggests it is a virgin birth – i.e. no male partner was involved at the time.

Many women dream of giving birth without any man involved. Virgin birth is normal part of dreaming. It means that the woman or young girl has conceived as a process of Life. Being a virgin represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and through that being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self. Joseph Campbell in his book “Myths To Live By” says – “There are myths and legends of the Virgin Birth, of Incarnations, Deaths and Resurrections; Second Comings, Judgements and the rest, in all the great traditions. And since such images stem from the psyche (from you and your dreams), they refer to the psyche. They tell us of its structure, its order, and its forces, in symbolic terms.”

For instance, the story and events surrounding the virgin birth, when looked as if a dream are not about a biological miracle, but about how as ordinary people, we can drop our preconceptions, our fixed ideas and beliefs and allow an entirely new and creative impulse into our life. This truth has been so venerated that we find virgin figures all over the world such as Maya the mother of Buddha born 500 BC; the virgin mother of Osiris, and of course the story told of Mary.

Being a virgin in this case is about having a mind free from previous ‘conceptions’ and so being open to Life itself fertilising you for a new and precious thing being born. If you are not a virgin because you have had children, that is not what virgin birth is about. It is about conceiving without any mental preconceptions, having an open and receptive mind or soul. it is about a wonderful human possibility.

So the dream baby born to you in this way a wonderful creative act between you and Life. It is a new part of you that if you let it gradually grow into your waking life as a new force, a new way of feeling about life and acting. Being pregnant like that is very important. Obviously you are not going to give birth to a physical baby, but dream babies are important too.

Only a ‘virgin birth’ can bring forth the birth of an intuition, a new response to oneself and ones environment, that transforms ones life. This is a living relationship with the mystery which underlies our life. If we generate a child in this way, we are not held prisoner by habits of thought, stereotypes of behaviour, then we can begin to allow into our waking life what was previously impossible to know. This open state of mind and feelings, acts as a link between the identity or personality, and the deep unconscious life processes. This link allows a birth of realisations and inner change that brings healing and a possibility of experiencing the aspect of oneself that is our core self.

Crying baby or helpless baby: Your fundamental needs are not being, or were not in the past, met. These include basic things like feeling happy and relaxed in ones environment, feeling wanted and loved, having a sense of connection with other people. There may be something distressing you at a feeling/needing level that you are not acknowledging; a new project or aspect of self needing more care.

But it is part of inbuilt wisdom in babies to cry and act helpless of injured to get their needs or a parents love. So if you dream of such a baby it may well be showing you that you are using the same tactics to get people’s sympathy.

Example: Baby pelicans can produce a false epileptic fit; they do this because it is a way to get their parents to carry on feeding them. The alternative is that they must get off their butt and feed themselves.

Dream Baby – i.e. one you gave birth to in your dream. Dream babies are usually special and are a way that you give birth to either parts of your personality that have developed over time and  are now ‘born’. They slowly become obvious to us as new talents, a new direction, or even a new way of life.

Such babies are easy to give birth to, and usually are beautiful and speak soon.

Do I need a pregnancy test if I dream of having a baby?: If you are having unprotected regular sex or if you are trying for a baby, then yes have a test.  But if you know you had not had sex with a partner, then it is a dream baby. See all the comments and answers at the bottom of the page.

Dropping a baby: Carelessness in dealing with your basic needs, especially in relationship; mishandling an opportunity; betraying trust; feeling you have been ‘dropped’ by someone, perhaps in a relationship. It might also at times suggest a miscarriage or the lack of support in caring for a pregnancy.

Example: I turned and ran with the pram at a small boy on a tricycle who was pedalling toward me playfully. We laughingly collided. Not a bad bump, but enough to send the baby over onto the ground on its head. The baby cried but didn’t seem badly hurt. I realised it was the second time I had dropped the baby, and felt I must be more careful and responsible. We were then preparing for a storm on the ship.

It was during the past few days that my wife told me that her period was late. She thought she was pregnant. This caused an awful situation between us. I was out of work in an area that offered me no work. I suggested she had an abortion. As it turned out it was a false pregnancy. However, the damage had been done. (Apparently I had dropped the baby?)

Girl baby: Birth or emergence of new aspects of feelings and feeling relationship with others. But in a females dream may mean an emergence of a new phase or a new start in her life.

Giving birth: A healthy woman is designed by nature to create a baby.  But it is also true that at the heart of a woman’s being is the power of creation, and that creation can go in any direction – a mother, an artist, a dancer, a poet, a social worker, or even an alcoholic or drug dependent.

But in our dream world the image of your creation is usually in the form of a baby. But as you may not be pregnant you have produced an image of your creation and creativeness. It is new so you do not know what it is. That you have dreamt this at all shows you need to take note of this extraordinary creativeness and investigate it. You can do this by imagining your self as the baby –  remember that dreams are showing reflections of your own inner world so the baby is an expression of your creativity – and talk as the baby describing what it feels. Use Talking As.

If it is difficult or a C-section then you are anxious or have fears about having a baby, or else there is a history of difficulty that you need to work out. Try using Carry the Dream Forward.

That you have dreamt this at all shows you need to take note of this extraordinary creativeness and investigate it. You can do this by imagining your self as the baby –  remember that dreams are showing reflections of your own inner world so the baby is an expression of your creativity – and talk as the baby describing what it feels. Talking As

And do not dismiss this as a silly dream, such dream babies have a very real purpose and life of their own. They are your creation out of the wonderful creative process that is a woman, and your own ideals and longings. If you nurture them you will see them grow – I call the spirit children.

Happy baby: Feeling at ease with oneself and surroundings. It may be that something has happened in a relationship or environment that brings a deeper level of relaxation and sense of security.

Hitting the baby: Usually a sign of not being able to cope with ones own childhood pain, and so it ends in hitting. See: hitting.

In a man’s dream: The same as general definitions, but also may be oneself at that age; desire for parenthood; weight of responsibility; fear of inability to produce. See Man Giving Birth to Baby.

In child’s dream: Themselves at that age; feelings about a baby sibling.

In woman’s dream: The same as general definitions, but also may be oneself at that age; desire for a baby; responsibility of caring for baby; worries about having healthy baby; worries about baby’s welfare.

Losing/not finding a baby: Losing contact with or not caring for your fundamental feeling responses to life; losing an opportunity or mishandling a delicate relationship; feeling lost and abandoned in ones own child feelings.

Man giving birth to a baby: Often happens during the pregnancy of the mans partner; shows the man bringing something to birth in himself. This is usually a new understanding, or a new sympathy or viewpoint. It can show the emergence of awareness of the unconscious. See Special Baby

Neglecting or forgetting baby: Many baby dreams, as in the example at the bottom, have this theme of neglecting, or even starving the baby. This is usually because we need to take care of, or be more aware of, how much personal need we have for things like care, appreciation and love being given to us. If as a baby our need for being held and given attention were met, then we can move into the next phase of our growth. But if these needs were never met, one is often stuck emotionally at this level of development. See Beware of Love.

If you are a parent with a baby, the dream may represent natural anxieties about ones ability as a parent – i.e. the dream may reflect a fear you are not giving as much to your child as you wish, or that you find yourself wishing for a break from parenthood.

Example: ‘I have my own baby who is lying in a cot in a bedroom looking very weak and pathetic with eyes closed. I know that he or she is getting weaker and weaker through lack of food and care. In fact the baby seems to be dying. The feelings of guilt are terrible because I know it is my responsibility to do something to make it well. I keep saying to myself I must go and feed that baby – but I don’t. I just keep worrying and feeling guilty.’ J. C.

Because of circumstances we may not have been able to satisfy all our babyhood needs – we may have been weaned earlier than we wanted; our need for attention may have been unsatisfied or we felt rejected or unwanted – and these are shown as a baby in our dreams. Dreams such as the above show how we sense the need of this part of us to be cared for and nourished. If some of these earliest needs are not met in some way, the development of our enthusiasm, our pleasure and ability to be involved and self-giving, may be diminished, giving rise to dreams suggesting the need for nourishment, as above. See: baby – healing and helping; baby in my dreams.

Nursing a baby: Caring for ones own infant needs which still exist in ones adult life; giving care and love to someone who is relating to you in a baby way; wanting a baby, or needing to express the depth of your own ability to give and love.

Pregnancy – dreaming of baby during: Most women dream about their growing baby during pregnancy. These dreams are vary varied and often anxious or frightening. Such dreams are not to be taken as signs of a problem other than natural anxiety. Occasionally a pregnant woman dreams of the identity or personality of her unborn child, perhaps even before it is conceived. This can of course occur to the father too. See: pregnancy; birth dreams during pregnancy; fifth example under penis, in the body section.

Sick baby: Our babyhood experience builds the foundation of all relationship with other people and the world. If for instance we are punished for being curious, or are traumatised in our need for love and support, it will show in our adult relationships. Perhaps we will lack explorative curiosity, or avoid or have difficulties in a close relationship. The sick baby usually depicts such difficulties. Exploring our feelings in connection with the sick baby, or being the sick baby as in Gestalt dream-work, will help uncover the details and intense feelings involved in such unsatisfying emotions and habitual responses.

Starving baby: See: Neglecting or forgetting baby: above.

Twins or twin: The many polar opposites or splits in us – the split between waking consciousness and sleep or the unconscious; the split between what we want in our deepest desires, and what we can allow ourselves socially; the split caused by infant trauma; the split between our sense of eternity and the facts of physical mortality; introversion and extroversion; something of self which has got split off; the lack of balance in our being; twins can represent duality, conflict, or two sides of an issue, but also the emergence of something new, something that was denied, or born with one, but never acknowledged as part of oneself; ones unconscious relationship with another person, such as occurs in a telepathic link; separation.

Or perhaps even ‘died at birth’, or one died, leaving us feeling only half a person; the lack of balance in our being. When one of the babies died and the other survived it might be as happens often that the situation wasn’t right for one perhaps because of health issues. See Tony’s Inner Voice

When appearing with a couple: The marriage – what is created in the relationship; the life process in us based on reproduction. What you have produced and care for or neglect together

Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming, by Norman Mackenzie.

Then I went back in my mind to being two years old when I felt that a terrible thing had happened to me, the realisation that my mother had no love for me. I saw her holding a male baby and I felt in that instant that I hated males. I had just this fundamental feeling, a terrible feeling, and it grew and I became full of hate and I realised that it was directed toward the opposite sex. I felt that this had begun at an early age when I felt that my mother had given affection to the male members of the family and not myself. I was the only female. I realised that at that age she didn’t love me and I must have felt jealous of the male This grew up within me.

This graphically describes the depth of feeling we often carry from our earliest years, feelings which deeply influence our adult behaviour. In this case it made the woman’s relationships with her husband strained and tense.

Example: I have my own baby who is lying in a cot in a bedroom looking very weak and pathetic with eyes closed. I know that he or she is getting weaker and weaker through lack of food and care. In fact the baby seems to be dying. The feelings of guilt are terrible because I know it is my responsibility to do something to make it well. I keep saying to myself I must go and feed that baby – but I don’t. I just keep worrying and feeling guilty. J. C.

Because of circumstances we may not have been able to satisfy all our babyhood needs – we may have been weaned earlier than we wanted; our need for attention may have been unsatisfied or we felt rejected or unwanted – and these are shown as a baby in our dreams, as with J. C. Dreams such as the above show how we sense the need of this part of us to be cared for and nourished. If some of these earliest needs are not met in some way, the development of our enthusiasm, our pleasure and ability to be involved and self-giving, may be diminished, giving rise to dreams suggesting the need for nourishment, as above. See: baby healing and helping; baby in my dreams.

Example: I am 48, have two children in their late teens and definitely DO NOT want another baby. Nevertheless I have a recurring dream in which I am always in labour, experiencing no pain, and although there are nursing staff I am in some sort of laboratory, although everything is very pleasant. I never actually give birth and when I wake I always have a vague feeling of disappointment. V. I.

This dreamers conscious decision to have no more children may be in conflict with her biological urge for another baby. But the dream might also suggest there is something she deeply want to give birth to in her life but has not yet achieved. Her creativity did not end with her children, there is still more for her to bring out of herself in some way.

Example: My mouth was full of what looked like liver. It was also coming out of my left ear. When I turned away from the mirror I saw medical people in caps and gowns who kept telling me to bear down. I then gave birth to a baby out of my mouth. I am an invalid and very sick at present. Mr. M. S.

This mans dream is about preparation for death. The baby is the extraction of all that can live on after his present life is left behind in death. See: death – is there life afterwards.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Useful questions are given in baby in my dreams.

See Comments below.

Baby-sitter Baby-sitting

If you are the baby sitter, it has connections with being responsible for a vulnerable part of you, or for someone else’s baby.   In some cases the dreamer gets very connected to the baby and so give it a lot of warm caring. Also there is the theme in some dreams of leaving the baby while the sitter goes off. Usually this ends okay, but if not see baby.

You need to ask yourself how you feel about the baby and being baby sitter because it will explain how you feel about caring for your own inner child and being responsible. There can be difficulty in being able to assume the role of being the child’s mother.

If you are not the baby sitter there is often then it can be a scene of great anxiety; or you have trust in the baby sitter. How do you feel about leaving your baby in someone else’s care?

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you are the carer, how do you feel about responsibility?

If you are the baby what do you feel about being cared for by the sitter?

It would be good to use Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Bacchus Dionysus

This can be seen as representing the influence of alcohol to change the way you feel, and even produce the lose of reason and so opening you to the power of God, the sexual urges, and intuition. Bacchus also was linked with rituals which were used in the Dionysian Mysteries in which intoxicants and other things leading to trance were employed in order to rid the initiate of social restraints so they could revert to their natural state.  See Pan.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a ‘back to nature’ influence? See Girl in the Wood.

What do I fee in the dream as an influence if this god?

If I imagine myself as the god what do I feel or know.

See Talking As and alcohol.

See Pan.

Bachelor

In general it probably indicates the attitudes and qualities evident in the dream character. See: man.

In a woman’s dream it may be a signal that she is looking for a likely man, or it might refer to a bachelor friend.

Elderly bachelor: It may show a fear that you will lose your partner and be left alone. Or else you are still longing to be free to explore other women.

Man’s dream: Oneself if unmarried; desire for freedom, or comparison with present situation if married. Also it might point to the way you were prior to marriage.

Woman’s dream: Possible hope for sexual partner; husband prior to marriage; unmarried male friend; or if the man is married in real life, hopes that he were single.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this someone I know – if so how would I describe him and how do those characteristics or feelings apply to me?

Is this someone I do not know – if so what type of person is he and how do those characteristics or feelings apply to me?

What is my relationship with this man and what can I gather from that? See: relationship and dreams; Stand in Role.

Back

For Back of or Behind see Back Of

Back Pain: This can be caused by tension, and this is turn could be about holding yourself back through anxiety. See back pain and its cure.

Back – trunk spine: Mostly the back indicates your strength, particularly moral fibre; confidence physically; decisiveness, ability to stand in face of opposition; power to endure without being overcome. A psychiatrist once told me that many men in a tramps home were diagnosed C.W.B. It meant ‘congenitally without backbone’. That is, They hadn’t developed the strength to deal with everyday life.

Example: ‘I was looking across a hedge at a bull. I seemed to be just looking at its back.’ Andy.

Andy was a teenager, uncertain of himself. In this dream he was looking at and discovering his strength. This was a revelatory dream for him because he suffered a great deal of anxiety in the past because of an old back injury. He had in fact left a higher  paid job and taken a much lower paid work because he felt he couldn’t cope. From working on the dream he felt, he was adequate as a person. So the dream was a turning point after which his ability to explore and be active outwardly was hugely enhanced.

So the back can also indicate what you are holding back in yourself, or even what is happening to you ‘behind your back’. Holding back in this way can create real back problems because it causes tension in the back – causing pain – causing worries about the back – causing tension – and so on.

The different strata of the back may also indicate different aspects of yourself. The lower back for instance suggests the earliest stages of your development such as life in the womb and birth; but also the earliest levels of experience such as sensuality and sexuality.

The back at about waist height links with your process of growth and digestion of experience, along with sympathetic links you have with others and the world.

The back connecting with the chest indicates your emotional and feeling development and the way you connect with the world through empathy – especially what you take in and put out of yourself.

The neck connects with your ability to express yourself and communicate with others, along with such things as asking for your needs and speaking your inner truth.

Carrying something on your back: The influences and burdens you carry from your past. This can be useful or difficult depending upon what you carry. This also suggest your karma, or the results you face in the present of all past events and actions – cause and effect. See: dweller on the threshold.

Sitting on the back of an animal: Being supported by your inner and instinctive strength, wisdom and animal self. See: animals.

Somebody on one’s back: Feeling dominated by someone else; feeling the ‘weight’ of one’s parent’s, or someone else’s wants and decisions instead of your own. Carrying an influence from the past.

Idioms: Back breaking; back to the wall – See the example in nightmare, and note the use of the words ‘back against the wall and what it implies; behind one’s back; flat on ones back; get off my back; put somebody’s back up; rod for one’s back; pat on the back; stab in the back; turn one’s back on; scratch my back.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this indicating strength. If so what strength does it help me become aware of?

Is this an injury or weakness – if so what vulnerability or weakness does it help me become aware of?

What does the theme of the dream tell me about myself? See: themes; Processing Dreams.

Back of or Behind

Back of or behind house or barrier etc.: This suggests a more private situation or feeling. It can also indicate intimacy, being less formal, surreptitious, or trying not to be noticed, therefore out of sight, or trying not to be noticed, therefore out of sight, so could suggest you are either only partly aware or not wanting anyone to know – in other words linking with the unconscious.  In some dreams it means second best, an aspect of ourselves or life that we would not put in the forefront.

When it is something like behind a wall or fence, then it may refer to barriers such as feelings we have which act as social barriers , or get in the way of how we relate to people or situations. This could connect with such things as the class barrier or fears we have.

Behind: Repressed urges, one’s past and memories, or what is ‘behind’ one in the sense of having left it behind, like a relationship. It might therefore refer to something in the past, but may be influencing you again. The position can also depict your inner feelings, something that is inferior, or something we have pushed out of sight.

Being pushed back: Feeling restrained or restricted; feeling others are, or a situation is, holding you back.

Returning or going back: Being influenced by, or re-establishing something from ones past, or meeting similar life situation as met in the past.

Idioms: At the back of; at the back of one’s mind; back room boys; by the back stairs/door; behind one’s back; take a back seat; back to earth; fell back; back row; held back. See: behindfrontleft behind.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling this is a positive or negative place?

Do I identify this as a situation of greater intimacy or inferiority?

What does the rest of the dream comment on the position through context?

Is this something hidden or unknown?

See Unconscious and Easy Dream Interpretation

Back-Pack

See: Knapsack.

Backer Backing

Support; confidence; energy or another person’s influence in your life.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Who or what is the backer or backing I get in the dream?

What did it enable me to do?

Am I still feeling the backing given?

Try Talking in Role as it can be helpful.

Backwards

Can mean many things in dreams.

Walking or going backwards: Might indicate going backwards in age, so regressing or remembering your childhood. It might be you are reducing in importance or even in size in the dream.

Pulled backwards: By various influences such as sexual attraction, fear of going forward in life.

Backwards in time: This can be a way of feeling or seeing the influence of the past on us.


Example: I went backwards in time. It was England a hundred years ago. The scene was a gas works, the newly built, industrial England, very dull, soulless and material, but hard-working. The old buildings, machines, the past as a whole, were a millstone that was gradually making useless, or counteracting, all the work and productiveness. I saw all repairs on buildings being undertaken, and knew that although they looked impressive, they were valueless. Although it seemed terribly expensive, was to tear down the whole thing, and rebuild new.


In the example the dreamer is realising that the attitudes he had been raised in were so out of date he needed to rebuilt himself in a new image.

Car rolling or going backwards: The loss of energy or initiative to make positive changes in life. A feeling of losing status, or of ability to meet what faces one.

Falling backwards: Possibly fear of falling/failing. Maybe a way of getting you to lie down. Falling backwards can also be a sign of surrendering to the power of the highest in you.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is causing my backward movement?

Does this link with the way I feel in my life at the moment?

Do I feel as if I am not making headway in life?

Try using Processing Dreams.

Backyard Patio

This suggests a more private situation or feeling. It can also indicate intimacy, being less formal, surreptitious, or trying not to be noticed, therefore out of sight.

When it is something like a wall or fence in the yard, then it may refer to barriers such as feelings we have which act as social barriers, or feelings that get in the way of how we relate to people or situations. This could connect with such things as barriers or fears we have.

Example: I could see the goings on of that backyard world; cats roaming around, hummingbirds flitting about their nests in the bougainvillea, people out in the alley doing chores, the gardener or our apartment tenants going about their business, the stars in the deep of night. It was a bit of a voyeur’s world for me.

The backyard may also be a place where you can relax, dress how you like and do things you enjoy, or simple do nothing.

Example: At the bottom of the yard today, Down where the ground slopes Into the creek I sat near the great fir tees Listening to the breathless hush In which we each make our sounds And commit our movements. Looking up I saw the crows Flying with twigs in their beaks – Building their nests.

Patio: A patio is often a more carefully built or designed area. Also it can be at any level of the house or building. It often represent complete privacy, being apart from the outside world, relaxation. It also suggests an inner environment that is your comfortable way of being.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing or seeing in the yard?

Is it my own yard or someone else’s yard?

What are my recent memories of the yard?

If I describe the dream yard what would I say – try Talking As.

Bacon

Most dreams I see with mention of bacon are to do with being hungry and liking it to eat. But it can also suggest something, a food, that can keep for ages without going bad. Can also refer to supplies, earning a living.

The other references are to Francis Bacon and Roger Bacon. Francis Bacon is said by many to be the author of the  Shakespeare plays.

Idioms: bring home the bacon; save your bacon. See: food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you like and eat bacon?

What is happening in the dream with the bacon?

What are you feelings about it in the dream?

Try using Acting on your dream.

Bacteria Germs Virus

A hidden or invisible attack that may weaken or even destroy you – your confidence – in one way or another. They can also depict anxieties that undermine your health or attack your well-being; or feelings that keep you away from another person or situation – in case of infection.

The germ or virus can indicate fear of illness or feelings of inadequacy or a sense of uncleanness. Remember that nothing in a dream can hurt  you. Dream images and actions are all your fears, hopes, habits and wonders clothed in images. But of course if it is fear clothed in scary images, then it is wise to realise that running away and hiding can only encourage the fear. Better to face it. See victims; Facing Fear and also the example under prison.

In investigating virus intuitively, I saw that each different virus was such a packet of data or information, and that life had produced packets of data about the potential for almost anything. In other words, different viruses could have an infinite number of effects in one system. Some might produce a destructive response; others might produce a positive change in mind or body. They are the information base of life. They are the lumps of information other life forms take and use.

The main point of change for me lay in the feeling that a virus might have a very life enhancing effect, not simply a life destructive one as we are led to believe. At the end I felt I had made an agreement with life for myself, my family and Hyone, that our choice of ‘viral data’ was a life enhancing one. We had chosen to be on the side of life, and this would act as a way of choosing the packets of information we would need for our physical, mental and spiritual growth. We live in the midst of continual change. Part of our fundamental need is to change to meet the altering environment in which we exist. But without care we might choose a direction of change that becomes destructive.

The word germ is used extensively to suggest the beginning of something, the point from which great growth can occur, so if the dream does not suggest anxiety, there may be a positive connection with growth.

Bacterial warfare: The undermining of ones personal or social well-being by surreptitious means.

 

Computer virus: Being got at by another person; something surreptitious that you feel is or might attack or undermine your work. It could indicate something that is a destroyer of calm and pleasure, so energy that may be disruptive, but is like bundles of automatic functioning of some sort, depending on the dream. So the virus could also suggest unconscious responses in yourself that are destructive or undermine your conscious life. See habits.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of influence do I feel or see the virus or bacteria having and how does that apply to me?

Am I experiencing an anxiety or fear that is undermining my health and activities?

Is there an influence I feel from someone else that triggers my own negative feelings or fear?

Being the Person or Thing might help you find out the meaning of your dream.

Bad

Our view of what is bad or good changes with each generation. It was thought so bad in the past to be born out of wedlock that people lived a life of shame. One woman who came to me could not even say the word ‘illegitimate’, it held too much emotion for her.

Here are some examples of its use in dreams.

Example: A man in the class said that he felt bad because he had few clothes on. There was an atmosphere of shame because of sex or the body, so I told him to put his shirt on.

Example: I had slept with the woman’s daughter and now she was going to have a baby. I didn’t seem to mind, and accepted the responsibility, and despite being married with a newborn baby, was going to bring up this baby, and maybe even have the mother living in. I realised that I had always thought/felt intercourse with animals was sinful and awful, but now saw nothing bad as I loved the cat.

Example: I was in a cinema with the children. We were sitting near the front on the right. The children were on my left. Beside me on my right was a man, a sort of incarnation of evil – lecherous – filth – devilishness. He leered at me and I believe I stared back. Next the man was on the stage. He was hanged by the neck, without, it seemed, any body, only his leering awful face at the end of the rope. I felt it was bad for the children and was going to get them out.

Bad used in a dream description will probably depend upon your own upbringing. So think carefully were the bad feeling comes from. Even killing someone although it is judge as universally bad, is legalised in warfare – whether national or business.

Something bad such as eggs or food refers to something that might be upsetting you, or that you are taking in rotten information or feelings. But as usual it depends on the context in the dream. See Context; evil; rotten.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the feeling or thought of badness about?

Is it something that is often troubling you?

Why did you see it as bad?

Why not try exploring your dream by using Processing Dreams.

Badge

A feeling of identifying with a particular group if the badge is connected with a group or organisation; memories, experiences, things learned with a group or organisation. The badge might suggested an attitude, depending what the badge is. It might suggest courage, authority (such as police badge) or social recognition, or a role; a sense of achievement; a reminder of values held or feelings that strengthen beliefs. This is meant in the way a person will wear a Christian cross or St. Christopher to remind them of their moral decisions or help bring confidence in the face of anxiety. But a badge worn in this way also means you readily show to others what you feel or believe. So it could be the revealing of love, beliefs or decisions made, depending on the badge.

The badge might also link with potential strength and feelings of authority, as one might have with a police badge; acknowledgement of attainment; if it is a name badge it most likely suggests your own sense of identity, or the identity you display to others – or who you feel yourself to be in the circumstance of the dream.

In some dreams the badge shows that you have now achieved a new status, as when you have passed a test or achieved a higher rank. The badge therefore lets others know what qualities you have, what skills you have, or what remarkable deeds you have done. The feathers of an American Indian brave would have a similar significance. See: feather.

Useful questions are:

Does the badge have words – if so what do they connect with in your life or thought?

What does this badge mean to me?

Does this represent an important quality or skill – if so what? Is it related to an organisation – if so what do I feel or associate about it?

What rank or achievement does the badge denote.

 

Badger

May refer to badgering people, or feeling badgered; the quiet unobtrusive or even secluded life – so may refer to urges to get away from other people’s influence or company; define what you associate with the badger, as there are very mixed general associations with this animal, far more so than with the fox for instance.

Useful questions are:

If I imagine myself as the badger in my dream what does it feel like and what am I doing? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

How would I describe a badger, and how does that apply to me?

Badminton

See: games and gambling.

Baffled

baffled This is self explanatory, as if you are baffled in your dream then you are directly experiencing the feeling. So the important thing is to see in what situation, environment or activity the baffled feeling is arising. Then see if this fits into any of your waking life situations or perplexities.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I failing to understand in my waking life?

What am I doing in this dream that applies to my waking life, even as an allegory?

When did I last feel baffled like that?

Try Exploring your Dreams to see if you can get through the bafflement.

Bag Baggage

In some dreams it represents the vagina, and female sexuality in general. More often, as in example below, depicts the dreamer’s identity. Our sense of identity is often dependent largely on social contacts and recognition. The bag, especially handbag, with all one’s personal belongings and money, credit cards, represents our social ability to get places and cope.

The bag can also link with the ‘luggage’ of attitudes, chip on the shoulder, beliefs or fears we carry about in life. Or it can be the things we put away or hide from ourselves and others, therefore secrets, perhaps danger.

The dream bag might contain the personal skills or tools one has, or is carrying with you, such as a laptop, mobile/cell phone. Or it could connect with a holiday or getting away from work or home; freedom or the ability to move.

Another possibility is the association with protective attitudes, as when one might carry something precious in a bag – such as a baby, small animal or objects; secrets or what is hidden, so unpacking it may bring revelations or the unexpected; ones hopes or dreams.

Example: ‘I am in a strange town – usually where there are shops and lots of people. I don’t know where I am or how I got there, but I suddenly realise I have lost my handbag. I know no one and do not know what to do. When I panic I wake.’ Mrs R.

Mrs R. has obviously lost her feeling of who she is and her identity and confidence. So her bag link with all those things.

Bag of refuse: Desire, emotions, ideas you have discarded, or need to discard; rubbish being dumped on you by someone else.

Bag over ones head: Trying to hide, or feelings of fear or inadequacy; a cover up.

Body bag: Death or near death; loss of someone.

Emptying bag: Getting rid of attitudes or feelings one has been carrying about; unloading or looking at the thoughts and memories one has been ‘carrying’. Sometimes refers to leaving or dumping a lover.

Loss of bag: Loss of feelings of confidence, of the means to survive in the world; loss of something valuable; occasionally loss of child bearing function.

Packing bags: Planning to leave or make a change; wanting to get away; making changes; a journey; putting things in order; sorting out ones needs or priorities.

Sleeping bag: Powerful sexual symbol – i.e. sexual intercourse or a sexual partner – especially if linked with a partner; could also represent the feelings of being in the womb, or wanting to sleep alone; may occasionally have the same significance as a body bag.

Vacuum cleaner bag: The contents would suggest the rubbish you have picked up in your attempts to tidy up your life. It might also show stuff you have lost or been unaware of. Your attempts to improve yourself or your living situation.

Idioms: Bag and baggage; wind-bag; in the bag; pack one’s bag; punching bag.

See: Example in clothes; luggage; knapsack; suitcase.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What type of bag is it and what would you generally use it for?

Am I ‘carrying’ old attitudes or grudges?

Does the bag link with feelings about my identity or security – if so in what way?

What does the action in the dream add to my understanding of the bag?

Try Being the Object or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims


Baker

Creative ability; ability to alter one’s approach to make experience more acceptable – such as when comments, instead of being taken as criticism, are taken as information. Also the creator of bread, so the provider of basic needs.

It may be connected with money because of the term bread or dough being used for money. See bread.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I the baker or the baker is just a character in the dream?

What food is there or is being offered?

What am I doing in relationship with the baker?

See Characters in Dreams and Talking As.

Balance

Your ability to judge and discriminate, to measure one thing against another. It may also suggest conscience, that weighs outer acts against the innermost feelings.

Balcony

It can mean an attitude of looking down on people, maybe superiority but it could also be about not wanting to get involved or express who one really is.

A balcony in a theatre is also a special place for important people, and also a dangerous place for young children. Veranda can be an outdoor place for entertainment or socialising, so can suggest an ability to express yourself and be sociable.

A balcony can be a place of observation that puts you apart from others – at a remove. You can feel out of reach to those below you. It might be that you do  not want to get involved. There can be feelings of  underhanded superiority and manipulative through servility.

There in some dreams are fears of falling, or of babies going over the edge. The baby is your true feelings and urges. It is sometimes suggesting suicide. See Suicide

A balcony can also be a launch to fly from, a very thrilling thing, suggesting an ability to express your positive feelings. It can also be a high place from which you can observe much more, or even fight a battle from. Also a balcony is in a higher place – as in a theatre – can is often associated with uplift and wonder,

 Example: I seemed to know that a group of men were worshiping in this church. They were on the balcony. They were young, happy, and communicative. As I looked at the church I knew they were worshipping by chanting. Being in the church and near these God loving men I became filled with the spirit. It was like an intense emotion and power flowing through me, and it led me to sing and pray and speak.

Example: When I was in the house I started looking for my 22 air rifle. I felt that with the rifle I could threaten the woman and equalize the situation with woman who was shooting at me. A walked out onto a balcony. From there I could look down upon the situation but instead of equalizing what happened was that we all begun to shoot at each other. Everybody seems to have guns at this point. We were dodging each other’s bullets.

But instead I look into the feeling of the dream and saw it was impossible for me to get hurt or shot. What ever happens in the imagery can never be any damage to one in a dream. This realisation transformed the situation – at least, it stopped the conflict.

Then suddenly, at one point, the older woman who had been shooting at me suddenly became very real in my feelings and very spontaneous. She arrived at the awareness that neither of us were losers. But it seemed to be that by cutting through the dream with the sense of awareness, it had changed the possibilities of it. It was no longer a contest that might result in a winner or loser. In this new situation neither of us would need to let go of our principles or direction. This was a very important point and I could feel it. Neither of us lost out.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with the balcony?

What feelings or thoughts did I experience in connection with it?

What actions took place on it or in connection with it?

Try Acting on your dream to find more about it.

Bald

See: Hair.

Baldness

See: hair-baldness under body.

Ball

If it is a ball game, the ball may depict something about a personal or group relationship and what is going on, the back and forward or interactions shown in the dream. Or it might represent competition and ways to win or play the game or life, love or business, with skill. The ball can also stand for wholeness.

A ball represent wholeness, an ‘all round’ view or a rounded character.

Ball: Interaction between two people, sexual and otherwise – the ‘ball’ is in your court – in that throwing the ball may show someone trying to get ones attention and response.

Ball games or being thrown a ball: Challenges, prowess, competition in the game of life; having and letting go; sex play; masturbation; a man’s ‘balls’; a way of moving toward personal wholeness.

Balls: As in men’s testicles

Idioms: Have a ball; ball at ones feet; ones eye on the ball; start the ball rolling; new ball game; play ball with someone; he has/hasn’t the balls. See: the self under archetypes; games.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you doiong with the ball?

Is there interaction with it of another person?

Do you feel any feelings or competition?

Use Talking As to help define what the ball is about.

Ballerina

The ballerina often appears as an image representing the beautiful idealistic self.  But this can be seen in different ways in the following examples. See: dancing.

Example: I was a ballerina turning around in a glass ball. I was dressed in white and blue snow was falling all around me. At first I was happy just spinning around, but after a while I became panicked. I suddenly had to get out. The ball would not break no matter how hard I tried, but the floor did and I went tumbling into white powder.

o Setting: In a glass ball. o Characters: No one but me. o Feelings and Thoughts: Angry, scared, worried, panicked. I believe sometimes I feel trapped in the mold I have at school which could be represented by this.

Example: One person, “looking for herself, came upon a tightly closed box. Tearing it open – in her fantasy – she found inside a lovely rose, and realised that she had been enclosed in a box of Puritanism, of self denial and physical shame. The outer petals of the rose, pink and mauve, seemed to whirl and dance; they sent her fancy spinning off like a ballerina into flowered landscapes of delicious sexual femininity. The inner petals were shaded from the light, obscure and mysterious. Here the colours darkened to deep crimson and velvet purple. They reflected her deep animality. These she avoided, until she realised that it took both the light and the dark to make a lovely rose. She could not have one without the other. Gradually the rose became a nourishing symbol in her life and growth.”

Example: “I’m walking through a marketplace with many colorful shops. I stop to admire many items–a weaving, some pottery, embroidered clothes. Now I’m walking down a hall, where my artwork is exhibited in a room. I look at it with excitement; I think my abstract of a ballerina is beautiful, but no one else even notices it. Why is it that I can appreciate other people’s creativity, but they don’t even recognize mine? I crumple up beside it and begin to sob.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my ballerina demonstrating or expressing?

Can I identify with what she is expressing?

Do I ever daydream or fantasy being or involved with a ballerina?

Can I act out what my dream ballerina is expressing – try using Acting on your dream.

Ballet

See: Dance.

Balloon

Party mood and maybe linking with feelings about something to celebrate. Breasts and perhaps connection with sex through similarity to condom; the womb.

Something that can appear large, colourful and growing, but is only full of air we blow into it – life we give it with our imagination and emotions – and can be burst and disappear suddenly like a bubble. In other words a big deal about nothing – a lot of hot air. But imagination eat creator.

If the balloon is mysterious and perhaps white or glowing, it can represent feelings about a dead person who has ‘floated away’ from physical life.

In some dreams it might show a feeling of being fat and blown up. Also the balloon might be linked with gaining attention, as with advertising balloons.

Balloons are much like bubbles, so see bubbles.

Deflated balloon: The power or emotion gone out of something; a lost dream or hope; feeling deflated.

Feeling you are blowing up like a balloon: This might link with an experience of being anaesthetised. Also it could suggest increasing tension and feeling you might be heading for a crisis, or even of pregnancy.

Hot air balloon: Escape; getting away from the everyday difficulties or routine; wonderful fantasy; a birds-eye view of life on the world; a lot of ‘hot air’ as in empty or boastful talk; floating away from being practical or grounded. The ascent in a balloon may show going up in the world or achievement; feeling light headed or ‘floaty’. Descent in the balloon may show coming ‘down to earth’ or a feeling of setback.

Airship or blimps: It may suggest a huge presence hovering over you. Unlike an airplane that has to keep moving the airship can stay in one place, and because of its immense size might be felt as uplifting or threatening.

Releasing a balloon: Hope; testing an idea or ideal to see where it takes you; letting go of something or someone; letting events decide the situation.

Something suspended by a balloon: Feelings of rising in the world or being in a good place, but lack of security.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the feeling surrounding the balloon, and how do you relate to those feelings?

What is the balloon being used for and what do you associate with that?

Is the balloon rising or descending, and does that relate to events in your life?

Try Being the Person or Thing to define the dream meaning.

Ballroom

Place of romance or courting, therefore memories, the past, hopes and dreams. It could also relate to feelings of competition; relationship with other people; social position, such as feelings of class. Sometimes it suggests times past, historical scenes and the atmosphere they created. This probably relates to deep seated feelings you have about the parts of yourself you still haven’t brought to awareness. See: dancing.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you doing in relationship with the ballroom, and what does that suggest?

Is this a place you have been in the past – if so what memories do you have of it?

What is the theme here and what action in your life does it portray? See: themes.

See also Talking as a Dream Character and Characters in Dreams.

Banana

Male penis; disguised sexual desire; enjoyment of sweet food, pleasure.

It is often also used as a sign of love and caring in dreams. In some dreams it is a recommendation for your diet.

Taking one or handing one to someone: Desire to receive or have sexual relation. Or a caring action.

Man eating one: May be homosexual tendency. Or perhaps a dietary suggestion

Idioms: Fingers the size of bananas; go bananas; tough bananas.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel about bananas – do I enjoy or dislike them?

Is there any hint of sex or sexual feelings in this dream – if so what do they point to?

What am I doing, or how am I relating to the banana and what does this suggest?

See Processing Dreams.

Band

If it is a particular band or group, it may link with how you see the group, and what you feel about them. Otherwise it could depict feelings you have at the moment about working in harmony with others, expressing your won creativity. Sometimes this refers to teenage feelings and emerging sexuality. Team work; sense of different parts of self working harmoniously; or work for a musician; teenage emotions and feelings, perhaps to do with sexuality; comradeship.

Band of metal, material or colour around something: See colours or for metal see the type of metal or ring. The band in general suggests a binding quality, a wholeness, a form of connection or unity. It can also be a limitation or restraint. In some dreams it points to an influence, quality or power, the nature of which will be seen in the events and feelings of the dream.

Elastic band: Sometimes used as a way of drawing one back when they get too far away, or as a tight band to restrict the flow of blood, and therefore the function of what is restricted.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part am I playing in the group, and does this help me understand the way I relate to the people I am involved with?

Are we creating something as a group – if so what does it suggest?

If this is a metal or other band, what quality or restraining influence does it have?

Explore your dream using Processing Dreams

Bandage

Feeling hurt, or fear of injury. The bandage also connects with healing and sometimes death.

Bandit

A bandit in your dream may represent an attitude that takes but does not give. Or it can be a warning against others who might take advantage of you and what you own.

Or it could be male sexuality in its adolescent, aggressive stage.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you recognise these attitudes in yourself or others?

Is there anything you can do that overcomes them?

Do you feel threatened by the bandit in the dream – or are you the bandit?

Try carrying the dream forward and Talking As.

Banister

A feeling of security against falling or being hurt. Something that protects you; a protective barrier. See: the section on stairs.

It might at time be a link with childhood memories where hurt was involved.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the banister play in my dream, and what does that suggest?

Am I near a dangerous edge in my life?

Is this something I have built out of my attitudes?

Try using Acting on your dream to explore the meaning of your dream.

Bank

Money worries or decisions about or events to do with money and the whole lifestyle that goes with it. Therefore it may indicate dreams or hopes about the future; resources – financial, mental and spiritual such as suggested by savings. It could relate to your internal sense of security – if threatened then feelings of insecurity and fear – again savings. It can indicate emotional resources such as confidence and sexual certainty; social power; feeling of pressure about debts or social money situation; something you depend upon.

The bank might depict the ways, the attitudes, skills or otherwise, with which you deal with your resources or energies. In other words what you do with the energy you stored up/banked. See: Money

Bank raid: Threat to security; feelings of anxiety. Or if you are a bank robber, feelings of desperation about money. Perhaps not feeling socially connected in the way to get money flowing to you, so suggesting that you access resources by force instead of understanding.

Bankruptcy: Feelings of despair or failure; the end of a scheme or relationship; the realisation or feelings that the direction has not worked and must be abandoned, whether a marriage, business or direction in life. Or it could be doing too much and exhausting your reserves, materially or emotionally.

Difficulty drawing money out: Frustration about earning power and thus ability to find security or esteem; lack of confidence or negative feelings about personal value. Perhaps there is a need to be personally affirmed, or a sense that you do not feel valued.

Talking with the bank manager: Thinking about, or trying to deal with issues of finance, personal resources or self esteem. If the bank manager is serious, then you need to look closely at your finances. If he is amiable, you are probably doing well despite worries. The bank manager also represents the wisdom or attitudes you can use as a resource to deal with the economics of your life. See Talking As.

Vaults of a bank: Deep unconscious resources; your potential or reserves.

Working at a bank: Dealing with money issues, security, personal values.

Idioms: Bank on; burst/break the bank.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What worries or concerns do I have about money?

Is my dream showing me new insights or understanding about how to deal with my life?

If there are difficulties in the dream, what are they and how does that connect with my waking life?

See A useful way to understand your dream – Dream Understanding.

Bank Notes

See: money.

Bank Of River Canal

A barrier or safety measure – i.e. to stop the river flooding, so a way to deal with emotions and maybe block them or direct them. A place in the sun, or an exposed place. It could also relate to a difficulty to be overcome when trying to climb out of water or up the bank. Minor difficulty or obstruction; a boundary, such as the boundary of what you might permit sexually or creatively.

The river or canal bank not only contains, it also directs the flow of energy. So any features of its structure or shape would give an idea of what is being directed and how.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a barrier to my progress or a safety feature in my dream?

Am I facing a barrier to my progress – if so what

Is this bank about the way my energies are being channelled?

Are there indications such as feelings, thoughts or obstacles to help me understand the dream?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation.

Banquet

Social relationships and a chance to be recognised or seen as being chosen. Perhaps  feelings about class, social position or status, or business/sexual opportunity. It might also be about feelings concerning eating and drinking, or a drive to impress, or being impressed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is social recognition important to you?

How do you place yourself socially?

What did the dream events suggest about my relationship with the banquet?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation.

Baptism

Being baptised or witnessing a baptism could suggest a new influence entering your life, and a cleansing away old attitudes. Because baptism is a readiness to let a new influence into your life, it could show you opening to your inner possibilities, or to life pervading and healing you, or an influx of what had been latent or potential in the Self. So in that way a door to a new experience of yourself.

Sometimes it links with birth or experiences connected with your own birth, and is thus a re-connection of your conscious self with the deeper life-giving unconscious elements within you. And birth does not necessarily relate to being a baby, because we can be born many times, such a spiritual awakening. This may be allied with an experience of the old attitudes or way of life dying or passing away. See: compensation theory; religion and dreams; archetype of Christ.

Baptism in water: Relates more to the emotions and to inclinations arising from ones birth experience. In Christianity it connects with the recognition by the community of the identity of the baptised baby or person. It therefore suggests an entering into this fellowship or Christian community. As this cannot occur unless you have a sense of allegiance and good wishes toward the group you are joining, it points to a change of heart. See baptism as an ancient mystery.

In other cultures baptism has the meaning of cleansing away old attitudes, concepts and ways of life, to allow a new growth from within and from ones social contacts. In the Bible water is spoken of in a particular way. For instance – Their hearts melted and became as water. (Josh. 7.5.) Water was also used to wash with and, more important, to quench ones thirst. So baptism in water brings one in connection with being cleansed, being changed inside oneself, and having ones longings/thirst satisfied.

Baptism by fire: This still has the cleansing in it, but the experience may be more painful, more fierce, burning away the old material of ones personality through powerful passions or emotions.

Baptism in blood or wine/spirit: Blood and wine are often synonymous in dreams, and may depict being deeply immersed in experiences that link you with collective humanity. For instance we all meet certain experiences, such as ageing, and to know how your personal experience links you with millions of others is a form of baptism in blood. It also may mean that you inherit the work, attitudes, insights, left by millions of humans.

Baptism in energy or vibration: Sometimes individuals experience what feels like a force flowing through their body, causing it to vibrate or tremble. Accompanying this there is usually a feeling of great immersion in life, or connection with all life, or the mystery that lies within all life. Occasionally this immersion is known to be into a collective mind in which countless others exist. Of course this may be true of the other forms of baptism also.

In many cultures some form of water container stands in front of the temple. People either washed in this, or symbolically wash by dipping their hands in it. Such cleansing water can still be found just inside every Catholic Church, and outside Japanese Shinto temples.

It is possible that in general baptism represents a turning away from the ego centred, or child dependent and self centred life, toward that of becoming socially aware and wanting to be a caring and functional part of the group or society you live within. This turning around is often accompanied by the recognition of your deep links with ones culture, and the enormous debt you have to it for language and the formation of your identity. This does not go against the idea of a rebirth, or the opening to your deeper unconscious as proposed by Jung. Recognition of your cultural inheritance as it has worked in you unconsciously, is in itself the gaining of a new life, and is an access to a wider awareness. See: archetype of baptism.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I recently experienced an influx of new life or an opening to a deeper awareness?

Has there been a growing awareness of my links with humanity and life in general?

What am I aware of experiencing in connection with baptism in my dream?

Try using Acting on your dream to gain a fuller understanding, or Arm Circling Meditation to explore the experience of baptism.

See: Water; desert.

Bar

(If metal or other rigid material – For bar/pub see bar room.) Strength; male sexuality; rigidness; an expression of aggression. It can represent energy or be a symbol of power, or a lever to shift obstacles. Sometimes it is an extension, barrier, fastening or support, or to can be a play on word suggesting the banning or exclusion of something, or an impediment; a means of discouragement, whether used as a weapon or as a physical barrier.

Exercise bar: Comment on your fitness, or what your body needs to get fit.

If barring way: Obstacle; block against your self expression.

Metal bar: Weapon; defensiveness; aggressiveness or anger; strength; penis.

Sand-bar: Safe place to stand out of the water – emotion; possible danger if in a boat – or a place to land, i.e. make a change, possibly from drifting in life or feelings.

What we do with the bar: How we are expressing energy or power at that time.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being done with the bar, and what meaning or feeling do you attach to that?

Does the bar have strength or is it lacking power – and is that feeling apparent in your life at any time?

What do you feel if you imagine holding the bar in your hands?

Try using Talking As if you are uncertain of the meaning in your dream.

Bar Room Pub

What happens in the bar may indicate how you relate to social relationships at a basic level. A public bar can either represent the sense of pleasure, love of company and entertainment, or sometimes the place where you experience changes in yourself – i.e. influence of alcohol or spirit. Often indicates how you relate to groups, or relaxation – or conflict – with friends and others. The meaning depends on the action and relationships occurring in the dream. There may therefore be signs of aggressiveness or defensiveness. It can also indicate your feelings about society, or exploring ideas or feelings, as one might in a communicative atmosphere in a bar.

It can be about your hopes, fears or expectations in regard to finding a sexual partner. Therefore the meaning might be about the meeting or avoiding of the complexities of relationship, gathering information or realising things unconsciously gathered.

The bar-room can be about difficulties regarding alcohol; your technique for avoiding confrontation with loneliness, anxiety, sense of failure, etc. See  Alcohol.

Barman/barkeep:

Idioms: Prop up the bar; colour bar; barring the way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is taking place in the bar and how does that relate to me?

If there are difficulties what are they?

What is the essential dynamic of the relationships in the bar?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Stand in role.

Bar Room/Pub

What happens in the bar may indicate how you relate to social relationships at a basic level. A public bar can either represent the sense of pleasure, love of company and entertainment, or sometimes the place where you experience changes in yourself – i.e. influence of alcohol or spirit. Often indicates how you relate to groups, or relaxation – or conflict – with friends and others. The meaning depends on the action and relationships occurring in the dream. There may therefore be signs of aggressiveness or defensiveness. It can also indicate your feelings about society, or exploring ideas or feelings, as one might in a communicative atmosphere in a bar.

It can be about your hopes, fears or expectations in regard to finding a sexual partner. Therefore the meaning might be about the meeting or avoiding of the complexities of relationship, gathering information or realising things unconsciously gathered.

The bar-room can be about difficulties regarding alcohol; your technique for avoiding confrontation with loneliness, anxiety, sense of failure, etc.  See: Alcohol.

 

Idioms: Prop up the bar; colour bar; barring the way.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is taking place in the bar and how does that relate to me?

If there are difficulties what are they?

What is the essential dynamic of the relationships in the bar?

See Easy Dream Interpretation.

Barbarian

A more instinctive, less restrained part of yourself. The barbarian often has a lot of shrewdness about human behaviour, as this feeling level doesn’t have the social complications of a more refined self, and may therefore ‘see’ things as they are in a fundamental way. See apeman.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you in conflict or accord with the barbarian – and what can be seen of this in your waking life?

Is the barbarian asking or telling you something – if so what is it?

What can you learn from the barbarian?

Try Talking As to define the character of the barbarian.

Barbecue

Relaxed feelings of sociability or social relationships. It often has something to do with the ease or conflict in a family or between friends. It could be about sharing what you have – food, love, sex.

If this is about a barbecue restaurant it might point toward choices you make – as to where to eat, or about being close to someone. See: restaurant and café; food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this dream about the relationship angle of my life?

Does my dream reflect a happy situation?

What am I eating or refusing to eat?

Processing Dreams can guide you through finding the meaning to your dream, or try Easy Dream Interpretation.

Barber Hairdresser

Change of attitudes, thoughts or opinions about oneself. Because we can change our social appearance by a haircut or style, it depicts changes of mind, change of image. Therefore being in someone else’s hands – the barber or hairdresser – shows the influence someone else might have on the changes we make in our life.

In some dreams there appears to be a lot of anxiety or fear surrounding the barber dream.

Sometimes having a hair cut can mean you are getting rid of so much thinking. In that way your inner life has a chance to open more. The hair and dealing with it can point to the way we deal with our thinking, controlling it, or allowing it to be out of control. Our thoughts can build up to become labyrinths we lose ourselves in, or terrifying scenes of fear we torture ourselves with. So sometimes our dreams point out what we are doing in that way, and perhaps how quieting or surrendering our thinking can open us to a transforming influence.  And usually, while you are having a hair cut you are looking in a mirror. This is the gift of reflection, the ability to see your Self. The image you see might not be to your liking, but is a true reflection of you, warts and all. See: HairRoles.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If my hair has been changes, what changes in my attitude or image am I going through?

Is my thinking needing to be changed or quietened?

What are the changes going on in my life at present?

Try Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Bare

Basically this is about feeling exposed. This may be desirable or undesirable depending upon what you feel in your dream. It can indicate a desire to be attractive and noticed – as in the example, where Miss L. is enjoying an acceptable form of intimacy, or being open about what you really feel. It is also showing you feeling people know what you are feeling or desiring, or else being open about what you feel. This often refers to sexual feelings, or feelings you usually hide.

At times it can be a sign of anxiety about not being adequate socially or that you do not ‘look’ good, or lacking ability to conform to social norm.  See: NakedClothes.

Example: ‘I am at the doctor’s being examined. It is always the same. I have all my clothes off and he examines me from the roots of my hair down to my toe nails. I am just at the point where I am going to ask him for his diagnosis when he fades away.’ Miss L.

How we feel about being naked in the dream may simply show our cultural background and childhood training in regard to being undressed. In some families it is easy and natural, and in others something to be ashamed of and arousing critical remarks.

There is an almost instinctive drive in many young children to uncover themselves to others. Erich Fromm, in his book Dreams – The Forgotten Language, says that, “It is hardly possible to pass through a village in country districts without meeting a two or three year-old child who lifts up his or her blouse or frock before the traveller, possibly in his honour.” As adults, if such behaviour were punished or frowned upon we may still be stuck in this behaviour, desiring the acceptance we should have received at an earlier stage of our growth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling relaxed about this or exposed and vulnerable – and does that reflect how I feel about people knowing who I am?

Is there any signs of sexual feelings here, and if so what does the dream suggest about my response?

If there is a reason for my being naked, what is it?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation to see if you can uncover more of the dream’s meaning.

Bare-feet Barefoot

To  be in contact with reality, your real life situation. Might also suggest rough going if walking is hard. Of course, in some cultures it could mean poverty.

Going through a rough patch in life if walking is difficult, or feeling unprepared to meet your present life situation. Letting go of the everyday duties and responsibilities, or feeling in contact with nature and your life situation if enjoying it. Feeling embarrassed about not being ‘properly’ dressed, or that you are not conforming.

Example: “You got to hope for somefing. If you don’t hope you might as well walk right out this minute and lay in the nearest ditch and stay there. There’s plenty a rough places to walk barefoot while your hoping – I know that. So just hitch your skirts up and keep on going over the stony bits.”

You might also have taken shoes off to walk quietly so as not to be noticed. If this is so it suggests you are trying to fade into the background in some way. See shoes.

If you are not bothered about being barefooted it can mean you feel confident and are not worried by social conventions. So can mean feeling playful easy and confident about your footing, even joyous and natural.

If you feel embarrassed by being barefooted and unsure, it suggests that you feel it is socially inappropriate appearance in many public places. But if you feel easy then it shows you are comfortable about not conforming to conventions.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I bothered or easy about being barefooted?

Is it hard to walk or am I finding it easy?

Do I often walk without shoes?

See Easy Dream Interpretation

Bark Barking

The aim of the Dream Dictionary is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. This is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions with which life confronts you.

Your Guru the Dream

Your Guru Your Body

Dreams are one of nature’s miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the process of life, our core self and our conscious personality. Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millions of years of Life experience.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life – such as breathing, digestion and the thousands of other life sustaining activities and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, Our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See  – Brain Levels and Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To meet this ancient self try using Opening to Life

That suggests that dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying traumatic and disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

I know how much you might like to skip the Introduction to Dream Dictionary, and if you are tempted to do so, I wholeheartedly ask you to read Summing Up. Without understanding the things given there you are likely to completely miss the point of understanding your dreams. The best technique to enter you dream world – Peer Dream Work

You can start using the Dream Dictionary by entering the word you wish to research into the Search Box on the top right of most pages and clicking the search symbol – or you can read some fuller information below about the dictionary and how best to use it.

But the quickest way is to put your word in the search box. 

It is important in reading the definitions of dream images to realise that not every possible meaning can be covered in this dictionary. So please see if you get the idea of what is being said and allow your own imagination/feelings to fill in the meaning.

There are several ways you can understand the meanings held in your dreams, and there are several levels.

The first is an easily understood level, followed by greater depths:

For instance, speaking as an object or dream person, one needs to take time with it. Learn how to actually describe what you are as that dream object or person. If I dream of a dog, don’t simply describe what you think a dog feels like, but actually take time to tune into the dream image and describe the dog dreamt about. Is it an old or young dog? What is it doing in the dream? Listen to your feelings and describe what it/you feel. Remember that each image is a creation of your own mind and unconscious, so you are really describing yourself. Say whatever comes and consider its value afterwards. Below is a quote from Tiziana Stupia’s book Meeting Shiva 

So below are listed several ways to gain insight and information from your dreams. Take your time with each approach until you get the feel for it, and then experiment with other approaches.

You can enter a key word in the search box. The Dream Dictionary contains interpretations on almost any type of dream subject. So, if you dreamt of a flying saucer landing in a field, and aliens getting out and taking a baby, a snake, and a pregnant dog back into the saucer, you could search separately for each of these subjects in the Dream Dictionary. Find the entry for flying saucer; then the entry for dog, babysnake, pregnant, and so on. For each entry, find further related entries by looking under ‘Similar Articles’ on the right-hand side of the page. Then see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams.

Each entry gives the general meaning of the dream subject, just as an encyclopedia or dictionary does for a word. Several possible meanings are given. This is because as with our speech the position of the word – the context – gives it special meanings. So, a hot dog would be quite different to a black dog, dog-end or dead dog. Therefore, when you read an entry which has several different meanings, sometimes with a ‘;’ between, it simply means any one of them could apply, which means you need to think about the feelings in your dream, the context, the other imagery used. Please do not fall into the trap that one reviewer made of saying that the whole dictionary is about sex. Of course, sex is one meaning among many others. So, use your own sense of your dream as well as any definitions given.

To really explore the meaning, it is useful to use the Dream Dictionary as it is designed, rather than arrive at a ‘thought out’ interpretation. To see a working example of this see Dream Interpretation Example One

Forest-A

I no longer offer a personal dream interpretation service, but only occasionally if you manage to send  an interesting dream I will respond – the reason is I am getting past my sell by date being 84.

Note: comments that have any adverts or links to other sites will be deleted.

In the meantime, here is a way to work out your own dream – Getting at Your Dream’s Meaning.

Please note: this a not-for-profit site and it offers real dream interpretations, not dream dictionary features that are not real interpretations. We ask no payment for these interpretations, but it would be a great if you wish to donate anything. I do not ask a fee for what I do, but if you wish to donate you can click on this Paypal Donation  

I have been interested in the health of mind and body since my early teens. I began writing about these subjects in 1956. My fascination for what lay under the surface of the mind led me personally to explore the unconscious using dreams and other mental and physical disciplines. From 1972 – 94 I worked as a psychotherapist using an eclectic, Humanistic Psychology approach which included dream work and releasing the secrets the body holds. My books include Do You DreamMind and MovementThe Instant Dream Book; Dream DictionaryLife’s Little Secrets –Liberating The Body  – and many more. See My Books.

Throughout more than five decades I have been involved in a personal search for the secrets of mind and spirit. In those years I have also taught thousands of people techniques of deep relaxation, meditation, and methods of self exploration using dreams. Wanting to dig deep I explored the use of dreams and taught individuals and groups of people how to use these visions of the night to discover and heal the deepest issues in themselves, and to touch the high ground of their spiritual awareness. I worked for twenty years as a psychotherapist using several approaches, one of which was a way of honouring the body as a doorway to the unconscious mind, the emotions and spiritual experience. See Self-Regulation –  Recognition – Life’s Little Secrets – The LifeStream and Opening to Life

During the sixty years of seeking the wild wondrous beasts of the mind and spirit I dared my own inner adventure. But I also travelled with other people as an ordinary person, not a therapist, sharing their experience of fear and wonder as they unveiled and set loose their fountain of perception. I have travelled countless dream pathways, traversed the timeless with those using awareness enhancing drugs, and wrestled with the vitality of the body as people mimed and shouted their deepest intuitions through movement, dance and voice. See Tony’s Biography

My aim has always to share my findings – actually what I was shown or given from within – was given freely; I never had any teacher or attended a course, of course I read an enormous amount, so I cannot ask for money. If you wish to donate anything to the running of the site you can do so by clicking on https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JYTWAMC4LQLQ4&source=url 

My teacher has been from exploring dreams and occasionally touching the wonder we were born as – not from words written in books about that but by meeting it. See Enlightenment  

Forest-A

Profundización de la comprensión de un sueñoIntroducción

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

So how can we get into this magical world of our dreams and start to harvest the possibilities held there? The following pages of this book are designed to help, guide and inform on how to do this. The book is also a counsellor on what you may find in your dream adventure.

The information about dreams presented in this book has been gathered during fifty years of working with and studying dreams and the dream process. It synthesises the experience of personally helping hundreds of individuals explore their dreams. The examples used have been taken from a collection of over 8000 dreams put onto a computer filing system. The filing system was also used to define general associations with commonly used dream images.

The major input for definition however has arisen from the actual exploration of dreams undertaken by individuals. These are either people I have worked with personally who have deeply felt the emotions and issues behind their dreams, not simply talked them over and come to an intellectual interpretation but a deep insight, or are people who have written up their findings arising from similar work. Added to this is the commonly held associations we have through our language and the way we use imagery within speech. Of course your personal dream imagery may not be using the commonly held associations, or those used by other people, and so you must read the definitions with care and consider if these fit what is implied or dramatised in your dream.

In the entries in the Dictionary are explanations of the many different types of dreams and dream images. Despite some people’s attempt to explain dreams in one simple formula, dreams cover a huge range of phenomena and human experience. Amongst subjects covered in the book are thousands of entries on the researched meaning of the things, people, creatures and places we dream about. There are also many entries on special subjects such as symbols and dreaming; interpreting dreamsrecurring dreamsnightmaressex while asleepteenage girls love dreamsprecognitive dreamstalking in ones sleepthe dream as an adventure; Occultism and Dreamsscience sleep and dreams; and many more.

There are a compete list of these Features and the  Archetypes covered.

Therefore, if you have dreamt of such things as your teeth falling out; being chased; or your marriage partner dying, you will find an explanation of your dream in the following pages.

The aim of the book is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. The book is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions life confronts you with.

But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary – or better still read Meaning of Your Dream

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. It is as if all your deepest feelings, hopes, fear and wonder are projected outward onto a multidimensional screen. It is a world of virtual reality that you feel is real. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us.

But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiments of our fears; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

Our Core self is that amazing part of us existing beyond time and space, and was within us from the start of our universe.

I suggest you only try one method at a time and use it until you are capable or it or it doesn’t work for you, then move on to other methods taking time with them until you find what works best for you.

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

Dream Processing – The following dream needs no deep techniques of processing. The word ‘processing’ is used throughout the book instead of analysis. Analysis has the connotation of giving our own thoughts or opinions to the dream. Processing is used to suggest extraction of information which leads to insight. With this particular dream, all it needs is a few facts brought to it to make clear what information it holds. The dream is that of a young woman, Mrs C. L.

It is a bright sunny day. I am walking across a large concrete car park. It is empty except for a huge trailer from a truck. It has BOOTS written on the side, and stands high off the ground. Being 4’ 9’ tall myself I decide to walk underneath. As I am half way the trailer starts to be lowered on top of me. I try to shout but cannot. I get onto my hands and knees and the trailer still kept coming down. I am now lying on my stomach, convinced it is going to crush me. Then it suddenly stops a couple of inches from my head. I wake feeling terrible.

The dream is interesting, although the information it holds may at first not be obvious. But with a minimum of processing the dream information will become clear. The first technique of processing the dream is to recognise some of the key statements within it. These are I AM WALKING – I TRY TO SHOUT – CONVINCED IT IS GOING TO CRUSH ME.

The reason these are key statements is because the dreamer is saying ‘I am walking’ – ‘I try to shout’ – ‘I …am convinced’. The word ‘I’ is important.

This form of processing has not added anything to the dream. It has simply drawn attention to the information already there in the dreamer’s description of her experience – this is why it is useful to write the dream out fully. If we add a little more information which the dreamer herself connects with the dream, then it becomes even clearer. Mrs C. L. says, ‘I work for BOOTS the chemist. The employees at the shop I work in were told at the beginning of the year that Boots are selling our shop. When that happens I will be made redundant. We were supposed to finish on May 26th. It is now the end of July. The deal fell through so we are now just left hanging indefinitely until a new buyer comes along. I feel very unsettled as I can’t make any plans for the future.’

Having read these comments, it would be difficult not to see the dream as relating to the woman’s work situation, and to her strong anxiety connected with it. She herself says – through her dream – she is ‘convinced it – the situation – is going to crush’ her. She also feels her strong emotions about this – expressed in her attempt to shout – are not being expressed or ‘heard’. From just this one dream, we can be forgiven if we assume that dreams may express in dramatic form our feeling reaction to the circumstances of our everyday life. Taking this dream as information, Mrs. C. L. could see she is feeling crushed by the situation, yet not stating her feelings loudly enough to be heard. She might therefore speak to the manager to clarify the situation for herself.

Here is an even shorter and less complex dream. It has been left just as it was written so its information is immediately apparent. The key words here might be TRYING TO CONTACT HIM and NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY HE LEFT ME. The dream is from Mrs C. J.

Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him, not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

On speculating about the dream from what is immediately apparent, we might say that although it is irrational to continually  try to contact her husband when there has never be any success, nevertheless, her desire to be with him continues year after year. This same part of her cannot understand why he died. We might put such feelings into words as, ‘But what had he done to die so young? Why should it happen to me twice?’ We can also assume that her desire to understand these questions, which is what contacting her husband represents, is expressed in the dream as the telephone.

The dream process has dramatised her situation and inner feelings – given them form and made them experiential. Looking at this dream helps us see how an image, such as the telephone, performs exactly the same sort of function as a spoken word, although in a different way. Namely, it represents feelings and thoughts. That the woman’s questions remain, that her problem is unsolved, is apparent from the fact she does NOT make contact on the telephone, and does not find peace. Understanding her dream shows her the importance of the questions she continually asks herself, and the need to release the emotions behind them. With this she could be free of the dream. If she cannot manage this by herself, taking advantage of the professional help of a therapist might help.

To make it clear how everything is a dream holds personal information, to give an example, I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

For fuller Dream Processing – Below are described simple techniques that make it possible to quickly gain information from your dreams. They have been put as a series of questions. If you take time to consider and answer the question you will find your way into a new experience of dream understanding.

Read it in: Processing Your Dream  

Acting on your Dreams – Extracting more from your dream by letting your body and feelings express it can provide a remarkable release of insight. There are several ways of doing this.

Do see the instructions see: Acting on Your Dreams

The Peer Dream Group – This method is the most powerful and deepest method. It includes some of the other techniques mentioned.

The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams and into oneself if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream  and themselves but only when we break through to what is usually unconscious mental states, and when treated as such, and supported in their investigation of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.

To use it see: The Peer Dream Group and What I Have Seen In Dreams

For the Dictionary put the word you want to look up in the search box at the top right of all pages 

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Bark Barking Howl

A dog barking can be from man causes. A dog expresses a great deal of its deeply felt emotions through its voice. It can growl, bark, whine or howl, and it can express all manner of things in each of the sounds it makes. So you need to ask yourself what it was voicing in the dream.

 Example: Suddenly my head jumped up and a bark issued from my mouth. In that flash whole areas of past experience fell into place. Years ago I had dreamt of being in bed, and a large black Labrador being on my back attempting sexual intercourse. In the dream I had pushed the dog out and pushed it downstairs – back into the unconscious.

It has just struck me that John B. had a black Labrador. This one strange bark seems to tie all this up together. It was not just a bark. Suddenly I had inwardly become a dog that barked. My soul experienced the condition of a barking dog. Just as suddenly as the bark sounded from me, I knew that the homosexual desires shown in the session with John were not psychologically caused, but arose from this dog nature in me. I can now see that some of my sexuality arises not from love, but from the drives of this dog part of me. Similarly, much of my aggressiveness has come from this source. But this is still too new for me to see any deeper into these parts of my nature, and what subtle influences they have on my inner and outer life.

The example give a clear picture of what a dog is in our dream life and what its bark expresses. A dog is the less socialised side of our instinctive urges, it expresses our natural urges that have not been repressed by socialisation. Of course they can be sexual, joyful, unhappy, aggressive, painful, loving and supportive and a joy in play. See Mammal Brain.

Howling like a wolf or dog: I have experience of the voice expressing naturally from deep feelings. About three times in my life when I had become close to a person and they left without any sign of coming back, without warning or intention I howled like a dog. It always surprised me because when I tried to do it I could never make that wonderful sound. It was a sound that expressed everything and was very full of feelings. I feel from that if it is in us to sing our life, something of that howl will express through us.

It is most likely when we feel so much and cannot express it in words and so howl – which is all emotions, so “I call for you – I miss you terribly – I cry – I pour out my being to you – Why did you leave me? etc.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I identify what part of my feelings the dog is expressing?

If I understand that the dog is a part of myself (see mammal brain) what can I do about it?

Is the dog asking or telling me about that part of me?

Can you, as in the example, take on the role of the dog? Try Stand in role.

 Bark of tree: This can be both life sustaining or a cover up. Life sustaining because without the bark the tree would die – but some trees regularly shed their bark and so one can take it off and see what is underneath.

 Example: Dreamt, at Beaford (Devon), that I was looking at the large plane tree at the back of our house in London. I noticed the base of the trunk was burnt internally. I pulled away bark. It looked a bit like a bees nest, but was cindered would. Now I saw folds in the trunk of the tree showing that the tree was leaning, and I realised the cindered bark I pulled away had been supporting the tree. It would now soon fall. I saw a very clear mental image of the tree falling to the right where there was space, because straight ahead was a building it would crush. The tree then began to fall exactly where I had visualised. I now saw the top of the trunk base cut clean.

Here it is shown how the bark both supports and hides, in the case of this dream a deep hurt at the base of the trunk – the base of his being.

If there is a wound in the bark it can leave the interior of the tree/you bare, and so can lead to the tree becoming hollow. Not always a bad thing because people can shelter in a hollow tree.

Example: I was looking at a very large and old tree. I wondered if I could climb it but couldn’t see any way up it. But I noticed a large area without any bark, like an old wound, and I thought that area would become rotten and so the tree would become hollow and offer shelter to animals and humans.

Then I walked around the back of the tree and saw that the bark was like thick cables about 6-8 inches wide. I could then see a fairly easy way to climb the tree. So I climbed up and the top of the tree was like a massive bell of a flower, like a crocus shape. And it was light and colourful. Suddenly I saw a spirit, a beautiful female. It was the spirit of the tree. At this point I was semi awake, and I wanted to hold the beautiful spirit, but realised that the tree was a representation of my life, and so was the spirit of the tree. The spirit sat on me in a sexual position, so I was lying on my back and she was upright. She slowly took me into her, I mean the whole me, as if she was sucking my whole body into her. I realised that I had to die because she wanted to take all my experience of life and endeavour into her and fertilise herself to form a baby. So I was ready to die and watched her form a new baby, a mixture of her and me.

Here is another wonderful dream, showing both the wound of the bark and how later it became a way to climb.

 

In some dreams trees can speak to us, and sometimes they are like a judge of our life. The bark becomes their lips.

 Example: I look at the trunk of the thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

Here the tree is obviously the person themselves, and the bark is still protective – it is not!

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way am I relating to the bark?

What function is the bark playing – protective or revealing, or something other?

How is the bark and the tree acting together?

Find out by using Easy Dream Interpretation

Barometer

This is an indication of your state of inner pressure or emotional climate. It can also depict what you sense of coming events or situations.

Clearly about the changes of mood and feelings that are either happening or arising shortly. This is like your own personal dashboard to say what changes are coming. The barometer also can indicate good or bad weather/situations coming your way. In other words good feelings and difficult ones.

It can also be a barometer of your pace, accomplishment and frustration.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the barometer suggesting is coming in my moods or feelings?

Is this about my feelings, or fair weather or a storm coming in my life?

Is there any suggestion in the dream of how to meet these changes?

Find out by using Easy Dream Interpretation.

Barracks

Barracks This suggests an intimate sharing of your life with others. Also it shows in your dream the complications or problems of this. There can be friendship, enmity, differences and hard feelings. So ask yourself what happened in your dream.

Example: I discover a thief in my barracks. I am furious. I am going to call the military police, but T. tells me to calm down that the guy is a genuine war hero. I find the evidence of all sorts of stuff he has stolen. I want to the call the police, but T. tells me to calm down. I almost hit her. Actually I can’t tell – because I have been drinking – whether he has stolen anything from me. But I can see his room is full of junk and I can see where he has been messing around my junk. (I first discover some evidence against him in a cabinet over a display of souvenirs I have. He has moved around my souvenirs in an insulting way too.) I also cannot remember what I did with my computer – whether it is missing too.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What happened to me or what did I feel in the dream?

Was it a friendly atmosphere or was there difficulty?

Do I have memories of being in a barrack?

Try using Characters and People in Dreams and Easy Dream Interpretation

Barren

This can indicate various types of barrenness. It can be the barrenness of childlessness which is not simple the inability to conceive, but can also be barrenness of mind, which does not allow anything creative to grow in one and give birth to it.

Example: Gradually, it became clear what had been causing the pain.

In every human being, I seemed to be told, there is a fire that burns, a creative fire. When that fire is permitted to burn freely, the human being is healthy and creative, whether he be farmer, artist, mother, workman. But when the fire is blocked, as it is by this pain, then the person is crippled, just as I had been crippled for most of my life. As a child, I had felt worthless because I did not have my brother’s masculinity and intelligence, nor my sister’s grace and beauty. And because I had felt worthless I had withdrawn into non-identity and non-feeling.

Later in life I had found one worthiness: a talent for acting. But I had used the talent as a means of escaping into the identity of the characters I portrayed, instead of searching to find my own identity. (Quoted from Myself and I by Constance Newland).

It can also suggests a conflict between the intellect and the non rational side of oneself. Usually it is the rational mind which is destroying a part of ones inner nature – or a fight between the extrovert and the introvert. The introverted side may have fallen and so will nevertheless intrude in fantasies, as fear of some insidious disease; in melancholy, which afflicts him when left to his own resources; in superstition, or some freak religion; in that total loss of interest and complete sterile introversion which overcomes many extroverts when they can no longer be filly active in the world. For the extrovert, introversion all too often actually is what he believes it to be-a neurosis.

Barrenness or sterility can also be caused by the pain of having no warmth in ones life. See Causes of Infertility.

Example: This led me to ask what he connected with the images, and he said it reminded him of his childhood and its restrictions and limitations. It especially linked with his grandparents and their rather cold and distant way of relating. He went on to talk about his parents, and how he could never get close, describing a rather sterile situation as far as his relationship with them. He told of waking in the mornings and having to remain quiet in his bedroom because he was not allowed to go to be with his parents.

Following from this Richard appeared to go very deeply into feelings that led him to cry from childhood pain. He said at the time and later what a relief it was to cry in that way. Witnessing that I wondered if the rest of the session would lead to such readily available and flowing experiences and insights.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way does barrenness show in my dream and my life?

Am I aware of it in myself or is it simple shown in my dream?

Was any way shown how to deal with it?

Try using Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Barricade

barricade We can barricade ourselves from thoughts, from emotions, fro actions from outside or from within.

Example: The change had torn that away, leaving her separated from everything she had known. It was a devastating feeling to have nowhere and no one to be connected to. Growing in her was an awareness that she could, out of the aloneness, commit acts of desperation, criminal acts to the degree she had never considered before. Connection and family had unknowingly given her a barricade against an internal riot that would hit out at others. With the barricade down, even though so recently, the internal mob were shouting angrily. Bess didn’t understand the fine points of this, she simply felt like something was crushing her from the inside, and she trembled, not from the cold. Quoted from The Steel.

Barricades can stop you getting away from something or stop you getting hurt, like barricades around a hole.

It can be the defense you use against others, or events – of something used against you. May be in the form of an excuse such as “I’m too ill to go to work, or I’ll never get anywhere, so what’s the use of trying”. Perhaps you live in thought only, a dried out travesty of living; for thought of things is never things themselves, however near it comes. So you can build a wall of thought about yourself, a barricade against the need to feel and experience – against living. See: ArmourFence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of any barricades that I erect or meet in my life?

What can I do about going beyond barricades?

Are they a necessary part of my life?

Try Being the Person or Thing.


Bartender

bar tender This depends whether male or female. Also depends on your relationship with alcohol. If you drink frequently, then it possibly relates to the feelings that lead to drinking. Other possibilities are sociability; loneliness. See: WomanManRoles.

It might also relate to advice given by the bartender or friends or drugs offered.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What happened in the bar and how is that relevant to me?

What was my relationship to alcohol in the dream? See  Alcohol.

What feelings or emotions were felt in the dream?

See Easy Dream Interpretation.


Base

The base of something is usually about what supports you or your activities. The condition of the base and its situation will indicate what the strength or weakness of you or your attitudes, beliefs, or confidence is. But the base of something also links with what is at the bottom of a situation, or what is lowest in importance or status.


The base may also indicate the beginning or root of something, the point where something started from. So the base of the spine for instance can suggest the basic instincts or responses, the lowest levels of awareness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is your practical outgoing self secure?

Are you on a firm footing?

Is there any special significance of the base in my dream – if so how would I describe it?

Use Talking As to find out.

Baseball

See: games and gambling

Basement Downstairs

This part of the house is often used in dreams, and represents hidden motives, part of us that is barely known and so is often can the unconscious, so the unknown feelings, memories or past experiences, your biological past, and the place where your conscious mind contacts hidden powers, universal wisdom, and even other minds. Sometimes it means base deeds, low morals, underlying dislikes or traumas. It is from the basement, below, or within, that libido or life force arises. Fears and terrors sometimes come from downstairs. This is because it is the place we hide our old memories and hurts – in the unconscious. But it also holds the understanding of your wholeness. See Pandoras Box

It suggests what is unconscious or below ones usually level of awareness. Also may still have associations to do with ‘below stairs’ referring to what is beneath one or a lower class. Also in the cellar or basement one is near to the earth, the primordial forces of nature, what moves beneath ones ‘street level’ personality.

The basement can also link with what your present personality has been built upon, your past or family and cultural influences. If there are no walls to the cellar, or tunnels leading from it, it shows an openness or connection with influences beyond your own personality.

But it can be the power place, where so much of your life takes place – within you – in thinking, feeling and willing. It suggests what is unconscious or below ones usually level of awareness.

Also may still have associations to do with ‘below stairs’ referring to what is beneath one or a lower class. Also in the cellar or basement one is near to the earth, the primordial forces of nature, what moves beneath ones ‘street level’ personality.

Such a basement can in some dreams cause anxiety, but in others it offers a huge opportunity and many possibilities. It can be the place where hidden feelings can erupt such as anger, sexual longing, spiritual insight – anything because we are in the unconscious. See the unconscious and collective unconscious.

Example: It was a huge basement store, full of second-hand goods. My son bought some things, and pulled out four pound notes to pay. I asked him where he had got them from, and found he had stolen them. I was so angry I hit him with a poker, breaking his arm – or at least, I was frightened I had broken his arm. Having once hit him I wanted to go on and on hitting him, but struggled against this.

The spiritual can  be born here instead of in a stable.

Example: Was in a basement. My wife and a woman I was in love with was giving birth to a Baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it, without a doctor being there. I remember my love chewed through the cord. I looked at the baby, it was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious. Then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!” The baby was then take an upstairs, and I felt it was a holy and wonderful baby. I was going to rest from the rigours of the birth, but on looking around saw how dusty and dirty the basement was. I began to clean it, and felt I would go upstairs and rest afterwards.

Example: What happened was that I seemed to go through the ground to what lies underneath. I don’t literally mean under the earth, but underneath people, underneath the events in life, what is usually hidden; only I felt it as like going into a vast place underneath everything. I understood that this was what is usually called the unconscious, or in past ages the underworld. In it I felt at the roots of all living things.

The first thing I saw was my youngest son. He was crouched just below the surface, unable to break through to the outside – what we call everyday life. This was a revelation because it explained so much about his behaviour. It showed me exactly what difficulties he was facing. Lots of people never get to even glimpse this hidden world of beings and energies, but my son had always known it and been held by it, almost like he had never been born from it. Seeing him at first deeply concerned me. But I understood that this was his life. Although it was difficult he would learn things denied to most people. He would know them instinctively because he was a native to this underneath world, the place inside us. So I stored the memory and moved on.

I found that I could think of anyone I knew and gain insights into what they were like inside. This was because this place, or condition I was in was like a space underneath a town. From here you could get into anyone’s house. You could touch the roots of trees and all living things, because they all emerged from here. My own sense of myself was different too. I knew without doubt that I had existed throughout all time. If I asked a question about the past, I knew just what had happened then, the whole struggle of humanity to grow, to meet itself. I knew because my central self had been a part of it all.

Then I came to what I called the Temple of The Animals. Again I have to describe it as a picture, a scene, but it was more like a direct knowing or experience. Here all that lived was gathered together. Not only as rank upon rank of animals in a great amphitheatre, but gathered in being linked as one mind, one spirit, knowing each other. So that when I walked into the temple I met this vast spirit which was as ancient as life, and had experienced all that life had done on this planet, and knew all the wisdom of its immense experience. And this Great Spirit looked upon me and knew me. It entered my own spirit looking to see if I knew how to love my mate and care for my children. It did this, as I understood it, because central to all that life had done in its many forms, was this great theme of self giving in caring for offspring and mate. It had learned how to love, and if I had not learned that lesson, I couldn’t receive the blessing it could give. As it was, it judged I had sufficiently learned the lesson of giving myself. Then I received the blessing of sharing a small part of its wisdom and ancient love.

A snake in the cellar or cave: Our psycho-biological drive; the energy behind our growth and motivation which includes sex drive. Often experienced as our emotional or feeling drive or zest for life. This connects us with awareness of our evolution as a person. See Snake.

Bad smell: Negative emotions which could cause depression or illness. See: house.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I harbouring unknown motives, fears or perhaps anger?

Are there things I am not letting myself think or feel?

Am I finding wonders or tragedy in the basement?

It is important to know how to work with what you find in the unconscious, so please read Important to Understand This and also Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams – Super Heroes and Mythical Creatures

 

Basket

This has to do with the things we carry about with us, or the way we collect things in a psychological way. For instance one might ‘carry’ a grudge or ill feeling for years, and it is just as much of a burden as carrying a loaded shopping bag. We might also collect or carry information or ideas. We might ‘buy’ a suggestion from someone and carry it in this way until used or passed on.

The basket is often used to represent the vagina or the ability to bear children.

In trying to understand what the basket depicts it is important to consider what is in the basket, and whether that is the important part of the dream. After all, the basket might simple point to your ability to hold or remember experiences, ideas or feelings.

The word is occasionally used in English to mean a person who is a problem or irritating – she/he is a little basket. The phrase ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ also shows how it is common to associate basket with the idea of collecting or holding onto things that are valuable.

Cat/animal basket: Means of containing, restraining or dealing with ones reactive or spontaneous feelings or responses.

Carrying a basket to the shops: Looking for something; wanting something.

Full of food or goods: Plenteousness; abundance; good feelings or being a provider.

Empty basket: Sense of emptiness; lacking motivation; feeling impoverished.

Example: I was in a house with my mother, father and my son David. My son was not his present age, being about nine or ten years old. He was walking down some stairs leading to a basement, happily carrying a large bag of food, and a basket with milk and some other liquid in it. This was balanced on the sack, and as he walked down the wooden stairs I was behind him and saw the handle of the basket knock on the stairs. I thought it would fall and told David so. He was confident it wouldn’t. I made my point by taking hold of the handle and tipping the basket so its contents fell down the stairs, causing a flood of liquid to gush down the stairs. It looked as if the stairs had been washed clean, with some gravel as if a river had flowed down them. David was upset and told my parents I had tipped the basket. It probably would not have fallen if I had not tipped it. I felt as if I had betrayed David’s bright helpful attitude. The dream ended with my awareness of my father (now dead) being downstairs. Andy

In the dream, David is ‘carrying’ all the bright nourishing things he has collected, but is upset by his father. David is actually the dreamer’s positive, growing and happy self that he undermines and hurts by his critical and overbearing attitude.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am carrying – and does the dream define this?

Is it the basket or the contents that are the main thing here?

What ability or attitude does my dream basket represent?

Use Easy Dream Interpretation to understand the dream more fully.

Basket-Ball

See: games and gambling.

Bat

Bat used in a game.

The flying bat is often associated with the devil or vampires, night or death. It is a creature that can see in the dark, lives in caves, and so is an aspect of unconscious inner workings, that go on in the darkness, or the part below our conscious awareness. But it is we who create this fear.

It can therefore represent thoughts or influences emerging from the unconscious, and can be wonderful rather than frightening. Being able to see in the dark – i.e. intuition. A such it can be felt as a fear of the unconscious. As such it can be felt as a fear of the unconscious. See Facing Fear.

The Australian aborigines see the bat as the spirit of death.

Example: I had a dream that I was playing tennis with a friend and suddenly a black bat attack on my neck and bit me and when I look at the ground there are unfamiliar animals that are crawling there and 1 man is sweeping all of the tiny animals. I ran in the house and 1 tiny blue bird follows me and I close the door. In my dream my house don’t have roof and I let the bird fly in the sky and I look at the poor animals being swept outside the gate like a leaves fallen from the tree. They are alive and they can move but it seems like they are afraid of the man. Then I was running outside like I’m playing hide and seek with someone and I enter another house and my relatives are with me and I met a guy inside the house and we went in a room and from window I saw my kids playing outside.

As can be seen from the dream, the bite of the bat brings about an enlargement of her ability to see and appreciate things.

Useful questions are:

What did I feel about the dream bat, and what part does that feeling play in my life at present?

Was there something I realised on seeing or dealing with the bat?

If there was fear, what was it about as base?

What is my dream bat doing in this dream, and what does that suggest about my own activities?

Try using Processing Dreams,

A bat used in a game:

: Male sexuality; positive aggression; defensiveness.

A baseball or cricket bat often appear in dreams as a form of confidence that you could deal with attack. But of course they are both also to do with expressed skill in dealing with the things life throws at you. A bat is an extension of your body and so expresses the timing, skill and expression you put into the game of life. See: games and gambling.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I using the bat as defence or as a skill in dealing with things?

Is the bat being used against me – if so how am I dealing with the situation?

What skill or lack of it is being shown in using the bat?

Being the Person or Thing can help you define the meaning of the bat.

Bat Bats – Flying

The flying bat is often associated with the devil or vampires, night or death. It is a creature that can see in the dark, lives in caves, and so is an aspect of unconscious inner workings, that go on in the darkness, or the part below our conscious awareness. But it is we who create this fear.

It can therefore represent thoughts or influences emerging from the unconscious, and can be wonderful rather than frightening; being able to see in the dark – i.e. intuition. As such it can be felt as a fear of the unconscious. See Facing Fear.

The Australian aborigines see the bat as the spirit of death.

Example: I had a dream that I was playing tennis with a friend and suddenly a black bat attacked on my neck and bit me and when I look at the ground there are unfamiliar animals that are crawling there and a man is sweeping all of the tiny animals. I ran in the house and a tiny blue bird follows me and I close the door. In my dream my house don’t have a roof and I let the bird fly in the sky and I look at the poor animals being swept outside the gate like a leaves fallen from the tree. They are alive and they can move but it seems like they are afraid of the man. Then I was running outside like I’m playing hide and seek with someone and I enter another house and my relatives are with me and I met a guy inside the house and we went in a room and from window I saw my kids playing outside.

As can be seen from the dream, the bite of the bat can bring about an enlargement of her ability to see and appreciate things.

Being scared of bats emerging can indicate real fears about traumatic events that you have repressed from memory. Films often use bats to suggest evil or feelings about vampires. So if you dream of vampires, it shows that you are dealing with a past event, probably involving a realtionship, which led you to feel terribly weakened.

Example: In the first dream, I was climbing a long flight of horribly rickety stairs in my father’s and mother’s house (that started as a church). I was terrified, and when I got to the top, I knew there was something horrible behind the door that scared me more than I could even say.

In the next one, I opened the door and all sorts of bats, ghosts, debris and STUFF flew at me from above.

The dreamer later discovered by exploring her dreams, that her father had sexually abused her.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about the dream bat, and what part does that feeling play in my life at present?

Was there something I realised on seeing or dealing with the bat?

If there was fear, what was it about?

Try using Processing DreamsBeing the Person or ThingPractical Techniques to explore their meaning

Bath Bathing

For many people the bath links with feelings of being able to relax and spend time alone without demands from other people. Therefore it indicates relaxation; cleansing; wanting to ‘come clean’ or be rid of guilt.

Such cleansing could depict a change of heart or forgiveness where old feelings are washed away. To do this you may need to cry or release and ‘wash out’ long held emotions.

But some bathing dreams or fantasies often depict the bath as a form or ritual which is getting one ready for something, perhaps a new experience, or the deepening of ones experience in an important area of your life, such as sexuality. Such an initiation might involve the meeting with your feelings or fears about relationship or your life situation – perhaps meeting your own male/female self more fully.

Bathing also includes nakedness, and therefore vulnerability, the revealing of your secrets or things you are sensitive or ashamed of. This might embody marriage/relationship intimacy.

If you are in the bath with someone then it can suggest being immersed in an influence of some sort; deep sharing, perhaps blending of qualities.

Some dreams show bathing as a powerful change or renewal and may sometimes relate to feelings about life in the womb.

 

Also: Need to cleanse the body internally. See: baptism, swimming pool.

Bathing in a river: Being open to flowing feelings and urges within yourself; allowing yourself to be influenced from within by urges toward change or growth or expansion of awareness.

Bathing in the sea: Being open to a more universal – less self centred – awareness of your relationship with life.

Jacuzzi: A jacuzzi is often a shared experience; or if it is a big bath like Japanese bath it can be like swimming pool, a shared experience. What is shared would be shown by the events and mood of the dream. Also it is a massage and so can be extra relaxing, or irritating if you do not like it.

 

Example: Now the imagery gets more specific and I watch/experience an exquisite Japanese ritual of meeting, touch, massage, that is leading to sex. Several young women are with me in a large bath. They are not trying to be directly sexual, but are getting close, touching me, massaging, allowing me to feel their flesh near me. The beauty of it is in understanding how wise and artistic the whole approach is. I see it is to lead my awareness out of being bound by everyday affairs. It diffuses concentration on particulars of external life and gradually opens my senses to feel and allow pleasure. It helps the mind to drop fixation on externals and allow it to drop boundaries until one senses oneself as in a semi dream state. This allows sex to be not just a particular thing; not just a physical penetration or being entered, but something that connects you emotionally and mysteriously with another person, and to the huge mystery that is that person and oneself. Ones partner is not simply a human being, but the very essence of the female principle, merging with the male principle. Graham H.

Useful questions:

Can I define my relationship with the bath and the outcome of this dream?

Do I experience any change in this dream, and if so what is it?

If I am being cleansed, what am I preparing for?

If I am with someone who am I with and in what way?

http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-interpretation-example-one/

Bathing Costume

See swimsuit-bikini

Bathroom

If you are from the USA going to the bathroom can mean you want to use the toilet, in which case see toilet – or maybe you need to wash or have a shower or a bath, in which case see bath/bathing.

Bathtub

See Bath

Battery

Ones resources of energy or vitality. Problems with the battery might depict health difficulties or even worries about heart weakness. But dreams are a magic mirror that reflects our inner state and world. So any worries may only be a belief you have about yourself, and if you are worried it is shown in your dream exactly what it is – a thought and emotion that is using you vital energies unwisely.

Example: In a dream I realised that I had often held thoughts and feelings of ill health or that there was something wrong with my body. I saw into myself and could see how these feelings caused so much harm to the workings of my subtle energies that support health, and I felt so sorry for constantly doing that to myself.

Computer/laptop battery: This connects more directly with accessing your talents, your memory, your links with others, and maybe your work more than a general battery. So it is important to define what part the battery is playing in the dream.

Flat battery: Suggests lack of motivation; a run-down condition regarding health or emotional energy; lack of resources or motivation. Sometimes it shows a lack of confidence in what you are doing, indicating the feeling that you are not capable or not sure enough of what you do.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the battery energising – a car a torch? Whatever it is look it up to see what is being influenced.

Am I feeling in any way like the energised or flat battery?

How do I recharge myself?

See Life’s Little Secrets and Exploring Your Dream.

Battle Battlefield

This suggests either an internal conflict such as caused by struggles with ones own emotions or sexuality, or an emotional battle going on with someone else. It may be something you are fighting for; feeling under attack about. The struggle may be between unconscious drives, such as an urge to have a baby, and ones conscious decisions.

Sometimes an internal ‘civil war’ takes place between ones head and ones heart or intuitions. Conflict can exist between emotions involved in making a decision or the carnage going on in one through childhood trauma or painful birth experience. One can also fight against the awful effect of fears and doubts; memories. Especially if you have been in a battle scene in waking life.

We also sometimes feel the struggle and conflicting emotions involved in making a decision as a battle. The carnage going on in oneself through childhood trauma or painful birth experience is often dreamt of as a battle ground. See What we need to know about dreaming.

Fighting against overwhelming feelings, or a struggle against your fears and doubts.

If you have been in a battle scene in waking life, then the dream might be a revisiting of the terror or feelings involved in an attempt to heal them.

Example: I had several previous dreams of being a soldier moving up to the front with my fellows. Tonight I dreamt that we were now at the front and were ready for battle. Then suddenly the signal was given and we were over the top facing the enemy.

The enemy the man was facing was his own fears and traumas from childhood. The willingness to be involved in the battle led to a breakthrough in which he relived a dramatic event from being in hospital.

Idioms: battle of the bulge; battle of the sexes; battle stations; battle your way through; battle ready; battle scarred; battle-ship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I struggling with or in conflict with in my life or from the past?

Am I avoiding the battle or ready to see it through?

What is the battle about or who between?

See Life’s Little Secrets and Being the Person or Thing;

Dreams are Like Computer Games; Dream Yoga.

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Bay

Similar to beach, but the crescent shape sometimes depicts a woman’s sexuality and openness to mating; receptiveness. The bay is an area or environment in which you are near to the sea, suggesting awareness of your inner feelings and needs, or a closeness to what is natural. But the quality of this depends upon the condition of the bay. It might be a wonderfully light and attractive place or a place where boats are rotting and derelict. So this will comment on what is going on in you at the time of the dream. The bay is in most cases also a place to relax and be away from a work scene, so it offers opportunity to express in ways other than might be usual.

Boat sailing into bay: Something coming into your life; a new event or relationship. Arriving at a calmer situation in life, feeling easier because you are no longer ‘at sea’ about something.

Sailing across the bay: The passage of time or events; distance to travel, in the sense of covering ground in ones life.

Whales or other creatures in bay: Something important and deeply felt being realised or confronted. Usually this is about emotions or drives. See: Beach.

Idioms: At bay; keep at bay.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What expansive feelings have I encountered lately?

Am I changing my relationship with somebody?

Do I have a sense of opening to a wider awareness or pleasure?

Try Being the Person or Thing.

Bayonet

See: Arms.

Bazaar

Something we are hoping to find, or are looking for; making decisions about what we want – or the ways or difficulties in how we get what we want. The bazaar can also signify an unusual or exotic element of our desires, or opportunities that are unusual. See: shop.

It  an also signify great creative talent. Or it can be a pun – bizarre.

Example: I was visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, entrance to which was through a bazaar lined passage. We were given knives to protect ourselves. The mosque was lit solely by a huge furnace at one end. Devils were jumping up and down in the flames. My companion said “The fires of the Apocalypse”. Some Turks said they would kill us if they saw us again.

The bazaar here is a sign of the unusual and creative aspect of the dream, the dream refers to the dreamers experience prior to birth – the long passage and the Blue Mosque. The rest of the dream suggests the dreamer has fear of dying and defensiveness strongly linked with this. I imagine this would make him afraid of women at a very basic level of relationship. Any closeness beyond the superficial could lead to fear of losing his identity – i.e. death.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been seeking something unusual, or that I feel I can’t find in my usual environment?

What feelings do I have about this bazaar, and what does that mean to me?

Do the events happening in the bazaar have significance for me?

It night be helpful to read Near Death Experiences and Being the Person or Thing.

See: Shop.

Beach

Family gatherings or relaxation and intimacy. Intimacy means that this can be a place of love, of meeting and mating with an important dream character or real person.

It can also signify a state of mind in which you are open to intuitions and emotions; the state of mind which is open to pre-verbal experiences, such as life in the womb, but links with waking consciousness and everyday life. So a link between the enormous opposites of our life, such as the deep inner mind and unconscious and our waking self. See Ocean Sea

A beach is also a boundary, or threshold, between your individual self and effort, and your potential in the universal processes of life and death. Therefore a barrier or threshold such as fear or lack of confidence can create. To deal with such a barrier – crossing the ocean – we have to exhibit new skills or courage. To go further we would have to swim or take a boat – so a change may be needed, new qualities must be developed.

What we do on the beach may also depict how we deal with changing from one environment – school, work – to another such as parenthood or retirement. The beach might be the place where aspects of the previously unknown meet us – out of the sea. It thus illustrates how we draw on, or avoid our own potential, our own long past.

It is also a place where we are both seen by and see, other people. So may relate to socialising and meeting people.

The awe we feel when confronted by natural forces may also be depicted by the beach, therefore our relationship with life, the simplicity of life and standing between the forces of primal life and the social human world, both of which we exist in.

If there are anxious feelings in connection with the beach: This may show a feeling of being exposed to other people’s scrutiny, or to the powerful forces we face in experiencing our own emotions, sexual drive and social pressures. See: sea.

Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost; in still another, I made it to the ocean but I was with my mother and didn’t have a suit. In still another, all the beaches were private property. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I dreamed I was at the beach with a lot of strangers, and there was this lifeguard on the beach. But he was patrolling the people on the beach and not the people in the water. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.

In A’s dreams the beach and sea appear to depict the barriers to returning to, or achieving a meeting with her own simplicity – herself without all the clothing and trappings of social life and anxieties. It is a coming home to our source.

This aspect of the beach, awareness of the essence of human life, is shown in the following example and the dreamer’s comments on his exploration of the dream.

I am standing on a steep hillside that slopes into the sea. I look across the sea, and the air is so clear I can see the far coast twenty miles away with amazing clarity. In fact it is so clear it seems to me I can see every detail of a rocky cove across the water. The clarity amazes me and it seems the cove is only a few hundred yards away. It stands out with all its many colours. I find it so impressive I want to run back to get my camera. I hesitate from doing this though because I wonder if the scene will disappear.

I explored this dream many times but I could not get a clear insight into what the beach arose from in my experience. Then, with the help of a friend, I reached it. When I came to exploring the beach again, at first it seemed as subtle and unreachable as ever. Then I began to define what I was as the beach – a meeting place for water, earth, air and sun – earth, air, fire and water. But the beach is not any one of them. It changes with the seasons and with the action of storms, of erosion and temperature. It isn’t the air, or the sea or the earth. It changes yet stays the same – the beach. Suddenly I felt this in myself, saying, “I am not anything. I change yet am unchanged. I am all things but nothing.” This gave me a very powerful sense of my own eternal spirit underlying all the changes of my body and personality. Robert.

The beach can therefore also depict the spirit that underlies all things. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the spirit is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I doing on the beach, and what does this suggest about my relationship with my own simplicity or connection with my core self?

What is the weather like, and is that indicative of my feelings about what life is presenting me with?

What relationships are indicated and how successful are they?

See Settings in Dreams and Talking As.

Bead Beads

A single bead might suggest isolation. While a string of beads could refer to your connection with other people. See: Ball.

Beads can represent linked events, memories of past events or people. Perhaps an attitude you use to help yourself feel more attractive or confident. Feelings connected with things you value.

Beads are often used for prayer in some countries, as in Greece, in Buddhism and with the rosary. So the bead or beads might represent your attitude of mind in prayer, or what you meet from prayer or meditation. They might therefore indicate precious things you find in yourself. See: jewels jewellery.

When used for meditation it could mean you are concentrating your thoughts and therefore making your aim more powerful – rather like magnifying glass focusing the suns rays.

Beads are one of the earliest forms of jewellery worn by women and men, and I see them as ‘women’s magic’. For instance if a woman saw a pretty stone and hung it round her neck it would attract attention and make her more noticed and desirable. The same applies to men also. It is a simple magic but effective.

Beads can also often be seen as representing past lives, and the image is often used when talking about reincarnation, that our present personality is simply one bead on a whole string of beads.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this simply an ornament helping me to feel more attractive, or is it something precious?

Are there particular memories connected with this?

Do I feel this is an ancient or buried object from the long past?

What do I feel or say if I imagine myself as the beads(s)? For help doing this see Stand in Role and Using your Intuition.

Beans

In past cultures beans were believed to connect the human soul to forces of the earth, and to the spirits of the dead – in other words to transfer your awareness to another realm.

For many of us beans link with a basic form of diet and sustenance, suggesting ordinary everyday life, suggesting ordinary everyday life and satisfied hunger.

A growing bean or beans suggest something that has a lot of growth potential and can also fulfill your needs. And a harvest of beans could mean that you are providing your and your family’s needs.

“Beans have been sacred food offered in rituals to feed and propitiate the dead. The Greeks considered beans to be symbols of transmigration of the soul and immortality. Beans also are believed to have magical properties, and have been used in exorcism rites to banish unwanted ghosts and spirits from homes. These underworld associations link beans in dreams to the unconscious”. Quoted from Dream Encylopedia.

The slang word ‘beaners’ suggests someone or something illegal or not wanted entering your life. See: food

There are coffee beans and cacao beans also, both of them powerful stimulants and enemies of sleep. In your dream they could link with the ability of awareness and stimulation of thoughts.

To quote from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert Van de Castle, “Cuna Indians, particularly with their neles, who serve as dream interpreters, physicians, and also oral historians. In fact, their cosmology presents a perfect set of metaphors for the multilayered nature of dreams. The Cunas believe there are eight levels of reality or existence beneath the surface of the land on which they live. One could thus vertically descend through eight levels of kalus, or kingdoms beneath the ground, to discover the source of certain dreams. I have observed neles inhaling cocoa bean smoke in their attempts to descend to these deeper “kalus, with the aid of their wooden nuchu dolls, which acted as assistants on their underground journeys.

Idioms: full of beans; spill the beans; a hill of beans; bean pole; cool beans; row of beans; string beans.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my dream suggest this is to do with basic ordinary life – if so what is it about?

If the bean(s) are growing, what do I feel?

Is there something magical about the beans and if so what?

Use Simple Dream Interpretation and Talking As.

Bear

Often people dream of a bear coming to attack them, but because all the images, people, animals, places we see in our dreams, are simply your own feelings, fears, hopes and wonder projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind as images, there us nothing to be afraid of. So, it makes sense to take the image of your dream person, thing or animal back into you and own it. In that way, you are actually meeting and dealing with the things about yourself you are not owning or conscious of. That is why dreams are often difficult to understand, because we are hiding things from ourselves. To do this you can use Being the Person or Thing and it is helpful to read Levels of the Brain

Whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. Also dreams exress in a very ancient language, language that developed in ancient life forms before ever words were invented. The ancient languge is one that has taught youngsters by for millions of years by watching what mother or father fox, bear wolf did – all without words. This photo says it all – the family of bears are intently watching what mum is doing. they learn by seeing it, no words were spoken.

So the angry bear is an image of your own angry feelings that have not been expressed and are attacking you. We now know that such inturned anger can cause illness or depression.

Example: A huge black panther chased me. I fell and it clawed my back. It was about to chew my back to bite me. I didn’t know whether to relax or struggle. After being floored by the Panther I managed to get up. I later imagined being the panther. I allowed the panther to eat me, and I thus became the panther. Then I, as the panther, noticed feeling enormous temper – anger – hate. And I was amazed to see that my cousin Sidney was the cause of such powerful emotions. He was older than me and had mercilessly teased me as a child. The panther was my own feelings of anger, at last released.

But here is a very different example:

Example: I was standing on my patio and there was a bear inside the fence also there were children taunting the bear. I yelled at the kids to stop teasing the bear. Then all of a sudden the bear came towards me; it was a brown bear with its massive size and it stopped and looked at me. Although I was frightened I was courageous enough to pet the bears head, reaching over his  large mouth to reach his head. Then, all of a sudden the bear lay on his back and I begin to brush my hand on his chest as to pet him in a downward motion, the bear just gazed at me.

A bear can have a similar meaning to elephant in the eastern countries – a tremendous force or energy, that if met badly can lead to conflict with your own nature and ill health, or if met well can be a tremendous protector and force for good.

Sometimes said to represent a possessive mother, and the feelings this has aroused. But in many cases the bear will represent a meeting with dangerous emotions such as fear, anger or being easily aroused. There might also be associations with independence, or strength. See: Dreams are Like a Computer Game; Animal.

Through television and the many ‘nature’ films which are now a part of our wider education, we can see that the bear is largely a solitary creature, capable of living alone and surviving. This, and its human way of standing and holding its arms out in a hugging posture, may be the major factors from which a ‘bear’ dream arises. In many dreams the bear is not at all harmful, and can be treated as a friend.

Through these we can also see the bear as a wonderful mother and protector.

We may therefore associate the bear with feelings about living alone or surviving by our own strength; it can refer to the confrontation with feelings we have about independence, or the meeting with strength and independence in someone else. It can confront us with massive or dangerous rage, such as ‘the bear with a sore head’. In this case it might represent your relationship with someone who is touchy or grouchy, powerful, possessiveness or smothering, as a parent or lover might be.

Also it might represent your relationship with someone who is a parent or lover; it could suggest a desire to withdraw or hibernate; the ‘animal’ side of our relationship with our parents; a play on words, such as ‘bare’, bare facts, bearing with something or someone, ‘bearing’ ones soul, bearing in mind, a ‘bearer’ of tidings, come to bear, overbearing, getting ones bearings, bear fruit or bear-hug.

If the bear is felt as aggressive and dangerous, ask yourself what in your own inner feelings do you feel is aggressive and you don’t want to let it get out into what you express. In other words. what is it that you habitually repress from being expressed –  your anger?

It is best to let the angry bear be expressed in you imagination. You can do this by being the angry bear and let  it loose – see Being the Person or Thing

But the bear can also be like the Beauty and the Beast, in which the dangerous beast is tame with the influence of kindness. So the bear relates to person who can be kind, but could also be a dangerous when roused.

It could suggest a desire to withdraw or hibernate. Because of traditional cultural associations, and its ability to hibernate, the bear can represent the ability to die and be reborn.

As the bear rears its childrfen alone without any male about, if oyu have been in that situation it can reer to you.  But whateveer else it represent, remember that is an image of our relationship with our own ‘animal’ side. Please see  the following to understand this important feature – Mammal Brain

There can be a play on words, such as ‘bare’, bare facts, bearing with something or someone, ‘bearing’ ones soul, bearing in mind, a ‘bearer’ of tidings, come to bear, overbearing, getting ones bearings, bear fruit or bear-hug. Because of traditional cultural associations, and its ability to hibernate, the bear can represent the ability to die and be reborn.

Bear attacking: It could mean that you are feeling or dealing with anger in yourself or another.

But many people dream of being chased by a bear and maybe run in fear or terror from the bear. Not only in your own dreams, but other people’s, it is obvious that we take into our sleep and dreams all the fears, terrors we carry within us. The huge bear, tiger or frightening person they are terrified of is actually fears either inherited or are frightening experiences from the past. They are purely mental things that you haven’t faced, and are therefore the victims of – victims of your own fears. But in dreams in you cannot die – or drown, or burn or any other threatening thing. We make the mistake of taking our very real values from our outer life into our inner life of dreams. If a bear or critter is chasing you, it is only a dream image and so what are you running from? If you drop the image if the bear/critter what you have is a feeling or emotion such as fear. And why are you running like crazy from an emotion? Remember that nothing can hurt you in your dreams, but you can feel fear. See The animal in my dream

And do not think, “That monster is bigger and stronger than I am, and it is frightening!!” It is our thoughts and fears that create the monsters inside us. So of course you are stronger unless you cower in fear.

But that only refers to outer bears, not dream bears. In some northern towns a bear or polar bear can be a real danger, so in your dreams it may be about a threat you need to keep watch for – although it is a bear in your dream, it could be any threat.

It can also, like the following dream, show a fight against disease.

 Example: I dreamt that I was my older brother. As him, and yet at the same time myself, I was trying to fight off an attacking bear. I was doing all I could to defeat it but there was no let up.

Two days later my brother suddenly died from a vicious virus he had contracted while doing his job as a taxi driver. I feel as if I were fighting the disease with him in the dream, but we both lost the battle.

Baby or toy bear: Often represents a child or a young dreamer.

Tame or loving bear: Many people have no fear of animals in their dreams but are like the examples below. Fear is caused because we mix  up our dream life with our outer life.

Example:  In my dream I was actually happy to see bears lying down at the entrance of my parent’s old house. They were all lying down there as if waiting for me. When they felt my presence they woke up. They were happy and groaning amicably when they saw me approaching them. And there were babies too! I never felt fear or any threat but happiness to see them … and I knew it was mutual.

Example: My dream was not frightful. My Bear dream and I were walking, he put his nose in my hand and nuzzled, we walked home, I went up to my door and Bear went next door and rolled around in the neighbors driveway and rested.

But as people are educated in the modern paradigm, many of us are totally out of touch with the animal that we are, and have never been able to raise it to love and protect us, and instead are often frightened of it when it appears on their dreams. As a child we are often told not to do things – such as do not get angry, or told to be nice to everyone, but the intuitive animal side of us feels and act on its superior insight – that would allow them to mature with our animal self intact so we grow up repressing it, and often miss the natural curiosity of our inner mammal.

So if you have a loving animal dream you have a very good and healthy relationship with your inner animal. See Levels of the Brain and Summing Up

Three bears as with father bear, mother bear etc.: Family situation or parental relationship.

If hint of money in the dream: might refer to ‘bear market’.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were your feelings and interactions with the bear? (For instance were you avoiding, running from cooperating with, watching from a distance – and where does ‘avoiding’, ‘running from’, ‘cooperating’, or ‘observing’ enter your life at the moment?)

If you imagine yourself as the bear in your dream, what do you feel and experience?

See Stand in RoleProcessing DreamsSumming Up

 

Beard

Male sexual power and virility. This depends on the age of the person and the situation in the dream. For instance stubble on a teenage boy suggests he is moving into manhood, or even to hide their adolescent acne. But a beard can also suggest carelessness – as when someone hasn’t shaved, or a mask if someone uses it to hide their youth. Or even a way of life that does not conform, or like a backwoodsman.

Sometimes the link is with a war veteran, suggesting a long exposure to conflict and extreme living conditions. I feel that a lot of elderly men grow a beard because they are not so worried about their social standing now and also because a feeling of tiredness about doing the ritual of shaving ever day. Many women feel that beards are a form of hiding or affectation, but they ought to try shaving every day, or in some cases twice a day. Shaving takes a slice of time out of ones life, and also whether electric or wet, shaving for some men leaves them constantly with sore of cut skin. See: Hair.

Example: Awoke in a girl’s room. She was there. I had a two-day growth of beard, and I went into the bathroom to shave it off, but didn’t manage to. Then made love to the girl, after spanking her. Felt great peace.

Here the beard obviously links with strong male feeling and sexuality.

Example: At that moment two young boys came into the room/area. They were like choirboys or trainee priests. One of them came straight to me and and my wife and sat on my lap, cuddling up like one of my own children. The man and I were emotionally stirred by such an open expression of needful contact and love. The boy appeared to be naked. I held him firmly in my arms. I felt strength in him and said, “I can feel the manhood growing in you.” I felt a noticeable increase of the strength in him. My hand touched his chin. There was a stubble of young beard there. I said how I was aware of his body growing into manhood. I was aware of us adults sharing the experience deeply.

This is an expression of soft love, and encouragement for the emerging youthfulness in the dreamer, and also the union of religious feelings into a wholeness. The dreamer had been held back in his actual expression of love and sexual feelings. The beard here shows the beginning of his development of his body moving toward manhood.

Cutting off beard: Making a change; feeling more certain about your manhood; or uncertainty about manhood, depending on dream. It can also suggest a fuller meeting or self expression, and uncovering of who you are. In some cultures it might suggest leaving behind traditional religious beliefs.

Very long beard: Sense of eternal or long life.

White beard: Wisdom or experience gained through long life, and perhaps an awareness of life beyond the senses.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is the beard portrayed?

Could it indicate hiding something?

Does the beard represent wisdom?

What can you gather from the Plot of the Dream and also from Processing Dreams.


Beast Bestial

An animal of extraordinary power or a creature causing great terror is a feature of many dreams or nightmares. The figure may be partly human, or an animal which has strange characteristics, or perhaps it is a figure which never quite declares itself, remaining unseen but causing or projecting great fear. In some dreams the beast takes the form of a prehistoric creature.

When explored in any depth such dream images are realised to be an expression of powerful internal emotions, responses and drives which have in most cases previously remained unconscious. The reason for this lack of expression in conscious life is varied. It may be that painful childhood experiences created a block, or fear surrounding some basic drives such as anger, sexuality or self expression. Or maybe  you were raised to be afraid of certain ideas, creatures or even fictional characters. Therefore major areas of ones potential are withheld and become symbolised by the beast. That such a beast appears threatening and aggressive, or even bent on ones destruction, is a simple statement of the way we relate to the forces of our psyche that are bound up with it. For instance if we have been made terrified that our parents will desert us, the expression of our need for love may create this terror. So the beast, in itself, is usually not a thing of terror. The awful feelings are what we experience in connection with what it signifies. If you drop the dream image and look at the feelings underlying it you will get a better insight into your dream. See Animal

As this terror originally occurred in early childhood at a time when our developing identity was very fragile, or during later traumatic events, the force of such feelings are often life threatening as far as our growing identity was concerned. But similar repression may surround the strength of our own sexuality or basic driving forces. See What You Carry into Your Dreams.

As many of us are not at ease with our emotions and irrational urges, to meet this ‘beast’ may not be easy even as an adult. This would mean feeling the intensity of our childhood emotions and fears, reappraising them, and integrating the information gathered from such an experience. The information might well include insights into why we avoided certain life situations, or why strong feelings were evoked by seemingly simple events. The example below gives some small insight into this. The information is told by a woman who helped Margaret work on her dream.

Example: Margaret dreamt there was a whole lot of downy little feathers falling from the sky and covering her, like snow. The sky was full of them. She had been watching a baby eagle very high up in tree tops flying from tree to tree. She felt it was looking for it’s mother/ parents. Then a man had caught the baby eagle by a string around it’s leg and Margaret was appalled and said to him, ‘You can’t do that. You must let it go.’ Then the feathers started to fall and Margaret felt that any moment now the irate parent eagles would arrive. They didn’t but she was with her back to a wall sheltering as best she could.

While we explored Margaret’s feelings and memories connected with the dream symbols, she told me that her man friend prodded an old childhood pain which he didn’t know about. Margaret and her son had been with him and his mother for a good weekend camping. She told her son he could go play in the park while they packed the car and they would pick him up on the way out. They were all in the car and drove to where the son was and called him, he saw them and started to run towards them and then the man friend drove the car forward as if to make out they were leaving him behind. Margaret burst with pain and anger.

The underlying cause of this was that her own parents had split up and neither of them wanted Margaret to live with them. She had therefore been looked after by her grandparents. The event that crystallised her feelings occurred one day when her Grandfather had, on the Grandmother’s instructions, driven Margaret, who was 7 years old, to the edge of the town, told her to get out and started to drive away. This was because she wouldn’t eat her breakfast. She still carries the pain of that day. She told her father many years later and he was very angry with his own father for doing that to Margaret. She says – Anyway, it came out again when we were looking at the dream. The male friend grew up with an alcoholic father who has just died, but he says he hasn’t any trauma to deal with??

The theme of the beast is very important in women’s dreams, but may hold a slightly different theme than in men’s. This difference is illustrated by the story of Beauty and the Beast, in which a young girl meets and lives with a powerful beast. The story emphasises the girl’s relationship with her father as a counterpoint to that with the beast. It suggests that a young woman meets a different kind of love when she leaves the affection from and for her father. To become fully a woman and mother, she must discover the deeply animal urges which underlie the personality and social traits she has developed so far. These urges are not at all uncouth, but are certainly primitive. They open her to experience deep sexual longing, and the power to give herself with passion to her children and to her man. Thus she allows in herself something forbidden in her relationship with her father – an erotic and procreational love.

Overall the beast represents the forces in our personality out of which we emerge into social and intellectual life. Unless we make friends with our beast there may always be conflict in us between the rational and non-rational. We existed as a beast for millions of years before the sort of consciousness which led to personal awareness emerging. Self-awareness is still very new and vulnerable. It needs the greater depth and inner wisdom of the beast to survive. See: The Rock Beast

The beast in us has a healthy fear of much that goes on in today’s world. Fear is a guardian that protected ancient beast from uncountable dangers for millions of years. Although it appears like a great and ancient beast, it is full of mystery and magic. It has brought about living beings in incredible variety. It has possibilities we cannot even guess at. Within itself it holds the secrets of creation and destruction, of sleep and waking, of the intricacies of mind and spirit. It has unimaginable power and tenacity. It is beyond us and yet intimately of very core of self. We relate to it, we enliven it, we call it out or imprisonment by every act we do.

Here is an extract from the dream-work of a man exploring a dream about snakes which he feared would attack him.

Example: As I imagine myself to be the snakes I have a distinct feeling that for millions of years I have existed as an animal. As human beings we often reject the animal in us. I see the meaning of the snakes. The snakes are so powerful. They are urges in all of us, to be felt if we are not afraid of them. The urges they depict can become a part of our everyday life. A man is somebody who has all that power there but it is under control. I have been brought up to feel one is supposed to be meek and mild or something. It was not socially acceptable to growl a bit.

I am a mixture of a beast and this awareness of self. WHY? WHY? (I feel like a wordless animal which has just got awareness). Intellect is developing and can ask these questions but there is still the powerful beast here. Why has this happened to me? Why have I woken up from being an unconscious animal and become conscious? What is this all about? It feels like it ought to be a swamp outside the window now – or a jungle.

I am a man! What is a man? What is it to be a man? I really feel this isn’t a way to be. It is too strange to be a man. I am really something odd. It is odd being a man. It is frightening. I am not like the other beasts. The other beasts haven’t got this difficulty of self awareness. They don’t carry this difficult thing – self awareness. They don’t carry the difficulty all the time. Why should I be different? I don’t like it. DON’T like it.

There is something I am looking at which is to do with how human beings got to be in the situation they are in today. Part of it is this feeling of wanting to turn back – wanting to go back to being unconscious – to being asleep. A lot of them did it. They turned back. Hundreds and hundreds turned back. That was the story of Noah. Hundreds turned back because they didn’t want to bear consciousness. Huge numbers of people attempt it today with drugs or suicide because being aware is so difficult.

But of course many of us still do it today because they avoid meeting anything that personally faces them with their own childhood emotions or the animal that they are.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I relating to this beast, and can I change it by meeting or being it?

Is the beast trying to communicate with me in any way?

In what ways am I trying to escape from or defend myself from the beast – in other words what do I use to repress this in myself?

For help relating to the beast, see Stand in Role also see Acting on your dream.


Beating or Beaten Up

This is usually about your own difficult or angry feelings giving you a hard time. The saying, “Don’t beat yourself up’ is an excellent description of this. Sometimes the action of being beaten up occurs because we do not express or deal with the feelings in any way, or do anything to change our situation.

Here is an example of this:

Example: I dreamt I was attacked by two older youths who beat me up. I was left stunned and felt vulnerable.

On helping the man, now in his forties, to explore the dream, he found it difficult because he kept looking for a memory of being attacked by two youths when he was 13. He even asked his father if he had any memory of it. But it gradually came to him that there was something he was hiding from himself. It was that at thirteen he had an experience that terrified him and led to him stopping any sexual flow. As he realised this he wept as he saw how he had turned that enormous flow of energy back upon himself like an attack, an attack that destroyed the beauty of his proper youthful flowering. He remembered how, at the time he felt a great deal of anger, but it had turned inwards. Therefore he had dreamt of being beaten by youths.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I remember that my dream is not a prediction or a memory of a past event, what can I see happening in myself?

If I remember the feelings in the dream and then see if I can recall any such feeling in the past, what do I end with?

Can I accept that I can or have beaten myself up by blocking my growth and energy?

Try Being the Dream Person also it can be helpful to read Dream as Computer Game.

Beautiful Beauty

A sense of beauty in a dream usually shows a feeling of harmony within oneself, a feelings of self value or being or feeling a part of society and life. Whatever it is in the dream that stimulates the feeling of beauty probably links you with great depths within yourself. If explored the wisdom or knowledge these depths hold becomes clearer. See: peer dream work; emotions and mood.

Feelings of beauty appear again and again in a multitude of dream places and situations. It takes some dream work to uncover this beauty that lies within us. It doesn’t matter what you look like physically for you are beautiful at your core. It is like dusting the sand and dust off of the beauty that lies beneath.

Here are some examples of people meeting their beauty.

Example: Totally without egotism but with deep satisfaction, I stated repeatedly, ‘I’m beautiful. No one else thinks so, but I really am.’’ Such feelings of admiration and awareness of beauty about oneself are often more direct, and arise as a sense of enormous appreciation of what has been achieved or met in your life. The admiration often results in feelings of love for yourself, which is very healing.

Example: Have I betrayed any?

Then I have betrayed Death.
And its face is beauty
For it is all things –
Naked,
Undressed of flesh.

Example: Then together we lifted off into the air in flight, and in front of the children performing the play we did the most beautiful and colourful aero acrobatics. As we did these we were able to produce coloured lights flowing from us. Then in the end I created a great ball of coloured light that I broke into angels flying in the air and descending to touch the watchers. Then again into the ball which shattered into tens of thousands of coloured and shining pieces that gently fell like snowflakes touching those watching and disappearing into them sharing the wonder and beauty I felt flowing through me.

In this way you discover the awareness of the Core or God part of you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I realising or understanding from the felt beauty?

Is this in relationship with someone I know – if so what does this add to my feelings or knowledge of them?

Can I open to this beauty or is it threatening?

Try entering into your dream by using Acting on your dream.

 

Beaver

Is often associated with industriousness and independence. The beaver is also a great planner and builder, offering great protection and care to their young. The word beaver sometimes has sexual connotations – the sexual organs. If there is emphasis on the beaver dam, then it may suggest either conserving your energy and emotions, or holding back feelings, depending on the dream action.

In the Native American Indian traditions the beaver was often seen as a holy animal, and occasionally offered great wisdom to the dreamer. If the beaver speaks to you in the dream, it may be expressing innate or unconscious information or insights you have that are becoming conscious.

Because the beaver is equally capable underwater as well as above it, it can suggest bringing past memories, or thing that were not known or experienced into awareness

As a dream animal I am one with the Earth and all its creatures, so anything I learnt can be of great use. See Mammal Brain.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any suggestion of working hard in the dream, and how does that apply to me?

If the beaver communicated something what was it?

Am I gathering a deeper insight into the forces of nature in my life?

You can learn very personalised insights into your dream animal by using – Being the Person or Animal.

Became Become Becoming

This suggests a transformation. But maybe you haven’t achieved it or manifested it. This might be because you are  in a ‘because factor’. In many dreams something happens, fails to happen, or appears, because! For instance, trapped in a room you find a door to escape through. All is dark beyond and you do not go through the door ‘because’ you are frightened of the dark. In this case the because factor is fear. If this were your dream it would suggest you are trapped in an unsatisfying life situation through fear of opportunity or the unknown. Understanding the because factor can help you become aware of what is holding you back, or aiding your progress in waking life. So are you in a because factor and what is it?

Our inner radiance constantly tries to show us how to become whole, but becoming whole may take strength, surrender and trust. It may need us to face our own darkness and failings.

But we can become many things, like victims of our own fears or become sick in our soul, or even become a monk. So it is important to define what the message of the dream is. See main action in the dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I become or am I becoming?

Or what is becoming or has become – and what relevance does that have to me?

If it is a negative situation you can begin to change it by using carry the dream forward.

See Dream Yoga for some useful tips.

Because

See Because Factor.

Bed

There are many associations you might have with bed – rest, sleep, unconsciousness, sexual pleasure, relationship, dreams, escape from the world into sleep. Try to define what feelings or attitudes are involved with the bed, and ask yourself where they apply to your waking life.

This is an important symbol to understand. It often shows exactly what you are doing in the subtle areas of relationship. So can link with your close relationships, intimacy – an intimacy in which the qualities of the other can become part of you and a blending take place. Such a blending is not only that of you and another, but your known and presently formed self with what you hold within and latent.

But a bed is the place you sleep, so in a spiritual sense might be depicting your sleeping self, the parts of you still unconscious and not awake to who you really are and the issues needing attention in your life.

The bed also obviously relates to sexual pleasure, rest. the holy place in which we meet oneself and or another person deeply and passionately. But it can also suggest desire to get away from the world, to withdraw into oneself, to be passive.

Example: I have a two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to inject him. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage. He yelled in mock anger. He grabbed me. We tumbled to the floor. He started to make love, wildly, lovingly. Later at the table, an ugly woman with horrible eyes, glazed, hazy, and blue, came in. Said to him, “So there’s the louse.” I gave her a straight look. I said, “Just leave him alone!” Anger. She steadily looked at me. Another woman, possibly my mother watched the tense scene.

It can depict sensual rather than sexual contact; sickness; privacy; the testing place of the relationship. Sometimes it represents sleep and meeting our unconscious – or torture – because in bed we may be tortured by insomnia, worries, physical pain. See Bed Partners.

Our life situation – made your bed, now lie on it. Bed is one of the commonest symbols in dreams.

Bunk Bed: May link with childhood or sharing ones space. I guess if you slept in a bunk bed you will have many personal associations too. See Associations Working With

There a lot of mentions of bunk beds in my dream collection, but they all suggest a space in which children are on holiday or sharing. Only one has any mention of sex and that refers to unexpressed adolescent sexual desires.

Double bed: A relationship. The events that surround the bed image will give an idea of what the state of the relationship is. Sleeing alone in double bed shows either that you do not have a partner, or are not interested in having one. Or it could simple mean you enjoy your own space.

Top bunk bed: Usually in regard to someone who is top dog or you respects, like an older person. But some times to put the younger person on top.

Lower bunk bed: Easier to get in and out of. Your dog or pets find it easier to share with you. But depends what associations you have with it.

High Bed: Possibly relates to feeling either secure from things like mice on the floor, or anxiety about being high up. Height often links with either of these, or depicts a commanding position.

Hospital Bed: This is usually connected with healing, even though there may be some pain or scary bits in it.

Sometimes one dreams of a dead relative or friend in the hospital bed and they are alive again. This is probably a mixture of a real communication and the dreamers beliefs. See Symbols and Dreams.

———————-

In the example below the man is wrestling with his desire for pleasure and his sense of commitment; but also, whether he will keep his pleasure for himself, or share it with his wife. See: Example in contraceptive; bed wetting.

Example: ‘I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Jane. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Jane has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Jane is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so.’ Mr B. S.

Example: One day as I stood raging at the bars of my prison I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The bed and the prison are very powerful symbols in this remarkable dream. The prison that he was in and felt he would remain in is his body, the source of and also the way of release from his entrapment. The bed that he woke from is the bed he had been ‘asleep’ on for so long – the bed of self torture and illusion.

Here is another example of bed from a very different viewpoint.

Example: I was in bed. There was a knock at the front door. Brenda answered it. I heard a scuffle and a man’s voice. He was assaulting my wife. She was struggling and said I would come, and the man laughed. I got out of bed and got my gun. I went into the room and rammed the rifle barrel in his face. Brenda got clear. He said I wouldn’t have the nerve to fire the gun, still slightly mocking. I said, “Wouldn’t I!” And swung the gun like a club, smashing it on his head. He ran out into the street and I threw the broken gun after him.

In this dream the dreamer woke up from being a rather passive person to being one who took charge of the situation.

Example: A headmaster called me into his study. He showed me a top to something like a small Buddha figure. I realised that it was mine from the long past, and I had lost it without even realising it. I tried to remember the details of having owned it, but could not. The headmaster did not give it to me. He then took me to a room with a bed in it. On the ceiling were marks from ejaculations. I then recreated the scene, and saw Les on the bed in sexual abandon. Then I was with an old lady in an attic. She was saying that she preferred people not to get friendly with her rather than be friends then leave her and hurt her. As she talked we seemed to get nearer and nearer, as if the words were on the surface, and underneath the words was an attraction to each other. In the end I went to her and we fell back on the bed together.

Again the body shows that the dreamer had forgotten and lost something precious and was unconscious of it. Les was his association with his sexual ability and he realised that was how he had lost the Buddha figure. At the end of the dream there are difficulties about relationship, but they are passed through.

 

Idioms: Bed of nails; bed of roses; go to bed with; make one’s bed and lie on it; test bed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any sign of this being about relationship issues?

Is this about or hints of  sexual pleasure?

Is there indications of or desire for rest or escape?

See Ages of Love Dream Characters Simple Dream Interpretation.

 

Bed Partners

Bed Wetting

If one dreams of it but does not wet the bed: This is possibly to do with allowing yourself freedom of expression, but with worry about social condemnation or propriety. If not that, there may be anxiety that reduces you to childhood feelings with lack of self control over emotions. This dream almost certainly links with childhood feelings to do with control or lack of control of ones body and drives. This is a very powerful area of feelings, and can leave strong influences in the adult personality. To deal with it don’t worry too much about the symptom – the bed wetting – but deal with the feelings around control and losing control or maintaining control.

Bed-wetting, is technically known as enuresis. It is not unusual in children up to about three. After the age of three it is diagnosed as a disorder, but is not to be thought of as a serious condition. The NHS suggest it is not to be taken seriously until the child is 5. Up to fifteen percent of children continue bed-wetting to about five.

Adults often report dreams experienced in childhood that they dreamt of going to the toilet, and wake to find they had wet the bed. These dreams appear to serve the function of allowing the bed-wetting to take place. However, research opinion suggests that most bed-wetting is not accompanied by dreams.

Adult bed-wetting is usually caused by some form of physical disorder.

Freud felt that people who often dream of swimming “have as a rule been bed-wetters.” He also felt that dreaming of fire has “an underlying recollection of the enuresis of childhood.”

Dr. William C. Dement, founder of the sleep clinic at Stanford University, believes “Most treatments are ineffective, and generally only make the child anxious.” However, groups such as nobedwetting.com have worked out programs to help parents and children grow beyond this problem. But also see the NHS page on bed wetting see http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Bedwetting/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

Bedroom

This is an important symbol to understand, because bed is one of the commonest symbols in dreams. The bedroom often shows exactly what you are doing in the subtle areas of relationship. So can link with your close relationships, intimacy – an intimacy in which the qualities of the other can become part of you and a blending take place. Such a blending is not only that of you and another, but your known and presently formed self with what you hold within and latent.

But a bedroom is the place you sleep, so in a spiritual sense might be depicting your sleeping self, the parts of you still unconscious and not awake to who you really are and the issues needing attention in your life.

The bedroom also obviously relates to sexual pleasure, rest; the holy place in which we meet oneself and or another person deeply and passionately. But it can also suggest desire to get away from the world, to withdraw into oneself, to be passive.

It can depict sensual rather than sexual contact; sickness; privacy, and the testing place of a relationship. Sometimes it represents sleep and meeting our unconscious – or torture – because in bed we may be tortured by insomnia, worries, physical pain. Countless numbers of people need a sleeping pill in order to sleep. Or else they face the tortures of fear, nightmares and formless anxiety. These arise because the bedroom is a doorway to meeting the unconscious with all its hidden and unmet traumas and their pain and fear. It is a meeting with Life and is not in itself a fearful thing, but because we have been raised to forget that we are the products of the universe, of Life, Life which we avoid meeting, kill out any animals within us and outside of us, we grow into diminished people. We forget that it was not us, our ego, which created us, even as mothers we did not create our children, it was the process of Life that formed and nurtured us. We forget also that we are dual creatures, our conscious self only a tiny part of what we are, the immense  and huge part of us we have kept shut up in sleep, a mammoth part of us we avoid with enormous zest. See Reaction to the unconscious.

The bedroom is often a mirror of our life situation – made your bed, now lie on it.

Small bedroom: This might be telling you that you mate is not giving you enough space. Maybe you need time alone, or are unable to explore sexually with him or her.

In the example below the man is wrestling with his desire for pleasure and his sense of commitment; but also, whether he will keep his pleasure for himself, or share it with his wife. See: Example in contraceptive; bed wetting

Example: ‘I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Jane. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Jane has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Jane is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so.’ Mr B. S.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings or associations do I have about going to bed?

Do I often experience fear in my dreams or in the dark?

How do you handle intimacy?

See Life’s Little SecretsSleep paralysisTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar CayceJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Beeper

A reminder or a sense of a communication with another person that hasn’t got through to you yet. An intuition of another person’s need for you. Something nagging for attention. It can also be an old means of seeking help or aid, but has now been superseded by the mobile phone/cell phone. See: mobile/cell phone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What difference does it make in my dream if I am making or receiving a call?

Did I get an understandable message – if so can you relate it to your everyday life?

What feeling are felt in the dream and what does that tell me?

It will help to read Emotions and Mood also see Easy Dream Interpretation.

Beer

See: Alcohol.

Bees

Collective activity or working as or within a community, hard working or self sacrificing. The bee is not separate from its quest for nectar – in other words the bee is the whole wonderful connection between you, your work, the people you are connected with and the harvest of experience you gather from your life.

Because bees build fantastic egg laying colonies which the use to give life to thousands of life forms, I sense tha if you dream of bees working a hive, entering a hidden hive, or a swarm, it my be about your own cellular health in a positive way.

But because bees can sting you might be avoiding being stung – so avoiding pain, avoiding being stung by being taken advantage of.

If you dream of a bee stinging you it can suggest either that you have been hurt/stung in the past, or you are still reacting to being stung by someone’s hurtful remarks. Or else that you need to careful of hurting others with your remarks or criticism. But some things such as stinging remarks or even relationships tend to get under your skin, as in the following example.

It might also be a pun on being busy, busyness, business, or are you working yourself to death like bees do. Can be a “stinger;” a pun on “be-ing,” or beingness, “to be or not to be.”

Because bees produce honey there is a suggestion that bees can harvest a sweet and satisfying experience, and suggests what you have gathered from your life experience. honey

Example: I dreamt this morning that a bee found a crack or slit in the skin of my throat (right side of my neck below the ear) and worked its way in, burrowing itself beneath my skin. I didn’t see the slit, but it must have been there, however microscopically small, because it managed to burrow itself in there. It found an opening and worked its way inside the flesh of my neck. Next thing I know either more bees did the same OR the bee managed to reproduce itself inside me, because the mass on my neck grew larger like a large tumour. Inside I could feel the movement and buzzing of these live bees inside my neck, beneath the skin. I had a large lump on my neck, it was a mass of 20-50 bees growing and living there. Like a cancer that was alive and kicking, taking up residence.

Example: Later, in daylight I noticed a hornets nest in the side of the house. The next door neighbour’s son knocks it off and hornets enter the house and stung me. I angrily show the neighbour and son the huge watery swellings. I clout the boy for  stirring up the hornets. I had held my arms above my head and the swelling decreases. Now, with lowered arms I see a bubbling up of skin spread up my arms to chest, then to my entire front. I have no apparent sexual organs because I am covered in a wafer of dead skin. My wife looks at me and has no feeling of caring, and does nothing to help. She is telephoned by another man. I see him and her at the same time. He says for them to go off together, and gives the impression of how sexually adequate he is, and how inadequate I am. I feel so hurt and angry I decide to leave my wife for good.

Idioms: a bee in her bonnet; the bee’s knees; queen bee; honey bee; honey of a bee.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I know about Bees and how do I feel about them?

Can I recognise any signs of being hard working and self sacrificing?

How about the unconscious life processes going on in my own self?

See Being the Person or Thing – Avoid Being Victims

 

 

Beetle

Sometimes used a symbol of eternal life, of fate, or cause and effect. See Insects for a fuller explanation

Beggar

This represents the side of yourself that you may keep in the background. It is sometimes called the shadow or the parts of yourself that do not dominate. It might link with feelings or traits you are ashamed of, or with a sense of your own inadequacy – what is usually called lack of self worth. It might also link with the desire to ‘drop out’; to avoid involvement in society; or a cringing, passive attitude; passive anger; feeling poor in spirit – ‘low’. Or it may be a sense of being without talents or worth, of being an outsider.

In a few cases, a wise man lies hidden under the rough exterior who can tell you the secrets of your life and destiny. As such it shows the wisdom and strength gained by meeting the loss of all material support and social standing. See: archetypes of beggar; archetype of outcast and archetype of the shadow.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a part of myself I am denying in some way?

Why am I hiding this part of myself?

How am I relating to this character, and how might I improve the relationship?

Try using Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Behead Beheading

Literally about losing your head. This can mean that you are losing your ability to think and remember, or it can be a positive thing to lose all the wrong thinking and start anew.

It also means death of some sort, probably death of our personal beliefs. See head.

Because the head represents judgement and thinking the lose of head can sometimes mean memories of wrong judgements or traumatic events.

It can sometimes suggest that one has cut off or denied the body or vice versa. In a woman’s dream it might symbolise her difficult feelings about menopause or a midlife crisis where one feels the body has betrayed them.

Of course beheading can also depict self punishment due to childhood feelings of guilt.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Was it you that was beheaded – is so what was the experience like?

Did you die, and if so did you remain dead?

What feelings were involved and where have such feeling been felt in your life?

Try Acting in You DreamTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Behind

This can indicate the past, or something you are unaware of. Or it can link with something that was ‘alive’ and influential in your life at some time, but is now left behind perhaps like a seashell on a beach left behind by what was living in it. It might therefore link with someone or something being left, or a phase of your life that has been passed through.

Remember that dream images and actions are often only used to suggest something other than directly what is dreamt about. So seeing something behind something or someone or hidden behind something can relate to the dream.

Example: I dreamt I was aiming to get out of a house. I had a feeling it was deserted, and I was pulling my dad with me. My father looked tall and thin and rather worse for wear, so I had to support him – and at the same time I knew it was me I was pulling along. We had to pass through a room to get to the front door. As we entered the room I had a feeling it was haunted in some way – there was a sort of heavy threatening feeling about it. I got the door open to the front door but my father was gone – disappeared. In his place was a young woman about late twenties; so I caught her arm and pulled her out of the building.

When I explored the dream the result I got was – It was that the old deserted building was representation of an old way of life and attitudes I had lived in years passed – that was why it was deserted. The heavy atmosphere and haunting of the room was a hangover of depression and negative thinking I used to have that could still be felt at times. And my father/me was an attitude or view of myself I have at times, one of a worn out old man. I was in a hurry to get out of the building into the sunlit street. My father/me disappearing was that I had let go of that attitude, and the woman depicted opportunity.

Here is a clear illustration of how the person you dream about is often an aspect of your own feelings. Your father, lover, boy friend may be just representing your own feelings.

Some sentences taken from dreams show its many significance’s:

“But behind that was a need for a companion who would be with me in a particular way.” – “The UK is way up in the forties and fifties, so we are weeks behind you.” – “there are so many subtle things that we might be missing; many of us live very much in our thoughts or emotions, so are within the restrictions of a belief system, and dreams can illustrate dimensions of us that can leave those restrictions behind.” – “saw the baby and a voice from behind her told her.” – “now I hear a few people behind me saying that he is hear to collect the murder weapon.” – “came into my bed and said he saw a man behind the door.”

If this is your buttocks: See: buttocks.

If you are left behind: Feelings of not being as good as other people; feeling burdened with things that prevent you from being accepted by others; feeling you can’t keep up with what is needed.

Someone behind you: Something or someone that you may not be aware of and your dream is bringing it to your attention. It might suggest you are turning your back on someone or something. The person can be from the past; or they can be someone who is supporting you, backing you up, or that you gain strength from. See: Back.

Voice invisible giving advice behind you: This is very often the voice of your intuition speaking from a very informed position.

See: back; left behind; behind under positions.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is behind, and what does this suggest is in the past or that you are not aware of?

What is it you are behind in, or how are you comparing yourself with others?

Are you now becoming aware of something that was previously out of sight?

Try talking as the thing or person behind. It can often be a revelation. Talking As and also Simple Dream Interpretation.

Being

You can simple exist without thought or motivation and so ‘be’. You can in a dream know yourself as another being, such as a different person, an animal or a different state of mind. Or you can become very aware of your present state of being and your possible future.

You can dream about a spiritual being, and that is you reaching beyond your normal self and experiencing, or the potential of experiencing a wider view of life and it purpose. Sometimes the spiritual being is now there are a form, but as a principle, a force or function in nature or the cosmos.

Example: I experienced something that I find difficult to describe. First of all I was aware of a being who lived without any apparent physical form and in the dimensions that I do not know. It was communicating with me, then suddenly it touched me. This was perhaps something like being electrocuted except that it was not at all painful or destructive. Every part of me seemed to vibrate as an enormous charge of influence hit me. I had no awareness of having a physical body because it felt as if for moments I was transformed into existing in a new way. During that period there was no need to breathe and it felt as if my being was frozen in a physical sense. I have no idea why that being touched me or what happened when that huge hit of energy was in me.

It then explained to me that because of what we humans are doing to the earth it was necessary to use some humans as channels for the passage of energy into the physical world. When it started communicating to me the things we were doing to the earth I at first thought it was going to lay blame on us and suggest we were causing a crisis. It seemed immediately aware of what I was thinking/feeling and communicated what felt like a smile, though there was no face or body to be aware of. Then it communicated to me that – my words – it was no big deal and they would deal with it. That the problem was not simply with what we were doing to the earth. The problem was that what we were doing brought the earth out of harmony with the rest of the solar system. I had some sense of harmonics in the relationship between the planets, and understood that the passage of energy through humans was to help balance the earth again in harmonic relationship.


Useful Questions and Hints:

How do you relate to the word ‘being’ and what does it mean to you?

Have you ever been in a different body or creature in a dream?

Does it ever happen that you meet beings not of our dimension?

Using the can help you find out more of the depths of your dream – Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Bell

A bell in your dream can be a warning, a signal or something calling for your attention. It might also be a summons, depending on its context in the dream. See Context Theme

A bell such as that in a church might indicate rejoicing; it might be a signal that someone has died, or suggestion of a wedding, originally a warning for the whole community, or simply a practice of bell ringing.

Occasionally in some dreams it is a reference to breasts which swing like bells. See Like Bells.

Telephone bell: Someone trying to get your attention or an attempt to communicate.

Doorbell: Something new coming into your life – negative or positive depending on dream; hoping for contact with someone.

The Final Bell: This suggests the last chance to do whatever the dream indicates. It is worth attending to it.

Diving bell: It indicates that you are ready to go into the deep unconscious – or are already exploring it. See Unconscious – What Is It ?

Ringing bell: If it is a door bell you are pressing then you are trying to get someone’s attention or trying to experience what is behind the door –  all of our fears, the devil, the angels. All that we place behind the door within ourselves. And they are only available to us if we walk through the door. See Pandora’s Box

If you are in the house and hear the door bell ring, it suggest an opportunity; the unexpected; new experience or relationship.

Idioms: all the bells and whistles; bells and whistles; clear as a bell; had his bell rung; hell’s bells; rings a bell; with bells on.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I responding to the bell, and what does this suggest about my relationship with what it signals?

Am I the one ringing the bell – if so what am I trying to do?

What do I feel is coming into my life?

Try being the bell or a person in your dream by using Being the Person or Thing.

Belly

Almost half the dreams on file that mention abdomen, belly or stomach, show the dreamer being shot, as in the example below. This is obviously to do with a particular type of hurt. When human beings learned to stand up, they exposed their vulnerable underbelly. If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. The sort of hurt referred to is that related to when we might be deeply criticised, feel badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

Example: ‘The people watching are saying ‘Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!’ Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside.’ Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it engendered. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams.

Very often has to do with vulnerability, but also sensual feelings, passions, hungers, the physical side of self. Or in body dream may refer to an internal organ. See: Abdomen; Digestion; Absorb.

Here is a woman’s take on bellly.

Example: I then walked on down the street to another shop where Jared was working. I gave him the pin. He was overcome by my kindness. He hugged me a lot. I felt his pot belly and his flaccid penis. I started to feel like it was time to move on.

Example: I was looking at my belly button. There was a good three inches of cord sticking out. The end of it was red and raw. Cassie A.

Cassie had been in a long dependent relationship which she had recently broken. She felt at the time of the dream she was having to stand alone and do things for herself. The end of her relationship felt like a ripping apart, and thus the sore cord. See Umbilical.

If your dream is about pregnancy in any way see Pregnant in my dream; Pregnancy; Woman’s Creative Power.

Example: I felt sick between my throat and belly, staying with what was happening I felt a black tar like substance it felt like it lined part if the inside of the cord it was thick and dense and I felt it was something I had been dealing with all my life. It felt like it went along way back ancestral or beyond and I felt emotional. As I staying with the image the dense heavy blackness something started to move in my belly, a bubble type ball of energy came out from the blackness into my hands. It felt like I was like a baby inside, holding the energy bringing it out up my body then taken back in through my mouth like eating its own tail, a complete circle moving slowing down my body transforming the blackness as it went. I became the Tsunami in my dream, and it I saw it as levels of attachments that you identify with. It was like being in a room but you are not a room having things in the room. But I am letting go of stories of my self. I am not the story but have lived through it , I realise with wonder that I am the energy of the Tsunami the energy of everything. The blackness transformed in this wonderful energy.

As I made my way home I felt very ‘in the moment’. I experienced waves of people all colours, cultures shapes and sizes. On the bus the conversations behaviors, I could see myself in it all, the  buildings cars traffic lights all connected.

Here B. explored her dream of being a huge tsunami and the blackness in her belly.

Another exploration to clean the gunk out of her belly.

Example: I sit down and and as I tune in I receive the message, ‘Your old stories are defunct.’

Tony then gets me to do REM, moving my open eyes quickly down from top left to bottom right and then going within. I feel that to cleanse the gunge that lies deep in my belly, instead of pulling at the rope we could insert a hollow tube through my mouth and have water come in and cleanse that way. I do REM in the oposite direction from top right to bottom left.

As it has been there for quite some time it is quite hard to remove and I become aware that to do so could mean the whole structure will fall apart. Tony assures me that it is safe to let it die. As the water continues to jet onto the filler I become aware of a new born life form which has been protected by the structure. Its skin is slightly mottled and I become acutely aware of its breathing and the strong sense of magic pervading from and all around the creature. The creature lies in a crib in the centre of a room, alert, curious, enchanted and I am fascinated by this incredible discovery. From death new life miraculously arises! Beneath the man made structure behold a faery child! I reconnected with the magic that lies at my very core; the newness, the freshness, the playfulness and innocence. I am renewed! Untouched, at the centre, whole, safe, breathing, alive, wondrous beating heart, coupled with the capacity to come to each moment afresh and be fascinated by what I discover. This is my birthright! Tara

Being hit in the belly: This might be related to criticisms you have received, or some kind of felt hurt.

Laying down on belly: Sometimes represents a way of crawling away from attack or of remaining hidden.

A doctor puts his hand on my belly: A healing or examination of some sort – or even sexual feelings. If ther eis any information given about you belly give it serious thought.

Light or a spirit entering your belly: This sometimes happens in a woman’s dream and signifies a wonderful child will be born to you. You child can result in physical birth or be a dream child.

Escape from the belly of – or being in – the whale or big sea creature: This is usually the sign or a great change in your life, and it relates to what is called The Night Sea Journey. It is a journey into the experience of entering what was previously unknown or unconscious within you;  a search for self. See archetype of the night journey.

Shot in the belly: something to do with sex, a painful response to relationship, or feeling a target of someone’s verbal or emotional attack.

Dreaming of grapes near a woman’s belly: A woman dreaming of this can believe that she might be pregnant.

Idioms: belly up; belly up to the bar; yellow belly; belly aching; have a bellyful; eyes bigger than one’s belly; have a strong stomach; turn one’s stomach; butterflies in stomach.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this relate to issues with the abdomen area?

Is there in the dream and sensuality, passion or maybe hungers in general?

What is the theme of the dream?

Have you felt hurt or attacked recently?

What feelings were evident in the dream?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation.

Belonging

The feeling of being accepted or belonging, whether within a family group, a social group or in ones culture is of deep importance to our emotional health. Where a dream portrays this in any way, it is worth defining what is being said by the dream. The lack of a feeling of belonging often develops into intense feeling of rejection of or withdrawal from social contact or in relationship.  See: abandoned; archetype of the outcast.

In some dream the word ‘belong’ is used in relationship with objects that belong, or do not belong in a certain place or situation; or they belong to another time or situation in your life, etc. In such dreams you need to consider how the object or person relates to you in the present and why you are meeting that at the moment.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In my dream do I feel part of what is happening or an outsider?

If I feel left out where can I remember this feeling in the past?

What is helping me feel connected, or causing me to feel excluded?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation to gain more insight.

Belongings

The degree to which we identify with, feel connected with, and perhaps even defined by our belongings, is clear to see when they are either stolen, or abused by someone else. Belongings may therefore represent a number of thing such as the way of life you have managed to attain; the pleasure you get; your interests and absorptions; your connection and affections for other people if the belonging was given to you by someone else, or has links with them; the various inner needs, attitudes and hopes you have.

Therefore any struggle to get what belongs to you probably links with your personal attempts to maintain your identity or what you want or believe against someone else or social pressure.

Another aspect of belongings is reflected by the fact that if living in someone else’s house or on holiday, we may feel somewhat lost without the things we have at home to work/entertain/learn with. So belongings may depict our own urges, enthusiasms and needs.

The loss of belongings: The meaning is usually shown in the dream by what you feel about their loss. In the first example below P. feels sad. So the lens depicts feelings of pleasure or ability which he has now lost and feels sad about.

Example: I start gathering my belongings, but discover my camera lens is missing (not the camera, but just the lens). I feel very sad. I ask if anyone has seen it and someone gives me one, but it doesn’t seem to be the same. It seems older, more worn. P.

Example: I go on holiday and on the last day find myself a long way from the hotel in which I am staying. I realise I have not packed the things in my hotel room prior to leaving. Everything seems to happen to interfere with my return. When I eventually get back I find my belongings in disarray and other guests have already taken possession. D. G.

Something that belongs to someone else: This is most likely indicating something you have absorbed, learned or accepted from the person indicated in the dream. It might be something put on you against your own desires.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who does this belong to – if myself is it something I acknowledge as mine?

If this belongs to someone else how does it connect me with them?

Are these things I had forgotten I owned – if so why are they relevant now?

Try Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Below

If something or someone is below you in a dream you might be feeling superior, or you are looking back on something, like looking back on the past. If you have climbed to somewhere, then what you are looking back on is a more inclusive viewpoint.

Something you feel is ‘beneath you or what is ‘below’ in the body – so the non intellectual aspects of self. Something one can now look back on from a detached viewpoint. If below something else it could suggest a feeling of being in an inferior position or observing someone or something you look up to. See above.

You could also, depending on what you are doing in the dream, have a birds eye view, giving a wider awareness of what you are viewing. Without understanding what is below you it may lead to misunderstanding what is seen.

Example: I have a view that looks over houses, and below is a market square. I say, presumably to the woman, what a marvellous view, and think what an excellent photograph it would make if only there was someone in the foreground. Then I see a young woman in the square, with a baby in a pushchair. She is attractive. Her baby falls out and gets dirty, and she ignores it, and I feel that despite her attractiveness, this side of her is repulsive. There is a greengrocer’s shop on the left of the square, run by Arabs or Pakistanis. One of their children throws something at someone in the square. People throw things back. Then the Arab parents come out, and do not at first realised their children started it.

If you are falling from a height then the ground, or what is below you, is vitally important. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams.

You could be below the surface of water, and the meaning depends on what is felt about this; is it an emergency or is it an exploration? See swimming pool.

Example: When I got to the pool I found it was covered with glass, and although my dog Tramp now came to the surface, he could still not breathe due to the glass. I quickly pushed the glass away, and was about to dive in and feel around in gloomy water, when I saw Tramp just below the surface. I pulled him out. He was drowned and stiff, but I gave him artificial respiration, and he came to life.

I use so many examples to show the many ways the word can be used in ones dreams.

Example: Dreamt we, as a family were walking along a road. To our left was a steep cliff falling away at the roads edge. My young son fell down the cliff. He was only a baby, and we thought he was dead. Then I went to a nearby house and phoned police. I went back to the cliff. We could hear crying from far below and so felt Mark was not dead. I, or someone, was lowered down on a rope to bring him up.

Idioms: Beneath my contempt; It’s below my standards; a notch below; below the poverty line; notch below.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How has below been used in my dream?

Is there any connection with my recent feelings or thoughts?

If the dream has a negative ending what can I do to improve it?

See carry the dream forward.

Belt

If it is a belt such as on a car or machine, it depicts how power or energy is being directed or used. So problems with the belt would suggest that ones powerful drives such as ambition, sexuality, desire for acclaim, are meeting with conflicts or obstructions etc.

Seat belt: This has to do with restraint and feelings of safety in emergencies. So not fixing it could be to do with feelings that you are not taking enough care in situations or relationships, or else you want to avoid social restraints.

If a clothing belt: Often tightly restrained sexuality or emotions, or protectiveness or support. Taking it off might therefore suggest relaxing or giving yourself more freedom or naturalness. It could also be something to do with you attractiveness, or wanting to look more attractive.

A man’s belt: Is largely functional to keep trousers up, so might suggest feelings about sexuality or restraining it – taking it off the reverse. But some belts are for carrying tools or equipment, so might associate with skills or abilities you have developed.

If you have been punished with a belt in the past: Then it could have direct links with those events or feelings.

Particular types of belt: Like a cowboy belt, or a fancy decorated belt would have a connection with how you felt about the belt while wearing it.

If it is an ornamental or dress belt: Indicates your feelings about it and that will be the key to its meaning.

Conveyor belt: Something automatic going in a particular direction or purpose. Obviously the belt doubles back on itself in a non ending circle. If you are on it maybe it is an easy way to get somewhere – but where does it lead in your dream.

Idioms: Belt up; tighten one’s belt; belt you; grain belt; ; had a belt; tighten our belts; under my belt.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What function does this belt have – is it decorative, practical, protective or to carry equipment?

What function is this belt playing, and can I identify with or understand that?

What is the condition of this belt and what is it driving or linked with?

Can I feel this energy or drive in myself?

Is this a belt I own – if so what feelings or associations do I have with it?

What action is occurring in connection with the belt?

What feelings are there about the belt.

Using the Simple Dream Interpretation can help. Or see Secrets of Power Dreaming

Bench

Relaxation with possibility of companionship, a resting place in life or a down and out feeling. The bench is often something we might share with others in a public place, so might suggest your connection or lack of it with others.

It can be a place for starting or ending a relationship, even sexual. Or it can be a place to sleep when things get bad. There are so many possibilities it would be good to define it from the dream scene.

A work bench suggest your ability to create or do things. Is there any indication in your dream about what you are creating or intending to create.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I alone on the bench or with someone else?

If with someone what is my relationship with them and does this suggest anything about my waking relationships?

Where is the bench and what does the environment suggest to me?

See Acting on your dream.

Bend

Usually change, maybe changes in direction or effect as with bend in a road. Perhaps a bend might indicate loss of power or effectiveness, a giving way. Also to bend something means to use force or effort to change, influence or gain power over something or someone. See: bend in road.

Bending over depends on what you are feeling in the dream or what action follows. It can suggest taking an attitude of softer feelings as when bending down to be at the height of a child, submission, or the openness of the female bending forward in a sexual acceptance. Or the male posture of desire or dominance. Bending down can also be a posture in which you hide or are less obvious.

To bend is also to change your posture and so change the situation you are in – different things can then happen.

The example shows another aspect. The dreamer, Simon, is obviously in a vulnerable position such as lying down, and being bent over is threatening. He had a very difficult childhood and tried to escape from it by stopping eating.

Example: In my childhood, aged between about five or ten, I used to dream about being on a roof with an archetypal witch figure bending over me. Pointing a very long finger-nailed hand at me – giving me an ‘I’m going to get you’ feeling. Simon.

Idioms: around the bend; bend over backwards; bend the rules; bend your ear; bend your elbow; go around the bend.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the central feeling or theme in my dream – and how does that relate to me?

What am I doing, or what is being done in the posture?

Who else or what else is involved?

Try exploring your dream using Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Benign – Benignant

The difference between anxiety or problems and feeling relaxed and well.

Something like wedding ring bent could suggest a warning that all is not well, or to show how it has been damaged or broken.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What influence is this having on me?

If I feel this, how is it showing in waking life?

Is this something I am expressing to others?

Use Easy Dream Interpretation to explore your dream.

Bent

Feeling oneself or something is damaged or changed from its rightful function or property.

To be bent in body often suggest weakness, but also sometimes wisdom depending on the dream.  To bend over means that you are in a less active position usually because you are doing something on the ground.   See: bend.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is bent and what is that suggesting is changed from it right function?

Do I do the bending – if so what have I exerted effort on to change?

Is there any pain associated with this – if so in what way?

Am I bent in some way?

Try Talking As.

Bereaved Bereavement

Powerful depressive feelings can arise from the loss of anything to which we are deeply connected, particularly a person we love and perhaps depend upon. In dreams feelings of bereavement may be obviously about such a known loss, but occasionally the feelings arise from childhood, at which time they may have been difficult to allow or admit. Whatever the origin, it is helpful to talk the feelings over with someone who has listening skills. Even if it is not obvious from the dream where the feelings arise from, and even if the dream portrays them as being felt by someone else, it can still be of great help to talk about the dream. Essentially this is about loss.

A loss is usually a feeling similar to the loss of a tooth. One cannot help feeling the gap in ones life. Something that was a part of you now feels as if it has gone and left an absence.

The deeply painful feeling of bereavement directly influences the health of the body. Steven Schleifer and co-workers undertook a clinical study of conditions influencing the immune system. Healthy men whose wives had breast cancer were the studied. Fifteen of the wives died. The husbands of these women were discovered to have a measurable drop in the amount of disease-killing activity in their immune system. This clearly showed that a stressful experience such as bereavement had a negative influence on the immune system.

Other research showed that when people can share their grief with others who have suffered similar losses, their health and feeling of well-being greatly improves, and their return to moving beyond the grief process. But we often forget that we love differently in different periods of our life. Then we overlook how we may be trapped in a particular age of love, causing us enormous pain. See Ages of Love; .Near Death Experiences and Dreaming of Death.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel I have lost?

Is the feeling of loss from long ago or something in my present life?

What does the drama or theme of the dream say about loss? See: themes.

Growing Up to Love and Dream as Computer Game.

Berries

Very much depends on what the dream portrays. If they are poisonous for instance, then it suggests the realisation of possible contact with something that might poison your mind or feelings with fears or disturbing thoughts. This might even apply to food you are eating or allergic to.

If healthy, then the contact with possibly useful or nourishing experiences.

Berries can also suggest fruitfulness or ripeness. As berries are seasonal there may at times be a link with coming into season, or even with menstruation.  See: Food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I eating these, and if so what do I feel their effect is?

Is the dream showing the berries are ready to harvest – if so what is ripe in my life now?

If I am seeing these as harmful, what associations do I have with these berries?

Use Peer Dream Method to explore your dream.

Beside

See: adjacent/adjoining.

Betrayal

Becoming an adult, and maintaining ones equilibrium as an adult, means that we will have met and even dealt in betrayal.

The feelings of babyhood and childhood suggest each of us are born with a tremendous drive to bond with our parents or carers. This isn’t simply an emotional need, it is a survival drive etched into us from millions of years of hard evolutionary experience. To survive and grow we must establish enduring bonds. When our innate need to be cared for is met with betrayal the pain is enormous. Here is a quote from a letter I received recently from Heather, a nanny. D. and J. are the parents of Cherry and Susan. They are business people who travel abroad a great deal, leaving their baby and young daughter, Cherry with Heather. Heather has been with them and cared for them both since birth.

D and J are in the USA till next week on business, and I am looking after the children – Cherry and little Susan. I have to have time off so am not always with them. In the meantime, the more people who look after the children, the more upset the children become and then, when it is my turn, I have very upset children to deal with and end up with them both demanding that I carry them about

It is interesting that the younger child IS really missing both parents more than the year older one. She shows it in so many ways and keeps calling for them. Cherry, I think will show it, when the parents come back. J. – the mother – thought it would be Cherry who was upset. Cherry only showed it when she was talking to the parents on the phone. She started by talking with her father, and chattered on about things she had been doing, but quite soon she asked to talk to her mother. When J. came on the phone Cherry immediately said, “Mummy, come back’ in a very quiet little voice with her head hanging down. I could see she was very close to tears, and that is all she would say to her mother, ‘come back”. She sat on my lap for the next hour, and only relaxed a bit when we went up to have a bath.

Cherry and Susan live in what would be termed a loving and caring environment, yet they still show signs of distress at the absence of their mother. When children are abused, or deserted physically or emotionally, the pain is extreme. Such is the nature of betrayal between parents and child. But there is also a form of betrayal within oneself. Fear, pain, desire to gain hold of the material world, may lead us to deny parts of our nature, deny our own wholeness and create an unbalanced life. This form of denial or betrayal causes just as much pain – often arising as psychosomatic illness. Perhaps one has fallen in love, but it is not expedient to allow it; or one has a longing to create something but worry about financial consequences stop us acting on it. Whatever the cause, this is a form of self betrayal.

In dreams betrayal is often shown in the form of abandonment or being left. But it can also be played out in scenes where someone is unfaithful in one form or another. Such dreams do not suggest the person in the dream is going to abandon us, just that we have a deep fear of abandonment. See abandoned.

If we have a brother or sister, some form of betrayal may have occurred in our relationship with them – one way or the other. This usually takes the form of competition for the parental attention and affection.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a feeling I have often?

If I look backwards through my life, when did this feelings start? (Because this feeling deeply influences the way you feel in a relationship, it is helpful to recognise the difference between the history of this feeling as it has played in your life, and what is actually real in your present relationships.)

Where does the feeling or act of betrayal appear in my dream?

Check it out by using Simple Dream Exploration.

Bewildered

This may be an expression of confusion and perhaps conflict in your life. There are usually good reasons why we feel bewildered, and such feelings may arise from an intuitive level where there is memory of past experience informing us about the present. The bewilderment may also arise from opposing inner feelings or external differences.

Perhaps one of the biggest causes of bewilderment is that the outer world does not at all conform to our inner instinctive life. In a certain sense, because so much of our inner life has been formed out of the experience of millions of years of survival in very different conditions, the external world of today often does not reflect the close knitted group life of the past. The home/cave does not provide the emotional and social warmth it once did; the isolation within huge cities has no connection with our inner needs for being a meaningful part of society. See: emotions and moods.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I define what am bewildered about?

Does the dream indicate any type of relationship or environment in which I am bewildered?

What if anything do I do about it in the dream – what can I do about it?

Try using Acting on your dream.

Bewitched

This often indicates that we are failing to see how we are being influenced either by an external person or by enchanting ideas and feelings we hold within.

We have perhaps all been bewitched in one way or another during our life. We have all had ‘spells’ cast upon us. Sometimes painful experience can etch conflicting feelings into us. For instance at the age of six I experienced a tonsillectomy. In late years I uncovered previously unconscious memories of the operation. During the operation I was semi aware. A female nurse was holding my head near her body. This created feelings of comfort and female protectiveness. At the same time the surgeon was cutting my throat. So the pain and terror of having my throat attacked was connected with the comfort of the female body. This was a sort of spell cast on me creating conflict when close to a woman.

Bewitching feelings also arise from fantasies which may beguile us. A young woman may be swept away by fantasies of her own desirability, and of a wonderful man claiming her. Such fantasies, if they dominate, may cause the young woman to unwisely enter relationships with men who are other than the fantasy images she projects upon them.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the dream spell doing to me, and how does that relate to my waking life?

Is there any way indicated in the dream for me to undo the spell?

Can I understand the spell in a real sense and not in its symbolism, and undo it?

Try Being the Person or Thing.

Beyond

This amazing word is so difficult to sum up, because it is beyond everything we know, desire, want; beyond life itself and so we may live in hope for it.

I remember as a child that the part of school lane that was just past the school was an unknown territory, and it seemed like my world ended there. It was beyond anything I knew, and yet one day I went beyond it and discovered a whole new world of experience.

Example: I was with a group of men and boys. There was another young man who did not belong to this group, and did things by himself. I had to follow him to see what he was up to. It was said to be against union rules or something. I followed him through a village street looking like a Hans Anderson type village. To keep up with him I leaned into the air and using the air as support through arching my body, flew after him. Then I was out of the village near the edge of a cliff. But there did not seem to be anything such as sea or landscape beyond the cliff. I could not see this, only had the impression of vast emptiness. But a strong wind blew, and curving my arms backwards the wind lifted me like a kite. An old man and boy watched from below as I flew. I could manoeuvre for the uplift by moving my arms. But sometimes the wind was so strong I could not go where I wanted.

Example: Went to a hilly place. A small pond was on this knoll. Beyond it, above a crest in the hill, was a shimmering haze. I threw a stone through the haze and a stone came out of it precisely on the same arc, like a mirror effect. I threw another stone and the same thing happened, both stones falling in the pond behind me. I felt the haze was another dimension, a sort of reflection, so whatever went in came out. I believe I then went to put my hands through the haze and a pair of hands reached out to mine, but they were feminine.

So beyond can deal with your hidden inner world, your feeling of going beyond what you knew and so the discovery of problems, difficulties, people of even wonders – if you dare to go beyond.

Example:  The poem “Like Bells” and the story “A Tear Dropped in the Ocean” are both so precious and moving. The story, especially, is touching to the core as I walk the road with two friends who have recently lost their husbands, and a third who is being treated for cancer. That simple act of dropping a tear expresses all the emotions swirling within us that goes beyond words.

While I was watching an episode of Star Trek – Enterprise, I had a powerful emotional reaction to it, one of wonder, curiosity and excitement. I cried out, “What the fuck does it all mean?” and I felt my question was being answered. This was followed by a sense that I had entered a different state of mind or awareness.

Sometimes I feel as if I go beyond my everyday self and touch a much bigger something. The first experience of this was as if a voice was talking to me, but it wasn’t just words, but was an understanding about what I was told. To start with, “Tony, when you were young you went Beyond.” I understood this to mean when I was about nine or ten I had a surgical operation on my nose. I was given an anal anaesthesia and during it I fought the nurses because it felt as if I were dying and so went beyond my normal awareness.

In the present experience, I was told I had experienced death and the experience was so vast but never remembered at the time, but had influenced my life extraordinarily. I had not died physically, but even so I had experienced death and went beyond myself. The going beyond was still working in my life, and so I was told the following:

It was that in a few years’ time, the world situation would worsen, a chaotic situation would occur. I was warned that it was good that we would be living in rural surroundings because it would not be so bad there, but even so it would be wise to protect oneself.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where does the beyond lead me or suggest?

Is to a known beyond or is it somewhere you know?

What does the beyond suggest?

See Processing Dreams and Life’s Little Secrets.

Bi-focals

See: glasses – spectacles.

Bible

Dreaming about the Bible may link with your traditional moral standards, perhaps inherited without re-evaluation. It will also often indicate your feelings about religion.

In some dreams it involves your most inclusive realisations, your highest or most inclusive realisations about yourself and your place in the world. In that case it would be about those things you hold to be most true.

As it represents traditional religion, it may depict your conflicts or difficulties with religion. See: bible – dreams and symbols; spiritual life in dreams; religion and dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream showing me feeling I am in touch with great wisdom – if so can I say what that wisdom is?

If I am in conflict with what the bible represents, what is at the heart of my feelings?

What moral standards do I hold, even unconsciously?

See Prayer And Dream Interpretation and Processing Dreams.

Biceps

Strength or ones sense of being capable.

Because biceps are the strength of the arms they, as the arms, are the strength that flows into to your ability to love, give, take, create, defend, reach out. Our arms, especially the arm we use most, can also represent all the struggle and effort we have put into life, what we have given and taken, what skills we have learned or created in the work and labour of life. See: Body; arm.

Injury the bicep: If it is the hand you use most it is your confidence and ability to act in the world, to work and create. If the non-dominant bicep, is probably you ability to support what you do that is injured, your confidence that supports the action. See Left; Right.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the bicep play in my dream?

Do I feel weak or strong in my ability to hold, love and create?

What do I associate with the bicep when I think of it?

Try Talking As to define it.

Bicycle Cycling

Personal effort or motivation which gets you somewhere. For many people a bicycle was their first experience of mastering a body skill and gaining greater freedom. In your dream it might therefore represent youthful freedom or enthusiasm without responsibilities, the perseverance and confidence to master a skill, mental balance – confidence – which enables one to achieve ones goals. It could mean facing dangers in learning a skill or confidence or even adolescent sexuality.

Cycling can also refer to the cycles of feeling or mood we pass through. So it can imply that one is experiencing a cycle which you may be trapped in. The way to get out of this cycle is to step back from it using observation, this is like stepping back and not be lost in the emotions or moods. See self-observation and letting things happen

Bicycle race or riding with many other people: Dreams often use this scenario to represent an overall view of your situation in life. It shows how you feel about your place in the human race, whether life is a struggle or pleasure, etc. See: race.

Falling off bike: Losing balance – losing confidence; awkwardness; vulnerability. This could also suggest a problem occurring in your chosen direction, a failure of your energy or ability to achieve.

Flying on bike: The magic of believing in yourself and therefore being able to achieve things that would otherwise be seen as impossible.

Pump: This often seems to link with sex or masturbation as in example.

Example: We walked a bit further and came to a hut beside the road. we laid down behind the hut in some long grass to make love but suddenly I saw a snake and jumped up. It turned out to be only a bicycle pump but by now we were aware of other people nearby and the moment had gone.

The snake and pump in this dream are obvious links with sexual desire.

Riding a bicycle downhill: Taking or facing a risk; being daring; need for care. It might also suggest ‘going downhill’ in the sense of losing advantage, losing the ‘high ground’.

Stolen bicycle: If you are using the stolen bicycle, it suggests a feeling of needing someone else’s skills or confidence’ of not having developed your own initiative or life skills. If you have had your bicycle stolen, then it is a feeling of losing your ability to get on through your own efforts; loss of enthusiasm or confidence.

Example: I was walking up a hill pushing a bicycle. Several other people went by riding theirs but that didn’t worry me. I went on up the hill and could only gasp in wonderment when I got to the top – I could see for miles and everything was in the most wonderful colours you could ever imagine. My first thought was ‘How wonderful God is to create such a beautiful world for us.’ I thanked him then and there. I thought ‘I wonder if it is like this behind me?’ as I looked around, right up close to me was what seemed like a huge black wall. As I looked along the wall, right at the end the marvellous view started, this continued round to the side of me and in the huge expanse in front. I can’t remember any road or pathway going down the hill, onwards. Muriel M.

Muriel’s dream presents what she feels about life when she sees it as a whole. The bicycle and her relationship with others illustrates that she doesn’t see herself achieving as much as others, but this does not perturb her, or rob her of her wonder at life. The black wall suggests that the past, the territory she has already covered, is now gone and only what she lives and creates in this moment is before her.

Example: I am in a bicycle race with many other people. I come to a very long hill. It is difficult and I have to push my bicycle. It takes me until midday. When at the top I meet a lot of family. Then I cycle on, realising that because the road is flat, I can go much further before nightfall than I covered in the morning. Anthony.

Anthony was in his late forties at the time of the dream. It shows him feeling as if the first half of his life has been a long difficult climb. His assessment or intuition of the second half of his life is that it will achieve much more, or cover more ground and he will have more human and warm relationships, represented by his family. The bicycle represents his personal efforts to deal with life and his place in the human race.

Bicycle wheel: Like any circular thing, it represents your wholeness, the best of you. If you have lost the wheel or it is damaged, it shows you have lived or done things in your past that have lessened your effectiveness in life, and you are trying or ought to deal the failure in daily life.

 Example: One of my wheels had broken. Apparently a new wheel was supposed to be in the room, which was like a spares store. I looked in a cupboard on the left of the room, but although other people’s wheels were there, I couldn’t find mine.

On exploring this dream the dreamer he saw that, “The dream was given to show the difficulties now coming into your own life. The wheel represents that wholeness which you seek and need. The wholeness is broken from past lives. The wheel reminds you that your journey up on the trackless way must have this wholeness. When you lost this wholeness, you lost your proper relationship with my light, life, and love. This must be found within the future.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this depicting my personal effort to move and change in life, or is indicating my life as a whole?

Are other people involved and in what way?

What attitudes or skill are shown in the dream?

Maybe Acting on your dream will help.

Bidding

Something you want; something you are willing to pay for in one way or another, and are in competition with others to get – could even be a relationship. If you are the seller, you need to consider what it is you are offering, and what does the bidding suggest its value is.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who is bidding for what, and what does that suggest?

Is this something I am looking for in my life or something I want?

What is the thing being bid for?

Maybe Acting on your dream will help

Big Bigness Huge

If something is very large in a dream, it usually denotes the emotional and mental impact of the thing, as ‘It was a big thing in my life. It was bigger than both of us.’ Important; relationship – as when we feel small beside somebody with a ‘big’ reputation.

You can have a big smile, a big heart, a big house; or you can face or fall into a big hole or meet up with big trouble. So you need to define what it is you are meeting. And it is always useful to remember that dreams are simply mental images and are not to be frightened of or overly impressed by.

Many big things can cause people who dream them a lot of unnecessary fear or panic. So things like a huge tsunami rushing at you; a great fish of whale swallowing you; or a giant and threatening person are actually a sign you are nearing a very important experience.

Such enormous things are showing you your own immensity. The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves.

We are small because we know nothing about who we are and how we came to be – except of course in the words we have been taught are really the truth. We do not know anything about the mass of things that keep is alive – except what we have read, yet more words. We are largely unconscious of what makes our heart beat, and all the millions of things that life behind our existence does, so we are moved by whatever moves us – whatever that is – childhood fears and social programming, or haunted by the past.

As we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are we often react to it with fear or panic. So we dream or being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created with fear we will pass on.

A woman wrote to me that she could see in her dream a massive wave building up and coming towards her. It was so huge that the water was retreating as the wave was building. She said she couldn’t move because there was nowhere she could run from it, and so she stood in fear of it. Then as it hit her she woke in fear.

Now I want to say to somebody like that, “Why are you frightened of life?” I say this because it is so obvious in the dream that what is coming to her is something so huge and wonderful, and yet she is the terrified of it. That wave was a massive force of positive change that if she had met it would have transformed her life. Unfortunately many people are frightened of Life. See Summing Up

Idioms: Big of somebody; big brother; big fish/noise/wheel/shot; big guns; big head; go down big; big time; too big for shoes; big time; a big rig; a big wig; Big Apple; big boys; big break; big bucks; big cheese; big deal; big hairy deal; big picture; big wheel; in a big way; make a big deal of it; make a big to-do; make it big; open up a big can of whoop-ass; play a big part; talk big; the big cheese; too big for his britches; what’s the big idea.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there something really BIG going on in my life – if so what is it?

What is the big thing in the dream and what do I feel about it?

Do the feelings in the dream tell you what this is about?

How do I relate to the big thing?

Try using Acting on my Dream to see if it helps.

Bigfoot Yeti

David Attenborough said that there was reasonably proof that Yetis might exist, but he never included Bigfoot. So I will say that they are semi mythical creatures. I do not have any records of them in the dreams I have collected, so any dream you have with Bigfoot or a Yeti in it will probably only have the meaning given by your own associations. See Association of Ideas.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What relationship does the dream show you experiencing?

What do you feel when you see the creature?

Try being the creature to see what your feelings are.

Try Being the Creature or Thing.

Bike

See: bicycle.

Bill

To receive a bill often symbolises a bill of reckoning. In other words, something you have done or thought, is now producing consequences that have to be paid for. For USA Bill, See: Money; cheque.

Something being asked of you that you might not like – what you owe to others. It might also be past actions catching up with you, either in a negative or positive way. It can be a reminder of something you need to do or attend to.

A bill you have can suggest what you are willing to pay or give of yourself in your growth toward becoming more fully yourself. If the bill relates to others it can either suggest what they owe you – in terms of the service, or what of yourself, you have given them – or what they are giving or willing to give in the way they are relating to you or working with you.

If presented to someone else: Something you feel is owed to you or something you want from someone else.

If presented to you: Something you owe someone, or something being asked of you by someone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the bill given or received?

If received, what have I got to pay for, and how does that relate to me?

If given, what have I done, or what from the past does it relate to?

Try using Simple Dream Interpretation or Talking As.

Something being asked of you that you might not like – what you owe to others. It might also be past actions catching up with you, either in a negative or positive way. It can be a reminder of something you need to do or attend to.

A bill you have can suggest what you are willing to pay or give of yourself in your growth toward becoming more fully yourself. If the bill relates to others it can either suggest what they owe you – in terms of the service, or what of yourself, you have given them – or what they are giving or willing to give in the way they are relating to you or working with you.

If presented to someone else: Something you feel is owed to you or something you want from someone else.

If presented to you: Something you owe someone, or something being asked of you by someone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the bill given or received?

If received, what have I got to pay for, and how does that relate to me?

If given, what have I done, or what from the past does it relate to?

Try using Simple Dream Interpretation or Talking As.

Billiards

Most games, in their winning and losing, their tactics, skill, luck, represent the game of life, with its difficulties, triumphs and despairs. May also represent sexual intercourse. See: Games.

Your aims and ambitions; aiming at a goal and trying to achieve it; the difficulties of achievement.

Opponents: What you are meeting or in conflict with. This may be a part of your nature, such as self awareness, sexuality, even your body. You might be in conflict with life itself or ‘God’.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I winning or losing the game – or simple watching?

Is there money involved?

What skill are shown in the dream?

What is the setting in the dream? See Settings.

Use Processing Dreams.

Billion

Beyond the personal; often associated with riches of some sort.

See: numbers.

Bilocation

See: out of body experience

Binding Clothes

The restriction placed on you by physical sense awareness, your body. If they fall away, this shows a widening of your awareness. It can also suggest that your attitudes or opinions are holding you in a very tight and restricting way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are the clothes or cloth my own or someone else’s?

Can I manage to free myself or do I feel I need the restriction?

In what way am I restricting myself?

See Easy Dream Interpretation.

Binge

Feeling a need in oneself that may not be acknowledged directly, so is expressed as a binge. Seeking pleasure, or going over the top.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have a need I am not allowing myself to feel?

Am I feeling some sort of tension or difficult feeling – if so what does it relate to?

If this is someone else binging, who are they and what qualities in myself do they represent?

Try using Talking As or Processing Dreams.

Binoculars

Being able to see something or someone more clearly; the ability to pry into someone else’s life; taking in ones environment and possibilities. It might at times also suggest looking ahead or into the future so see what is before you.

If someone else is looking at you: The feeling of being closely examined.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am looking ahead of me what am I seeing and what does it suggest?

What do I understand of what I am looking at?

Am I seeing or failing to see something clearly?

Think about what is the Background and Action in your dream

Biological

Considering that dreams incorporate cellular processes, and that the regulation of cellular processes are taking place at the very basic level of our body, we can say that dreams arise from our core self. The point being made is that underlying cellular processes is the basis of  life – the Life process. This can be checked by reading Kasatkin and also the entry on Levels of Mind.

Hadfield emphasises a slightly different aspect of the compensatory process in dreams than Jung, although there is great similarity. He writes in Dreams and Nightmares, ‘If a branch of a tree is cut, new shoots spring out; if you injure your hand, all the forces of the blood are mobilised until that wound is healed and you are made whole. It is a law of nature. So it is psychologically: every individual has potentialities in his nature, all of which are not merely seeking their own individual ends, but each and all of which serve the functions of the personality as a whole. Our personality as a whole, like every organism, is working towards its own fulfilment.’

He connects this even more directly with the overall self-regulatory physical processes in saying ‘There is in the psyche an automatic movement toward readjustment, towards an equilibrium, toward a restoration of the balance of our personality. This automatic adaptation of the organism is one of the main functions of the dream as indeed it is of bodily functions and of the personality as a whole. This idea need not cause us much concern for this automatic self-regulating process is a well known phenomenon in Physics and Physiology. The function of compensation which Jung has emphasised appears to be one of the means by which this automatic adaptation takes place, for the expression of repressed tendencies has the effect of getting rid of conflict in the personality. For the time being, it is true, the release may make the conflict more acute as the repressed emotions emerge, and we have violent dreams from which we wake with a start. But by this means, the balance of our personality is restored.’

The difference between Jung and Hadfield is that Hadfield is saying the dream is not merely ‘compensating’ for something the conscious personality is doing but is being purposive in pushing toward healing or growth. As with the physical process of self-regulation, which overall supports growth and stability, this psychological process in dreams appears to have much the same function.

Birch Tree

Bird Birds

This a big entry and is in three parts, the general information first part. The second Bird Situations – and the third Different Birds.

The life cycle of a bird has so many similarities with important human stages of growth we frequently use birds to represent parts of our own deeply felt experience.

In general the bird in your dream can depict imagination, intuition, the mind, freedom from restraints, thoughts or hidden wishes or hopes, or your longings to move beyond limitations or boundaries, or even love or a lover. Because the word is sometimes used to indicate a woman, it can have that meaning – i.e. a ‘bird’.

The meaning depends on the context in which the bird appears in the dream. So in some dreams, especially if the bird is flying high, or you identify and become the bird, it can show an expanded awareness or a greater insight into your life and the meaning of your life. This type of dream usually appears as a large bird that can fly high. This is because wider – or spiritual – awareness is like a higher, overall view of things.

Meeting this enlarged awareness may be painful or frightening as we approach it. The enlargement of what you experience is a form of growth and brings new possibilities, all of which can strip away old ways of life and relationship. This expansion of our viewpoint, the uplift of our emotions or mind, can be a link between the world we experience with our physical senses, and the deep world of our often unconscious passions, intuitions and insights.

But in some dreams birds are messengers – For instance a swallow is a symbol of spring, a rooster can be symbolic of a new day (or a new beginning), doves can be symbolic of love, a relationship or peace, and so forth. Both crows and vultures are symbolic of a “death” or the ending of something.

Bird Situations

A big or huge bird: The power of the collective mind or unconscious. It shows you leaving the limited view of the three dimensional world most of us are trapped in, and enter a world beyond time and space. Imagine you are going to communicate with a part of yourself that has an unlimited amount of information and influence to share with you. What this dimension of yourself gives you will be in direct response to what you ask. So the question, interest or urgent drive in you will be the factor shaping the response.

It may uplift or be felt as threatening; something that can protect or be felt as a threat. If felt as a threat remember that dreams are like computer game, nothing can actually harm you, see Wider awareness – Dream as Computer Game – Personal Unconscious.

Big birds often appear in dreams and the huge bird in the house means contact with a lesser used ability you have, one of being able to have a wider view of who you are and the world you live in. But it is also an invitation to learn to fly with or separate from the bird. You can learn to fly; it is a great way of overcoming fears.

‘During childhood I learned to fly in a long sequence of dreams. Each linked very clearly to the last. I would go to the nearby churchyard and in the beginning I would run along as fast as I could then jump and just manage to extend the jump by a great effort of will. In subsequent practices I managed to gradually extend the jump for many yards; and eventually I could skim along indefinitely. The next stage though was to extend my flight height, and this took enormous effort of will and body. I made active swimming motions and climbed, but only held altitude with great and constant concentration. With further practice still, this clumsy mode of flying was left behind as I learned to use pure motivation, decision or will to lift me into the air and carry me easily and gracefully wherever I wished. At this stage my flying was swift, mobile and without struggle.’ See Flying

Baby bird: It can refer to your children, or to your own childhood memories. Coming out of the shell is a very powerful experience for us as babies. Facing the enormousness of physical experience with all it wonder and dangers is something we have faced. And don’t live with the belief that babies cannot remember such early memories, because it has been shown they do. See Lumpkin – The Baby Who Became Tony

Bird attacking: Fear of ideas, ideals or opinions; verbal or mental (suggestions or suggestive behaviour) attack by others; fear of going beyond ones narrow boundaries. Be daring and face the restrain that holds you back.

Bird descending: A wider view or experience becoming known to you, or becoming available. In practical terms this may be experienced as inspiration or new insights regarding work or creativity, or a bursting of ones previous views or concepts into a wider insight.

Bird in house: Hope that something interesting or new will enter ones life; a wish for new love; a new idea; an intuition or precognition; a new person or event entering your life; or something trapped in you that seeks freedom.

Black or carrion birds: Because such birds often feed on dead animals, they have the association with death or news of death. This may not be connected with someone dying, but perhaps that some project, love or aspect of yourself is being left to die; feelings or fears about death. Or it could be about something you are unaware of but is on the edge of consciousness.

Bluebird: Especially represents the personality or flight of the soul after death. But it can also show the flight of awareness into new or wider experience. The colour gives it a link with the heavens and it is therefore a symbol of your own ability to reach a wider awareness – the spiritual. See Definition of Spirit.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What way am I relating to the bluebird?

Do I feel anything on seeing the bird?

Have I been meditating or doing something uplifting recently?

Dead bird: Threat to ideals or hopes of freedom; feeling life is only material; ones spirit feeling defeated or crushed. Also a loss of sense of beauty or meaning in life; an ideal or hope has died; a flight of imagination or creativity has fallen.

Eggs in a nest: The nest and eggs are saying that you have created inside of you a sort of womb. not for a baby, but for a huge but unexpressed self. You have a huge but latent potential, it is maybe beginning to show in your present life, but will certainly emerge as the eggs are hatched.

Feather: See: feathers.

Fighting birds: Family disputes; arguments about viewpoints.

Flock of birds: Sometimes shows you feeling a deeply intuitive sense of connection with thousands of others, all being moved by life itself flowing through you. Describing his recovery from feelings of being ill at ease within herself, Gloria writes:

As this occurred I had a wonderful sense of being a lovely bird that has been in some way ill all its life. This meant it never flew when the flock took flight. Instead, to deal with its own difficulty it felt feelings of not wanting to fly like the others, of not wanting to be like them and do the meaningless things they do. But with the healing came the realisation I could fly, and I took wing and joined the flock. Now I am a creature of spirit, which I have always been, and I asked the Light to help me learn the ways of ‘flying’ in the spirit.

It can also point to how you add your influence to others socially.

Flying: Rising above something; an escape from a feeling of being trapped, or some fear; independence; freedom; self expression; ones love or thoughts winging its way to someone. The sexual act – possibly because during sex we may feel released and uplifted.

Hatching from the egg: Our birth and infancy; rebirth. Something new and uplifting coming into your life, or coming to life in you.

In cage: Feelings of being restricted or trapped; holding back love or inspiration; safety in restriction. If there are positive feelings around the caged bird, it might suggest the need to withhold love or freedom, but it could suggest feeling trapped in a relationship, especially if there are two birds in the cage.

Leaving nest: Gaining independence; meeting change or leaving a dependent relationship.

Making nest: Home building; parental urges; partnership if with another bird.

Nest: Home; family environment; security; even the womb.

The baby bird: Our own childhood, as in the following example. The old lady in the second example is once more reference to the mother, who the bird is first connected with before moving on to the difficulty of independence.

Freud said the bird represents the male phallus, and flying means the sexual act. Many languages use the word ‘bird’ to mean woman. In Italy it alludes to penis. The bird is also used to denote a sense of death and survival.

The example shows Pauline using the bird to depict her own urge to be independent of her mother’s influence, opinions, likes, dislikes and decisions. Later in the dream her mother hands Pauline the ribbon to hold, suggesting an offer of independence.

Example: ‘I was standing outside the house of my teens, with my mother. She had a very young bird on a long ribbon and the bird was flying very high in the sky. As soon as she lets go the ribbon, a huge black bird attacks the ribboned one.’ Pauline.

The ribbons are a reference to Pauline’s own girlhood. When she lets go of her girlhood, moving toward independent womanhood, she feels threatened by her internal feelings of guilt – i.e. a child feels guilty if it acts differently to what its mother wants. This is the black bird. To become independent we have to find a way of doing what we wish despite this internalised mother. (Internalised means all the standards, self controls she learned from her life with her mother, she now carries within her as her own urges even if absent from her mother.)

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

This dream is clearly about Andrew becoming aware that at some time he felt abandoned by his mother, and this part of him needs helping to grow into greater independence.

Wild bird: An untamed freedom of feelings and mind. If it has landed on you it shows how a new and wonderful attitude or ability has opened in you. If you feel love for the bird it is what has brought about the change in you – the love of or ability to free yourself so you can fly – you can let you feelings and creativity become enormously more effective.

White birds: We all have several levels or floors of our awareness. The ground floor is our every day awareness, limited to our brains memories, limited to today and this life. But we were all seeds planted in our mother’s womb, and all seed carry the memory of the past growth in them, and our seed is thelatest that started from the beginning if life on our earth. So at the level if that enormous memory, we have enormous instinctive information gathered over millions of years, but only dreams has access to it unless we have dug deep into our awareness. The white birds represent this wider or huge awareness. But access it you need to explore the image of the bird by using Being the Person or Thing

Different Birds

blackbird or black bird Unconscious urges. At times we may relate to enormous waves of feeling in an anxious way, and this relationship of anxiety may be represented by a black bird. The bird may be shown attacking something or oneself because that is how we relate to the emotions or energies – i.e. we feel attacked by them. The black bird can also link with feelings about death, the negative aspect of mother, or something unconscious that we are becoming aware of.

chicken If being eaten suggests nourishment. Otherwise a female, or the female in a male; being ‘chicken’ or scared.

Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.

When I explored the dream I realised that of course. I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I have been the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female.

The cockeral: a male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence.

The hen: The female,  sometimes shown in male behaviout; mother; motherhood; being immersed in motherhood concerns and perhaps not having a life beyond that.

Chicks: This is a reference either to your own babyhood and feelings or events associated with it, or to external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost its mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

This dream is clearly about Andrew becoming aware that at some time he felt abandoned by his mother, and this part of him needs helping to grow into greater maturity and independence. See Ages of Love

Idioms: chicken feed; chicken hearted; she’s no chicken; cock of the walk; don’t count your chicks/chickens before they are hatched..

crow rook raven Being carrion birds, and so often seen near corpses, they are linked with death or feelings about death; bad news; fear; unconscious feelings. Some people see them as associated with death, mostly because that is how they are used in films. But crows are a group bird and are supportive of their fellows.

It can at times depict the negative aspect of father. The dark intelligence in underhanded people or animals; forces in life that seem to have intelligent direction yet are not outwardly visible.

cormorant Intellectual ideas that have the power to dig deep and bring up unconscious wisdom. Because the cormorant is used to dive and catch fish, it might suggest you are practising some form of introspection or self examination.

crane Inner feelings about wholeness; good luck. The ability to deal harmoniously with the libido or energy within.

cuckoo Wanting to, or feeling your partner is, having sex outside your relationship; pregnant with child from another man than ones partner.

dove Peace; lacking aggressiveness; awareness of one’s potential; religious experience; relatedness. See: religion and dreams.

duck Because a duck can fly and also dive under water it can represent both your ability to raise your awareness, to expand your mind and horizons, and also to look into what is hidden under the surface of life. And its ability to float and swim on the surface of water shows it can survive in the conscious mind.

Idioms can also suggest other meanings such as sitting duck, like a duck takes to water, dead duck and lame duck.

eagle buzzard hawk Sometimes the hunting, providing parent; dominance; a male figure; an uplifting power of feelings or ideas; a protective influence; a threatening influence. Often the ability to develop an integrated vision or perception out of a wide range of experience. This is because the height of the bird and its steady gaze give it unusual perception and wide awareness.

Idioms: Watch like a hawk; eagle eyed.

feather or feathers See: feather.

goose/geese Freedom; your soul; wanderlust; foolishness or group conformity. In some cases you might use the goose as a symbol for life long relationship.

hawk Often a messenger or a far seeing creature. Because it flies high it had an overview of what it surveys. It can therefore signify the spirit or the flight of the soul.

heron A heron is a very still bird and often stands for ages looking into the water. So in your dream it may signify patience and the ability to look deeply into you. As such it may show you things about yourself that are very important.

It catches fish, meaning it brings up things that are usually hidden and are for your personal growth and nourishment. To explore its deeper meaning see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

owl Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ‘sees’ what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ‘feeds’ by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.

Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird.

Example: ‘I was standing with my wife at the end of the garden of the house I lived in as a child. We were looking over the fence to the rising meadow beyond. She said, ‘Look at that bird in the tree there.’ On our right, in a small ash tree, an enormous owl perched. It was at least four feet high, the biggest bird I have ever seen. I recognised it in the dream as a greater hooded owl, which was not native to our country. I was so excited I ran into the house to telephone someone – zoo, police, newspapers? – to tell them about the bird. I cannot remember contacting anyone, but felt the bird was there in some way to meet me. Also it was hungry and looking at next door’s bantams. So I wondered what I could give it to eat.’ David P.

This shows the positive side of David’s relationship with his wife. The garden represents the behaviour boundaries which arose from his childhood. But he is growing – the garden – and looking beyond them through his marriage. The amazing bird is the deep feelings he touches because he has a mate like any other natural creature. Out of his mating he becomes aware of drives to build a home – nest – and give himself to his mate. These are natural and are a part of his unconscious or spiritual nature. The bird is a hooded owl which can see in the dark – the unconscious – meaning David is realising things he had never ‘seen’ before. The bird is masked, because David through loving is learning to put his ego aside, which is a necessity for touching the wider dimension of life or the unconscious. The hunger of the bird shows an intimate detail of what David has learned from his wife. She had been working as a waitress and bringing home pieces of chicken for him, saved from her own meal. The spiritual side of David wants to develop this quality of self-giving, which his wife’s love had helped him see.

Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn. See aura; spiritual life in dreams.

parrot Repeating without judgement what others have said; accepting or copying something without evaluating it. Ability to speak.

peacock Pride; self display; vanity; the desire to be more attractive; sometimes the same as phoenix.

In some cultures the peacock represent the soul or psyche – ones sense of self with all ones individual memories and characteristics. Because the peacock could shed all its beautiful feathers and then grow them again, early Christians saw it as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.

As the peacock is a male bird displaying for the sake of a mate, it can also obviously represent male sexuality in its proud, ostentatious or displaying mode.

Example: There were trees and a grassy patch of ground. A dog was having puppies. But a great flock of small black birds emerged running and skimming over the grass. I heard myself remark, “They are smaller than the others and there are more of them.” Then, from among the trees emerged a large peacock, tail half raised. The dream left me feeling that from small things could emerge something large and beautiful. Mrs E. E.

penguin The penguin hardly ever appears in dreams, or in fact in literature generally, so I have not been able to gather from people’s dreams how they use this symbol. From common associations however, it is likely to represent foolishness; a difficult life situation; coldness in relationships. Because of recent studies of the penguin and the major National Geographic film, the penguin might now depict lasting love and wonderful care and survival skills.

It can also represent something the rare and unusual.

phoenix The ability to find a new impulse, new strength, new growth even in death; the power in oneself to transform the dying, depressed, dark and desperate into new endeavour and growth.

sparrow The ordinary but living parts of you that are special.

stork The soul; symbol of birth or babyhood, and perhaps parenthood; the beauty of the wider awareness of the unconscious.

swallow It promises the ability of a mind that can easily move and shift perspectives and so see different peoples view points, and alo a mind that is intuitive.

swan Grace; beauty; dignity. In mythology often represents the psyche or soul and its connection with a spiritual world; the side of human nature usually hidden because unconscious, often referred to as the spiritual – meaning the consciousness of connection with all life.

The swan in your dream may be linked with an ending of something due to the association with ‘the swan song’ – a final act. It can also suggest amorousness, or the ideal of love in sexuality, and as such may represent virginity or a blend of male and female.

vulture A relative waiting for you to die – or vice versa; people around you trying to live on you – or vice versa; difficult feelings about dependants; an environment of ill will or hopelessness.

white bird Anything white usually depicts thoughts and feeling that are inspirational or uplifting. They are often shown as similar to the white Pegasus, the lower sexual energies lifted into a power of wider awareness.

Wren or very small bird: A vulnerable but exciting intuition – something unusual and valuable entering  your awareness.

Example: My dog looked keenly passed me, excitedly. I began to feel a build-up of excitement and “presence”. This feeling of presence became very intense, so that I knew the woman was now here in spirit. It was unmistakable. At the height of this a tiny bird, like a Wren, flew out of a wall or hedge, and I knew this was the spirit of the woman reborn. I knew that all was well, as she was now spiritually reborn.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Idioms: A bird; Charm the birds from the trees; a bird told me; the bird has flown; bird in the hand; bird of ill omen; free as a bird; odd bird.

Is the bird in my dream expressing any of the important stages of growth such as babyhood, leaving the nest, or making a nest?

What quality or attitude is the bird expressing and how does that relate to me?

What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?

Definitely try using Talking As and Processing Dreams.

Birth

When we were born, one world of experience ended for us and another began. When we witness the birth of a new child, we see a new beginning, the emergence of a new being and life. Birth is about the possibility of infinite potential expressing some of its qualities. Birth in a dream has the same meanings. So it can indicate the beginning of a new way of life; a new attitude; new ability; new project. But also the death of the old. See: first example under woman.

The birth can be about our own physical birth, its difficulties and trauma. But most difficult birth dreams are about coming to terms with our existence. Many of us are still wondering whether we wanted to be, or want to be, born. ‘To be or not to be’, that is still the question for many of us. Lots of us live at a remove from life because of this. If there are connections with our own birth, any negative feelings, fears and pain may need to be met before one can continue real development and growth in life.

This is not an easy process as birth experience is deeply primal and existing at the very foundations of our identity. Even if one manages to let this material rise into consciousness in the form of present day fears – such as loneliness, feelings of vulnerability etc – it usually takes a long time to move through them. To help with this process see the features on Life’s Little Secrets; active imagination; compensationprocessing dreams. But if one had a very difficult birth in which one nearly died, life and death can get very mixed up in you, and need at some time to be met.

 Example: I realised during this that I had gone back to birth because my fear of death was inherent in birth. I was afraid I was dying as I was born. I also felt that my chest pain could not be healed or got out of my being. Death was in us from birth, working away like corruption. We cannot heal death, we cannot get it out of us. Perhaps what I could do would be to open the rest of my being to it instead of fighting it. Maybe it was like my weakness and failure I had so long fought out of consciousness. If we admit our weakness, failure, our germ of death, perhaps death enriches as like our failure humanises us. Example: Ever since childhood I had a nightmare dream of being in a very confined bag and being suffocated, I try to get out of a small and seemingly impossible outlet. I used to dread this awful dream. Then, at the birth of my daughter, I realised my dream was of my birth. I never had a recurrence since. D. R. Hobs

This is very clearly a dream about her difficult birth. When the birth in your dream depicts a new phase of your maturing process, a new stage of growth, see the feature on individuation for clarification. In such cases your birth dreams may be an expression of huge changes in your life that are occurring over quite long periods of time.

The birth might have come after much has ‘died’ or been lost. Birth is also the moment of our coming into a particular set of circumstances. These include everything from the relationship, social status, financial wealth, education and background of our parents, to the physical environment in which we grew, the social customs and culture in to which we are born. So birth can also depict a sort of destiny, the taking on of a set of influences, burdens and opportunities. In the East this is all placed under the one word karma – the situation of ones birth, its working out in the present, and the streaming influences from the past. See: karma and past lives.

Example: I was in a room apart from friends and family, they were unaware I had the child but I knew they were expecting it with joy. I was trying to name the baby. It was a baby boy, but the name that came to mind was “June”. It wasn’t right and I kept trying to consider other names but none of them felt right. Just..”June”. The baby was a lovely blond boy with a wide smile, very happy. I am a single mother unable to have more children (I have no sons) and living a chaotic life but moving forward with help of friends and family. I have professional and moving plans for late summer but nothing in the pipe line for June.

This is the interpretation given for the dream in March – “What does giving birth to a lovely baby boy mean – and I take it no man was involved – it means that you, like any mother, can dream and create something that wonderfully adds to you. You create it from all that you have gathered of life, as if you have reached up to the sunlight, the clouds in the blue sky, and added the moon and stars, and pulled them into you and brought forth this little man.

For each child, whether a dream child or one taking on the weight of a body, is a birth of the whole of creation. For aren’t we ourselves, our very bodies, formed out of the mystery of the universe, and the bodies of old stars?

But in another way your son is a new aspect of you, something that hadn’t been known to you so far, with infinite possibilities. It is still young and vulnerable, so needs your love and care for it. But it will grow quickly, and then you will see traces of it in your everyday life – the new happy you.I think you should watch for signs of this little man growing into your life in June and flowering. Such signs are not usually very materialistic, but are new awareness and abilities that will be seen as you look back.” Then from the dreamer again in June – “I wanted to update you on developments that have been connected to my dream. Dates and times moved around and I find myself moving this month. A new start! On a very fun note, I also have begun a relationship with a man who looks very much like the little baby I cradled. I actually “recognized” him! It was really unusual and regardless of how the relationship turns out, it’s been a great awakening to have a bright, positive experience with a good man. Thanks again.”

Birth – even from a man – of a shining, talking or holy child: The beginning of awareness – not intellectual knowledge – of how the conscious self is interwoven with the processes and beings of the cosmos. This includes any unusual features straight after birth, such as being able to walk or sit.

Example: “Was in a basement where my wife and a woman I loved was giving birth to a baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it without a doctor being there. It was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious; then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!” I asked what had gone, and it replied, “The other ego; where has it gone?” I explained that the spirit self it knew before birth was now gone so it could live in the body. The baby was then taken upstairs, and I felt it was a holy and wonderful baby. I was going to rest from the rigours of the birth, but on looking around saw how dusty and dirty the basement was. I began to clean it, and felt I would go upstairs and rest afterwards.”

The man who dreamt this said that he felt afterwards that at the time of the dream he had given birth to the very best of him. This became more and more obvious as years went by. Also he realised that his inner life, his unconscious needed cleaning.

Boasting about birth of child: Difficulty about responsibility of parenthood, but coming to terms with it.

Childrens view of birth: Many dreams of birth are symbolic attempts to come to terms with the fact of birth. It is difficult to accept accept. For children it felt that one was not born at all; one always was. Really it’s no theory but an instinctive spontaneous conviction.

“Recently my four-year-old son was inspecting a copy of a Raphael Madonna. He scrutinized it meditatively for a minute or so, then, pointing to the Christ child, announced, “That’s Michael Caldwell.” “Oh,” I responded. Then he pointed to Mary. “That’s Mama.” I nodded acceptance. Then he went on to bigger things. “He came out of her belly?” A little rise of intonation at the end showed he was looking for reassurance. I thought we were getting along fine. “Mama kept you in there cozy and warm until you were ready to come out.” He took it all in, puzzled it over, and then let fly: “Why did she eat me?” It was utterly incomprehensible that he had been made out of nothing, and most infants, could they communicate, would laugh at the proposition. However, as it must to all men, the serpent of knowledge appears in this Garden of Eden. Other children appear, little boys and girls talk about it, and slowly the uncomfortable knowledge grows that one had to come from somewhere.

Giving birth or Birth pains: The creative process; pain of arriving at a wider vision. Giving birth to a more mature self is a struggle. The NEW in our life is sometimes born out of such pains. If you are pregnant at time of dream this is probably about working out of anxieties about birth. See: birth dreams during pregnancy.

The mouth can also give birth: People often dream of giving birth from the mouth. The shape of the mouth is similar in some ways, and can also discharge things. This usually happens when the person has something important they want to say, and is a way of allowing lifein us to give thanks and birth to something new.

Recurring dreams of giving birth: The drive to have a child doesn’t stop just because one has one or more children. Many women, even past childbearing age, dream this over and over as in the example below. The urge to care, to love, to give birth, exists despite one’s age, and the dream may be a way of trying to satisfy that. The dream may also be, as with Pamela below, an urge to have a child of the sex dreamt of. It might of course be that you are incredibly creative and constantly ‘giving birth’ to new ideas or conceptions. See Woman’s Creative Power.

Woman’s dream: Desire to have a baby. Giving birth to a new aspect of yourself. Man’s dream: Envy of the creative ability of women. Giving birth to a new aspect of self.

Example: Thinking about the young monk – Hare Krishna – I met yesterday. I realise how much I still have to learn. I gathered hardly anything about him. He told me a dream that he had given birth to a baby out of his rectum. It was quite bloody, but he said he didn’t feel any pain. Just with this image in mind.

See: baby; hole; tunnel.

Example: For years I have dreamt I am pregnant. I go into labour in different surroundings, not always hospitals, with different people. I never see the child but I think it might be a girl, and the labour is different each time. I stop dreaming as the birth is completed. I have one 33 year old son – my only pregnancy. Pamela B. Example: I am on a table giving birth to a baby. It was very small and very ugly, with a hawk like nose. I am walking down a corridor carrying the baby, who is smoking a cigar. I must have had some feeling for the baby as somehow I lost it and was very concerned about its whereabouts. I must have found it again because I was walking down a street and passers by would stare and condemn me for allowing the baby to smoke. I awoke with stomach pains. Mark M.

See Woman’s Creative Power. Useful Questions and Hints: Also see: baby in your dream. What have I given birth to – i.e. what quality or potential? If I imagine myself as the baby what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role. Is there any suggestion of problems that might point to my own birth? Try Acting on your dream.

Birth Control

Thoughts and feelings connected with preventing pregnancy – the action in the dream should show what the concerns are. So this might refer to past experiences. The dream might also be connected with the urge toward motherhood and how you are relating to it, or hope for or fear about pregnancy.

Because birth dreams are also about what you bring to birth in your creativity or relationships, the dream might be about suppressing your own emergence in some way.

Birth control devices: Suppression of the urge toward motherhood; concerns about the method used, or comments from your feelings or unconscious about methods used, or suggestion about using. See Woman’s Creative Power

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there worries or thoughts I am experiencing about birth control?

If not that, what am I preventing form coming to birth in my life?

Are there past experiences that enter into this dream related to the subject?

Try using Acting on your dream

Birthday

Good feelings about yourself; feeling recognised and warmth regarding friends. Depending on the activities and theme of the dream it might also suggest a change happening; a special time when good things or favours can come to you. Of course no birthday can cause feelings of not being appreciated.

But celebrating your own birthday in a dream does not necessarily mean the same as it does in waking life. For birth means a new you, a new opportunity to express and realise the immense potential you have. It is a time to recognise what you want to do with that potential; it does not mean an opportunity to get drunk or to go out to a posh restaurant. It is an opportunity to decide what you want to make of your life.

Someone else’s birthday: Reminder of social obligation to another person; showing of affection or otherwise; relaxed feelings. Or perhaps purposely forgetting it.

Example: I dreamt that no one, including myself, remembered my birthday – I was thirteen in December. My family were all celebrities from TV. Then one of my friends phoned to wish me happy birthday. Then my Grandma kept cuddling me and telling me how sorry she was no one had remembered. I felt very disappointed but kept saying it was OK as I also had forgotten. B – Teletext.

For B. dreaming about her birthday obviously deals with her need for affection and also a feeling of not being appreciated.

Birthday cake: The reward or gift of sensual pleasure.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings are involved in the dream, and how do they relate to me at the moment?

If this is a happy dream, what makes it so?

If this is a sad dream, what happens to make it so?

See Acting on your dream

Birthright

The innate qualities you are born with, but may never receive, or unfold in life.

Biscuit

Pleasure, perhaps connected with childhood. If you are making the biscuits, it might suggest caring for your own needs or those of other people. See: Cookie.

Bishop Priest Rabbi Pope Minister

Ones religious beliefs; ones relationship with religious beliefs, maybe even a sense of sin connected with religious beliefs or indoctrination.

Sympathy with a sense of community. Sometimes in some dreams it indicates a non sexual relationship, a sort of father figure you can learn love with when it had not been learned with ones parents.

It can be many other things depending of the contents of your dream. He or she can be a pompous authoritarian figure, a wonderful connection with your ability to see into the spiritual world, part of you that exercises spiritual power, your ability to minister to others, an entrance into the ‘Higher Pastures’, the Christ in you.

Wilber B. Tanner in her wonderful dream book adds to this saying the figure could also be seen as depicting pomp and circumstance, self-aggrandisement, ego, self-righteousness, narrow-mindedness, prejudice, greed, pomposity, and holier-than-thou attitudes, depending on your experiences, associations, and feelings in the dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What experience if any have you had with a bishop, and what was your impressions?

What attitude did the figure express?

Did he or she give any feeling of being a teacher or of the spirit?

I would recommend using Talking As and Easy Dream Interpretation.

Bite Bitten Biting

This suggests aggression. Or it could be the desire to suckle the breast hidden under aggression – this applies to women equally as to men. A hurt from someone or something; something has got into you that has ‘wounded’ or poisoned you. Being bitten can also show a fear of being hurt, or a feeling of being damaged in some way.

The saying, ‘Once bitten twice shy’ also refers to a hurtful or frightening experience that leaves you feeling uncertain about repeating it. This is shown in the following example.

Example: ‘I had to get a large spider into a small dwelling. At one point it was like trying to get the spider into a narrow necked bottle, the spider was unwilling, and bit my finger. I was worried the bite might be poisonous, but it seemed alright.’ Alan P.

The large spider, small dwelling and finger refer to sexual intercourse. Alan feels fear of introducing his finger into the bottle because he might be bitten. So here the bite refers to the injection of fearful emotions, unwillingness, into his sexual impulse – but of course also into his ability to get emotionally close to a woman. The spider often refers to the mother, and in fact Alan’s mother introduced him to fear of sex. So the bite is clearly to do with feeling attacked by anxieties or one’s urges.

We also bite food, and this type of bite is expressed in the saying, ‘What sized bite of the pie did you take’? So this type of bite in a dream would refer to how much or little of something are you getting or taking.

Idioms: a bite to eat; bark is worse than his bite; bite me; bite off more than you can chew; bite the bullet; bite the dust; bite the hand that feeds you; bite your tongue; grab a bite to eat; have a bite; sound bite.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been bitten or am I biting, and what is the main feeling in the dream?

If I am bitten what is my response?

Have I recently felt attacked or aggressive?

What is the feeling behind the bite or biting, and where do I meet that in my life?

See Dream Like a Computer Game and Being the Person or Thing.

Bitter

Feeling: Usually expressive of a resentment or hurt that still has energy. The dream may well define what the bitterness is about. It may be connected with emotional hurt, rejection, being unfairly treated, feeling disadvantaged in life, having a poor opportunity, bad result from a lot of effort, etc. It might also be about a bad feelings or enmity in a relationship.

Taste: Usually refers to an experience that is either difficult or painful to swallow, or reminds one of bad past experiences; something being met that is difficult to meet – ‘swallow’. Maybe something you dislike or have an aversion to.

Example: Just moments before I am to graduate to become some kind of policeman or officer in a ceremony, I am rejected. I feel bitter, having gone through all this training. I literally go underground in a series of tunnels (subway?) and become some sort of rebel outside the law. This goes on for years. I carry on a ‘war’ against my former, almost employers. Then I find this woman who becomes my wife and over a period of time she calms me down and I make my peace with her if not with others. P.

Example: My drive to reach out for anything had gone. It had left me feeling empty and motiveless. But the emptiness was sometimes angry or bitter. When I observed what was happening inside me it defined as a strong feeling of loss. The emptiness returned with a deep sadness and withdrawal. It was like a quiet depression, and I sat bowed by the feeling of pointlessness. I was able to verbalise some of these feelings with my wife’s help. It was that I was feeling loss, and it was particularly about the loss of people. I had lost my mother when young, and now I felt as if I were forever losing people. I wanted to die as there was nothing left to live for. A. T.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the bitterness connected with in the dream, and what connections do I have with that?

Is there something I am finding difficult to take at the moment, or that I feel unhappy about?

Can I trace the feeling in the dream to a waking experience?

See Victim and How can I face my fears

Black

This is the colour of the night, and so because it links with absence of light, opens us to what we can’t see or deal with in the dark – in what is ‘in the dark’, unconscious – within or around us. It is the experience, like sleep, in which the ego diminishes or melts back into unconsciousness. This relates to all those things you repress or avoid feeling or lack full awareness of in yourself and life. So the dream will probably include threats of some sort, or what is unknown, hidden or avoided. So this relates to your hidden fears or past hurts that have been buried and remain unconscious. In African traditions black is the colour of night, death, excrement, and illness. But our universe began in darkness, and light in dreams represents conscious awareness.

Black can depict what we feel is evil – in other words the unaccepted side of yourself, the parts of your nature you don’t want others to see, and you don’t want to admit even to yourself. It also may indicate depression, what is negative within you or from an outside influence. This includes feelings of secrecy, fear or things we fear, and anxious feelings about death. See The Con About Evil

Writing about the meeting with the darkness, Jung says, “The battle between the hero and the dragon is the more active form of this myth, and it shows more clearly the archetypal theme of the ego’s triumph over regressive trends. For most people the dark or negative side of the personality remains unconscious. The hero, on the contrary, must realise that the shadow exists and that he can draw strength from it. He must come to terms with its destructive powers if he is to become sufficiently terrible to overcome the dragon. I.e., before the ego can triumph, it must master and assimilate the shadow”.

 Example: ‘Black and grey – outpouring of thoughts and feelings I have pushed down, refused to look at or acknowledge, for most of my life.

Last year I got into the habit when doing JKZ’s Body Scan Meditation, of doing the following: there is a part at the end of the meditation where you imagine you are breathing in through the top of your head, through your body and out your toes, and then reversing the process: in through the toes etc. I liked to imagine the air and the energy I was breathing in was full of colourful sparkles – it made me feel good. Towards the end of December last year I almost stopped in my tracks when I did this and realised that I was breathing in thick blackness – in through my head, and filling my body. I thought “Why is this happening?” and then made an effort to start again whilst imagining clean air coming in.

A few days later I was wondering though – perhaps I should have just let the blackness fill me and see what happened. I thought of how most of us only want to experience what we see as the ‘good’ things in life – always pushing away the ‘bad’ – but we need to experience everything – to integrate it all. On New Year’s Day I woke up feeling so low and empty – life seemed so meaningless, and I resolved to breathe in the blackness during my meditation…’ This is what set in motion a process of change, which over the months since then, has led me to a deep acceptance of myself and my life – I feel transformed. Helen Black

Things like a black animal or black vehicle usually indicate that you are dealing with feelings or fears that you have previously kept buried or repressed. Their appearance in your dream shows you are ready to meet such feelings by allowing them to be experienced and acknowledged.

Example: I dreamt last night that a black Spanish fighting bull charged me. I climbed a high wire mesh fence, like that surrounding tennis courts. There I was safe, as the Bull charged again. It charged people. I came down from the fence trying to help divert the bull’s destructiveness.

Here the dreamer is meeting sexual feelings that he had always avoided in the past and still feels threatened by. As the dream shows, he tries to avoid facing these feelings, but in the end has to deal with them. The forgetfulness or repression of parts of ones experience is very clearly shown in the next dream.

I felt very close to the girl. She said, “Do you remember when they made you black all over?”  I said I couldn’t, and she reminded me of being a film extra, when, to cover up my bad skin, I was covered in black make-up to look like a slave. I then said, “You know, there are parts of my life I can’t remember.”

The connection in some dreams between feelings about death and the colour black are shown in the next dream.

Mike is dying. He is taking care of the old folks to gain merit because he knows he may soon be joining them wherever they are. He wants to be sure that they remember him kindly. The black road (death road=death row) has been incorporated into President Bush’s speech and is declaimed as death road or death highway in some of his speeches – as in ‘we want to protect you from death road or highway’. Of course, no one believes him as everyone knows that it is impossible to save oneself from death’s road. We all have to travel it eventually.

Black also sometimes indicate what is earthy, the source of life and growth. What is hidden in the unconscious or body can be powerfully transformative. Like compost, it is full of potentially life enhancing energy. Such black or hidden things often take time to clarify. They have remained in a condition of never having been felt or known fully, and so are unclear and pre-verbal. Knowing them means gradually understanding through experiencing them, and being able to describe and integrate them. There is often a complication here in ones progress, in that consciously you may have hidden or repressed, or been unwilling to accept, anything that was not judged good or positive. In this way the so called ‘bad’ is repressed and you become one sided and lacking wholeness. Therefore meeting the ‘black’ is important. Out of this fundamental earthiness the new person you can become can emerge. See: For blackbird, black hole, blackberries, black-tie, see respective

Black and white: The opposites appearing together. In ourselves the good and bad coexist, and one balances the other. So this would suggest such coexistence and balancing.

Black clothes or under garments: This usually points to hidden or unconscious feelings or sexuality. Black is also associated with a priest or the clergy, so might depict a religious or moral influence in some dreams.

A person dressed in black: This may represent your shadow, or less accepted characteristics. See: shadow.

Black people: If this is a true black person, see black people.

Shiny black: Rather like a crystal ball, this suggests looking into your intuitive perception of what lies usually unconscious within you, looking into the depths of yourself, perhaps beyond the boundaries of your personality.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am on the edge of being aware of, or have been unaware of previously?

Are there anxieties o feelings I usually do not allow myself to feel fully – perhaps using defences such as smoking or alcohol to help push away?

Is there something emerging out of the blackness that offers new growth – if so what do I notice in waking that is new and living in me?

See Resistances and meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream.

Black Magic

This usually suggests you feel another person is thinking badly of you, plotting against you, or trying to undermine you in some way. Consider who this might be. Awareness of the situation most often robs it of its power. It is only when it is affecting you unconsciously that it has power, or if you give it power by being frightened. It is being unaware, or your fear, that gives such things any power over you.

The black magic in the dream can also either suggest you wish to harm someone, if you are the magician, or that you are frightened of hidden things influencing you. Fear is the thing to overcome.

Although thorough investigation of claimed injury or death attributed to black magic has shown the real cause to be malicious aggression or murder, scientific research into the deaths of people who were said to have died as the result of a curse or a voodoo ritual, has shown the victims to have died of fear.

Death through fear is fairly common, and is reported by some doctors in connection with surgical operations, especially in the past. In 1887 Dr. Crile had watched helpless as his friend, William Lyndman died of shock after amputation of both legs. My uncle also died of the shock of losing his arm. My uncle, like William had lost little blood, and no vital organs were injured. Crile went on to develop anaesthesia and blood transfusion to counteract death through shock. But some forms of shock appeared to be outside any physical cause. In 1898 Crile was on an army transporter off Cuba and examined a young officer who was delirious with fear due to facing his first battle. He was as deep in shock as if his legs had been crushed by a wagon as William Lyndman’s had. This led Crile to become interested in exopthalmic goitre, an illness which produces a similar type of anxiety condition. Despite the use of anaesthetics, no one had successfully operated on such a goitre condition. Every patient died. Crile discovered why when he attempted such an operation in 1905.

While under anaesthesia the patient’s heart rate rose to 218 and the body temperature rose to a dangerous level. Despite no physical injury or infection, the patient died that night with a temperature of 109.6 F. Crile realised from his previous observations that it was fear that had killed the patient. Therefore he told his next patient, a young woman who needed the goitre operation, that he was going to give her a simple inhalation treatment. When she breathed in the anaesthetic, she therefore thought she was having a ‘treatment’ not an operation. She was the first person to survive the operation for exopthalmic goitre. Crile called it “stealing the goitre”, and was so impressed by the influence of emotion on the body he constantly stressed the importance of self control, and taught that calmness is strength.

Crile’s experience illustrates what can occur through threat of a curse or black magic. In our dreams we often portray something we deeply fear as an evil influence or person, or as an awful monster or ghost. Such fears usually relate to our own urges, such as anger or sexuality, but can be about any urge or thought that we have been led to feel is not permissible, or that we feel is downright evil. A demonic figure or environment might also be connected with very early babyhood experiences. The pain of birth is often depicted as hell or demonic influence in our dream symbolism. See: evil; witchcraft; The Con About Evil

Because the unconscious will use any belief system or cultural symbols we have absorbed to express a theme, the powerful images of witches or evil characters we see on films or in fiction are often used to depict important experiences. For example a dream in which a spell or curse is placed on one can portray the influence a painful experience has left on ones emotions. If you had been deeply hurt while in your mother’s arms, your unconscious would equate pain with being held close by a woman. This ‘cross wiring’ of associations could meaningfully be portrayed as a ‘spell’ which makes one feel frightened in the apparently loving situation. See: Victims; Dream Like a Computer Game; self hypnosis; spell.

Black Person

Depends which skin colour the dreamer has.

If white: I you dream of a black person it suggests one’s natural drives, urges, longings and emotions uncluttered by intricate social taboos; whatever feelings you have about coloured or black people; or if person is known, what you feel about them. It could also represent your unexpressed or repressed self – a ‘shadow’ figure – therefore it sometimes depicts a depressed or unaccepted area of oneself; feeling downtrodden or underhanded. But often it is the joy of expressing a part of you usually buried under social conditioning.

If black or brown: Your own cultural feelings; same as any ‘person’ dream. See: people; archetype of the outsider.

Black man: Strength; masculinity; wisdom about the unconscious or about meeting the contents of ones unconscious. In many dreams it is often felt as threatening. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams.

Black woman: Femininity; womanhood and motherhood; wisdom about relationships, sexuality and birth.

Example: ‘ I was in a cubicle or small toilet with a very black woman. She told me there was something wrong with her vagina. She was undressed. I rubbed her vagina and we both felt enormous passion. I then awoke but couldn’t at first remember the dream. I have refrained from sexual intercourse for some weeks, as I always feel shattered/tired after ejaculation. Anyway I awoke very wet yet couldn’t remember any orgasm. I could remember some question of sex as I awoke. Then I remembered the dream and continued it in fantasy. I experienced powerful urges to find a woman to have a non committed sexual relationship with. But in the end I wanted to share my feelings with my wife, but she seemed deep asleep and unresponsive. When I slept again I dreamt I was in London, had got off one bus, but was not at my destination. I was standing about not making a move to find my direction. Then I began to look.’ Fred C.

To understand the above dream in some depth it is helpful to think of the sexual and emotional drives as a flow, like a river. As such they can be blocked, in which case they will seek an alternative route. The dream is not simply about sexual sensation, but also passion. The flow of passion and sexual energy are not simply mechanical things, they are also deeply feeling in their connection with the most profound sides of human life such as parenthood and the caring and providing for young, and our social contact with the people around us. In the history of white people a great deal of frustration has arisen out of the ideas of sin and guilt in their religion. A view arose for the white race that the black races had an easier and less frustrating relationship with the NATURAL. So when Fred dreams of the black woman, he is meeting what is natural and flowing in himself, but which he has blocked by his will because of his struggle with his feelings and sexuality. This is why the black woman has a problem with her vagina. The part about the bus shows Fred trying to find a direction in which his sexual feelings could move satisfyingly in connection with other people. The conflict he has is also shown in waking by his desire to find a woman to have uncomplicated sex with – thus his unsuccessful attempt to share his sexual flow with his wife.

Example: Dream references were made to a black man, a black-tie tuxedo, and a black light. The group was puzzled over what to make of this reference to “blackness.” Jean revealed that during her early adolescent years she was referred to as “Blacky” by her family and that this name was always uttered in a context of extremely negative evaluation regarding her. Further consideration of how extensively the negative “Blacky” self-image had been incorporated by Jean caused her to re-examine how some of her own inputs may have been contributing to the marital tension. Extract from The Dream Journey by Marie Fay, a feature which appeared in Sundance magazine, Summer 1979.

Unfortunately, as Jung points out in Man and His Symbols, people in modern society, whether black, yellow, brown or white, have lost their sense of nature and the cosmos as being anything other than processes without consciousness or living feeling. Jung says, ‘No river contains a spirit, no tree is the life principle of a man, no snake the embodiment of wisdom…No voice now speaks to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear.’

The importance of dreams such as Fred’s is that it shows the passionate relationship between his personality and the primitive and natural. A black person born and bred in a modern setting, would most likely dream of a black bushman to depict their own natural drives. See: identity and dreams; Africa; sex in dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings about and impressions of this black man/woman? For help doing this see Talking As.

Are sexual feelings in the dream, and if so what do they suggest about the way I relate to sex?

How am I relating to the black person and can this be improved?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation.

Blackbird


See blackbird under birds.

Blackbird

Something, perhaps intuition, emerging from the unconscious. Bad news. Sometimes thought of as messengers of the dead. See: Birds.

Blackmail

Many years ago I watched a young boy emotionally blackmail his mother. She wanted him out of the house to be alone, and to do it she was offering him money – presumably pocket money – and he was driving the amount up. It took a while but eventually he got the amount he wanted. It was all based upon his shrewdness in judging his mother’s approach, and on her attitude that she must bargain to get what she wanted. She could have said, with a smile, “No”, and that would have been the end of it. But she was on shaky ground and didn’t have it in her to be a real mother, because she had been raised by a mother who was also a shaky character.

Emotional blackmail is a wonderful term. When I first heard it the two words immediately became a focus for understanding the dynamics of many relationships. Before that I seemed to live in a world without such understanding. As when I watched another mother and son arguing. She was going at him in full spate, and suddenly, with such calm, he said, “Mum stop putting me down.” It was a wonderful eye opener for me – to be put down.

Emotional blackmail I think rest upon either the dependence or the independence of those in the interaction. For instance in the first example, if the mother was independent of her son; if it didn’t matter to her whether he went or didn’t, or if she was no longer in such need to bribe him, it would have been different. See independence; individuation.

Blacksmith

This might be connecting you with your deep creative powers and masculine strength, in shaping the metals of life, the possibilities of your nature. Forcefulness, material creativeness. See: Iron.

Bladder

May be referring to sexual feelings. For instance if it is a full bladder, then it is either the pressure of sexual feelings or need to release tension.

The bladder and the control or release of urine are also deeply involved in our power of self control or lack of it. As a child we learn to control our bladder and the way we learn this may deeply colour our feelings about being in control or losing control’ or even about facing peoples view of us – after all wetting oneself was taboo.

Because the bladder also connects with sexual feelings there is a likelihood that the problem with control is about what is happening between your conscious will and your natural urges. In fact an enormous amount of dream energy is given to exploring how the conscious personality and the natural urges and wisdom can find some way of integration and harmony.

The bursting of the bladder or the loss of control can also indicate a way you are surrendering your conscious will and allowing the natural in you, your core self, to enter your life more fully. Or else it is to do with loss of control of emotions. Better to release them at an appropriate time. See control.

Example: I dreamed I was urinating. (BTW, I am male). In the dream I was having severe pain in my bladder and genitals. As I urinated, I began to pass bright red blood only ….forcing out all liquid from my bladder. As the flow ceased, I could feel my bladder refilling with blood and it would start over again. This went on for a few cycles until I woke myself up. Unfortunately I have had pain now there since the dream (for about 4 days).

Korey – At the lowest it suggests a loss of enormous energy from your genital – at the highest point it is a warning of a physical condition. Sometimes such warning come way before any signs are there, but even so you should get checked out b a doctor. Say that you have had days of pain there.

I often bleed heavily from my bladder. It is a small blood vessel that ruptures and I cure it by taking plenty of vitamin C – which strengthens the capillaries. But I did have it checked out.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there indication of a struggle to control or loss of control in the dream?

What am I letting go of in my life?

Is there something I am struggling to control?

Do my sexual urges enter in any way into this dream or what it suggests?

Try using – Easy Dream Interpretation

Blade

blade See knife.

Blamed Blaming

Most likely a direct expression of feelings one has about being blamed or blaming someone else. Therefore the things to watch for in the dream are:

Blaming: What are you blaming someone or something else for? If you can clarify what it is, ask yourself if you are doing that in waking life, and how deeply you feel about the issue. How valid is the blaming? Is the blaming a way of avoiding responsibility or efforts to change?

While we are blaming someone or something we lose the power to direct our own life. This is because blaming is like saying, ‘What has happened to me is all due to ‘so and so’ or ‘such and such’. Each time this happens it does this to me.’ If we stop the blaming and wonder whether we can take charge of the situation, then we gain more power to change. For instance a child who blames its mother when it falls over its shoelaces, might never stop to learn how to do up its own shoelaces. It might continue to blame its mother for not doing up its shoelaces properly. In adult life that is a very incapacitating habit to have. See Victims.

Accepting responsibility for what occurs in your life does not mean self blame. Blaming oneself is as negative as blaming someone else. Seeing that effect follow cause is simply a way of learning how to bring about real and satisfying change in your life. It is a way of seeing result as a feedback of information as to how well your attitudes, activities and efforts worked. With that feedback you can change the attitudes or activities and gradually get better results.

Blamed: Do you accept the blame and feel guilty or a failure? If so it may show that you are taking on feelings of failure that will create guilt and conflict in you. There may also be excessive self-criticism arising. Perhaps there are things you have failed to see or accept, but feeling guilty isn’t the best way to learn and improve ones performance. Better to look at events as learning experiences.

A long-term study on the effects of pessimism and self blame was started in 1946 with 100 Harvard graduates. It showed an ‘impressive’ relationship between pessimism in twenty year olds, and poor health in middle age. With another study it was found that people who blamed poor performance on personal failings in general died younger than people who accepted slumps in performance as part of normal life.

Idioms: lay the blame; shoulder the blame; take the blame; to blame.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does blaming others or myself play in my life?

Can I begin to learn from experience rather than play the blaming game?

What can I learn from this dream and the blaming taking place?

Can you learn anything from the Plot of the Dream or even Easy Dream Interpretation.

Blanket

Physical or emotional comfort or warmth, or an attitude we can hide under/behind; an attitude or experience we are wrapped/rapt in. In this case the colour of the blanket would give a clue to what the feeling or attitude is. See: colours; bed.

Covered in blanket: Injury or feelings about death or withdrawal. A way of hiding what you are feeling or doing, or feeling a need to comfort yourself. It might even suggest a return to childhood feelings.

Electric blanket: Instant warmth. Fear of electricity for some people. A feeling of relaxation.

Red blanket: Often used in emergency situations so could have the associations of injury, accident or ill health; passion or anger. Sometimes it could indicate warmth.

Sharing a blanket: Intimacy; feeling closely connected with someone; sexual connection; wanting to be close to the person.

Wrapped in blanket: Slightly withdrawn or vulnerable; relaxed or passive; self comfort; feeling cold – lacking warmth; feeling injured, infirm or weak; hiding ones feelings or vulnerability.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I using the blanket for and what does that say about the way I am dealing with life at the moment?

If I am sharing the blanket am I easy with the intimacy indicated?

What colour is the blanket and what does that say about the attitudes or feelings I am wrapped up in? See colours.

Perhaps Acting on your dream will help, or Being the Person or Thing.

Blasphemy

A denial or cursing or your own innate self or latent possibilities. A turning of the will away from the possibility of direction from within.

Blaze

See: fire.

Bleach

Perhaps a healing process of cleansing old hurts or feelings; an attempt to ‘clean up’ ones emotions or attitudes, especially if applied to clothes. It could also suggest a painful experience. If it is being used to bleach something it might be referring to a change going on – the shift from a colour to white. If it is to remove a stain, then it is linking with something you feel is a bad memory or that you feel unhappy or guilty about, and your attempt to deal with it.

Platinum blonde: Usually refers to false ‘colours’ we wear, and can sometimes indicate a cheap person.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am using the bleach to remove a stain, what part of myself do I feel I want to change?

Is there a change going on in my life in how I feel?

Is this about cleaning old attitudes or feelings, meeting and transforming old memories?

Is there a Because Factor in your dream – or does this sort of dream Recur

Bleach

Perhaps a healing process of cleansing old hurts or feelings; an attempt to ‘clean up’ ones emotions or attitudes, especially if applied to clothes; pain.

Bleak

Unfeeling, difficult emotionally. This sometimes connects with past times of pain..

Bleeding

Most often relates to emotional or psychological hurt, but can also depict physical injury, or presentiment of it. Emotional hurt could mean hurtful remarks, for instance being told we are not loved – these can sap our motive to live and may be depicted as blood. The bleeding might show a psychological injury, often from past trauma, which is causing you to lose energy or motivation.

Sometimes the blood can be a sacrament. As such it is not shown as emerging from an injury or wound but as nourishment, wine or bloody meat. See blood.

Blood flowing from a crack: Possibly menstruation or loss of virginity.


Blood on the ground: Someone hurt or dead.

Bloody clothes: Personal emotional hurt or injury, perhaps even death of someone.

Blood Sample: This can represent many things depending upon the rest of the dream. It could suggest an illness, a way of tracing your identity with DNA, or it could be a drug test. It needs to be explored to be sure. Try using Talking As or Processing Dreams

Blood sucked from you or sucking from another: Feeling that you are losing your very life force to someone, or taking energy and life from someone else. Sometimes sex is felt as this. The umbilical connection in the womb is sometimes felt as the life giving connection that if cut off prematurely, is such a loss that expenditure of energy in sex may be felt as vampirism.

In sexual dreams: May refer to loss of virginity, menstruation or fertility; or hurt to sexual drive.

See archetype of blood.

Idioms: After ones blood; bleeding heart; bleed someone white; blood boil/run cold; blood brother; blood is thicker than water; blood letting; blood money; blood on ones hands; blood out of a stone; blood relative; blood sucker; blue blood; cold/hot blood; draw blood; fresh blood; in the blood; in my blood; ones heart bleeds; out for blood; sweat blood; taste blood; young blood.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of my body – or the body – is the blood coming from, and what does that suggest about any hurt I may be suffering? (Look up part of body).

What is my relationship with the blood in terms of what I feel, my interaction or how I deal with it?

What can I understand from the theme and drama of the dream in terms of my life giving processes?

See theme; drama. Also Processing Dreams.


Blemish

A sense of not being good enough, or a fault in how you feel about your public image. See: Skin; stain.

This can indicate a fault, an imperfection, in whatever it is in regard to in the dream. Or something that spoils the appearance in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this referring to you?

What do you feel about the blemish?

Do you feel as if you are in some way not as good as you should be?

Use Talking As or Easy Dream Interpretation to get more insight into the dream.

Blessing

A release of the positive energies into outer life.

Blind Blindness

An inability or unwillingness to understand or agree to something. An inability to see something about yourself, or to be aware of what your intuition is telling you.

Unwillingness or inability to ‘see’ something; losing sight of something; not seeing traits which we don’t like about ourselves or others or feelings of not knowing or being clear about where you are going in life. Could also suggest moving into things or a relationship you do not understand; feeling lost or vulnerable; concealing something from yourself or others.

Eric Ackroyd, in his book A Dictionary of Dream Symbols, points out that within our psyche we usually know where we are going, and have a wider picture of our life. So blindness would suggest a refusal to see what we innately know. We may therefore need to seek this insight by considering what experiences or attitudes hold us from being clear about what we want to do and be.

Idioms: Blind impulse; none so blind; turn a blind eye; blind leading blind; blind alley. See: eyes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting I cannot or do not want to see?

If someone else is blind in my dream what are they failing to see – or what are they aware of that I am not?

If I imagine being in the dream and seeing, what will I see?

For help doing this see Stand in Role or Easy Dream Interpretation.

Bliss

The experience of bliss in your dream suggests that you have found your way to your core self. That is the very basis of you where bliss is always there and does not need to be earned or developed.

Sexual bliss is of another order and comes and goes. You can also feel blissful through an event, again it comes and goes. See Enlightenment.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What led to the bliss in your dream?

Did you get to a new place to experience bliss?

Can you get back there by imagining yourself back in the dream?

See Victims and Methods of Awakening

Blister

Some irritating or injurious experience; something that has gradually produced hurt in you over a period of time; attitudes that attempt to protect from further hurt.

Things also blister as in the following dream – quoted from Our Dreaming Mind.

Mary’s dream of the “blistering paint,” often turn out to be concise metaphoric statements of as-yet-unfulfilled aspects of the dreamer’s fundamental “life task,” or the “deepest value conflict” in his/her life, not just in the moment, but over the entire span of time that the dream has been recurring.

In the group work with Mary’s dream, it was suggested that maybe she had grown up in a repressed home where the spontaneous expression of feelings was not allowed and had to be covered up with white paint. If strong emotions began to bubble up, the thin veneer of social politeness might blister and possibly peel away. The family image would be tarnished if feelings trapped beneath the surface heated up and became visible. Mary was stunned by these comments but recognised their validity. Suddenly she found herself flooded with previously repressed memories about specific incidents of physical abuse and emotional trauma from her childhood. These were memories that had been totally blocked from awareness during the intervening years. She realised that she had internalised the adult fears that her family’s social position would be destroyed if someone were to find out the family’s guilty “secrets” about her abuse. Mary was therefore expected to “whitewash” them. Although this technique of coping with the abuse may have been necessary during childhood, it was no longer appropriate and was preventing her from feeling comfortable with emotional expression and intimacy.

As a result of these insights, Mary began to talk about the family situation with her adult siblings and found out that each one had been abused, but had suffered in silence and guilt because they had assumed they had been the only one. As a result, the family members experienced tremendous relief, although this was accompanied by feelings of grief and anger. Once the members began to exchange honest communication, the whole family’s pattern of neurotic behaviour began to change. Harold and Mary felt that they obtained very significant benefits through exploring the meanings of their dreams. Taylor feels that such benefits are potentially available to all of us. Here is how he characterises the potential payoff from working with your dreams:


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is irritating or painful for me at the moment, and what does the dream suggest I can do about it?

Has there been a build up of pressure about something in my life that I am now ready to deal with?

Do I feel any discomfort in my body – if so, is the dream warning me of a physical problem?

See Easy Dream Interpretation or Talking As

Blizzard

An internal conflict or great unrest; feelings of disturbance perhaps to do with coldness in a relationship; feeling emotionally battered or threatened. See: Weather.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening at the moment to cause me to shut down emotionally?

Am I feeling conflict or unrest or disturbance about something?

What emotional coldness am I meeting?

To help with understanding such emotional disturbance see Victims and Life’s Little Secrets

Blockage Blocked

Usually depicts restrained or held back emotions, energy or thoughts. Common areas of blockage are the throat, where words or feelings can be blocked by tension or restraints such as anger or helplessness; the chest, most often the store of emotions perhaps from many years ago; the genitals where we might block desire, hunger and the basic movement of our body toward pleasure.

The blockage might be shown in our dreams as a river being dammed, a traffic jam, a piece of machinery clogged, or some part of our body not functioning smoothly. Talking about the dream images and feelings associated with the dream with a sympathetic friend can help to release the block. Occasionally such a dream shows a problem in the body itself. So if the dream has that sort of feeling have a health check. See the example under blister.

The following description illustrates the origins and way to release such a blockage.

A friend told me he had a discomfort in his throat that had lasted for some weeks. He had been to the doctor, fearing cancer of his throat, but had been told there was no physical problem there. So we decided to sit together and see if we could penetrate what the discomfort was about.

I suggested he feel the discomfort and then make any sound that expressed what he felt. He slowly began to cough and moan. Gradually he began to experience emotions that led him to shout and express anger. As the feelings and anger mounted he could see what it was he was holding in his throat. He told me that his father had worked all his life at a gasworks shovelling coal to produce gas. This exposed him to excessive coal dust, and eventually he died from the lung problem this produced. So his anger was about how a man could be used in that way in an uncaring industry. But also, as his father was dying, the doctor asked him if he should give his father an injection that would lessen his pain and that would cause him to sleep till he died. He agreed to this, but his personal pain was that he had not told his father how much he loved him before he died, and all those feelings had been blocked in his throat. So with much crying and many declarations of love, he felt the blockage clear.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where does the dream show the blockage is – and where in my body or mind does that point to? See body.

Does my dream suggest any way I can free the blockage?

If I imagine myself clearing the blockage while awake, can I feel a change in myself?

To help with this see carry the dream forward also Arm Circling Meditation.

Blonde

See: hair under body.

Blood

Very often it links with a feeling of being hurt or injured and of losing energy or the strength that enlivens you. But blood can represent pain, but also passions, deep feelings. It can refer to things that are deeply felt. We have passionate involvement with things. There are certain things that enter into us and cut us deeply. In some relationships we are opened up and we bleed even if the relationship is largely joyful, there still may be deeply felt and painful feelings in it.

Blood can also mean fertility as when it is connected with menstruation. It can be a painful cleansing and difficult period of releasing the old. The old dies away and leaves space for the new to grow. But blood give life and feeling to every partof our body. The inner meanning is that the Power of Life flows through every living creaure giving it/us consciousness.

In a more general sense blood can indicate one’s energy and sense of existence. In common language we link it with our family through feelings of connection or bonding, inherited tendencies – what we now call genes. It therefore includes inherited strengths and weaknesses of character. We say of such things – its in my blood.

Blood is often used as a symbol of universal life or power in ones life, therefore connection with humanity. Through this it depicts the universal pain or struggle met in human life, along with the possibility of injury and death. In ancient times blood was used as the first ritual sacrament. Later this was symbolised by red wine or red ochre. It was noticed that at times of great change, such as birth or death, blood often preceded the change. Blood was seen as the carrier of the spirit of life and character that lived in a person or animal. If we think of what genes now are known to carry, the untold generations of human life, with all its pain, tragedy and wonder, then blood was seen as carrying this collective human experience.

Blood is sometimes felt as a link with the unconscious forces and sub-personalities within. It is a doorway to the subtle world of the unconscious. This connection is perhaps obvious in that for thousands of years, the blood was seen as the substance that carried in it the mystery of inheritance of physical and psychological features. What we now call genes was represented by the blood, and this is still true in some dreams. The blood in a dream can be the doorway through which you touch your racial and family past. The blood brings to life within you the past lives of those who gave you your body. In quite a real sense they live within you as a great group of people, or influences that need to be integrated for you to become a true individual.

When we see blood on the earth or on someone’s clothes, it suggests great injury or death. Blood on the earth therefore marked the spot of either a great battle, a death or a deep wounding. As such it was a marker, a memorial or sign of the act. So this aspect of blood in our dreams must be remembered.

In cultures such as the Macedonian, where symbols were often thought of in terms of good or bad luck, light blood represented good news, dark blood bad news.

For women there is obviously a strong link between bleeding and menstruation. Therefore in women’s dreams involving blood, the blood may depict whatever feelings, pleasure, difficulties are associated with menstruation and the power of female fertility for the dreamer. But you need to look to the theme and drama of the dream to see if this is a correct connection.

Bleeding: Most often relates to emotional or psychological hurt, but can also depict physical injury, or presentiment of it. Emotional hurt could mean hurtful remarks, for instance being told we are not loved – these can sap our motive to live and may be depicted as blood. The bleeding might show a psychological injury, often from past trauma, which is causing you to lose energy or motivation.

Sometimes, as mentioned above, the blood can be a sacrament. As such it is not shown as emerging from an injury or wound but as nourishment, wine or bloody meat.

Blood flowing from a crack: Possibly menstruation or loss of virginity.

Blood on your hands: Shows you have hurt or even killed an aspect of yourself. See Blood on Hands

Blood on the ground: Someone hurt or dead.

Bloody clothes: Personal emotional hurt or injury, perhaps even death of someone.

Blood Sample: This can represent many things depending upon the rest of the dream. It could suggest and illness, a way of tracing your identity with DNA, or it could be a drug test.

Blood sucked from you or sucking from another: Feeling that you are losing your very life force to someone, or taking energy and life from someone else. Sometimes sex is felt as this. The umbilical connection in the womb is sometimes felt as the life giving connection that if cut off prematurely, is such a loss that expenditure of energy in sex may be felt as vampirism.

In sexual dreams: May refer to loss of virginity, menstruation or fertility; or hurt to sexual drive.

Menstrual blood: All women’s blood, flowing onto the earth, during her menstruation, is the miracle of Life, creation and death. Every woman who allows her blood to flow, takes part in the life of the Great Mother, as she and every menstruating woman, allows the death if the old and the birth of a new possibility for the continuance of life on Earth – a great and miraculous act. See archetype of bloodbleeding; Great Mother.

Old or dark blood: Can sometimes be understood as ‘bad blood’ existing in the dreamer – bad feelings or old grudges.

Transfusion of blood: In dreams such transfusion can show the fusion or atking on of the  physical forces of the body from which the blood was given. Also indicates the taking on of the relative level of health or imbalance, even the ideas and ideals of a person. It suggests a very strong link or love from one person to another.

This is similar to taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about the other person. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and they change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

One way of understanding such links as can happen in a dreamt of  blood transfusion, is to see it as  a direct linkg with theinner quality of the donor. If you had a transfusion from a sick person whose blood was full of viruses and toxins it would pull down your own system. If you yourself were lacking blood, then the transfusion could be life giving. But of course we are speaking of emotional, mental and spiritual factors that pass through this link. So the toxins that pass are not of viruses, but of greed, lies, anger and violence, or even insidious desire to control. Or on the positive side, the expanded awareness that lifts us from shadows into a greater vision and experience of life.

Pak Subuh, an Eastern spiritual teacher, says that when a couple have sex the inner psychic content of one passes to the other. He says that whatever forces of mind and emotion exist in the one pass to the other. In this way if we have many sexual partners we take from them influences from their inner life. He suggests that having sex with a prostitute who has absorbed the inner life of many men of dubious character is like opening ones subtle self to the dross and influence of those lives. Just as one needs to thoroughly wash ones body if you had worked in a sewer, you would need to clean your soul of such influences.

But transfusions have been known to link people in strange ways. In recent years people who shared blood  through a transfusion shared thoughts, dreams and information.

A woman used the Seed Group method describes what she experienced.

Example: Then I started to tremble and shake. My whole upper body was shaking uncontrollably. I let it happen. I wasn’t frightened, I felt safe in knowing that this is what my body needed to do. It continued for what seemed several minutes. As I shook, I recalled that shortly after birth, I was given a blood transfusion. My parents’ blood types weren’t compatible – three earlier siblings of mine had been born and died a day or two after birth. Convulsions now, more then mere shaking. The coming into life, but not being compatible with my interior chemical make-up. Shaking as they transfused my blood – draining me of my blood, my own blood which fought against itself, being replaced with a foreign blood that would give me life. No wonder I was scared in that shell. The process of life and death innate in me from the moment of my conception. Fighting against myself. That which would fight for my life (the antibodies) would be the death of it.

The shaking stopped. A sense of peace pervaded my physical self. I was still positioned on my knees, but the sense of having put those roots down first gave me the foundation to withstand the shaking. I had no idea of what this experience would be like (and definitely not like this), but I seem to have gotten rid of something stored in muscle memory.

Idioms: After ones blood; bleeding heart; bleed someone white; blood boil/run cold; blood brother; blood is thicker than water; blood letting; blood money; blood on ones hands; blood out of a stone; blood relative; blood sucker; blue blood; cold/hot blood; draw blood; fresh blood; in the blood; in my blood; ones heart bleeds; out for blood; sweat blood; taste blood; young blood.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of my body – or the body – is the blood coming from, and what does that suggest about any hurt I may be suffering? (Look up part of body).

What is my relationship with the blood in terms of what I feel, my interaction or how I deal with it?

What can I understand from the theme and drama of the dream in terms of my life giving processes?

See: drama; Acting on your dream

Bloom Blooming

If we watch a flower bloom we see it pas through various stages. The form of a bud; the opening of the bud, and the full blooming of the flower. But then it fades and possibly forms seeds. So a flower is the sexual organ of a plant or tree,  and sometimes it is  used as such in dreams. But it is also seen in many other ways.

Because we can see its whole process of growth we often use it to symbolise our own growth and flowering. We can experience a flowering of our sexual nature; a flowering or our creative abilities; also a feeling of flowering as a person and finding satisfaction. If we have not flowered and produced seeds then we may feel we have not satisfied a deep need in ourselves. See: flowers.

A bloom may cause us to feel beauty or even wonder. They may indicate a sense of abundance, profusion, beauty, happiness, prosperity, or even God’s love for you. Certainly flowers are used in expressing love or affection.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about the flower or the bloom in my dream?

Do I feel as if I am blooming or that I lack the feeling?

Is there any sexual feelings in the dream, or any indicated?

What do I associate with the bloom/blooming in the dream?

Try using Active Imagination and Processing Dreams

Blossom

The unfolding and expression of what was latent within from the beginning.

Blow Pipe/Gun

Like any weapon in a dream, it represents the capability of hurting someone or being hurt or even killed (emotionally). But the particular associations are probably to do with things people have said which have got under your skin, perhaps without your awareness. The words probably have malice/poison in them which works away in your mind and feelings creating a sense of unrest or even irrational depression. These feelings are all the harder to deal with because we are not aware of their entrance into us. When we discover the dart however, this usually clears the influence – the dart being the words or hidden intentions behind the poisonous words or emotions.

If you are blowing the dart: Have you maliciously said something or done something to someone? See: weapons.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I felt depressed or strange after being with someone?

Is there something that happened or was said that has upset me or left a strange feeling?

Who am I aware of who is trying to ‘get at’ me?

See Victims and also Easy Dream Interpretation

Blow-Out

See: Puncture.

Blue

Dark blues: In many women’s dreams threatening men appear dressed in dark blue or navy blue overalls. This suggests the woman is meeting her own male/animus side with anxiety. So there is a need to work with this and find a way to express your power and energy in the world. See Facing Fear

Dark blue can also suggest mature personal insights into life, or if it is a muddy or murky blue, it indicates depression, negative thoughts or intuitions, and being gloomy.

Light blues: Your sense of intuition, or achieving a wide awareness of life. Blue also links with religious feelings and experience of the holy – i.e. an awareness of those things that are universal – such as birth, caring relationship, parenthood – and so recognised as transcending ones own small life. This comes from our feelings about the blue sky.

Light blue can also indicate coolness of nature. Often seen in visions of the womb as a blue grotto or woman with halo of blue, so connects with prenatal and infant relationship with mother.

Blue-gray: Religious feelings produced by depression, fear or gloominess.

Blue skin: Because we go blue when suffocating or having breathing difficulties, it can be used to show what a struggle we are having with life, how bruised we are with experience, or how cold we feel. But as with Krishna and his blue skin, it might show how you are being pervaded by a sense of the universal, of a wider and beautiful life.

Blue-green: Healing or the ability to heal arising from attunement to the forces transcending your own limited awareness and abilities.

Blue-violet: Great attunement with insights and powers transcending normal human ability.

Idioms: the air was blue; baby blues; blue film; blue funk; blue in the face; blue moon; bolt from the blue; once in a blue moon; blue pencil; blue stocking; feel blue; out of the blue; vanish into the blue; blue-blood; true-blue.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel when I hold this colour in mind, and where is that feeling or association fitting into my life at the moment?

Am I feeling tuned into a wider view of things at the moment, and if so what am I realising?

Am I feeling blue – or do I feel like blue skies are here?

Try imagining the colour and see what feelings it provokes – or try Being the Person or Thing

Boar

Like most wild animals in your dreams it depends on your reaction. Some people when faced by a tiger let it come to them and make peace with it. So it depends upon your own fears or self confidence. Obviously a boar could be a killer, yet if you face it right it becomes a strength you can use. To understand this please read Do you imagine that a real wolf is there in your dream and also Mammal Brain which explains how we all have an inner animal. See Animal

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the boar doing in your dream?

Does it feel threatening?

How do I deal with it?

You might find a deeper understanding of what part the boar plays in your life by using Being the Person or Thing

Boarder

This depends more than most symbols on your associations – whether you have been a boarder in a school or lodging house, or other people’s home, or whether you take in boarders.

Lodger in other people’s home: Feeling of not having ones own security or home; sense of sharing or being welcome/unwelcome; feelings of being an outsider.

Boarder at school: Feeling abandoned by family; in a learning situation and one calling for independence.

In lodging house: Temporary situation; lack of personal resources or relationships; for some people represents a work situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the character and disposition of the boarder, and how does that relate to me?

Am I relying on someone else to provide my needs?

Is this about feelings of abandonment?

What are the main feelings in my dream and what part are those feelings playing in my waking life?

You could try Being the Person or Thing or even explore the Characters of People in Dreams.

Boast Boasting

Overconfidence; perhaps a hidden uncertainty about yourself or an attempt to feel superior to another person.

If someone else boasting: This depends on how you respond to this in the dream. It might reflect your own activities, or perhaps showing you what the dreamt of person is really like. See Characters of People in Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

If it is me boasting, why do I need to do that in the dream?

If someone else boasting, what do I feel about that – is this to do with feeling a lack in myself?

What is the subject of the boast and what connection do I have with that?

To find out more see Talking As and Being the Person or Thing

Boat Ship

This probably depicts our journey through the seas of life and how we meet the rough and smooth experiences, as with example below. In many dreams boats and ships appear to depict a situation, environment or relationship the dreamer is in – as in the saying, ‘in the same boat’.

Because of the fact that once in the water it is difficult to leave the boat, the situation is often one that has certain bonds or commitments which may not be easy to leave or break away from – such as occurs in a close relationship or a work situation. The condition the boat depicts may relate to a physical one, such as a work opportunity, a place we live in, a relationship that, like any relationship, offers certain opportunities and restrictions – or it might be an attitude a feeling or a belief, such as pride or love, which places you in a certain connection with the world – i.e. ‘at sea’ or lost; in a stormy situation; in dry dock, etc. The boat can also be a place of safety amidst the storms of life. Thus attitudes or strengths enabling the dreamer to meet difficulties.

A boat is the thing that keeps you afloat in a different element than you are used to. As such it depicts the attitudes that enable you to have a clear boundary and certainty of who you are. It is your confidence and the threshold that separates your waking self from the massive and deep unconscious – the ocean of collective awareness. This is clear in the following example.

Example: Opened a paper at the comic strip. Began to read and become involved in the story. A small speed boat was at sea. But the sea dissolved anybody who fell in. One man fell in but held himself together as a blob of water and jumped back to the speedboat. I remember the words “The sea is a great solvent.” Anthony.

This dream pictures Anthony’s identity or ability to be an individual amidst the great ocean of life or consciousness. So the boat probably represents how he sees his body, as a thing separate from the rest of the world.

The various environments boats may be in show the condition or feelings surrounding the basic life situation the boat depicts. For instance being ‘at sea’ – depending upon calmness or rough seas – shows the dreamer being away from a familiar base or in difficult or uncertain times.

Example: I am in a large glass boat with my wife. The sea is very rough and I am afraid the boat will sink.’ Ron D.

The dream occurred a few weeks before a breakdown occurred in which the dreamer’s wife left him.

Example: I was inside a large boat, probably a tanker. There were a lot of passengers, but it appeared as if we were imprisoned in a huge room. It was very dingy and dismal. I am not sure though whether people realised they were prisoners. Maybe one only realised one was imprisoned if one tried to escape. Bob. A.

This boat obviously represents a situation Bob finds it difficult to get out of, and is only just realising he is trapped in. It also shows him involved with other people.

Example: I’m a young woman standing on a sea shore. I am waiting for my man. I hear the oars in the row locks of a boat, then it comes into view. A man comes to me, and puts his arms around me like he’s known me all my life. My man pauses, turns his head to a man still in the boat and says – Tell them this is it. Phillipa.

Here the boat holds the suggestion of being an event bringing Phillipa a love she has been waiting for.

Anchored boat: Security; stable relationship or situation; opposite of drifting.

Beached boat: Possibly suggests a situation in which you are ‘on dry land’ not subject to many changes or uncertainties. But it could also relate to a project, relationship or endeavour that cannot be got underway, or has got stuck in some way. However if you beach the boat and get out, then it shows the end of a journey, project or relationship.

Boat without oars: Ill equipped to deal with the situation you are in. A loss of motivation and being subject to external events to direct your life. So this might point to indecisiveness or lack of initiative.

Bows: One’s strength to meet life’s changes.

Canoe: Much like a small boat, but with overtones of nature, of being in the wild, of surviving. It is sometimes in testing surroundings or ones in which you feel the presence of nature, which can be wonderful or scary.

Disembarking: Leaving a phase of life, such as motherhood, marriage or a job. Ending a relationship or arriving at a new phase of life, a new possibility or great change.

Dock: A feeling of security when you have left an inner journey. Also because a dock is a permanent feature boats or ships can be moored to, it might indicate a safe ending to a relationship. A secure though public place to be. The end or beginning of a journey or a life change and the beginning of another phase of life.

If you are leaving the dock in a boat/ship, it suggests facing going out into the world and putting out something of oneself into the world through your relationships and life with people.

Dry dock: Necessary changes being made; circumstances not conducive to being actively involved in a project or relationship; delays. There might be a link with ill health here also.

Embarking alone: Independence or loneliness. Entering a new situation and perhaps unknown events or possibilities. Opportunity for new relationships.

Ferry boat: If across a river, end of a relationship; transition from one phase of life to another or one life situation to another; the emotional connections in a relationship. Sometimes links with death or the loss of someone.

Going on a cruise: Desiring relationship with others; or to be a part of other peoples life. Leaving ones everyday life behind.

Boat journey by night: Classic archetype of searching for one’s roots in life; the journey into ones unconscious experience. See: night sea journey under archetypes.

Keel: Basic personal strengths. The foundation of your personality or identity.

Leaving boat but leaving bag on it: Losing confidence or self value, such as might happen when children have gone or job ended.

Lots of small boats: Other peoples relationships.

Missing a boat: Missing opportunity; not grasping significance of events; not ‘making it’ in a relationship.

Motor boat: Similar to car but more sense of isolation or aloneness. The motor boat also shows the powerful feelings and drives which impel us into action, or give us a direction in life, as in the following example. For instance a strong anxiety can be a power, an engine, which motivates us to do or avoid certain things, such a taking risks, entering a relationship. So too can love, dependence, desire for wealth, loneliness, and the struggle to survive.

Person leaving the boat: A boat often represents a relationship, so leaving the boat or ship  suggests someone leaving what was a group or personal relationship,

Example: My wife, H and I were on a large and beautiful motor boat, about thirty feet long. We were speeding along a river about hundred yards wide. I didn’t seem to be steering with a wheel, but there was no problem. Instead of water the river appeared to be a thick slurry of some kind. We were passing through countryside and suddenly H dropped what I felt might be an important envelope overboard. It lay on the top of the river. I wanted to stop and retrieve it. Other boats were coming along some way behind and I wondered if one of them would go over it. There was a lever which was the accelerator. I pushed it right back and the boat slowly reduced speed, but we were a long way from the envelope/package. The further away we got the less important it seemed, although I had wondered if it contained documents important to where we were going – which I felt was to do with some sort of work or teaching an official or business group.

Suddenly H was on the right bank of the river. I am not sure why, but she had left the boat. I wasn’t sure how she could get back on board again as the river was now full of debris and weeds – tree stumps, metal poles, cans, really full – and the banks were shallow and difficult to approach. I found a place where I could pull in, and there were steps in the earthy or limestone type bank that had been worn in with use. I managed to stop the boat – I still couldn’t find controls to guide or stop the craft – by holding on to the bank, and H got on. I was very pleased and felt love and pleasure that she had got on again. I kissed her warmly. We pulled away from the bank, avoiding a big metal post and chain low in the water. I felt if we went slowly we could get through all the debris okay. Roy.

This dream occurred during a period of separation in the marriage and shows how Roy is not really guiding the boat. He is being impelled by drives he doesn’t have full control over. Parting and coming together again are clearly depicted in the dream.

Rowing a boat: Personal skill or effort to achieve a goal. Whether you are succeeding well or not shows how you are assessing your own efforts to reach goals or take a direction in life.

Rudder: Sureness about direction in life; ability to take a direction in life and maintain it against other influences.

Shared journey on boat or ship: A situation we are involved in with other people or person, such as marriage, business partnership, armed forces; this is the relation-ship, a shared journey in which you ‘are all in the same boat’.

Sinking ship/boat: Fear of relationship ending; difficult events or circumstances are occurring; could be children leaving mother, so the collective ‘boat journey’ has finished; also occasionally threat of illness or death.

Small Boat with one other person: One’s relationship with that person.

Idioms: Burn one’s boats; in the same boat; miss the boat; rock the boat; ships that pass; ship comes in; a tight ship; in a boat without a paddle. See: anchor; submarine.

Useful questions:

If I am not alone on this boat, what is the dream saying about my shared journey with the person or people I am with?

What is the situation depicted – storm, calm, etc – and how does that relate to my life?

Am I directing the boat or am I a passenger – and in what way am I alone or going along with somebody in life?

Bobcat Bobcats

Bobcats, like other wild animals that are adaptable and can live on the outskirts of human territory, are very ‘street wise’ or capable of surviving despite heavy human hunting.

So in your dream it can depict your survival instinct, and your ability to fight back with real cat zeal. It represents intelligence and patience. Like most cats it is not a pack animal and so is solitary in its habits – and also brings up it ‘kittens’ alone. Like human mothers, the cat within you can hunt, care and provide if its in your NATURE. See cats.

But also bobcats are often kept as domestic animals so they, like ordinary cats, are very adaptable, and so it depends on what you associate with a bobcat. See Animals – Working with associations

Body

People often fail to understand that when they enter someone’s house/home the enter in some ways their body or tamper with it.

I had an example of this, when a salesman entered my house. At one point he asked to use my toilet. After he did so he opened a window hoping to get with of any smell. He was surprised and so was I at how I went on at him to leaves my home alone. What he didn’t understand and so annoyed me was that the window he had opened I had already set at opened to let the air in, it was a sort in which you can lock the window – with a lot of effort – and he had undid the work I had put into it.

the message – Leave my house/home alone.

Sometimes we have a view of our body being without intelligence but working automatically like a machine. But in fact our body and feelings are closely connected and mutually influenced. Also our body shows intelligence but not in words but in the way it works, protects itself and communicates.

Example: But it was not my body as I had been taught to see it through my training as a nurse.  I did not experience it simply as a biological process, or a physiological machine.  I experienced it as an incredibly ancient thing, carrying or incorporating in its form and functions lessons of life gathered over millions of years of human and animal evolution.  I felt that it holds within its darkness – the presently unconscious areas developed and lived in the past – enormous amounts of information or memories.  We fail to be aware of these because our attention is so fixed on the world outside of us.  But of course, even there, if we look carefully, we can see we are the result, our culture and language are the result, of the events and lives stretching back into the ancient past.

Dr. Murphy and I – Dr. Cannon – observed with X rays a curious phenomena after the first part of the small intestine (the duodenum) had been cut across and sewed together again. Although peristaltic waves were passing routinely over the stomach, the sphincter at the outlet (the pyloric sphincter) held tight against them, and only after about five hours did it relax and permit the gastric contents to enter the injured gut. The interest here lies in the relation of the delay to the process of healing; according to surgical observation, about four hours are required after an intestinal suture for a plastic exudate to form and make a tight joint. It was after the proper time had elapsed for that process to come to completion, therefore, that the chyme from the stomach was allowed to advance. Similar results were obtained when the section and suture were made further along the alimentary canal.

Many people believe that their illnesses are caused by wear, bacteria or viruses, but dreams and their exploration sees other reasons. Here is a man’s view of what caused his prostate problem,

Example: Then I wondered what my mistake was that had caused my prostate condition. The response was that I already knew the answer to that, as I had explored it in connection with my own sexual misery throughout my lifetime. The mistake was in not accepting that love does not belong to us, and trying to control it in myself, my family, and those around me. 

There is so much information about dreams and the body it has been put into various sections as explained below. So the entry is broken down into segments as follows:

First comes general body descriptions and situations – which follows on below. This is in another section so needs to be clicked on.

Body Situations such as dead body, dismembered body etc.

Body – Parts of such as face and legs and. This is in another section so needs to be clicked on.

Also see Body DreamsBody Images

A body, or our body: 1 – Your body in your dreams refers to yourself, as in the word some-body. Although your body includes the totality of your experience, it seems to be most pointedly referring to your sense of identity and everything you can experience as an person. So it can depict all the states of mind, emotion and health you meet and deal with. From the sense and experience you have of yourself you project meaning onto the rest of the world in some degree. If you are depressed for instance, the whole world will appear meaningless and empty. If you are joyful everything transforms and appears to respond to you. See What do You bring to Your Dreams?

2 – Your dream body often depicts your present physical and psychological situation. It does this by such dramatic things as you having a broken leg, showing how you have hurt your ability to stand up for yourself; a dead body, suggesting you have killed or deadened some of your emotions or sexuality. Your dream body also illustrates your physical experience of life and the processes of life working in and through your own body. It shows your potentials of personality, such as artistry, love, etc., depending on how the body is portrayed; material existence; the process which causes growth and ageing. See Settings in Dreams also Brain Levels and Dreams

3 – Most of our ‘body’ dreams depict an aspect of what we experience as a person. For instance our body can feel emotions and so our dream body can depict our present state of feeling; through our body we can feel tired or energetic; we can experience pain or pleasure; there can be intense sexual feelings; we can feel attractive or repulsive, healthy or sick. So your body dream needs to looked at to see what of these many possibilities it is showing.

4 – If it is someone else’s body it usually represents an aspect of your own identity or experience as suggested above. But because you are seeing it as someone else it is probably an aspect of yourself you do not directly associate as yourself or are unaware of. The parts of the body emphasised in the dream will give a clue to what aspect of personality, or what function of oneself – such as speech, generosity, anger, one’s thoughts – the dream is dealing with. See Dreams are reflections of our inner world. Try Talking As to discover more about you or the different characters in your dreams.

5 – A body of the opposite sex depicts the non-dominant side of your personality. A woman in a man’s dream for instance might represent his feelings, his intuition, and his emotions and manner of relating to females. A man in a woman’s dream might suggest her thinking, her action in the world and her manner of relating to men. See: anima under archetypes; animus under archetypes; woman.

6 – Your body is an expression of your total history, not only of your personal life. It holds in it the countless generations and stages of history and evolution of which it is the latest outcrop. See Breakthrough to Memory

7 – Although some dreams about the body depict actual physical disease, mostly dreams show how our emotions or attitudes influence or distort the processes of our body. So the dream of a dead body doesn’t signify personal death, but usually shows how we may be killing parts of ourselves by actively repressing them or feeling frightened of them. See: recurring dreams.

 Example: I was being shown round a huge warehouse. In one of the rooms, there were my paintings. In the next room I was shown there was a girl being operated on. She was being revived by electric shock treatment. I remember feeling that it was creepy watching her body jerk and convulse as she was being brought back to life. Then I turned to look in a mirror and saw there was glue all over my face, I was tearing it off to get the layers off my skin. Then I started to tear at my skin. Caroline.

Caroline’s dream is full of references to the body. It occurred at a time she was breaking with a long time partner and shows the re-discovery of her artistic skill, the pain of coming to life again after the deadening effect of the relationship, and the change of self image she is undergoing.

 Example: ‘I felt as if I was going very deep inside myself. It was dark but at first there were noises of the world around me. I seemed to go in much deeper and it was very dark, but with the feeling of great space. Everything was alright until I didn’t hear any noise at all, all that space and no noise was too much and my whole body freaked out and then pulled out very fast before I could stop it.’ Kate P.

Kate’s dream suggests she has remained conscious while exploring usually unconscious depths of awareness in her body. It was a sign of remaining awake will getting nearer her core self; a wonderful thing to do, but many people are frightened. See Levels of AwarenessTwo Powers;

But the next dream is wonderfully clear, showing how a dream fashions around something happening in one’s body.

Example: T. and I are walking around Newport Beach, CA, looking at all the rich movie stars. My mother is apparently with us and we run into her coming out of a restaurant. She says, “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to go!” She is shaking and as I watch her, her eyes close and she seems to lose consciousness. I start to go to a telephone, yelling “Medical Emergency! Medical Emergency!” Then I wake up and have to go to the bathroom with diarrhoea. P.

Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking.  B.K.

See: Dreams are Virtual Realities; recurring dreams; Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

(Abdomen  Womans Dream – Shot in – Vomit)  (Abscess) (Ache – In Chest – Lower Back)  (Anus – Relaxed – Tense – Entered – Feces Holding) (Appendix – Operated on – Having had Appendicitus)  (Arms – Right – Left – Injury – Tied – Bicep) (Artery)

(Back – Carrying on back – Someone on Back)  (Beard) (Blood– Bleeding – From Crack – On Ground – On Clothes – Blood Sample –Sucked – Sexual – Dark Blood) (Bone – Burying – Backbone – Digging Up Bones)  (Bowel) (Brow or Forehead)  (Brain – No Brain –Something cut out)  (Breath-breathing)  (Breasts – Woman’s Dream – In Man’s Dream)  (Buttocks)

(Calf) (Chest – Man’s Dream – Healthy – Woman’s Dream)  (Chin) (Colon Bowel)

(Ears) (Eyes – Blindness – Loss Sight Right Eye – Loss Sight Left Eye – Loss of Eye Contact – Closed Eyes – Many Eyes – Hair in Eye)

(Face – Someone Elses Face – Blushing – Something Wrong with Face – Changing ones Face or Head – Hiding Ones Face – No Face)  (Feet – Barefoot – Loss of Foot or Feet)  (Forehead)

(Hair – Baldness – Beard – Brushing Hair – Changing Hair Style – Chest Hair – Colour of Hair – Combing Hair – Cutting off Beard –Cutting Hair Right Off – Dark Hair – Disheveled Hair – Fair Hair – Genital or Armpit Hair – Hair on chest of Female or Child – Long Matted – Long Hair – Plaited or Pony Tail – Pubic Hair – Tight Style – Very Long Beard – White beard – Wig – Woman’s Dreams Leg or Armpit Hair(Hand – Fingers – Claw Like Hands – Dirty Hands – Fingernails – Fist – Handshake – Palm of Hand – Rough Hands)  (Head Head Without a Body)  (Heart) (Hip)

(Internal Organs)

(Jaw)

(Legs – Having no Legs – One Leg Shorter than the other – Hand on Leg – Smooth or Hairy Legs – Trying to Run but Legs do not Respond)  (Lungs)

(Mouth – Pulling stuff out of Mouth – Chewing– Mouth Fixed Closed – Teeth Coming Out of Mouth)  (Muscles)

(Navel) (Neck – Back of Neck – Head Hanging off – Held by Back of Neck – Hung from Neck – Gripping Neck or Strangled – Thick Neck– Small or thin Neck)   (Nose – Broken Nose – Malformed Nose)

(Ovaries and Uterus)

(Paralysed or Paralysis)  (Pelvis – In a Woman’s  Dream)  (Penis – Replaced by a Vagina – Loss of Penis – Penis Turns into a Snake –Bleeding from Penis – In a Woman’s Dream)

(Rectum)

(Shoulders) (Skin – Animal Skin – Rough Skin – Burnt Skin – Seeing through Skin – Shed Skin – Spots Blemishes Moles – Something or Stuff on Skin – Things Escaping from Under Skin) –Spine – Stomach

(Teeth – Baby Tooth or Teeth – Bad Tooth – Big or Small Teeth – Canines – Clenched Teeth – Dirty Teeth – Dracula Type Teeth – Finding a Tooth – Having Teeth Attended to – No Teeth – Single Tooth – Spitting out lots of Teeth – Swallowing Teeth – Teeth Falling out –Crowns falling Out – Tooth Being Pulled Out – Toothless – Woman Swallowing Teeth – False Teeth)  (Testicles – Woman’s Dream –Man’s Dream)  (Tongue)

(Umbilical Cord)

(Vagina – In a Woman’s Dream – Bleeding Vagina – In a Man’s Dream – Bleeding Vagina in Man’s Dream)

(Womb)

In some cultures the areas of our body are sometimes thought of as sense organs. This may seem strange but is very simple. Without language, communication would be difficult. So language enables us to sense what another being is communicating. If we had been castrated or had a hysterectomy prior to adolescence, we would never develop sexually. Without that development we would not understand two people kissing; or what a mother was feeling when she held her baby. Out of sex drive develops a whole world of feelings and tenderness which enables us to understand many things we see in the world. It is therefore important when reading the particular descriptions below, to remember that each area of our body, through its psychological counterpart, gives us some insight into ourselves and life around us, that is missing if the area is injured or traumatised.

abdomen Almost half the dreams on file that mention abdomen, belly or stomach, show the dreamer being shot, as in the example below. This is obviously to do with a particular type of hurt. When human beings learned to stand up, they exposed their vulnerable underbelly. If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. The sort of hurt referred to is that related to when we might be deeply criticised, feel badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

The opposite is to dream of waves of pleasure moving within us, which gives us a sense of integration within ourselves and with the world.

The solar plexus also might link with the potential of our fully active natural drives such as hunger; longing to be held; desire to give of oneself. If these are hurt, we tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

The dream might point to ‘gut feelings’ or intuition; feeling reactions in a relationship. For instance in the English language we use such phrases as ‘you make me sick’ – ‘I can’t stomach what you’re doing’ – ‘you haven’t got the guts’ – ‘like being hit in the guts’ – ‘I’m really hungry for you’.

Our abdomen is also our digestive ability, both physically and psychologically. See

Stomach or abdominal dreams may refer to some dis-ease in the actual organs. We might not be able to stomach something we have met in the everyday world. We may not be integrating our experience.

In a woman’s dream: May refer to her childbearing ability or pregnancy.

Shot in the belly: something to do with sex, a painful response to relationship, or feeling a target of someone’s verbal or emotional attack.

To vomit: A discharging of unpleasant feelings resulting from ingesting, hearing, reading, being told, experiencing, something unpleasant.

 Example: ‘The people watching are saying ‘Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!’ Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside.’ Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it engendered.

Idioms: Belly aching; have a bellyful; eyes bigger than one’s belly; have a strong stomach; turn one’s stomach; butterflies in stomach.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening in this area in terms of my feeling responses to people and events?

What was the feeling involved?

Was there pain or swelling that might indicate emotional wounds?

Might it have something to do with ‘digesting’ new experiences in my life?

Is there a health or diet issue that is causing some concern?

 abscess or boil Abscess still swollen and unrelieved: Emotions still repressed and may be causing psychological infection – influencing views and decisions negatively. The dream abscess may also represent a site of physical illness which may or may not be obvious while awake. In the example below, the abscess has released its pus, or painful feelings, perhaps through Hilary’s prolonged crying. The emotions are, with Hilary, affecting her ‘grasp’. She also uses other imaged word play in ‘near the knuckle’. Washing up shows her clearing away the influence of her ‘evening meal’ of experience. See: individuation; body dreams.

 Example: ‘Was looking at my knuckle and saw that I had a nasty boil which had come away as I did the washing up and all that was left was a big hole, pink and healthy looking skin around. It felt very close to my knuckle bone. My lover had told me he was leaving me for good, and going back to his children. That evening, I cried most of the night.’ Hilary K. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is building up inside me that is difficult or painful?

Is there any indication of illness or discomfort in that area of my body – if so do I need to have it checked?

What does this build up of sick feelings or pain connect with?

ache Indicates where we may be holding back the energy relevant to that part of the body. A man who dreamt of an ache in his throat later discovered in therapy that he had been holding back emotions about his father who had died suddenly. On release he was able to say how much he loved his father. Look up part of body to see what the ache might relate to.

In Chest: Withheld emotions.

Lower back: Sexual energy blocked.

Idioms: My heart aches; I ache for it; a pain in the arse.

 Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache.

When asked, Debbie admitted that she had problems with a tooth at the back on the same side as the ear. This is why it is helpful to consider if there is a problem area near where the ache appears on the dream. Parts of our body are very interlinked.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of any longing or emotions I am holding on to?

Does this connect with any ache or discomfort while I am awake?

If I imagine myself in the dream, what feelings or intuitions arise about the ache? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

anus The area of our nervous system around the anus and genitals is highly sensitive in babyhood. So it may link with the self expression, the pleasure, and the feelings of deep connection the baby feels in this area. As it also links with the huge experience of learning self control, and how one’s parents dealt with you going to the toilet, so it can also connect with holding on or letting go; control or relaxation; pleasure or guilt. This in turn could involve feelings of success or failure. Therefore it associates with your WILL.

feeling punished and treated like a child, to feelings or arousal and sexual pleasure.

The anus also deals with what we get rid of that our body does not use. So it can link with the experiences or the attitudes that we want to or need to get rid of. These are the waste products of our life.

If relaxed: Easy self expression.

If tense: Not letting go of feelings you might be judging as ‘shitty’; feelings to do with being hurt or holding back. The holding back might link with sexual pleasure or performance.

If playing with or being entered by penis or finger: Introverted sexuality; self pleasure; narcissism. Perhaps self examination.

Excrement: The negative emotions and ideas we might not want to let go of; sometimes money; worry over something judged unclean; a cleansing or need for cleansing of inner feelings, such as guilt, inhibitions, resentments, hate, worry, or fear.

Holding or letting go: How we give of ourselves; whether we can ‘let go’; our generosity or lack of it.

Idioms: Talking out of arse; pain in the arse; an arsehole; head up the arse; disappears up; all tits and arsehole – no ability to reason. See: excrement.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this in any way relate to childhood feelings, and if so what are they?

Is there any connection with sexual pleasure in the dream?

Is anything emerging from the anus, and if so what does it suggest I am discharging?

back Back Pain: This can be caused by tension, and this is turn could be about holding yourself back through anxiety. See back pain and its cure.

 Back – trunk spine: Mostly the back indicates your strength, particularly moral fibre; confidence physically; decisiveness, ability to stand in face of opposition; power to endure without being overcome. A psychiatrist once told me that many men in a tramps home were diagnosed C.W.B. It meant ‘congenitally without backbone’. That is, They hadn’t developed the strength to deal with everyday life. See Spine

Example: ‘I was looking across a hedge at a bull. I seemed to be just looking at its back.’ Andy.

Andy was a teenager, uncertain of himself. In this dream he was looking at and discovering his strength. This was a revelatory dream for him because he suffered a great deal of anxiety in the past because of an old back injury. He had in fact left a higher  paid job and taken a much lower paid work because he felt he couldn’t cope. From working on the dream he felt, he was adequate as a person. So the dream was a turning point after which his ability to explore and be active outwardly was hugely enhanced.

So the back can also indicate what you are holding back in yourself, or even what is happening to you ‘behind your back’. Holding back in this way can create real back problems because it causes tension in the back – causing pain – causing worries about the back – causing tension – and so on.

The different strata of the back may also indicate different aspects of yourself. The lower back for instance suggests the earliest stages of your development such as life in the womb and birth; but also the earliest levels of experience such as sensuality and sexuality.

The back at about waist height links with your process of growth and digestion of experience, along with sympathetic links you have with others and the world.

The back connecting with the chest indicates your emotional and feeling development and the way you connect with the world through empathy – especially what you take in and put out of yourself.

The neck connects with your ability to express yourself and communicate with others, along with such things as asking for your needs and speaking your inner truth.

Carrying something on your back: The influences and burdens you carry from your past. This can be useful or difficult depending upon what you carry. This also suggest your karma, or the results you face in the present of all past events and actions – cause and effect. See: dweller on the threshold.

Sitting on the back of an animal: Being supported by your inner and instinctive strength, wisdom and animal self. See: animals.

Somebody on one’s back: Feeling dominated by someone else; feeling the ‘weight’ of one’s parent’s, or someone else’s wants and decisions instead of your own. Carrying an influence from the past.

Idioms: Back breaking; back to the wall – See the example in nightmare, and note the use of the words ‘back against the wall and what it implies; behind one’s back; flat on ones back; get off my back; put somebody’s back up; rod for one’s back; pat on the back; stab in the back; turn one’s back on; scratch my back.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this indicating strength. If so what strength does it help me become aware of?

Is this an injury or weakness – if so what vulnerability or weakness does it help me become aware of?

What does the theme of the dream tell me about myself? See: themesProcessing Dreams.

How your body or other people’s body appears in a dream gives a lot of information. Most of this can be taken literally.

From how our body looks people tend to identify themselves with it, women more so than men. In fact in our early years we tend to build our sense of identity from our looks, health and how others react to us. Also our feelings about how attract we are sexually are also used a great deal. But as far as dreams are concerned they have a much wider view than our physical looks and our sexual charm. See Identity and Sex; Identity And Dreams; What we Need to Remember About Us.

So take time to consider if you are confident, happy, purposive in your dream. All these are scene setting for the rest of the dream. If you are tired and untidy in the dream, or your body is looking ill, then these factors represent the state of mind and perhaps even of health you are in or feel yourself to be in at the time of the dream. Also realise that dreams are dealing with a mirror image of your inner feelings about you and also the big global picture of you. These may shown in such dreams as:

 Example: I have this recurring nightmare. I see my mother standing by my bedroom door, blocking it as if I am being trapped and stopped from getting out. I often call to her, “Let me out Mum” but she just stands there staring with no expression on her face at all. I end up getting out of bed and switching my bedroom light on and then she disappears. Sometimes I will see her standing by my wardrobe. It seems as if she is always standing by a door and trying to trap me.

The dream shows Natalie trying to find a way out of her dependence on her mother. Therefore it is a reflection of what she feels and does not admit to herself.

Our identity as it is shown in many dreams is not a formed thing like our body. In its essence it is not even male or female, but both. Summarising such dreams, it is the sense of bodilessness, aloneness, loss of power and los of our sense of identity, which bring so much fear in our dreams. There are antipodes of human experience. At the tip of one is focused, self determining self awareness. At the tip of the other is unfocused void without focussed identity which occurs in sleep. Strangely enough we experience both each day in some degree. The first while awake – the second when we sleep. Yet to face the second with consciousness feels like all the horrors of death and loss. But facing it is important, especially in the second half of life. Although the unconscious carries the dark images we have of death, it also provides what feels like certainty about an existence which transcends death to those who experience it. This is presented as an awareness of existing eternally as part of the very fabric of life. In one form or another this is what those who dare to confront the dark images of death find beyond them.

Smiling: Would be referring to confidence and happiness.

FrowningSuggests anxiety or concern about something.

Baby head on old body: Immature personality; one’s decisions are being influenced by childhood feelings and drives. See: baby.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of how young my attitudes and perhaps feelings are?

Can I see signs, even if only at the moment, of how parts of me have not matured?

Have parts of me been frozen or held back in life experience, thus not enabling them, to grow and mature – if so what held me back and how can I help those facets grow?

See The Two Powers and Acting on your dream

 Body electric shock This suggests emotional pain such as one might get on hearing ‘shocking news’ or perhaps a painful way of experiencing change. It can also depict any sort of shock or startling response to internal or external events, and may also be a dramatic way of symbolising the pain one feels physically from repressed emotions such as anger or desire. These may cause such psychosomatic but real suffering as lower back or chest pain.

The electrocution could also be a response to something happening to the body while asleep, such as lack of circulation in a limb causing pins and needles. In some dreams though it is clear to see it as the response we have to our own enormous energy – i.e. we may be frightened of the enormity of our potential energy, or we may be related to in a painful way. Such energy can of course be creative or destructive, as happens with negative emotional energy when the different physical effects of joy or grief and hatred are looked at.

Some electrocution dreams deal with the way we experience and relate to energy. The following example clearly illustrates this.

 Example: I was kneeling on the floor in a house. I have worked as an electrician so was probably working in the house, but in some way I had hold of, or was connected with, a large electric cable. The cable was live with electricity, and it touched my right shoulder. The effect was excruciating and shocking pain. The most intense memory is of struggling to pull the cable away from myself, fighting to stay conscious against the terrible current lashing through me. I screamed out for my mother, who I was sure was in the building somewhere, to switch off the electricity. I knew I only had a little time because I could not survive that current long. I have a vague sense that the current stopped, then the current and struggle started again. T.B.

In exploring his dream T.B. first of all met feelings of great pleasure and strength about his ability to work, and that work and helping people with practical needs was the main way he shared love, the main way he expressed his energy. He says, “So the dream is not simply saying I am working, but that work, as an expression of myself, connects me with others and the world. In other words, this is an important part of my communication, socialising, and loving others.”

He goes on to say, “The electricity is the energy of my life. It is the energy of my emotions, of my connection with others. This had been, as it were, short-circuited by what I felt to be the criticism, the rejection, non understanding of my last two female partners. I felt that I had tried and tried, while preserving my own integrity, to live in the way they wanted me to. But this felt as if it was an enormous self-denial at times. It was a self-denial that created this almost death dealing introversion of energy. The anger I felt about this had in it the sense that there might even be an inherent attempt to kill out my manhood, my flow of positive male energy. That is how I felt, anyway. As I summarised this I felt I could stand up and smile, and say I’m not going to be killed.” See: example under blindness in dreamsenergy sex dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sudden shock have I experienced recently?

Am I aware of the enormous potential energy I have?

Is the dream depicting the way my energy is expressing or being held back – and is this creative or self destructive?

appendix Something within yourself that may become a problem; an internal problem; possibly referring to the appendix itself.

Having appendix out: Inner pain or problem needing attention or being attended to.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I vaguely aware of that might be a grumbling problem needing attention?

Do I have actual discomfort in the area of my appendix – lower right abdomen – if so maybe I should have a check?

What do I need to remove from my attitudes or from my past experience?

arms Arms usually refer to your ability to love, give, take, create, defend, reach out. Our arms, especially the arm we use most, can also represent all the struggle and effort we have put into life, what we have given and taken, what skills we have learned or created in the work and labour of life.

Right arm: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do.

Left arm: The left arm is those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm – our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represent confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish.

Injury to: Loss of confidence or ability to reach out or create; loss of or psychological trauma regarding those abilities. Left is the supportive feelings. Right is extroverted activity.

Tied up: Sense of restriction to activities.

Bicep: Strength; sense of being capable.

Idioms: Chance one’s arm; give one’s right arm; arm twisting; keep at arms length; with open arms; one arm tied behind back, babe in arms; strong arm tactics. See: left and right;Example under white.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

If my arm is injured, what in my life am lacking or I feeling inadequate in?

What am I doing with my arm(s) and how does that link with waking life?

If this is a positive dream, what of myself is it bringing my attention to?

artery The flow of life giving process in you. It could indicate what you are seeing or realising about the process of life and how it upholds your existence without you being aware of it.

An artery also can indicate vulnerability, because if it is injured you may die. So the dream might be pointing to such a vulnerability that could lead to your feeling hopeless and without purpose.

If the artery is bleeding it suggests a situation that needs urgent attention. This is not usually physical, but about emotional traumas that drain your motivation, joy of life and sense of purpose.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I aware of that is life giving and how can I care for it?

If my dream shows injury, what in me depletes my energy to live and thrive?

What in waking life brings these feelings that I meet in the dream?

back Mostly the back indicates your strength, particularly moral fibre; confidence physically; decisiveness, ability to stand in face of opposition; power to endure without being overcome. A psychiatrist once told me that many men in a tramps home were diagnosed C.W.B. It meant ‘congenitally without backbone’. That is, lacking the inner strength to deal with everyday life.

 Example: ‘I was looking across a hedge at a bull. I seemed to be just looking at its back.’ Andy.

Andy was a teenager, uncertain of himself. In this dream he was looking at and discovering his strength. This was a revelatory dream for him because he suffered a great deal of anxiety and from this felt he was inadequate as a person. So the dream was a turning point after which his ability to explore and be active outwardly was hugely enhanced.

So the back can also indicate what you are holding back in yourself, or even what is happening to you ‘behind your back’.

The different strata of the back may also indicate different aspects of yourself. The lower back for instance suggests the earliest stages of your development such as life in the womb and birth; but also the earliest levels of experience such as sensuality and sexuality.

The back at about waist height links with your process of growth and digestion of experience, along with sympathetic links you have with others and the world.

The back connecting with the chest indicates your emotional and feeling development and the way you connect with the world through empathy – especially what you take in and put out of yourself.

The neck connects with your ability to express yourself and communicate with other, along with such things as asking for your needs and speaking your inner truth.

Carrying something on your back: The influences and burdens you carry from your past. This can be useful or difficult depending upon what you carry. This also suggest your karma, or the results you face in the present of all past events and actions – cause and effect. See: dweller on the threshold.

Sitting on the back of an animal: Being supported by your inner and instinctive strength, wisdom and animal self. See: animals.

Somebody on one’s back: Feeling dominated by someone else; feeling the ‘weight’ of one’s parent’s, or someone else’s wants and decisions instead of your own. Carrying an influence from the past. 

Idioms: Back breaking; back to the wall – See the example in nightmare, and note the use of the words ‘back against the wall and what it implies; behind one’s back; flat on one’s back; get off my back; put somebody’s back up; rod for one’s back; pat on the back; stab in the back; turn one’s back on; scratch my back. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this indicating strength. If so what strength does it help me become aware of?

Is this an injury or weakness – if so what vulnerability or weakness does it help me become aware of?

What does the theme of the dream tell me about myself? See: themes.

beard See: hair below.

blood Very often it links with a feeling of being hurt or injured and of losing energy or the strength that enlivens you. But blood can represent pain, but also passions, deep feelings. It can refer to things that are deeply felt. We have passionate involvement with things. There are certain things that enter into us and cut us deeply. In some relationships we are opened up and we bleed even if the relationship is largely joyful, there still may be deeply felt and painful feelings in it.

Blood can also mean fertility as when it is connected with menstruation. It can be a painful cleansing and difficult period of releasing the old. The old dies away and leaves space for the new to grow.

In a more general sense blood can indicate one’s energy and sense of existence. In common language we link it with our family through feelings of connection or bonding, inherited tendencies – what we now call genes. It therefore includes inherited strengths and weaknesses of character. We say of such things – its in my blood.

Blood is often used as a symbol of universal life or power in one’s life, therefore connection with humanity. Through this it depicts the universal pain or struggle met in human life, along with the possibility of injury and death. In ancient times blood was used as the first ritual sacrament. Later this was symbolised by wine or red ochre. It was noticed that at times of great change, such as birth or death, blood often preceded the change. Blood was seen as the carrier of the spirit of life and character that lived in a person or animal. If we think of what genes now are known to carry, the untold generations of human life, with all its pain, tragedy and wonder, then blood was seen as carrying this collective human experience.

Blood is sometimes felt as a link with the unconscious forces and sub-personalities within. It is a doorway to the subtle world of the unconscious. This connection is perhaps obvious in that for thousands of years, the blood was seen as the substance that carried in it the mystery of inheritance of physical and psychological features. What we now call genes was represented by the blood, and this is still true in some dreams. The blood in a dream can be the doorway through which you touch your racial and family past. The blood brings to life within you the past lives of those who gave you your body. In quite a real sense they live within you as a great group of people, or influences that need to be integrated for you to become a true individual.

When we see blood on the earth or on someone’s clothes, it suggests great injury or death. Blood on the earth therefore marked the spot of either a great battle, a death or a deep wounding. As such it was a marker, a memorial or sign of the act. So this aspect of blood in our dreams must be remembered.

In cultures such as the Macedonian, where symbols were often thought of in terms of good or bad luck, light blood represented good news, dark blood bad news.

For women there is obviously a strong link between bleeding and menstruation. Therefore in women’s dreams involving blood, the blood may depict whatever feelings, pleasure, difficulties are associated with menstruation and the power of female fertility for the dreamer. But you need to look to the theme and drama of the dream to see if this is a correct connection.

Bleeding: Most often relates to emotional or psychological hurt, but can also depict physical injury, or presentiment of it. Emotional hurt could mean hurtful remarks, for instance being told we are not loved – these can sap our motive to live and may be depicted as blood. The bleeding might show a psychological injury, often from past trauma, which is causing you to lose energy or motivation.

Sometimes, as mentioned above, the blood can be a sacrament. As such it is not shown as emerging from an injury or wound but as nourishment, wine or bloody meat.

Blood flowing from a crack: Possibly menstruation or loss of virginity.

Blood on the ground: Someone hurt or dead.

Bloody clothes: Personal emotional hurt or injury, perhaps even death of someone.

Blood Sample: This can represent many things depending upon the rest of the dream. It could suggest and illness, a way of tracing your identity with DNA, or it could be a drug test.

Blood sucked from you or sucking from another: Feeling that you are losing your very life force to someone, or taking energy and life from someone else. Sometimes sex is felt as this. The umbilical connection in the womb is sometimes felt as the life giving connection that if cut off prematurely, is such a loss that expenditure of energy in sex may be felt as vampirism.

In sexual dreams: May refer to loss of virginity, menstruation or fertility; or hurt to sexual drive.

See blood under archetypes.

Idioms: After one’s blood; bleeding heart; bleed someone white; blood boil/run cold; blood brother; blood is thicker than water; blood letting; blood money; blood on one’s hands; blood out of a stone; blood relative; blood sucker; blue blood; cold/hot blood; draw blood; fresh blood; in the blood; in my blood; one’s heart bleeds; out for blood; sweat blood; taste blood; young blood.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of my body – or the body – is the blood coming from, and what does that suggest about any hurt I may be suffering? (Look up part of body).

What is my relationship with the blood in terms of what I feel, my interaction or how I deal with it?

What can I understand from the theme and drama of the dream in terms of my life giving processes? See: theme; drama.

bone We may associate several things with a bone, strength for instance. So a broken bone can be a loss of strength and ability. Also something giving structure and support. So a broken bone could suggest that one’s arm – your ability to reach out, to act on and make real your desires and ideas – has been injured or a functional difficulty has arisen.

We often associate bone’s or a skeleton with death. So bone’s can be the remaining material sign of a life, as with archaeology. The bone dug up can be a source of information or memory.

Conversely, our bone’s are a part of us that have the possibility of lasting way into the future, and being a witness to our life. So could represent what will live on after your death.

Burying a bone: Hiding something from someone or from yourself, especially if guilt is felt in connection with the hiding. It might also suggest storing something for the future.

Digging up bone’s: Remembering something from the long past. Looking at the memory of something you repressed in the past.

Backbone: Strength; moral power; support.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is my bone, what is being said about my strength or supportive system?

If this is someone else’s bone what am I seeing or feeling about it that I can gain information from?

What do I feel if I imagine myself as the bone and describe myself as it? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

bowel Links mostly with how you deal with the waste products of your experience and in your body; with what your being rejects as no longer useful. For some people it connects with squeamish feelings about their internal organs and being unclean. Also, if you have had connections with bowel illness it might well point to worries about that.

Some dreams show concerns about what you have taken in that might be ‘rotten’ – and such things can relate to ideas and motivations that do not harmonise with who you are.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I in any way worried about my digestive system – if so what is the worry, and do I need to have a check?

Am I dealing with difficulties to do with a need to discharge parts of what I have experienced – i.e. do some experiences still remain undigested or are bringing emotional discomfort?

Am I holding myself back in some way? See: toilet.

brow or forehead: This usually refers to thoughts, especially clear and insightful realisations. In some dreams there is a mark or even a swelling in the middle of the brow. This indicates the ability to be aware of things beyond the limitations of your senses. It suggests that the instinctive urges or energies have been lifted up into a new form of expression or perception. This sometimes occurs through loving feelings or meditations that are not focussed on desiring physical things.

 Example: I recently took three antidepressant pills over 6 days. During this time I had dreams that my brain was being snipped with scissors. I also developed a large pimple between my eyes – the region of the third eye or crown chakra. And…my friend in Singapore developed a searing headache between her eyes (again the crown chakra) just after I took the third pill. When she called me to tell me about it, her headache automatically went away.

All of this suggests to me that antidepressants cut off our third eye connection to our higher self or whatever spiritual connection exists.  Jan

Useful Questions and Hints:

If there is a mark or words on my forehead, what is suggested, or what do I feel about this?

Am I gaining new insights about something – if so what?

Have I had some new form of perception lately – if so how would I describe or define this?

brain This can suggest intellect, thinking, insight, creativity or what someone really thinks. But there are many other possibilities.

Often we feel that our real self is somewhere inside our head in the brain, so the dream might be referring to your sense of existing. Also we use the word brain or brains to mean cleverness or the lack of it, and some dreams use just this type of imagery.

The brain is made up of billions of cells, and sometimes dreams use this to illustrate how we interact with some events – all our cells, or an auditorium full of people – interacting with the event.

No Brain: Loss of personal awareness or having no self awareness – maybe brainless, not using your brain.

Something being cut out of brain: Loss of some function or sensitivity. If you are taking anti depressants or some other drug it may be due to the drug’s action. This is because some drugs suppress certain brain functions.

Idioms: Brainstorm; brainchild; pick someone’s brains; hare brained; scatter brained; no brainer.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the suggestion about the brain – is it growing, sick, bits missing – and what does that suggest about me?

Am I giving a self assessment in this dream, and if so what is it?

Is there something that woke my interest and involved lots of my attention?

breath See: breath.

breasts Self giving, nourishment or the wonderful bonding and connection that arise from motherhood or sex.

In woman’s dream In quite a number of women’s dreams the breasts appear in a health sense, connected with the anxiety about breast cancer. To dream of that does not mean you have cancer, only that you are anxious.

The breasts also link with how positive you feel about your own womanhood and ability to feel proud and easy with your sexual as well as intellectual functions. So in some women’s dreams the breasts are exposed to say, “See, look, I am a real woman.”

Of course the breasts also are used in dreams where the desire, lust or love feelings link you with a man. But such a link is not necessarily to do with an external male. They also indicate how well or badly you are relating to your own wholeness.

The size or development of the breasts in a woman’s dream are often used as a self assessment regarding how fully you have emerged from childhood.

Quite a number of dreams are also about breast feeding, and this usually indicates how easily you can give of yourself. At times it can be about past experiences of feeding and any difficulties encountered.

Kate in the example gives of herself even though frightened, and feels whole – the circle.

Example: ‘I was about to lie down naked near my grandmother as I was caring for her, when she started to suckle my breast. For a short time I was very frightened that she would hurt me or even suck my breast right off, but she didn’t and it felt very good as I fed her. It felt as if we were one, our bodies forming a circle.’ Kate.

This next example shows how the breasts are a measure of emerging womanhood, especially when young. Lin was near to being anorexic.

 Example: I’ve been meaning to tell you about a dream I had when I was so sick. Truly weird. I sort of woke up and rubbed my chest. It was so bony, and I thought in that instant I have the chest of a guy. I then fell back asleep and dreamt I was a boy! Needless to say, after that dream, I began my campaign of making myself eat! Lin.

Woman’s breast in a man’s dream: In some measure this is usually about a return to infant dependence, or childhood pleasure and wonder of accepting a woman’s love and comfort. Even when this is directly sexual, it still links in some way with how well or badly you were bonded with your mother, and what traits you carry from that.

In some men’s dreams the breast are a confrontation with what is felt as the woman’s power in your life. If you feel emotional pain or fear when you get close to a woman emotionally, that is the power you feel she has. Or is when you become intimate with a woman you feel enormous dependence and pain if you feel you are losing her, then that is the power of the woman in you. In other words each man carries deep imprints of his maternal relationship, whether for ill or good, and that acts as a powerful force in his life influencing the way he relates to females. The breasts in dreams can indicate this.

The following example shows Grant, the dreamer, meeting his ability to unite with his inner ‘woman power’ and to recognise this as an aspect of himself.

 Example: Two night ago I had a fascinating dream that left me feeling more at peace with myself, and more hopeful of a real sense of growth than for a long time. The dream was one of those that seemed to go on and on. In one section of the dream I was with a number of women in what felt like a classroom or semi public building. I felt completely at ease with the women and the marked feature was that I had easy and relaxed intimacy with any of them. With one of them for instance I was gently stroking her breast, which was very cone shaped and nice to hold. Even as I dreamt this part of the dream I had quite a high level of lucidity. Enough to realise that I was experiencing the ability to claim any of the female aspects of myself.

This then also occurred with males. In this section of the dream though I actually became any of the males who appeared in the dream. Again I was lucid enough to realise how I was able to accept any aspect of myself and identify with it easily, and how wonderful this was. There was another section of the dream which is difficult to remember. I believe it was more general in that I was realising some of the pleasure or wonder of being able to accept life – myself – so fully. Grant.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings about breasts in this dream?

Are the breast(s) linked with feelings that I am usually repressing or accepting?

Am I at ease in this dream – if not what is it that prevents this?

buttocks The buttocks have many possible associations. Sometimes it connects with feelings about uncleanness or dirt. Also, like any orifice of the body it is a vulnerable place and so might link with feelings about being entered or abused.

This area, because it is so linked with the anus/rectum is also connected with how we control our spontaneous urges – going to the toilet. It therefore might indicate self control or lack of it.

Due to early training in controlling bladder and faeces there may be feelings about being naughty or doing wrong with this area.

Punishment is often associated with the buttocks too.

For men a woman’s buttocks are often sexually attractive, and so some dreams use this to link with sexual feelings. See: anus; rectum under body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings do I experience in the dream that gives me a clue to what I associate with the buttocks?

Is there any sense of uncleanness in my dream, and is so where does that emerge from?

Am I feeling sexual feelings here, and what does the rest of the dream comment on that?

Calf  This represents your physical ability to get about in the world. Or the ability to do the many things your calves enables you to do, such as dancing, stand on tiptoe, and also be nimble on your feet. See: legs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening in my dream that related to my calf?

If it was injured how did the injury happen?

Was there a because factor involved? See Because Factor

Also try Acting on your dream.

chest This is often used in a way similar to a wooden chest – in other words a place to store emotions. So the chest signifies your emotions as a whole, but also how you are relating to them. Many dreams either include being shot in the chest or a weight on the chest holding the person down – maybe someone standing on the chest. Being shot indicates an emotional shock or hurt that, depending on the dream, can be very painful or needing attention.

The weight on the chest shows how feelings, emotions are so heavy they are holding you back from being easily active and outgoing.

Some dreams show things going into of being pulled out of the chest, and these indicate either influences enter your feelings and changing how you feel about things, or stuff that you have held within, old emotions perhaps, being drawn out.

The chest is a reasonably protected area because of the ribs, so in some dreams it indicates one’s strength, defensiveness, or the ways you protect your ‘heart’ – your sensitive core of feelings. But it can also be used as an image of your pride or your positive and life giving feelings. The chest, with its inflow and outflow of air also shows your connection with others and the world through empathy, through your feeling links.

 Example: The heart pain – a pain right through my chest from front to back, or a general ache and pain in the chest – I have been suffering for some months now, I feel is tied up with this business of ‘opening up’ to my feelings.

Example: Feeling tired – exhausted – just lying drained of energy. I am conscious of people talking, saying I was ill. I thought I was just tired. Then asked what the matter was. I was told it was my heart, ‘dry and hard like a boiled egg’ they said. Found I couldn’t talk. Tried to write, wanted A. to know that I loved him, but the pen kept drying up. Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was haemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L

Often people go through a death and rebirth experience, as in the above dream. It is often a necessary thing as our old self, full of habits, emotions, thoughts and attitudes that were causing so much distress needed to be got rid of, so that a new self could emerge.

Man’s dream: Sense of social confidence and strength to meet the world.

If healthy: Positive sense of social recognition.

 Woman’s dream: Ability to give of yourself; feelings about womanhood. See: breath.

Idioms: Get it off my chest.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream indicating that I have been hurt – if so what has hurt my feelings recently?

Does the chest show me being proud and strong, or does it have signs of weakness – if so what are they?

Is this about the way I link with others – if so what am I realising?

Am I anxious about the health of my heart?

Am I showing some sort of defensiveness?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation and meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream

chin This can be used in your dreams to show your strength of character and such things as determination and ability to face difficulties. But often such dreams are self assessments arising at the time. The example below for instance shows the dreamer taking an analytical look at himself and assessing his strengths and weaknesses.

 Example: I look in the mirror and see I have a large face with weak chin. Then I see that my face is huge, with a huge neck, and in all, reflected great underlying strength, and this was the “image” people would see of me. This is my mission, to share that strength.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What weakness or strength is my dream showing, and how can I usefully use those insights?

Is this me feeling anxious, or is this a useful insight?

What can I do with the traits I see in myself?

colon See: bowel above.

ears Dreaming of ears suggests awareness of subtle information, rumours or intuition. Because we do not have to see what we can hear, the dream ear can depict information we have gathered without seeing it – in other words intuition. That is, impressions of things that are not obvious. This particularly refers to the ears of animals.

Ears also refer to your ability to know what is going on around you out of sight, but particularly your skill in listening to what others are telling you. This might be literally about what they are saying in words, but also about what they suggest by who they are and how they are.

Ears can also suggest private things whispered to you, as in the example. But they can also be an erotic area when kissed or nibbled.

 Example: James Mason and I are in the back seat of a car. I’m like Lolita. He’s very sexually attracted to me and tells me to change my clothes. He kisses me and pinches my left nipple. I’m sexually excited. I say, “But people can see.” An older woman is standing outside the car. He insists. I put on a pretty, brief pleated skirt with see-through lace seams and a turquoise velour top. He leans back in the car and says in a whisper in my ear, “Take off your panties.” I feel sexually excited. I do so. I get out of the car, noticing I can see flashes of my legs through the lace. He is possessive and demanding and I love it.

A dream might also at times indicate ear infection, as the following example.

 Example: Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.

When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, and one should check out one’s health in the area.

Ear rings: They can often refer to the quality or othersie of your hearing/intuition.

 Example: In my dream I found a pair of earrings on the floor, found one first and then spotted the other.  I picked them up and had a good look at them.. they were shaped like strawberries and sparkled.. as if made of some kind of jewel.  I popped them into a box labelled “lost & found” up on a shelf knowing they would be claimed.

The dreamer gave an interpretation – My own thoughts on this is something I had lost, connected to my own inner hearing, that which enabled me to listen to my own intuition/Spirit. Berries being that they nourish ourselves from within so I have once again found something that will nourish my being on a deep level. DD

Idioms: An ear for; all ears; bend your ear; blow it out your ear; can’t believe my ears; cauliflower ear; coming out of our ears; cute as a bugs ear; ear candy; ear to the ground; pin back my ears; in one ear and out the other; play it by ear; reach one’s ears; flea/bug in the ear; gain the ear of; ears burning; long ears; lend an ear; music to my ears; having an earful; hear from; up to my ears; will not hear of; hearing things; silk purse out of sow’s ears; up to my ears; wet behind the ears.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am failing to hear something, what does the dream suggest it is about?

What am I hearing and what can I gather from that?

If I am picking up intuitions of things ‘out of sight’ what do they tall me?

Try reading Using Your Intuition and Being the Person or Thing

eyes This is a bout How we SEE the world and ourselves. Although eyes are not mentioned much in the collection of dreams used for data in this book, SAW, SEE, SEEING, LOOK and LOOKING, constitute the highest number of mentions. In a computer word count of 1000 dreams, these words were mentioned 1077 times. Feel, feeling, felt, came second with 855 hits. So dreams are predominantly a looking at and seeing activity, in the sense of insight and awareness.

Fundamentally eyes are about awareness – seeing and being seen. These aspects of relating to the world and others have enormous impact in our life. What we see, and how we are seen, leave great depths of feeling. Someone I know of saw his mother kill his father. That sight will never ever leave him.

In many dreams the eyes represent our understanding, or how we ‘see’ the world, our view of things or other people. This is very personal. Also, they depict intelligence; our ability to give attention, and where we focus that attention, along with our boundaries of awareness.

Eyes are used in many ways in dreams. As these quotes from people’s dream descriptions show, eyes can represent the soul or psyche in its many moods – ‘dark deep eyes’; ‘desperation in its eyes’; ‘shining eyes’; ‘impersonal eyes’; ‘staring eyes’; ‘eye to eye’. So in most dreams the eyes display the inner feelings or situation of the person or yourself.

Here is another description of eyes that tells so much.

She looked at me quickly. Her eyes were very brown, but quite round. “I was very much in love with somebody, ” she said. Her eyes were wide open looking at me, and her mouth was trying to carry on speaking, but the weight of emotion behind what she wanted to say carried the words to her eyes, where they began to come out as tears.

Blindness: Not being aware, not wanting to see something – usually about oneself.

Loss of sight in right eye: Not seeing what is going on in the outside world.

Loss of sight in left eye: Not seeing what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives, behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

Lack of eye contact: Avoidance of intimacy; feeling ashamed or bowed.

Closed eyes: Introversion or avoidance of contact; not wanting to see.

The following example shows how eye contact can change a relationship, as if the eyes are in themselves a form of contact and touching.

 Example: ‘ I saw a young soldier with a gun, but as our eyes met we were attracted to each other, and he put his arm round me.’ Pauline B.

Example: ‘I was dimly aware of a biggish black bird that came down close beside us on the step and pecked at the baby’s eye, then it flew off. The eye was gone completely.’ Heather C.

Heather’s dream shows the eye depicting the ‘I’ or identity. In fact her sense of self was damaged in infancy. Therefore ‘eye’ can often be a play on words meaning ‘I’.

Many eyes: *** 

Idioms: All eyes; an eye for an eye; apple of his eye; bat an eye; beauty in the eye of; believe my eyes; black eye; bright eyed; catch your eye; can’t you see; cry your eyes out; eyeball this; eagle eyed; evil eye; eye of the storm; eye opener; eyes glazed over; eyes peeled; evil eye; feast your eyes on; fresh pair of eyes; give her the eye; got my eye on; I see; I saw it with my own eyes; sheep eyes; keep an eye open; keep an eye out for; lay eyes on; one in the eye; meet eye to eye; more than meets the eye; out of the corner of my eye; turn a blind eye; keep your eyes open; easy on the eyes; right before my eyes; turn a blind eye; sight for sore eyes; wink of an eye; you must be blind; your mind’s eye.

Hair in eye: This suggests some sort of irritant or irritation connected with what you can see or have seen. If it is the right eye it means something interfering with what is going on in the outside world. If the left eye it is an interference with what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives or behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am ‘seeing’ or understanding in my dream – can I define it?

In what way are eyes shown in this dream, and what idiom or life situation does that suggest?

What feelings or unspoken words are being expressed here?

face How your face appears in a dream points to how you see yourself, your self image, the fears or feelings, even anxieties you have about how you appear to others and yourself. It can also show the expression of or hiding of inner feelings and attitudes. If it can be defined in two words – ‘identity’ and ‘communication’. This is because not only do most of us believe we are how we look, but also through our face we communicate to others what we feel and think.

The face, especially if you are looking at yourself in a mirror, can also mean that you are facing yourself – facing up to yourself, or need to, ‘face yourself’. This dream often occurs when you are ready to really look at who you are and what facets of yourself you might be ignoring or even hiding.

Someone else’s face: How you see them and how you relate to them. What you feel and think suggest what your opinion of them is, and how you relate to them inwardly. The face could also point to what feelings and memories of them you carry within you.

Blushing: Unconscious response to things. Feelings that you usually keep hidden, or are not usually aware of yourself.

Something wrong with face: Sense of not being adequate; fear of how others see you. If it is someone else’s face it probably depicts how you feel about them, or your intuitions about them.

Changing one’s face or head: Changing one’s attitudes or decision about something; being uncertain or ‘two faced’. Having different aspects of your personality or seeing another side of yourself. Change the wording to fit seeing someone else with changing face – your to their.

Hiding one’s face: Being ashamed of something; low confidence or uncertainty; being afraid of how others see you; hiding motives or feelings.

No face: This is probably what is called a shadow figure if you see it on another person – parts of your nature or behaviour that you usually keep hidden or do not admit to. If you are faceless then it could suggest either that you realise your real self is pure potential without particular characteristics, or you feel a fear of about loss of identity or uncertainty about who you are.

Idioms: Blue in the face; egg on my face; face down; face the facts; face the music; face up to; face value; fill your face; flat on one’s face; face lift; fly in the face of; get out of my face; in your face; keep a straight face; long face; poker face; pull a face; save face; shut your face; two faced; wipe that smile off your face; written all over your face. See: head below.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being expressed or felt here?

If there is change what is the change moving toward or expressing?

What character, qualities, or lack of them does the face depict?

feet Your basic psychological support system, therefore the attitudes and ideals you use to get around in the world. Where you place your feet in the dream can also indicate whether you feel secure in your present life situation, or whether you are finding conditions, ‘footholds’, to advance or make changes.

 To dream of feet might also suggest your sensitivity to your present life situation, whether it is rough going or not.

 Our feet can sometimes be linked with roots, in that we stand upon the earth with them. As such they are the way the lowest or most primitive in us is transformed, just as roots lift up earth in the process of transforming it into living cells.

 As the idioms below suggest, we mention feet a lot in our everyday language to indicate attitudes, motivation or lack of it, and how well or badly we are coping in life and relationships.

 Barefooted; To be in contact with reality, your real life situation. Might also suggest rough going if walking is hard. Of course, in some cultures it could mean poverty.

Loss of foot or feet: Incapacitated in making moves, or in being independent or self-motivated; in the Oneirocritica, c.AD 350, it says that to lose one’s feet points to a barrier in regard to a planned journey.

Idioms: back on your feet; caught flatfooted; cold feet; drag your feet; fancy footwork; feet of clay; footloose; grass grow under; itchy feet; jump in with both feet; heavy foot; land on your feet; put my foot down; put your foot in it; pussy-foot around; put your best foot forward; put your foot in your mouth; set foot in; shoot yourself in the foot; sweep you off your feet; take a load of your feet; two left feet.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do any of the idioms suit the situation in the dream – if so what does it suggest?

If my foot or feet are damaged, in what way is my ability to progress or ‘stand’ in waking life difficult?

Am I in good or difficult ‘standing’ in my life – if difficult can I imagine changing it?

forehead See: brow.

hair Mostly hair in dreams links with the way you are thinking, your self image and attitudes. In some dreams it can link with sexual attraction or even what sexual characteristics you are displaying. Therefore changing the style of your hair would show you changing the way you see yourself, or how you want others to see you.

We sometimes use our hair and the way we style it to show what group or social group we identify with. So a hair style could link with a social group or status – business; hippie; middle class; smart and motivated; laid back; Goff’s; punk; artistic etc.

 Example: I was watching a man do a stage act. It started with him looking directly toward me and gradually taking on the character of a hippie person. His hair was in a pony tail at the back and he became less well groomed. Then he shook his hair loose from the pony tail and went through amazing changes in which the whole styling and colour of his hair altered and changed the way he looked, and even his sex. For instance his hair became shoulder length, red, beautifully styled in a full waved perm of shining hair. As this he was a beautiful female. At another moment he turned profile and the hair styled backwards into a mane of wavy hair. T.C.

This dream shows how the hair depicts character and mental attitude, even gender. See: washing hair.

Baldness: Ageing; feeling obsolete; lack of thought; maleness.

Beard: This depends on the age of the person and the situation in the dream. For instance stubble on a teenage boy suggests he is moving into manhood. But a beard can also suggest carelessness – as when someone hasn’t shaved; a mask if someone uses it to hide their youth; or a way of life that does not conform, or like a backwoodsman. Sometimes the link is with a war veteran, suggesting a long exposure to conflict and extreme living conditions.

Brushing hair: Clarifying or bringing order to attitudes or thoughts. Getting rid of emotional or relationship tangles or tangled ideas.

Changing hair style: Changing the way you see yourself, your self image. Perhaps also changing attitudes and a change of mind.

Chest hair: Masculinity, virility. If it is on a woman, it suggests her expressing masculine qualities.

Colour of hair: In everyday life we unconsciously gather a lot of information from someone’s hair colour. For instance racial background is one immediate thing we see. But hair colour might well link with someone we know – our father, or mother, or someone close to us. If that is not the link it can suggest attitudes – light-headed for instance; dark thoughts; fiery temperament with red hair, or age and perhaps wisdom with grey or silver hair.

If the hair is artificially coloured this shows the person or yourself trying to be something you are not at your ‘roots’. But this might also show an attempt to stand out, to be different to those around you to gain attention or change your self image.

Combing hair: See: comb.

Cutting off beard: Making a change; feeling more certain about your manhood; or uncertainty about manhood, depending on dream. It can also suggest a fuller meeting or self expression, and uncovering of who you are. In some cultures it might suggest leaving behind traditional religious beliefs.

Cutting hair right off: This depends on what hair is cut off. If it is wild and unkempt, then it would show a real change and a more disciplined way of thinking and acting. If the hair style suggested some sort of social, religious or cult affiliation, then it would show a move away from that. In general it shows cutting back on what you think or dream, like clearing out a cupboard of all the things no longer needed. It can also show denial of sensual, sexual and physical drives, as with a monk, or acceptance of age or baldness.

Dark hair: The thoughts and ideas that move you yet are largely unconscious. Might show ‘dark’ thoughts or attitudes. But it can also suggest racial dispositions, such as Latin passions or responses, or the black cultural way of being. As mentioned above, it can also link with someone you know.

Dishevelled hair Mental confusion, personal carelessness about how you appear to others. It might also be an indication that you are ruled by crazy thoughts and ideas.

Fair hair: Awareness; ‘light headed’. Might link with racial types such as Scandinavian stock, or indicate a coolheaded person. Being blonde is also for many women and men a statement of wanting to be attractive, or wanting to attract attention and not be one of the crowd.

Genital or armpit: Sexuality. Your natural or instinctive feelings and drives. See: pubic hair below.

Hair on chest of female, even child: The male side of the woman; might be parents desire for a boy generated male characteristics.

Long matted: Not caring about social image or self; drop out.

Long hair: Freedom; permissiveness; girlhood with woman.

Plaited or pony tail: Girlhood; socialised or disciplined thoughts and feelings.

Pubic hair: Some dreams mentioning pubic hair do so in a way that suggests it as a glimpse of what lies beneath – or at least a glimpse of whatever pleasure or emotions, perhaps even fear or pain, are generated by the experience of or thoughts/fantasies of sex. When the pubic hair is missing it is about the revealing of the sex or gender. Of course, today, the appearance or absence of hair could refer to the latest fashions in sexual display.

Another possibility of the lack of pubic hair is that your sexual feelings, needs and power are being made conscious, or are brought to awareness.

In connection with teenagers it shows the emergence of their sexual life and all that will bring.

Tight style: Discipline; self restraint.

Very long beard: Sense of eternal or long life.

White beard: Wisdom or experience gained through long life, and perhaps an awareness of life beyond the senses.

Wig: False attitudes or thoughts; an assumed social front.

Woman’s dreams – Armpit or leg hair: Social expression of sexuality or physicality.

Idioms: harebrained; hair of the dog; get in your hair; got you by the short hairs; keep your hair on; hair raising; have us by the short hairs; let one’s hair down; make you hair curl/stand on end; didn’t turn a hair; put hairs on your chest; tear one’s hair out; split hairs, without turning a hair. See: shampoo.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being expressed by the hair style or things done to the hair?

Is the hair coloured, if so what impression do I have of it?

Is this different in any way to my own hair style – is so what do the differences suggest?

hand Most frequently dreamt of part of body. It depicts how you express yourself in action or relationships; your grasp of life, of ideas, of opportunities. It shows the way you hold on to – or let go of – people, your children, situations – this is why people are handcuffed to take away their power. The hand is an extension of your power – to give, take, wound, heal, support or do. Sometimes it is hands we reach out to protect ourselves or others. With our hands we touch other people and the world around us.

The hands express the full range of human emotions and desires. Everything from violence to the tender caress, or skillful surgery or creativity, are manifest through the hands.

Fingers: More than anything else it is through the fingers you feel and explore the things around you . Although your eyes allow you to see the world, it is with your fingers you take hold of it, work with it, create or destroy.

Fingers can be expressive of your feelings. It can be the finger of scorn; accusing finger; finger of suspicion; beckoning finger, or to put your finger on something and therefore know something about it.

Fingers represent your grasp on things, your method of materialising yourself, or leaving your mark upon matter. Therefore your personal skills.

The finger can represent the penis, as is common use in sex-play: or your means of sensing. or fingering things.

Fingers can, as the wedding ring finger, suggest something like marriage. The finger print also denotes your uniqueness.

Claw-like hands: Clawing, wounding ability.

Dirty hands: Dirty work; unclean activity; something you have been doing that has left ‘dirt on your hands’ – suggesting perhaps that you want to get rid of the influence it has left in your life.

Fingernails: These sometimes depict your ability to effect or change something, to grasp small things. They could also reflect your way of life such as rough physical work or otherwise, suggesting whether life has been hard or kind. Perhaps also your state of health. They might be weapons, or reflect your personal condition – i.e. dirty or cared for, whether you are ready to really use your hands.

Fist: Anger; restrained anger; threat; graspingness, selfishness, arrogance, aggressiveness, tension.

Handshake: Contacting an aspect of self; friendship; testing a relationship or gaining an impression of someone.

Palm of hand: It is the most used form of contact with the world, with matter and work or creative action. The other side of the hand is the opposite of that, and suggests a none physical action or purpose. It is about the mental faculty of decision making of non physical activity. It can also been seen as a notepad on which you write memos.

Rough hands: Marks left by difficult or demanding experience; roughness in handling others.

 Idioms: a bird in the hand; a free hand; an old hand; at the hands of; bite the hand that feeds; can’t put my hands on it; caught red-handed; change hands; don’t hand me that; eat out of the palm of your hand; firm hand; first hand; give me a hand; hand in; hand out; hands are tied; hands down; hands full; hands up; hand me down; hands off; hand over fist; hand to hand; hand to mouth; hard hand; have it in hand; helping hand; in good hands; hold your hand; in the hands of; lay my hands on; laying on of hands; lend a hand; like the back of your hand; open-handed; out of hand; out of our hands; raise a hand; second hand; upper hand; wash your hands of; burnt fingers; at one’s fingertips; snap one’s fingers; soil one’s hands; try your hand at; green fingers; have a finger in; itchy fingers; sticky fingers; fingers crossed; lay a finger on; point the finger at; get one’s finger out; fingers to bone. See also: Example in sweets under food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am doing with my hands or fingers – is it creative, destructive, giving taking, etc?

What feeling, thoughts or attitude am I expressing with my hands, and how does that relate to my life?

What descriptive words are linked with my dream hand(s) – strong, big, hurt, small – and what does that say about what I am doing?

head The head usually links with your thoughts, opinions, your intellect, and especially your ability to make decisions. Therefore it is an indication of your intentions.

Because your eyes, ears and mouth are part of your head the turning of the head toward or away from someone or something links with this ability to make decisions, to avoid seeing or being involved in something.

The head, as with the face, can also depict your self image. This is fairly understandable from the huge number of idioms about head and face, such as ‘lose one’s head, lose face’, so one might literally dream of a headless figure. The position of the head also shows what is felt, as when we say ‘held held high’ or ‘hanging my head’. One can also be ‘in one’s head’, meaning locked up in thinking and worries and so not seeing what is going on around you; or ‘out of one’s head’ meaning crazy in some way.

Dreams may also use the head as an image to show how one is ‘in two minds’ about something, or is changing one’s mind. This might be shown by having two heads, or changing one’s head.

 Example: A big man, with several gunmen, came into the house at Woburn Walk, threatening to kill my father. I held them off by threatening the leader with the 410 shotgun held at his head. There was no definite conclusion one way or another at the end of the dream.

The dream is obviously using the idea of the head as being vital to life. It is just and idea as you cannot be killed in a dream. See What do You bring to Your Dreams? And Nothing can Hurt You in Your Dreams

 Here is another dream showing how we do not need to be frightened of attackers.

 Example: I was in bed. There was a knock at the front door. My wife answered it. I heard a scuffle and a man’s voice. He was assaulting her. My wife said in the struggle I would come, and the man laughed. I got out of bed and got my gun. I went into the room and rammed the rifle barrel in his face. My wife got clear. He said I wouldn’t have the nerve to fire the gun, still slightly mocking. I said, “Wouldn’t I!” And swung the gun like a club, smashing it on his head. He ran out into the street and I threw the broken gun after him.

Head without a body: This might mean you are not in touch with your physical and sexual needs, or it could mean you eel like a ‘nobody’.

Idioms: above one’s head; a good head; a head start; banging one’s head against brick wall; come to a head; egg head; enter one’s head; funny in the head; get it through your head; get something into one’s head; get your head together; give head; go off one’s head; head above water; head of steam; head in the clouds; head in the sand; head man/woman; head over heels; head up hold your head up high; heads will roll; lose your head; off the top of my head; over one’s head; out of my head; swollen or big head; square head; talk your head off; turn one’s head; two heads are better than one.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I doing with my head – turning to look at, turning away, held up, down?

Where am I ‘heading’ in my dream, and what does this indicate?

What is the drama of the dream suggesting about the head – losing it – hurt – changed – and how does that link with my waking activities or attitudes?

 heart Emotions, sympathy, tenderness, love, affection. Also inner feelings, desires, secret thoughts, conscience. You can take heart, and thus carry on through difficulties, or lose heart and give up. In some dreams the heart stands for worries you may have about your health. It might not be that you have heart problems, but simply that because of down feelings, your ‘heart’ is not in what you are doing, so there is no zest for life.

Your dream heart indicates your emotions, and through them your pity, sympathy, your likes and dislikes. Of course it also might point to your actual physical heart. This obviously links with relationships and their challenges. If you think it refers to your physical heart get it checked out.

 Example: I experienced a degree of fear that the problem with the motor referred to my heart. I let myself slip into the fear and it dissolved and I saw that it referred not to my physical heart, but to my heart as my feelings. I could see that the problem is to do with no feeling connected with people. There’s nothing that makes me feel connected with people. I don’t feel excited about anything.

Being stabbed, shot or in any way injured in the heart may depict deep emotional hurts, but also may be a warning of physical heart problems.

Many dream about the heart are in connection with pounding or racing heart, and these are indications of anxieties or fears, sometimes of illness or death, that are pushed into the unconscious where they rattle about scaring you. Most of these are simply what they show themselves to be in the dreams – fears. Fear that is repressed can cause great tension and illness. Most of such fears are groundless and best brought out into daylight where you can see them for the lifeless, bloodless creatures they are. See: fear – dealing with.

The dream heart also depicts your connections with other people as the following example shows.

 Example: I was in what looked like huge white ribs. In the ribs was a big heart beating. Beyond that was my homeopath. I could hardly breath, struggling to live. I could hear the heart beating, but as I listened I could also hear another heart beating. It seemed to me it was my sister’s heart connected to my own invisibly. The homeopath came forward and stretching open the ribs, reached into them, took hold of the invisible heart – it was like a shadow behind the other heart – and pulled it out. Immediately I could breath again and felt I was whole. In everyday life I and my sister have been incredibly linked, even to the point of having cramps at night on the same nights, though living in different parts of the world. I had become ill recently out of this connection, but as soon as I had this dream I was well again, but my sister became ill. She has just been diagnosed as HIV positive and is dying.

In the Bible there are nearly a thousand mentions of the word heart. In modern language we might describe this as referring to unconscious intentions or feelings. This might still be the case with heart appearing in dreams. So it could relate to what you are feeling, desiring and intending unconsciously, as with the example above.

Idioms: after your heart; break your heart; change one’s heart; cry your heart out; done one’s heart good; don’t let your heart run away with your head; eat your heart out; faint of heart; from bottom of heart; have a heart; have no heart; have a heart; heart like stone; heavy heart; lost your heart; my heart’s in my mouth; open-hearted; pluck at the heart strings; sick at heart; steal your heart; take it to heart; the heart of the matter; wearing your heart on your sleeve; young at heart.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What feeling or attitude is involved in this dream and where do I meet that in my waking life?

What is happening to my dream heart, and how does that relate to my life?

Is there fear or some threat of death here, and what anxiety am I feeling while awake?

What am I pushing into my unconscious that my heart dream is showing me?

In case you need it see Dreaming about an Ex  and Beware of Love

internal organs Often to do with concerns over health. Could be a sense of illness in that part of body. But mostly such dreams are unfounded anxiety about illness. See separate organs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What fears am I feeling about my health?

Am I aware of vague pains or aches inside that I am ignoring – if so wouldn’t it be best to have a check?

What is my dream suggesting that is happening – and is that likely to be real or symbolic?

jaw In general the jaw suggests strength of will or purpose, sometimes called determination, or even stubbornness.

Jaws also link with your strength to stop anyone getting into you or at you – through your mouth. They are your power to hold onto emotions – by clenching your teeth.

Often we tense our jaw to refrain from showing our real feelings. The jaw can also represent being swallowed up – in other words a fear of losing your identity or will, thus being at the mercy of someone or something. The one idiom linked with jaws is about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. This shows jaws as a fatal end, being lost to something or someone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I noticing anything to do with stubbornness or tension in waking life?

What am I holding onto or tense about?

Is my strength emerging more fully?

legs Dreaming about your leg or legs usually connects in some way with the attitudes or confidence that supports you in your everyday life. It also links with what motivates you, the emotional and physical strength you use to get about in life. To have one’s legs knocked out from under one means loss of confidence and ability to carry on with life.

Although you may depend upon someone like partner or parent for support, or on work or position for self value, ultimately the legs represent your own emotional or conceptual support system. So in your dream about leg or legs you may be considering what state your own confidence, your own self value is in. When trying to understand legs in your dream See: left and right; lame.

In some dreams legs are shown as having the qualities of roots, and bringing strength from the earth. This shows you drawing on deep reserves of your strength and wisdom from your connection with the Earth’s processes and chain of life.

Having no legs: This shows a serious lack of confidence or the inability, perhaps sometimes, to stand up for yourself.

One leg shorter than another: This links with whether you are right or left handed. If you are right handed, then the right leg represents your outward activities, and your left represents your feelings and attitudes – possibly vice versa if you are left handed. So a short left leg would suggest you lack confidence, therefore your outer activities are not fully supported. If it is a short right leg, then you have not developed enough skill or strength to be outwardly as effective as you are capable of. See: example under abandoned and example under right side of body.

Putting hand on leg: An approach to sex.

Smooth or hairy legs: Smooth legs show a more feminine strength, hairy a more masculine.

Trying to run but legs will not respond: This may simply be because while dreaming all your voluntary muscles are paralyzed so do not respond to you attempts to move. See: paralysis while asleep. Another reason might be because you are trying to go in a direction you feel anxiety about, or have no desire for.

Idioms a leg up; cost an arm and a leg; felt like I had a ball and chain on my legs; I couldn’t stand up for myself; last legs; leg over; leg work; legless; didn’t have a leg to stand on; my legs went to jelly; my legs were paralysed; on his last legs; pull your leg; tail between his legs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are my dream legs/confidence shown to be healthy, or do I need to work on them?

Am I ‘standing up’ well, or do I need to work on my confidence?

Where are my legs taking me in the dream, and how do I relate to this while awake?

lips

lungs This might relate to tension, feelings of being ‘suffocated’ in a relationship or situation, as one may have been with one’s mother or home life. Often to do with smoking or such Idioms as relate to breathing, such as: Catch one’s breath; bated breath; hold one’s breath. See: breath.

 Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking. B.K.

As can be seen B.K’s dream refers very directly to her smoking habit and was a strong enough experience for her to stop smoking.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting about my lungs, and is this physical or symbolising something?

Do I feel suffocated in any way in my life?

Did I feel anxious in the dream, and if so what is this anxiety about in real life?

mouth Basically the mouth is a pleasure area, but it is also the way you express pleasure or pain, as with smiling or grimacing. So the mouth is a way you express feelings or satisfying needs such as your hungers, along with sexual or sensual pleasure. As an organ of expression the mouth can also give thanks for life and utter beauty in words or sounds. This is a way we uplift the dark things in us and transform them.

Sometimes speaking can be likened to shooting things out of the mouth, projecting them to or firing them at other people. But the mouth can also be receptive as when we take things into our mouth pleasurably.

We also eat with our mouth, so it can indicate, depending on dream content, what we take into us, or what we expel or need to get out of us, as in the following example.

 Example: I go into a bathroom and begin pulling weeds from my mouth. Weeds, weeds and more weeds come out from my mouth – come from deep down inside of me. I am still pulling them out when I leave the bathroom and someone, a woman walking behind me, helps me to pull some weeds that are trailing from my mouth behind me.

Pulling stuff out of the mouth is a common dream, and most likely expresses the feeling of discomfort we feel if something foreign is in our mouth or throat. It shows the feeling of urgently trying to rid oneself of something that is unpleasant – perhaps feelings we have taken in, or things we have said that leave a nasty taste in one’s mouth.

Because we speak with our mouth and tongue, they can represent the things we say. A dream of our mouth being buttoned – button your lip – or sewed up, could therefore suggest that inwardly we regret having said certain things, and need to hold our tongue. But speech is a lot more than noise or emotional expression; more even than utterance of thoughts. It is the giving form or clarity to the previously unseen, the unknown. Through the mouth we can also can pour love and praise as when we sing.

Chewing: Considering something; mulling over something; trying something out – getting a taste of it so to speak.

Mouth fixed closed: Inability to express something, or a decision not to express something you hold inside. Sometimes a feeling of being inadequate socially, or that you do not have the power to get people to hear you. As in the example below, not having people understand what your difficulty is.

 Example: I am in a situation which is different every time, but always includes different people in a conversation. Suddenly I can’t talk. It’s as if my mouth is sewed together on the outside. I make muffled noises, straining my muscles to open my mouth. I think that if I pull hard enough the stitches will tear, but they never do. It seems to me that even my muffles are loud enough to be heard as a scream, but no one I’m with seems to notice. They smile and carry on as usual. By this time I feel so desperate I usually wake up in a terrible state.

Pulling something out of mouth: Trying to clear emotions or attitudes not properly expressed. Perhaps one is not admitting something.

Teeth coming out of mouth: See: teeth.

Idioms: a bad taste in my mouth; all mouth; a big mouth; butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; down in the mouth; hand to mouth; horses mouth; loud mouth; mouth watering; nasty taste in the mouth; put your foot in your mouth; put your money where your mouth is; shoot your mouth off; shut your mouth; silver spoon in mouth; word of mouth. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening to the mouth and in what way might that link with everyday experiences or feelings?

If I remember how I felt in the dream, when has that feeling occurred in my waking life?

Do any of the above descriptions link with what is happening in the dream – if so what are they describing about my life?

muscles Your strength, and ability to do things, therefore confidence and sense of adequacy. Muscles can indicate feelings of being outwardly forceful, or masculinity in its physical aspect. Also may refer to your physical muscle, and therefore how good you feel about yourself and your abilities physically.

Muscles of particular parts of the body would refer to the strength or weakness of what that area suggests. So an injured bicep of your right arm – if you are right handed – would suggest a feeling of weakness of inadequacy in your outer activities, or something to do with being able to produce an effect outwardly. It might therefore indicate a lack of confidence. So look at the limb or body part in which the muscle is to define it. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is about injury or sickness, in what way do I feel lacking in power or confidence?

What specifically is my dream presenting about my muscle(s)?

If this is about health or development of muscle(s) what can I observe about my increasing ability to express in the world?

What am I confronting in life about my confidence and self image?

navel The navel is a very important dream subject and can indicate your feelings of connection with your mother. But such feelings transfer onto any person we develop a close and feeling relationship with. So when there is any threat or disturbance in the relationship with husband, wife, or partner, this area might be involved and appear in a dream. These feelings might be positive or very disturbed, depending upon your birth and childhood experiences. The likelihood is that such feelings will be blamed on the partner, wife or husband, instead of you being aware that they arise from one’s earliest experiences of connection and physical and emotional dependence.

The navel, and its link with the umbilical cord also can deal with feelings of dependence and the need for nourishment at a basic baby level. As such they sometimes become very linked with sexual need and what is felt in the sexual relationship.

At a more abstract level, this area – the solar – plexus – links with the way we connect with other people and the world through sympathetic feelings. It deals with how we take things into us from others, and what we give out. The digestive tract, with its ability to absorb and excrete is an image of this, but needs to be seen in a psychological way. Hurt, disturbance or pain in this area of our psyche can lead to tension and painful emotions or even physical sensations in relationship with a person or life.

See: navel; umbilical cord below; Example under umbilical cord; birth dreams; blood sucked under blood.. Particularly read the piece under active imagination about the umbilical connection loss.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How would I describe my early connection with my mother, or with my present partner – is it easy and secure, or do I still hold back or feel insecure in any way?

Is something happening in my life related to secure connection in a relationship?

What is the situation of the navel in my dream?

neck The neck may indicate the way you connect your thinking (your head) with your feelings and sexuality (your body). Your neck is also the weak or vulnerable part of you, unlike the chest or head that is protected by bone, so any attack to the neck shows being influenced through your vulnerable feelings.

A woman who experienced a lot of neck pain and explored the underlying causes of this wrote:

Over the past few weeks and last weekend I got an opportunity to spend an extended period of time alone and relaxed during which I was able to tie the threads together, and understand what the throat and neck symptoms are about. I had been thinking along the lines of suppressing my inner creativity due to fear of censorship and that is one element, but I think the more fundamental is that the throat is constricting my experience of the environment, because I am scared stiff of what it will do to me. If I experience the outside world “raw”, it will evoke such strong emotions in me that I will be blown apart, annihilated, so I cut down what I experience of it and I try to manipulate it so that I cut out anything that will evoke painful emotions. S.

As the throat is the narrow channel through which we express or repress our emotions and reactions, it can become a site of great tension or pain. What S. is realising is that she is causing her neck pain through her ‘constriction’ in her throat. When S. tried to drop her controlling attitude she described what she met as follows:

Example: I guess it’s a process that needs to occur bit by bit: you can’t turn over ingrained belief patterns all at once. The other day my neck tension became very painful and wearing and I felt very demoralised because I thought all my progress was an illusion. The next day I woke in a state of terror and anxiety but the tension had gone. “Good,” I thought, “I would rather have the terror”. And I have been trying to keep the terror and investigate it. It is the terror that I will not know how to deal with what life brings, or how to cope, and the resulting emotions will be overwhelming and ultimately blow me apart. So there are issues of self-trust, but I think that is because I am assuming that I’ll be using my father’s rules. I have to convince myself that if I use my rules, life will be a beach!

Because the throat holds our organ of speech, the neck sometimes depicts our will, our ability to ask for what we want, and also our confidence, as when we use the idiom, ‘stick my neck out. The neck is also the point up to which we can be easily immersed in water. Beyond that point there is danger. So it can depict what we can take in life, and what is more than enough.

Back of neck: This suggest emotional energy that is largely unconscious and may be blocked. Our biological energy not only flows into movement, sex, digestion, etc, but also into being aware, feeling, expressing who we are and our potential. As described by S. above, this can be held back for various reasons. If it is not is flows up the spine into the head. It may then express through the mouth, or be experienced as an uprush of understanding or insights.

Head hanging off: Dolls sometimes lose their heads because they have been so abused by their owner, so this may link with feeling that life has so harshly treated you that you feel like a helpless doll being dismembered. See: Dismembered body.

This can also suggest ‘losing one’s head’. See: head.

Held by back of neck: Some dreams show someone being held or carried by the back of the neck. This is probably a link with how we see cubs being carried, suggesting helplessness and dependence, along with being cared for.

Hung from neck: Quite a few dreams show someone, or yourself, hung by the neck. There are many possible things this might indicate. For one thing it definitely links with death or the possibility of death. Such a death might be the result of self sacrifice, as show in the Tarot card of the hanged man, or it might be as the result of social action – a cause and effect of things done; a punishment because of feelings of guilt.

However, many hangings are due to suicide, and so might in a dream reflect depression, loss of any pleasure in life, a retreat from pain, or feelings of hopelessness or guilt.

In some dream however, there is a different sense of the hanging. It suggests not a death but an almost complete suppression of the life in one. A strangulation of the flow of pleasure and creativity that would otherwise stream through one. In such a case the rope needs to be removed and a new way of relating to oneself developed. (For help doing this see Carrying the Dream Forward under peer dream work.)

Gripping neck or strangled: This has connections with strangled the creative flow in oneself or another. It is a way of repressing or controlling one’s natural responses and feelings. But it may be shown as being gripped or strangled by somebody else, and might therefore show how another person’s influence in your life has a strangle hold over how you express yourself, what you say, and what you do.

Large neck: This suggests power, the ability to survive or face threats and persevere. It also may indicate having an inner strength or bigness.

Small or thin neck: Vulnerability of some sort, maybe emotionally. It could also indicate lack of reserves as far as health or illness are concerned.

Idioms: Breaking one’s neck; breathing down one’s neck; dead from the neck up/ down; neck and neck; neck of the woods; pain in the neck; put one’s neck on the line; risk one’s neck; stick one’s neck out; up to one’s neck. See: throat.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the neck in any way threatened or attacked – if so what am I feeling vulnerable about or attacked by?

Is something or someone gripping the neck – if so am I, or my responses to someone else, causing me to hold myself back?

Is something stuck in my throat – is so what is it I am having difficulty saying or expressing – maybe in asking for what I want or need?

nose Through our nose we sense things that are completely invisible, but nevertheless tell us a lot about what we are sensing. It therefore often appears on dreams to depict our intuition, our sense of whether a situation or a relationship is wholesome or rotten – as with ‘smell a rat’. Such sensing of situations might very well give us a direction to go in, so sometimes the nose is about making a decision or going in a direction.

The nose can also indicate curiosity, or even ‘nosiness’ – poking our nose into other people’s business.

 Example: I dreamt my mother was strangling me with her nose. Her nose was pressed right into my neck stopping me breathing. Celine.

Celine’s dream shows nose being used to represent being nosy. Celine was fifteen at the time of the dream. She agreed that her mother was being over curious about what she was doing.

Also the nose is very sensitive and if hit can be painful, so in some dreams it shows us feeling that someone has ‘put our nose out of joint’. In other words we have come into some sort of verbal or emotional conflict with someone.

In some dreams the nose might depict feelings about the penis.

Broken nose: Signs of having been through struggles and conflicts in life. Maybe it indicates how someone has hit you emotionally.

Idioms: As plain as the nose on your face; cut off your nose to spite your face; following my nose; have a nose for; hold your nose; keep your nose clean; nose out of joint; look down your nose; no skin off my nose; nose job; nose to the grindstone; pay through the nose; powder my nose; rub nose in it; turn up your nose; up one’s nose.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I sensing something that helps me make a decision or choose a direction?

Has my nose been ‘put out’ by someone or something?

Am I seeing my nose as something to be ashamed of?

Is there something rotten I am sensing – if so what does that refer to in life.

ovaries and uterus: For many women the uterus represents their sense of being a full woman and their adequacy, just as testes do for men. Of course it also links with the ability to have children, so could represent fears or feelings about this. If you dream of problems in regard to the uterus, it is always worth having a physical check.

The way we develop as a personality emerges from very fundamental biological and psychological levels, of which the reproductive/sexual is deeply important. Because of this the uterus may represent for women the source of their emotional and creative energy. This at its primal level is linked with procreation, but it can flow from there into other directions.

If you are a woman, this is your potential. You developed in this way because you are a creature of evolution. If you deny that part of you – the urge to procreate – you deny yourself. Do not cut yourself off from your roots otherwise you will die. To become free it is not necessary to repress that part of you. In fact that basic, primeval drive is your source of power. It is a great river of energy. Out of that your power arises. You do not have to become childbearing to have that creativity. Take hold of that primitive part of you, that ancient river of desire and longing, flow with it. Of course it will try to go in the old channels, the old pathways. This may lead you to start looking for a mate. That is okay. Feel it. Own it as yours. Now create your own male inside yourself. Build him out of your ideals, your longing, and your need. Then form your inner male from the many parts of their own nature. Your pleasures your pains, your power and your weakness. Take the love you have and breathe in to the man the breath of life. Take that male and blend it into your female. Then take off and fly.

If your dream is directly about your ovaries, it may be about feelings, fears or hopes you have about your fertility and your ability to procreate. But it might also link with the deep drives or urges you have as a woman to guard and care for your ‘eggs’. This is the big difference between yourself and a male. A male can lay his eggs – sperm – and leave them. A woman holds onto her eggs, guards them, and nurtures them into growth. See: am I a man – am I a woman.

If this fundamental drive is thought of simply as energy, this is understandable. But it is energy that is highly personal and felt as our emotions, fear, hopes and urges. If the energy is not handled well it can flow into neurosis and depression. If we are in union with it then creativity, wellbeing, love and pleasure are expressed and experienced as its flow. Therefore some dreams featuring the uterus will be drama in which the relationship with this energy flow are detailed. See: energy sex dreams; vagina; individuation.

In a man’s dream, or even in some women’s dreams, the uterus might well represent prebirth experience – life in the womb. This might include the need in some of us to return to that experience to integrate aspects of it that have remained troubling to our adult personality.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream suggesting a physical problem – if so am I experiencing emotional difficulties in regard to childbearing – or should I have a physical check?

Does this is any way suggest pregnancy?

How am I relating to the energy flow of reproduction in my life?

Does the dream suggest wanting to merge back into the womb?

paralysis/paralysed this suggest a lack of confidence. It can arise from fear or a sense of not being able to cope, as well as feelings of hopelessness, or that there is no way out of a present situation.

For many people, the emotional results of events in childhood have a paralysing effect in their present life. So if there is great fear or pain associated with the paralysis it would be worth seeking to get behind the fear or pain to its roots.

Dreaming one is paralysed may depict the paralysing effects either of fears we have, or what we have imagined as real in the way described in the entry on paralysis while asleep. We may be ‘paralysed’ by feelings of guilt, inadequacy or internal conflicts.

The healing of the paralysed man by Christ represents this removal of guilt, shame or fear by contact with one’s wholeness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is paralysing me in the dream – and can I locate that feeling or situation in my waking life?

Am I aware in the paralysis, as when lucid in a dream? If so see the entry paralysis while asleep.

Are there influences in my life or circumstances at the moment that leave me undecided or in conflict?

pelvis This relates to the sexual function as a whole. This is not simply sex, but reproduction and how you handle this power of life and death.

The pelvis may also link with the way you merge into another person, or if you can allow that merging and emerging, as in deep sexual melting.

Some dreams show the pelvis as connected with lizards or snakes, and this shows the powerful instinctive drives and energy that can either flow out in sexual activity, or flow up the spine as expanding consciousness. Our unconscious often connects sex with giving oneself, a death of self, and making connections or bonds – obviously reproduction also.

In woman’s dream: The pelvis may connect with your ability to have a child, or even with early childhood experience

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being emphasised in this dream – pain, pleasure, longings – and how does that relate to me at the moment?

Is this dream about my ease or difficulty in relating to me sexual urges?

Is my pelvis moving or vibrating in the dream – is so how am I relating to that flow of energy?

penis For a man the penis represents more than simply his sexual appetite. It depicts the whole drive of life through his glandular system that develops the body type he has. It is therefore often depicting a sense of his own power of self expression, his potency in expressing himself and capability in the world.

The healthy function of the sexual organs predispose a mans body toward male sexual characteristics such as square hips, muscular frame, facial hair and deeper voice. This brings a certain creative explosiveness to his personality, creates urges toward fatherhood and loving his woman, with connected desires to supply the needs of family if he is emotionally healthy. The positive aspect of the penis/masculinity is for him to want his woman to meet his maleness, his caring aggression, his sexual desire, with her own fiery female energy, needs and strength.

So the penis in the male dream can link with any of these characteristics, or in some way indicate difficulties, trauma or fears about them.

 Example: Emily takes my penis and loses it? For a time Emily really did control my penis. I was completely at her mercy. P

This is one of the themes in male dreams, showing how the man is at the mercy of his sexual desires for a woman. In this sense he feels she controls him. It might even be that she is shown cutting off his penis, suggesting relationship with her kills his sexual drive.

Example: Dreamt I cut off my penis and used it to masturbate myself. This I did by pushing the penis inside me, where presumably I had a vagina.

Example: ‘My lover Terry, myself and another woman were all on our bed. The other woman seemed very sure of herself and kissed Terry in a very intimate way, he doing the same to her as I lay very near to both of them. Then Terry stuck his bottom in the air and started to lick my chest and breast. I found myself licking around his penis, felt I was under some kind of pressure from both the other two to do so but didn’t feel too shattered as I did it with love for Terry, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth.’ Sally P.

In talking about this dream Sally said she often struggled with what she wanted, and what her partner wanted in sex. She might go along with his needs, but not find it palatable. Even if she did do it with some love, it might leave a ‘bad taste in her mouth’.

 Example: ‘I felt as if I were as one with Terry and I realised he was trying to make a journey, as his penis, into his mother’s vagina. Her vagina looked like a long dark tunnel and was threatening to him. I said, ‘You haven’t given your mother satisfaction and you say you will not. Then he was really smashed up in body. Withdrawing into a garden with a high green hedge. I took a leaf from the hedge and began to pull it apart with my hands. Terry said, ‘Look what you are doing, teasing me.’ I felt withdrawal wasn’t the way and started to follow him, walking alongside the hedge. I said, ‘It feels like you are strangling me, so why don’t you do it and kill me?’ We have been going through a lot of sexual withdrawal, Terry saying his sexuality was his to do with as he wanted.’ Sally P.

This second dream of Sally’s is a shrewd summing up of Terry’s sexual fears. In fact Terry suffered a great deal of anxiety about sex, and later uncovered the sort of fear and desire to avoid giving his mother satisfaction in becoming a full blooded man shown in the dream. Our unconscious is a very capable psychologist, and while Terry in Sally’s dream represents her insights regarding him – and must not be seen as a statement of fact about Terry. Nevertheless, such insight are often enormously useful in dealing with relationship difficulties.

Just as women may experience penis envy, men may experience vagina envy. This because there is nothing that a man can do that is quite as miraculous as having a baby. In some men this involves a huge struggle regarding their sexual orientation or easy expression of heterosexual sex.

Penis replaced by vagina: Could be feeling inadequate as a man or be developing a contact with the female receptive in oneself. It might also show the loss of male drive in sexuality.

Loss of penis: See: castrate.

Penis turns into a snake: Feeling the intense instinctive drive of sexuality. This is a realisation of the drive as existing beyond one’s personality and is an expression of what the sex drive is doing, depending what is happening to the snake. See: reptiles lizards snakes.

Bleeding from penis: Emotional hurts or fears that are interfering with expression of healthy sexual feeling.

In a woman’s dream: Your relationship with, desire for a mate and therefore your relationship with your own desires and male characteristics, such as ambition, work capability, aggression, intellect.

For a woman, the penis may represent your feelings or fears about meeting a man’s full sexuality, as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your father, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in your from your childhood. It connects with your experience of growing from childhood, and how your father met your emerging female sexuality. The penis is also the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression. The reality underlying the symbols of temples and churches, embodying as they do the sacredness of the creative sexual drive and the mystery of life.

The penis might also depict the details of the sexual relationship with your partner. As with the example of Sally’s dream below, the events in the dream define the problem or relationship.

Freud suggested that some women experience penis envy – a sense that their vagina is not as good as a penis. This theme often appears on women’s dreams and may be the nucleus of a powerful conflict if explored.

 Example: Dreamt that I have an icicle hanging off my penis

In this dream the man’s sexual drive is show as frozen, probably repressed by anxieties or relationship difficulties.

Example: I was with a very attractive woman and felt to see if my penis was erect. It was, but I seemed to have no power there. When I explored the issue of my sexuality, I realised that when I hold back my sexual feelings toward women, for whatever reason, then I feel slightly depressed, disconnected from the world, and with less personal positiveness in what I do. It is almost like a stream of life flows through me when I am happily sexual, which is diminished by my restraints, whether moral or social. Once the river of life is flowing through me again I feel whole and healed – I feel I can achieve things in the world.

As with the above examples, the penis in a dream is usually a direct reference to sexual feelings, fears, or problems. As these can be quite complex several examples are given below.

 Example: ‘So for the third time I held the woman and made love. The woman’s vagina was like a flower. I don’t mean to look at, but in physical sensation. My penis felt like it was penetrating petals of flesh and touching with great pleasure a central receptive area. I was left with the feeling of being able to make love again and again without any negative effects. It was a very positive and healthy feeling.’ John T.

John is feeling confident about his sexual drive. Although a powerful drive, subtle feelings and fears have an intense influence not only on the pleasure of sex, but also the response of the physical organs. The relationship with the penis and sex act in one’s dream shows what fears, hurts or attitudes are influencing the sexual flow. See: castrate.

 Example: ‘Was in a house with my wife. Outside the door was Something which wanted to come into her – an invisible being. We were frightened and it said ‘Do not be afraid, I want you to put your penis in your wife and wait for me to activate you. In that way you will form a body for me.’ I woke and realised the dream was moving me to parenthood. Already having three children I realised this would mean another 20 years of responsibility. Nevertheless my wife and I made love. Two weeks later I dreamt my wife was pregnant with a son. In fact nine months later she bore a son.’ Nigel I.

In this interesting dream sequence the penis is Nigel’s drive to be a father. See: castrate; bed; knob; pole; reptiles lizards snakes.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is my dream showing my relationship with male sexuality is?

In a male dream – what is my dream revealing about the way I relate to my sexual drive?

Does this dream reveal anything about the way I am in an intimate relationship – if so what is it?

Are there any signs of me growing beyond old patterns of my sexual/emotional behaviour – if so can I enhance them?

rectum The rectum is the final part of the colon or large intestine just prior to the exit, which is called the anus. Sometimes the two words are confused, so the exit might be called the rectum. What matters in regard to your dream is what you have understood it to mean prior to the dream.

This whole area is one that is very sensitive to emotions and sexual experience. It links with very primal feelings and may easily become tense, or respond to hurt in oneself or others. One of its main functions in life, as with the bladder, is to control or release the excretion of faeces. As a baby the process is spontaneous and beyond our control, so has to be learned. It therefore frequently becomes a physical focus for any problems or lessons to do with control or letting go. Thus we have the phrase ‘he/she is really anal’ meaning they hold on to everything or try to control everything.

This holding on or ability to both control and let go, are at the very basis of dealing with adult life, and influence whether we can allow our creativity and sexuality flow. Problems here deeply influence how we deal with our sexual and emotional love, and our ability to let ourselves flow out into activity an creativity. Tension and holding on can lead to a type of auto-homosexual experience. In other words instead of the flow going outwards to others and the world, it is turned back on itself and become inturned sexuality and aggression.

As already mentioned, this area, which links very strongly with the genitals, psychologically links with the earliest stages of our development and our earliest experiences as a baby. Many muddled or unconscious experiences are contained in this area of our psyche regarding sexual feelings, desires and self expression. So if you are dreaming about this area it might be that you are becoming more aware of these things. If so you may begin to experiences many sexual urges and confusions that previously remained unconscious or buried in your body.

This base area of the body also depicts the powerful instinctive and biological forces or potential lying at the base of our being – at the base of our personal development. These forces, sometimes represented by a snake or lizard – the instinctive reproductive, flight and fight drives – are the power flowing into our life. If they are not allowed to flow into the development of our personality, we will lack energy and power in some way. In other cultures they are encouraged to flow beyond the fundamental pathways of genital sex toward the functions of greater awareness and insight, thus opening their other possibilities.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I meeting any experiences to do with controlling or letting go – if so what is involved?

Am I getting rid of some of the crap I have carried around internally or externally?

What struggles with infant feelings or sexuality am I meeting – if so what are they?

See Use the body to discover dream power – What is the main action in the dream? –

Victims

shoulders These often link to themes of strength or contact with another person in the dream. They express the ability to bear or to carry whatever life brings. Again and again the words ‘head on my shoulder’ or ‘arms around their shoulders’ appear in people’s dreams, suggesting warmth, friendship, but perhaps not full intimacy.

Another frequent theme is the person touching you – or you touching someone – on the shoulder. What is depicted here is someone trying to get your attention or make contact in a gentle and acceptable way.

The size of the shoulder features sometimes, and depicts the sense of strength you have about yourself or the character of the person in the dream. So large shoulders show a lot of strength to hold, carry or support someone, or to accomplish something. Small shoulders suggest the opposite.

Idioms: cold shoulder; have broad shoulders; shoulder to the wheel; shoulder to cry on; rub shoulders with; chip on the shoulder; lay the blame on your shoulders; straight from the shoulder; head and shoulders above; look over your shoulder; shoulder to shoulder.

 Useful Questions and Hints

Is the dream suggesting contact or support – and how does that connect with my life at present?

Is something happening to link with carrying someone or something, and am I managing it?

Is something or someone trying to get my attention – if so can I link this with my waking life?

skin This is often shown in dreams as the quality you display to others, or your awareness of someone else’s quality. This means things such as skin colour, condition of skin, whether rough or smooth, young, old, thick, thin, healthy or injured.

It is also your contact with the world. Through it you feel warmth or cold, wet or dry, and all the subtle interaction with other people and your environment. So to understand the dream consider what impression you have of the skin, then ask yourself how this connects with your self image, or your sense of your own quality.

The skin may also relate to what tactics we use to deal with others; our strength or vulnerability in feeling the impact of other people, their remarks and actions. It is our protection against the world.

A skin can also be a disguise, a cover, underneath which another you, or another person exists. In these cases the skin might suggest something you have taken on that is not really expressing your real feelings or potential. So the dream might show you pulling the skin off or even tearing it off.

Animal skin: The spontaneous level of yourself such as instincts, flight and fight, and so your animal wisdom and survival drives. If the animal is being skinned, See: skinned animal under animals.

Rough skin: A surface impression. If this is a dream about yourself, it suggest either that you have been through difficult times and so are well worn with a rough exterior, or you feel that is how others see you.

Burnt skin: A hurt you have suffered in relationship with the outside world or people.

Seeing through the skin: An insight into what is going on under the surface of your mind or body.

Shed skin: Like a snake, changing your old way of life, shedding old attitudes. This might refer to outgrowing a stage of your life, like a spider shedding its skin. So a move from youth to adulthood might be shown as this in a dream. This usually leaves you feeling vulnerable for a while as you adjust to the change.

Spots, blemishes, moles: Feelings about personal failings or some sense of not being as good or acceptable as other people. Maybe a feeling that other people see you as unattractive or can see failings in you. Often links with shyness or difficulties about facing or being in the company of people.

Occasionally it could indicate that you have inner disturbances that need to be dealt with. See: working with dreams.

Something or Stuff on the skin: If this is a liquid or substance it could mean you have been in contact with something. As the skin absorbs all that is on it, there might be a suggestion you are taking something in that is either harmful or healing.

If it is a thing or a creature on your skin this shows you sensing an influence. What it is depends on the dream.

Things escaping from under the skin: This usually refers to powerful emotions that you have contained for some time and an event or circumstances are now allowing to surface. This means you will be aware of them in some measure in waking.

Depending upon what it is that is escaping, it can also refer to a physical condition. For instance the following dream refers to a virus the dreamer has.

I have had the same dream as I fall asleep for several years. I have it nearly every night just once, sometimes, rarely, twice as I fall asleep. I dream that I find a dried piece of skin or scab somewhere on my body, usually my foot or my hand, though it has varied over the years. I begin to pick at the skin/scab and scratch it until it comes off. When it comes off it unleashes a flood of seed spiders that engulf me. Another variation is I find some odd black hairs growing out of my body and when I examine them more closely they are regular sized spiders crawling out of me and they begin to engulf me.

Idioms: beauty is only skin deep; by the skin of your teeth; get under my skin; jump out of your skin; more than one way to skin a cat; no skin off my nose; skin alive; thick skin;.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the skin shown as protective – if so what against, and how well is it working?

Does my dream show the skin as an expression of who I am or the person is – if so what is the impression it is giving?

What qualities or racial type does the skin show – and what do I associate with that?

Spine It represent the whole spectrum of life, like a tree, the Tree of Life. It covers every aspect of our life from movement, sexuality, digestion, emotions, speech, thinking and touching the invisible.

st0mach An area of intense reactions to threat. Also it represent your own vulnerabilty.

Shot in stomach: The wound in the stomach is the feelings you get when someone threatens you. There is no actual physical harm it is only fear that causes harm in dreams – as I say over and over to people, you cannot actually get hurt or die in dreams. And that is an important lesson for you.

teeth There are a great many associations we might have with teeth, so the environment and surrounding events in the dream must be taken as pointers.

As examples we might think of teeth or lack of them as indicating age. You might associate teeth with acute pain, as with toothache or dentistry. Because we lose our teeth while young and grow new one’s, we might also use teeth in a dream to show change from one period of life to another, suggested by such idioms as long in the tooth, milk teeth, etc. In some dreams we dream of a tooth problem indicating infection, even infection in an ear. See: Example under ache.

In general teeth in our dream can depict aggression or defensiveness, as when we bit someone. They can suggest the ability to ‘chew things over’. In some dreams they indicate our ‘bite’ on life, or the ability to get what we want. For instance if we see someone with few or no teeth, it often arouses a feeling that the person has lost their effectiveness in life, their social power – they have ‘lost it’. This may be exactly what we are portraying in losing our own teeth in a dream – the feeling, even temporary, of ‘losing it’. This may be felt as the sense of not being able to get what one deeply wants, and so is experienced as a sort of death, or a loss of self in some degree. But other meanings for tooth loss or falling out are given below.

Teeth can depict words we say or swallow – perhaps things we wish had not come out of our mouth. One of the biggest associations for many of us is how our teeth depict our social appearance – how others see us.

In some cultures the loss of a tooth often depicted the death of a family member. But when we lose a tooth we are very aware of the emptiness in our mouth – very aware of the loss. This is why a lost tooth can link with the loss of a family member. But it can equally apply to what we feel when a relationship ends or ‘goes bad’. The following example shows this. Also see: Example 2 below

I dream the front left tooth on the top of my mouth had fallen out, root and all. I was appalled as I looked at it lying in my hand!! I immediately called my godmother, asking her to bring me a new tooth. While waiting for her, my tongue explored the hole that was left; it hurt, but was beginning to heal. When my godmother arrived, she had forgotten the new tooth, and suggested that we put the old one back in. I was reluctant, as putting the old tooth in would hurt more than letting the hole heal; however, she was very insistent. As we examined the old tooth, I noticed a black spot on the root, and when I poked the decaying spot, it crumbled inwards. Christine.

Christine’s description of the pain connected with the loss of the tooth, her reluctance to have the old one put back in, and the black spot on the tooth, can easily be seen as descriptions of a relationship that needed to be ended, but was nevertheless painful to lose.

Im Tofeeq, a Palestinian woman told me that among the Arabs it is believed that if you dream of losing teeth it means your brother or son is in trouble. She had a dream in which three of her teeth fell out. The next day she received a call from America to say her son had been shot in the head three times by a gunman. For Artemidorus losing a tooth meant to lose a member of one’s household. To Africans such a dream showed that the dreamer would lose a wife or child.

Such feelings about teeth are also reflected in a few dreams of modern Europeans, as in the following example.

Example: My dream of someone’s coming death was so simple, always the same. I would dream that I went to my dressing table and opening my mouth examined my teeth in the mirror. I always found a decayed tooth (I had very fine teeth at that time) which I picked out and laid on the table. If a river of blood flowed from the tooth I knew when I awoke that I would suffer agonies from the coming death; if it did not bleed, I knew the person about to die would be some­one outside my immediate family, but always a relative. If the tooth was a front one the person concerned would be young, if a back tooth it would represent an old person.

My mother told me that a great grandmother of mine had the very same dreams with the same results, but I did not learn this till I was nineteen and my dream foretold the death of a younger sister, who was in perfect health at the time of the dream. I never knew after the dream who was to die as the dream always came well in advance of sickness. I used to think some malign spirit wanted to torment me and took this way to do so.’ Quoted from The Mystery of Dreams by William Oliver Stevens. Published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1950.

Bad tooth: A painful or rotten part of one’s feelings, life or relationships; angry or regretful words. It might also of course suggest a problem with that tooth.

Big or small teeth: Big teeth suggest strength, power, ability to harm, depending on dream. Especially in animal dreams it tends to show fear of being hurt or of aggression. Small teeth show the opposite, except that in a few dreams the small teeth belong to a snake or are poisonous in some way, suggesting something or someone putting emotionally damaging feelings in you – perhaps through ‘biting’ remarks.

Canines: The canines are what are left of larger teeth our ancestors used to defend themselves or warn off attackers. So the canine would particularly indicate your ability to defend yourself, or be powerful in the world – particularly for men. Losing a canine or canines might indicate that at times you feel more vulnerable or less confident. This might be accompanied by greater feelings of vulnerability. There might be some painful experience underlying such feelings.

Clenched teeth: This usually show an enormous amount of tension, but we also grit or grind our teeth when holding back great physical or emotional pain or despair.

Dirty teeth: Similar to the poisonous teeth. The dirt suggest there is perhaps some sort of infection or nasty influence that can either go into one’s own body, or be injected by a bite.

Dracula type teeth: Similar to ‘dirty teeth’ or ‘big teeth’. But the Dracula type teeth indicate that you are being injected and thereby influenced by someone else’s subtle drive to control you or poison your feelings or mind. If you have the Dracula teeth, you need to ask yourself if you are trying to negatively influence someone else.

Having teeth attended to: Something that needs attention in your life that you might be putting off or delaying. It might link with pain you feel about something, or even be a bout an actual infection or decay. There might be a link with either your social appearance, your ability to deal with life effectively, or maintaining appearances.

No teeth: If this is an animal dream, it indicates harmlessness. If it refers to yourself or a human, it might also suggest harmlessness, but with the sense of lacking power and your ability to defend yourself, to get what you want from the world in the sense of biting off food, and also of course your social appearance – how you feel others see you. If you imagine yourself with no teeth, what in fact do you feel?

Spitting out lots of teeth: Something you want to ‘spit out’ in the sense of admitting, saying, or expressing something emotionally. But also perhaps the same as teeth falling out.

Swallowing teeth: See the section on ancient cultures in A woman swallowing teeth: above.

Teeth falling out: If all your teeth are falling out it often links with feelings to do with ageing and loss of one’s good looks. Sometimes the feelings are acute enough to link with fear of death, even in young people. But this deals also with the feelings to do with loss of power, loss of ability to express. One dreamer says she dreams this when she feels she is not being understood, or being effective, or feels unable to communicate.

Ann Faraday, in her book Dream Power, says:

At the time of my final marriage break-up, I had recurring dreams of losing teeth, appearing at a rich friend’s house wrapped only in an old blanket, and wandering grey streets full of old shambling figures. I used to awake in the mornings with a dull, heavy feeling if disintegration so that I could hardly get up. It was clear I felt old, unattractive and finished in spite of the fact that I was young and in excellent health.

 Example: ‘I felt a tooth was loose and started pushing it with my tongue. Then I took hold of it between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. I felt okay about this, but then another tooth was loose, and another, and I pulled them out. Running to the bathroom I looked into the mirror, horrified and frightened. All my teeth were coming out. Not knowing how to deal with this I ran to my mother, showing her my mouth, empty now except for two teeth. My mother appeared not to see my lack of teeth, or notice my fear.’ Eve.

Eve was 18 at the time of the dream. She explored it and found a fear of ageing and death. But this can also depict apprehension about maturing and facing independence and responsibility.

Falling teeth often link with a sense of loss, such as death of family member or loved one; the ageing process as it relates to maturity, so worries about getting older and one’s changing image. When our first teeth fall out at around seven, it is probably our initial experience of losing something from our body, something weird happening – we might even fear other bits of us could drop off or out. After all, if our good strong teeth can do it, why not an ear or an eye? So this experience can be used later in life to depict any worry we may have about our body not being fit, or about feeling the loss of something, or fears of looking peculiar and ageing.

See: Example 2 below.

If crowns falling out or injured: This may relate to a sense of urgency that something has to be attended to.

Tooth being pulled out: Jung felt this dream represents giving birth if dreamt by a woman. In general it probably has associations with loss or painful loss, a difficult parting in a relationship, or loss of something that has been badly influencing your emotional and perhaps even physical health.

Toothless: Loss of effectiveness and or feelings about ageing.

Woman swallowing teeth: The throat and Eustachian tubes have a similar shape to the uterus and fallopian tubes, so can depict conception or fear of it. In ancient cultures, a tooth was extracted and swallowed as part of a death and rebirth symbol. This may have arisen from the observation of losing one’s baby teeth and the growth of new teeth, suggesting the power of renewal. Swallowing teeth might also suggest ‘swallowing one’s words’.

False teeth: Loss of youth and its power and opportunities, as with the ageing process and loss of good looks.

Perhaps suggesting lies told or false appearances. Assumed social power and appearance, or not keeping spoken promises.

Idioms: a sweet tooth; a tooth for a tooth; armed to the teeth; by the skin of one’s teeth; cut my teeth on; fight tooth and nail; get one’s teeth into; gnash one’s teeth; give my eye teeth; grit one’s teeth; long in the tooth; teething troubles; milk teeth; scarce as hen’s teeth; set my teeth on edge; show one’s teeth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am losing teeth, what am I losing or feeling loss about in waking?

Am I meeting anything to do with my social appearance or self image?

Does something need attending to in my life?

What is coming out of my mouth in conversations – or what am I swallowing and not expressing?

testicles This depicts the male sexual ability and fertility. So loss of testicles, small testicles, would suggest loss of, or anxiety, about being capable sexually with a woman, or in a woman’s dream a sense that the man is not potent. So they represent virility in the sense of male confidence, strength and energy. See: penis above.

But testicles can also denote vulnerability, as when one is kicked there. They can also occasionally depict a source of energy and power, the testicles being a source of energetic influence, the hormone’s they produce shapes the body, and they also act as a sense organ. See: parts of body; levels of awareness.

A woman’s dream: Her feelings about sex with a male; feelings about wanting to conceive, or wanting the man deep in herself. Testicles in a woman’s dream might also indicate her relationship with this very genital level of sex. I would show what she is doing with her feelings and responses to a male or the male in herself.

If the woman dreams she has testicles, it suggests her becoming more aware of her own male aspect. See: animus; vagina below; penis above.

In a man’s dream: What he is doing with his sexual urge; his battery of energy and self worth or his sense of maleness.

The testicles in the male dream also suggest the life process existing in him beyond or underlying his personality. In other words his body has emerged from an incredibly long line of sex cells. In this sense his body is a budding out of sex cells that have always been alive, and so physically his body is infinitely old. But of course it will only continue its existence if it procreates. The testicles also link the male with his genetic connection with ancestors. The Y chromosome in male DNA holds 23 million base pairs euchromatin. This Y chromosome in each male holds in it markers showing his ancestral history back to the beginning of human development – 300 million years in fact. Because the Y chromosome changes relatively slowly over time and is only passed along the direct male line, it may be used to trace paternal lineage. For instance because of this slow change when changes occur it leaves markers in the y-chromosome. These markers indicate the lineage of the male. As an example of this, international geneticists have discovered that Genghis Khan was more than a great warrior, collected data has shown that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today are descendents of Genghis Khan. See: Genghis Khan – A Prolific Lover.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a male dream – what is being suggested here by the testicles in my dream – is it to do with my sense of maleness or my ancestral connections?

In a female dream – are the testicles indicating me relationship with a man, or with my own internal male?

Am I experiencing the testes as a sense organ – if so what am I aware of or gaining insight into?

If I imagine myself with and then without the testes in the dream, what is the difference? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

tongue This obviously relates to speech, and the capability of expression of what we feel. It enables us to articulate what is deep inside us, perhaps unknown to oneself. So dreaming of the tongue being cut out shows real feelings of being mute and not able to express clearly.

But the tongue and mouth are our first organs of gaining our needs and relating to the world and other people. The baby doesn’t just suck to gain milk, its tongue has wave like – peristaltic – movements that take the milk right down into the stomach. Kissing is therefore at least in part a return to this basic level of relationship and gaining needs, pleasure and contact with another being. If there are signs of this in the dream then it is reflecting ease or difficulty with that infant level of relatedness. The tongue can here be an expression of desire – of ‘I want’.

Because of the way the tongue and mouth are sometimes used in oral sex, the tongue can depict the penis, or at least, the drive to penetrate or to make contact through that sensitive organ. Another side to this is that we can express a lot of care and love through the tongue, as when a mother animal licks its child, so can express healing. But the tongue in all mammals is a way love and care is given, and so kissing is probably a return to this.

Idioms: bite your tongue; cat got your tongue; find one’s tongue; forked tongue; hold your tongue; lose one’s tongue; on the tip of one’s tongue; roll off the tongue; sharp tongue; silver tongued; slip of the tongue; tongue hanging out; tongue in cheek; tongue lashing; tongue tied.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Do any of the idioms relate to my dream – if so what does it indicate?

Is this a dream about hunger or thirst for something, if so what am I hungering or thirsting for?

Is there something I am trying to say or saying/singing really well – if so how does that relate to my waking life?

umbilical cord This is particularly about your earliest dependence upon your mother or carer. It also relates directly to your skill or difficulty in moving toward independence. So in many dreams it would illustrate your connection and emotional ties of dependence or need with other people – or how you are moving toward independence.

 Example: I was looking at my belly button. There was a good three inches of cord sticking out. The end of it was red and raw. Cassie A.

Cassie had been in a long dependent relationship which she had recently broken. She felt at the time of the dream she was having to stand alone and do things for herself. The end of her relationship felt like a ripping apart, and thus the sore cord.

See: navel; navel under body. Particularly read the piece under active imagination about the umbilical connection loss.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this dream bring any awareness of my deep dependent need for a flow of life and love?

Is this illustrating move growth toward independence – if so how am I achieving it?

Does relationship enter into this dream, or does it link with relationship?

vagina The vagina refers to much more than a woman’s sexual feelings and drives. It depicts the urges and processes that are the foundations of her waking personality. It deals with her ability to procreate, not only in regard to children, but also in her bringing things to life or reality in work and other people’s lives. The vagina can associate with her unique glandular bias which underlies the energy or lethargy or her drives, emotions and mind. It is this bias that helps or hinders her with what she faces in emotional, mental and physical expression. It gives, in whatever degree, the caring, nurturing feelings which emerge out of sexual mating when healthy.

The vagina in a woman’s dream also might indicate her desire for a mate; the sense of connection and identity with other women, other female creatures and female aspects of nature. In its positive aspect it may represent the sure confidence with which a woman may demand from her man that he treat her womanhood with the respect it deserves. This means expressing the full flood of her sexual need with its desire for a child, a caring and supportive nest to rear that child in, and her female creativity which may rise from that basic reproductive drive into social creativity and personal demand for respect. It means she will confront her man with this and expect him to meet it with his own masculine power.

If the dream is directly about the uterus, this suggests an immediate connection with the ability to reproduce in some way, with pregnancy, with nurturing a child. See: ovaries/uterus under body.

There is another important possibility when the idea or image of the vagina is used. There is a secret and beautiful aspect to the vagina that is not often mentioned. It is that deep down, every women knows that she is very special and even unique. This wonderful secret treasure women offer when they really love. They come to love with the expectancy, maybe not even very conscious, of having this wonder in them, this treasure, recognised and honoured.

Unfortunately the woman may identify with this wonder as a person, and that could be a mistake. The treasure, the unique and wonderful riches she has are her eggs. Within her are the living accumulation of millions of years of life experience. Nobody else carries exactly the eggs that she does. These eggs are beyond imagining in their wonder and history, in the information, lives, secrets they hold. This is the treasure a woman offers to her lover. If she believes her own personality is this treasure it might lead to over inflation of her self image. But also of course, it will lead to the terrible despair that often follows human love. Betrayal of the trust may follow. But her eggs are for her to honour and treasure. They are for her to recognise and know what a great wealth she carries within her. So in some dreams the vagina is an image of this sense the woman has of her own unique wealth.

In a woman’s dream: Generally how you feels about your own sexual needs, but this includes procreation as well. It links with the health or feeling state of your sexual self and physical vagina, as well as your experience of motherhood or experience of the procreative relationship with your mother and nature.

As such it depicts your central femininity, your sexual urge and your ability or inability to have a child. It might be used in your dream to show what you feel about your physical attraction. And in some dreams it is shown as the reality underlying the temple or church of life. Temples and churches are in fact just symbols of the creative reality of the vagina and the holy sexual mystery of life.

Bleeding vagina: This might indicate your fears about sexuality and femininity, or hurts to your emotions connected with sexual relatedness.

In man’s dreams: The vagina represents your feelings or fears about meeting a woman’s full sexuality, as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your mother, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in you from your childhood. It also connects with your experience of birth, and how your mother met your emerging male sexuality. The vagina is the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression.

Bleeding vagina in a male dream: Your trauma, fears, hurts about your sexual and emotional ability to relate to a woman sexually, socially and emotionally.

 Example: ‘She was now quite naked, dead and stiff, but still bleeding from the vagina. I walked along, the dead body walked like a clockwork soldier. It was quite horrible to see its semblance to life.’ Derek A.

Derek’s relationship with a woman, and with his own emotions and sexuality is ‘dead’ and deeply hurt – the blood. He can mechanically have sex – the clockwork soldier – but not with deep feeling bonds or satisfaction.

 Exple: ‘He was very brown, could have been a native but he didn’t feel strange to me. We were having sex, I was very aware of the pleasure in my lower body. It was very slippy slidy and wet, there was enjoyment for both of us. Very intense body feelings with a childlike quality, not passion – but pleasure and joy in my vagina.’ Susy I.

Susy is feeling happy and joyful about her ‘native’ or natural sexual feelings – particularly the sensual side of sex. Sensual pleasure, as with emotional pleasure, is as much a food for our physical and emotional self, as bread is for our physical body.

 Example: ‘I had very little pubic hair and thought it must be because I had just had a shower, but, no, on looking again I had very little hair. I was hugging Mary, a friend, my arms around her back and one hand holding her vagina. It was then I noticed she was the shape of a man there. I drew away for a second at the discovery then felt OK as it meant I was hugging a male/female person. We were very warm together. Two days before this dream my husband had said his mother called a vagina a MARY.’ Lucy R.

Lucy is ‘touching’ or becoming aware of what could be seen as her own wholeness, which includes her male nature.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is the central thing this dream is presenting to me – is it about the way I feel about sex, about residues of my father’s influence in my life, or about my female power?

In a male dream – does my dream in any way indicate my fears or strengths in my relationship with a woman – or is it about residues of my mother’s influence?

What are the main or even the suggested feelings or emotions shown in the dream, and what place do they have in my waking life?

 womb See: ovaries/uterus; vagina.

Body Situations

(Anaesthetised Body)   (Appearance Smiling Frowning –  Baby Head on Old Body)

(Bodilessness Bodyless)   (Body Being Cut Open)   (Body electrocuted or electric shock)   (Body Put in Bag)  (Body Convulsing)  (Body Bottom Half)  (Body Injuries)   (Body Without Head)  (Burned or burning body Where burn is painfulWhere the burning body is beautiful)

(Coldness in lower part of bodyColdness in chest Cold feet)

(Dead body)  (Diseased Body)   (Dismembered body)

(Half a bodyMissing Bottom halfMissing Top Half)

(Leaving body)   (Left Side of bodyIf you are right handedthe left handed)   (Limbs, loss of)

(Maggots in body)   (Murdered body)

(Old head on baby body)

(Primitive body – such as prehistoric form)   (Pulling things out of ones body)

(Right side of body – If you are right handed)

(Sickness in bodyTop half of body)

 

 

This suggests deadening of feelings, repression of love or anger, or the ‘sleep’ or repression of passion, creativity or reason.

Jung said in Man and His Symbols – ‘I was also surprised to find many intelligent and wide-awake people who lived (as far as one could make out) as if they had never learned to use their sense organs: They did not see the things before their eyes, hear the words sounding in their ears, or notice the things they touched or tasted. Some lived without being aware of the state of their own bodies.’ This could be represented in a dream as being anaesthetised. It could also point to a desire to have pain taken away or be relieved, or memory of an actual medical operation. Such a past experience sometimes leads to feelings connected with dying.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel ‘dead’ in any way or in any part of my body?

Have I deadened my feelings or creativity in any way?

Am I seeking to avoid pain and so deadening myself in some way?

Becoming awake meaning noticing what you feel – even unconsciously. See What we Need to Remember About Us and Victims – Easy Dream Interpretation

 

How your body or other people’s body appears in a dream gives a lot of information. Most of this can be taken literally.

From how our body looks people tend to identify themselves with it, women more so than men. In fact in our early years we tend to build our sense of identity from our looks, health and how others react to us. Also our feelings about how attract we are sexually are also used a great deal. But as far as dreams are concerned they have a much wider view than our physical looks and our sexual charm. See Identity and Sex; Identity And Dreams; What we Need to Remember About Us.

So take time to consider if you are confident, happy, purposive in your dream. All these are scene setting for the rest of the dream. If you are tired and untidy in the dream, or your body is looking ill, then these factors represent the state of mind and perhaps even of health you are in or feel yourself to be in at the time of the dream. Also realise that dreams are dealing with a mirror image of your inner feelings about you and also the big global picture of you. These may shown in such dreams as:

Example: I have this recurring nightmare. I see my mother standing by my bedroom door, blocking it as if I am being trapped and stopped from getting out. I often call to her, “Let me out Mum” but she just stands there staring with no expression on her face at all. I end up getting out of bed and switching my bedroom light on and then she disappears. Sometimes I will see her standing by my wardrobe. It seems as if she is always standing by a door and trying to trap me.

The dream shows Natalie trying to find a way out of her dependence on her mother. Therefore it is a reflection of what she feels and does not admit to herself.

Our identity as it is shown in many dreams is not a formed thing like our body. In its essence it is not even male or female, but both. Summarising such dreams, it is the sense of bodilessness, aloneness, loss of power and los of our sense of identity, which bring so much fear in our dreams. There are antipodes of human experience. At the tip of one is focused, self determining self awareness. At the tip of the other is unfocused void without focussed identity which occurs in sleep. Strangely enough we experience both each day in some degree. The first while awake – the second when we sleep. Yet to face the second with consciousness feels like all the horrors of death and loss. But facing it is important, especially in the second half of life. Although the unconscious carries the dark images we have of death, it also provides what feels like certainty about an existence which transcends death to those who experience it. This is presented as an awareness of existing eternally as part of the very fabric of life. In one form or another this is what those who dare to confront the dark images of death find beyond them.

Smiling: Would be referring to confidence and happiness.

Frowning: Suggests anxiety or concern about something.

Baby head on old body: Immature personality; ones decisions are being influenced by childhood feelings and drives. See: baby.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of how young my attitudes and perhaps feelings are?

Can I see signs, even if only at the moment, of how parts of me have not matured?

Have parts of me been frozen or held back in life experience, thus not enabling them, to grow and mature – if so what held me back and how can I help those facets grow?

See The Two Powers and Acting on your dream

 

We build our identity and our sense of self out of the many interactions with other people and the world. In a real sense we create each other by believing in our body and communicating with each other. With prolonged absence of other people and events, and especially if we lose our ‘noises’ and body awareness, we feel we – our sense of identity – is disappearing or dying. People immersed in a sensory deprivation tank begin to lose a clear sense of themselves, and can result in anxiety, hallucinations and depression.

Bodilessness may therefore show us feeling unrecognised, unnoticed, isolated by circumstances or attitudes. It can indicate feelings of loneliness or feeling cut off from sexuality and body drives. Feeling without body is also often used in connection with, or to represent, feelings about death. In some degree it links with a sense of losing our identity or going beyond boundaries. It can also reflect feelings that you are a ‘nobody’.

In its positive aspect bodilessness is an exploration of the subtler aspects of our mind, our internal world, and relatedness. As such, bodilessness may be a great realisation of freedom. This positive side of it may bring a sense of survival of bodily death. It may also relate to the experience of being in the womb, and to the participation in another person’s being – or participation in the existence of all things. This is because the sense of bodilessness often brings with it a melting of ones boundaries and a feeling of being part of all life. This is sometimes called an ‘oceanic’ experience because it can feel like one is melting into an enormous ocean of life or consciousness. See: first example below; identity and dreamsarchetype of death and rebirthout of body experiencealtered states of consciousness.

Example: I had a spontaneous OBE as a teenager, and after recovering from the shock of finding myself floating over my body and staring down at myself asleep in bed, I had an indescribably exhilarating time flying through walls and soaring over the treetops. During the course of my bodiless journey I even stumbled across a library book a neighbour had lost and was able to tell her where the book was located the next day. I describe this experience in detail in Beyond the Quantum. From The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, Grafton Books.

But more than anything else it is the experience of your core self without any images of having a body – a retreat from the old sense of self of having a particular body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I perhaps not very aware of my body sensations or my body functions?

Do I desire to be out of this world sometimes – if so why?

Have I experienced my awareness as being capable of independence of my bodily awareness?

It would be good to read Bodiless Awareness and Levels of Awareness

 

A vital change being made in oneself; an emergency of emotional or physical nature, or the release of deeply buried feelings or tension. In some dreams it shows the release from restraints or the awareness of deeply buried past experiences or insight in to your body’s health.

In some women’s dreams it occasionally represents a sexual relationship or painful sex. In times past it was sometimes used as an actual operation to release ‘evil spirits’ so has the association of release of tension; the release of a trauma or painful experience.

Example: Dreamt I had the most excruciating pain in my left thumb. It was so bad I went to the doctor. The doctor became a surgeon and he cut open the thumb and lots of spiders came out. Ann.

On being questioned Ann explained that she had recently felt a lot of painful and angry emotions about her mother who had died shortly prior to the dream. The spider often depicts connections with the mother. So here the cutting is to release the pain in a healing way – suggested by the doctor.

Example: Feeling tired – exhausted – just lying drained of energy. I am conscious of people talking, saying I was ill. I thought I was just tired. Then I asked what the matter was. I was told it was my heart ‘dry and hard like a boiled egg’ they said. Found I couldn’t talk. Tried to write, wanted my husband to know that I loved him, but the pen kept drying up. Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was haemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L

For Trish the cutting open links with the freedom to move beyond the enormous and deadening life experience shown by the beginning of the dream.

Example: I saw a dark brown fertile field in which a plough was cutting large furrows. Suddenly I myself became the field and the sharp steel plough went easily through the length of my body and cut me into two halves. Although it hurt, it was indescribably beautiful. I experienced myself as the ploughed-up field, and the furrow as my own flesh, but it was not bleeding.

Medard Boss reports this dream of a woman who though experienced in sex, had not previously felt deep love. He says the richness and depth of her sexual feelings when in love, are depicted by the dream and being joyfully cut open.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been deeply hurt or experienced an enormous ‘opening’ of some sort?

Am I aware of something inside that needs to be exposed or cut out or allowed out of my life?

Am I discovering parts of my experience that were deeply buried and held inside me?

Try Talking As to uncover more, or even Being the Person or Thing.

 

This suggests emotional pain such as one might get on hearing ‘shocking news’ or perhaps a painful way of experiencing change. It can also depict any sort of shock or startling response to internal or external events, and may also be a dramatic way of symbolising the pain one feels physically from repressed emotions such as anger or desire. These may cause such psychosomatic but real suffering as lower back or chest pain.

The electrocution could also be a response to something happening to the body while asleep, such as lack of circulation in a limb causing pins and needles. In some dreams though it is clear to see it as the response we have to our own enormous energy – i.e. we may be frightened of the enormity of our potential energy, or we may be related to in a painful way. Such energy can of course be creative or destructive, as happens with negative emotional energy when the different physical effects of joy or grief and hatred are looked at.

Some electrocution dreams deal with the way we experience and relate to energy. The following example clearly illustrates this.

Example: I was kneeling on the floor in a house. I have worked as an electrician so was probably working in the house, but in some way I had hold of, or was connected with, a large electric cable. The cable was live with electricity, and it touched my right shoulder. The effect was excruciating and shocking pain. The most intense memory is of struggling to pull the cable away from myself, fighting to stay conscious against the terrible current lashing through me. I screamed out for my mother, who I was sure was in the building somewhere, to switch off the electricity. I knew I only had a little time because I could not survive that current long. I have a vague sense that the current stopped, then the current and the struggle started again. T.B.

In exploring his dream T.B. first of all met feelings of great pleasure and strength about his ability to work, and that work and helping people with practical needs was the main way he shared love, the main way he expressed his energy. He says, “So the dream is not simply saying I am working, but that work, as an expression of myself, connects me with others and the world. In other words, this is an important part of my communication, socialising, and loving others.”

He goes on to say, “The electricity is the energy of my life. It is the energy of my emotions, of my connection with others. This had been, as it were, short-circuited by what I felt to be the criticism, the rejection, non understanding of my last two female partners. I felt that I had tried and tried, while preserving my own integrity, to live in the way they wanted me to. But this felt as if it was an enormous self-denial at times. It was a self-denial that created this almost death dealing introversion of energy. The anger I felt about this had in it the sense that there might even be an inherent attempt to kill out my manhood, my flow of positive male energy. That is how I felt, anyway. As I summarised this I felt I could stand up and smile, and say I’m not going to be killed.” See: example under blindness in dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sudden shock have I experienced recently?

Am I aware of the enormous potential energy I have?

Is the dream depicting the way my energy is expressing or being held back – and is this creative or self destructive?

Try using Energy Sex and Dreams – Being the Person or Thing

 

The loss of or end of something, perhaps a relationship or ones life as it was. But if the body in the bag is a parent or partner the image could mean a move to independence. It also suggests feelings about death or being ‘on the scrap heap’. See:second example under body.

Example: The evening before she had the dream her boy friend had rung her up. Caroline was struggling to end the relationship. She said to him – ‘Look, as far as I am concerned you are dead!’ That night she dreamt she saw a scroll pinned up on the wall. The writing said ‘Alan – her boyfriend – is dead.’ She felt shocked and could not believe it. She went off to look for him and found him in a white plastic body bag. She could see his outline. He was gasping for breath, suffocating. She felt sad. Caroline.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am either trying to get rid of or sending away?

Am I letting go of a past way of life?

Is this about a move toward independence?

What rubbish in myself or way of life am I discarding?

Try being the body in the bag – read Being the Person or Thing or Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Great internal pain or conflict that is discharging; great conflicting emotions or drives; a response to past trauma which is being partially released but causing a conflict because of remaining resistance; enormous internal changes.

The following dream shows Caroline watching convulsions bring a body back to life, and that is another possible meaning. In this case the convulsions suggests a painful experience of the deadness in her life as it is being healed. It occurred at a time she was breaking with a long time partner and shows the re-discovery of her artistic skill, the pain of coming to life again after the deadening effect of the relationship, and the change of self image she is undergoing.

Example: I was being shown round a huge warehouse. In one of the rooms, there were my paintings. In the next room I was shown there was a girl being operated on. She was being revived by electric shock treatment. I remember feeling that it was creepy watching her body jerk and convulse as she was being brought back to life. Then I turned to look in a mirror and saw there was glue all over my face, I was tearing it off to get the layers off my skin. Then I started to tear at my skin. Caroline.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the convulsions expressing – dying or coming to life?

Is there a deeply felt conflict or trauma I am facing at the moment?

Is the convulsion due to an electric shock – if so what has chocked me recently?

Try using Characters and People in Dreams and Life Changes

 

This section of the body is used in dreams to depict your sexuality and instincts; the animal, less rational, more passionate or ‘driven’ side of yourself. It expresses the supporting sustaining aspect of your physical and psychological processes such as the nourishing and reproductive process and the physiological or automatic motor energies. Sometimes it is associated with feelings or difficulties in regard to your mother. The lower body is therefore the energies or processes of life in you that move you without your conscious will or even consent, such as the ageing process, desire, fears, your needs and hungers.

Dreaming about the lower part of the body in general suggests recognising or giving the less rational, procreative or basic ‘needs’ more awareness or expression in your life – or the need to. Because the lower part of the body relates to what remains largely unconscious or instinctive, it often appears in dream that deal with lifting up, or transforming the ‘lower’ habitual or instinctive energies or drives into conscious and directed energy and creativity. This is sometimes called sublimation, and is a fundamental drive in our being. It is the process of unconscious life moving toward consciousness. It can be likened to the potential in a seed unfolding until it flowers and produces seeds. Our whole growth from conception is in this direction, but at a certain time we need to take on the work consciously. See: fundamental process;Individuation.

In researching this section of the body and searching through dreams connected with the lower part of the body, it was found that in a large number of dreams mentioning the ‘lower body’ falling was dreamt of in some way. See: Tolstoy’s dream example under falling. This may be due to it having to do with letting go of conscious control.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I failing to understand or be aware of the parts of me represented by my lower body?

Do I have a difficult relationship with my sexual needs or instincts?

Am I holding too tightly to a rational and controlled relationship with life?

Think about these things What Economic and Look at I

 

This suggests hurts, or events that may have led to emotional scars. The injury might very well have been self induced, as when we internalise anger or aggression. The main point about an injury dream though, is that it depicts something that has led to you functioning less fully or efficiently. Just as a sprained ankle in waking would make it difficult to go about your daily life easily, so would a damaged ankle in your dream suggest a similar thing.

The dream could also be about attitudes or memories that are felt as hurts, or even imagined but felt hurts.

Another possibility is of body situations that are developing, perhaps out of internal stresses or emotions such as grief, but are still subliminal. See body areas below.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of me is injured and what does this suggest as far as my functioning is concerned? (See entry for what ever body part is injured).

Is there any way I can help or heal this? (See: Carrying dream forward in peer dream work).

Did someone else do this to me – if so am I aware of any event when I felt such a hurt?

 

Feelings of being led by your physical appetites and sensations, or being thoughtless.

Idioms: keep your head above water; get ahead; airhead; lose your head; out of my head; take my head off; keep your head; losing my mind.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you acting out of desires or urges without thought?

Is stress making you act differently?

What is up with your head?

See Easy Dream Interpretation and Settings in Dreams

 

Where burn is painful – Emotional hurt, the sort that can leave a deep impression – scar – on one. The burning often shows how we are dealing with our emotional or sexual energy. So the burn suggests we are relating to it is a self destructive way.

Where the burning body is beautiful – Feeling of potential and wonder; realisation of the wonderful inner potential, the enormous energy we hold within. It might also show how we are experiencing and expressive direction of emotional or sexual energy.

In the Oneirocritica (AD. 350) it says about burning ‘The burning of the body indicates a very evil reputation.’ Astrampsychus. This was probably due to the custom of the times to burn dead bodies.

Example: We started to walk back towards the house and we both noticed that the power lines were slung very low to the ground about chest height to me. I knew there was a car coming up the road towards us and at the same time felt it was connected up with something to do with the power lines. I was feeling drawn towards touching them, knowing what would happen. Sure enough once I had hold of the power lines my body started to burn up. My body rose to the height of the house windows and I could hear the yells from my burning body, I thought it must be a hell of a shock for everyone looking on. H. C.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the burning painful or cleansing – and what does that relate to in my life?

Am I meeting powerful emotions and longings at the moment – if so what are they about?

Is there a burning desire I experience?

It might be useful to use Acting on your dream and Talking As

 

Repressed or resisted emotions and urges. This sort of cold or shivering often occurs as people start to release unconscious material. It is possibly caused by resistances which inhibit full flowing expression of feelings, causing a sort of stop/start action, or a stop/go flow of energy. The coldness can also show emotional coldness, being without feelings, or lack of motivation or enjoyment. In some dreams the coldness comes about through the loss of something that warmed or enthused you, but may also be caused by distancing yourself from others.

Fear or tension brings about coldness, or you may actually be feeling cold while asleep.

Coldness in lower part of body – Impotence caused by tension or anxiety; sexual coldness; restraint of passion and wanting.

Coldness in chest – Lack of feelings or emotional response; feeling ‘cold’ toward someone; held-back emotions.

Cold feet – Fear; not wanting to do something; indecision; inactivity. See: cold.

Idioms: catch a cold (catch cold); cold call; cold comfort; cold feet; cold shoulder; cold turkey; in a cold sweat; in cold blood; leave out in the cold; out cold; stop you cold; throw cold water on.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I experiencing anxiety or tension at the moment?

Is there any sense of holding back my sexual feelings or emotions?

Am I holding back or something I want to do and causing a stop/go situation?

Use the body to discover dream powerSee Resistances – they are a main cause of not getting healing from your dreams.

 

The dead body depicts a whole set of personality traits or attitudes, very often potentials, that have been denied life or expression. For some reason we have not allowed them expression. A person hurt in love might kill out any feelings towards the opposite sex. This ‘dead’ part of them can be shown as a body.

Dead body dreams may also be the way we meet feelings about death. The Bible describes a dead body as something that can ‘defile’ a person, and this feeling of disease or uncleanness might also be a part of some dead body dreams.

In some dreams the dead body is that of the dreamer, and is looked back on. In such dreams there is often the feeling of immense release and certainty about life continuing beyond death – although occasionally this is preceded by great fear. The dream could also be about feelings to do with old age and dying. (See: deathdeath and dreamsdeath – life after).

If the body is of someone else you know or a parent it can depict what is left inside you from past relationships. For instance we might figuratively carry the dead body of our father around with us, occasionally trying to rouse it to life to get him to say he loved us. In such cases the influence of past experience still lives in us and may at times be shown as a dead body. Or it could be that we have killed out love or connection with that person and this situation, the deadness between you and the person shown, is depicted as a dead body.

In his book Death Dreams, Kenneth Paul Kramer and John Larkin ask the question who or what dies in the dreams where either the dreamer dies, and watches his/her own death, or the dreamer watches the death of another body? Nobody dies. The dreamer is simply experiencing ideas, concepts or feelings about death.

Example: Dreamt that while talking with my wife I remembered that my son and I had murdered someone years before, and buried the body under a great slab of cement. After the murder the guilt – or rather the fear of being found out – was awful, but as each period of time passed, we gradually managed to lose memory of what we had done. But now I had remembered and felt the anguish of the guilt and fear of discovery. C.R.

C.R. had repeatedly dreamt such dreams. Writing about what he found when exploring his dream he says:

I was led to a direct feeling link with my mother as the dead body. I saw, or felt, that when I cut off from her at 5 and attempted independence of my need for her, because of the pain she brought about in me, I had killed her as an inward figure in my life, and buried my feelings of need for her. The cement represented the energy I had used, the decisiveness, to bury her, to get her out on my life. I went on to recognise that killing and burying my mother, or my relationship with my mother, in that way was not in my own best interests. It was really an expression of my own lack of love and awareness of my best survival direction. So I took the bones and carefully and reverently buried them, along with my father.

There are many dreams of people who communicate with they they know are dead. Here is an example:

Example: One day one of my friends called me and informed me of his death. I broke down in tears and was like that for almost a week straight. I’ve had two dreams about him. In both I would see him and his mother smiling and happy and I would ask him what happened and why he wasn’t dead. His answer is that someone made a mistake and that he never really died. The dreams went about the same way but they occurred in different settings (one in a neighbourhood and one in my old school) but in the second one I was happier to see him and we talked and touched each other more. What does this mean?!?!?!?!

In such dreams communication is a mixture of what the dead person thinks and feels, and also what the dreamer believes death is like, and also the difficulty of translation. Please read Dreams and Symbols as it is an attempt to explain the difficulty.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I killed this body – if so what am I killing or denying in myself?

If I imagine myself as this body what do I feel or connect with in myself? (For help doing this see – Stand in Role.)

Do I know the person who is dead – if so what is my relationship with them – have I removed them from my love?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingTalking with the dead

 

The sickness may be about what you feel about yourself, or what is a situation in you. Sometimes we feel we are a person without resources, but we might actually have many resources. So there is a difference between feeling something and it being a reality. So the sickness may depict our sick feeling state, or show how depleted we are in spirit and heart.

But the sickness may show an actual state in the body rather than a psychological state. So if you have any sense that it is not representing psychological states, you need to have a medical check. See Kasatkin, Vasily.

Dream information is usually quite specific, so the area of the body being shown as sick is important. Look up the section of the body involved in the other entries, and consider if the sickness is about that area of your feelings or attitudes. For instance a sick heart might refer to feeling ill disposed or without love to other people or the world – a sick leg might show your confidence, motivations or enthusiasm is weak. If possible take the information out of its symbols and express in everyday words. See: processing dreams.

If the sick body is being healed or rejuvenated, this is a very useful dream as it not only shows what sickness occurring within you is, but also what change of attitudes, or what resources are available to heal or change the condition. See: illness and dreams.

Dreams about being ill often illustrate the sort of body, or self, image we have. Because anxiety is such a frequent human experience, anxiety about illness, or possible illness, is very frequent. Therefore such dreams may be graphically illustrating the unconscious fears you have about your health. Carrying such negative images of yourself around cannot help but have a depleting influence on your body’s immune system – considering that positive imagery has been found to have such a strengthening influence. Occasionally such images of sickness – i.e. fears that we are ill – occur out of unconscious desires to punish oneself, but more frequently out of general anxiety. Dealing with such negative self images is important because they are a real source of sickness. See: visualisation.

The rather humorous dream in the example below shows how ill the dreamer could feel about something as simple as wind. The second example shows a very different situation.

Example: It seemed as if I were watching a married couple in their house. The woman had been out somewhere and the man had perhaps eaten something and now had pain. The pain was not specific and he and the woman talked over what began to be felt as a serious developing illness. The morning of the next day the situation was worse. At that point their son, about eighteen, walked in, very bright and positive – apparently not living independently. They told him the situation. Remaining bright and positive he asked his father to lie on the bed with head on pillows and knees bent. Then he took hold of his father’s ankles and moved his legs up and down in a pump like action. Farts accompanied each movement and the problem was resolved. Zak.

Example: I had just got out of bed, and started walking along an upstairs passage toward the bathroom, to wash and shave. As I took a few steps along the passageway I realised I had got wet somehow, and looking back I could see, against the sun coming through the window, a fine spray of water coming from a burst in a water pipe. Then suddenly a wave of water rolled out from the bedroom. A whole section of a large lead pipe had come away. That is, the front of the pipe had come off. I rushed into the room and pushed the pipe back in place, holding off the massive water leak. But the water had gone onto what was an electric fire, and was now a gas fire which was leaking. I couldn’t deal with the gas fire because I was holding the pipe and I shouted for help, feeling that with the massive amount of water on the floor the floor would collapse. KS

A few days after this dream KS was diagnosed with a burst colon and was seriously ill. See: illness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of the body is sick in the dream – and what psychological function does that represent? (Look it up).

Am I holding fears of illness or negative images of my body’s health?

Does the dream feel like something warning me about illness – if so I need to get a medical check?

What do I feel if I imagine myself as the body? Stand in role.

You could also try Acting on your dream

 

This suggests emotional or mental stress and breakdown. As difficult as this is to meet in actual life, it may be followed by emergence of a new self. The dream could also suggest that you are tearing yourself apart in facing a difficult situation, and this could be causing your present inner and outer life to fall apart. This may be the result of living a life that was not true to your own inner needs or the needs of the present. Sometimes habits of response to life that were generated in your past are so damaging they lead to this self destruction. The need is therefore to recognise them and let them go or transform them. It is worth remembering that feeling dismembered or torn to pieces by events is just that – a feeling. The feeling leads you to see life in that way – as a threat and not worth having. But such feelings can be moved beyond. See: habits.

The dream may depict parts of yourself that have been torn apart because you discarded them, have feelings of guilt about them, or you repressed or split off from them.

Example: I was walking along a road and recognised a house. I had known a man who had lived there. He had killed his wife and I had disposed of her body. The body, cut and broken into many pieces, was buried in the front garden. I realised I felt guilty about my part in the murder, and had purposely pushed the memory of it out of my awareness to avoid feeling guilt and fear of the body being found.

Andrew, whose dream this was, when he explored it met feelings about how he had messed up the opportunities for love in his life through living out his hurts and angers with his wife. He had thereby killed the love between them and had tried to bury his awareness of this.

The dismembered body is frequently seen in myths and is particularly related to death and rebirth, to suffering and new beginnings, or a return to the womb and perhaps memories of birth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this body of someone in particular – if so in what way have I torn our relationship or my feelings apart?

If I imagine myself as this body what feelings do I meet and what does that tell me about myself? (For help doing this see Stand in role

What is it I have torn myself apart trying to do or be?

Is there any way I can help or heal this? See carry the dream forward

 

The half-body dreams certainly suggest some form of balance lacking between the conscious personality and the natural drives.

If top missing: It shows a lack of thinking and higher emotion.

If bottom missing: It indicates trauma to, loss or denial of sexuality and sensuality.

Example: My stomach… growing larger and larger until I saw an enormous stomach covered with a shapeless brown skirt that fell to the ankles… my mother… my mother… very pregnant. . . . ‘That’s my sister in there! I’VE GOT TO HACK MY SISTER OUT OF THERE!’ My other voice screamed again as in fantasy I grabbed an axe and hacked away at my sister’s foetus in my mother’s stomach. But – blotting out that fantasy – the nightmare of my very fat aunt with only the upper half of her body, her stomach missing. Now I knew. Blindingly. I must have been intensely jealous when my sister was about to be born, and I must have wanted to kill her off; an impulse which I had repressed from consciousness, only to have it appear in this nightmare of a very fat woman who had lost the lower half of her body. In the nightmare the very fat woman had been my aunt and not my mother. But I had had enough analysis to know that the substitution of one person for another in dreams (or life) is one of the salient mechanisms of the unconscious, called ‘displacement’ I had never before seen displacement so clearly demonstrated. Constance Newland, from her book Myself and I.

Constance was facing the problem of frigidity, in which her sexual feelings had been cut off, so although her dream was not directly about this, it still held in it the cutting off of the lower half of the body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise that I am only living half of what I am capable of?

What is it that is missing – my intellect and reasoning or my sexual and sensual self?

Does my dream suggest how I can find balance – if not how can I take the dream forward to find satisfaction?

See: Carrying dream forwardalso Talking with a dream character

 

This is sometimes about the urge to escape or get away from the cares and responsibilities of physical life. It can also be about reaching a powerful confrontation with feelings about life and death. Shock or illness can cause this confrontation.

Sometimes such dreams are exploring the idea of survival of bodily death, and might even be the result of remaining aware in some degree while falling asleep, thus being aware of the loss of sensory input, translated into the imagery of leaving the body. See: out of body experiencealtered states of consciousness; identity and dreamssecond example in death and rebirth.

If you see another person leaving their body, it probably means you are fearful they will die, or have an intuition about them dying.

Example: When we came to my sister, I had the feeling she was ill. I can’t fathom why, but I was just about to ask him to look after her, when he stretched out his right hand and gently stroked her cheek. He said to her, “You’re dead aren’t you?” I was absolutely stunned and it was then that I was aware of how cold and white he was. I realised then that he was dead, and so he could see she was dying – due to some aura as her spirit was leaving her body. He then disappeared, and I was frantic trying to find him, to ask him how long before she would die. I was crying and almost hysterical to find him, and that is how I awoke. Mrs. C. M.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What led up to leaving the body, and what can I understand from that?

Was this happy or frightening? (If frightening see paralysis while asleep.)

Am I someone who does not relate well to external life?

It might help to read Talking with the dead and  Being the Person or Thing

 

If you are right handed, the right of the body represents: Outer activity and dominant functions. The abilities and personal traits you express outwardly. This may also relate to your father’s influence in your life and body. For instance if father is an anxious man there might be a lot more signs of stress on this side of the body. This is probably opposite for the left handed. See: Left side of body above for fuller description of left right split.

Example: Morning began to dawn, and the old lady went back to bed. Then a horrible woman, like a nurse, came in and lifted her in her arms. She held her and rocked her like a baby, in a revolting sort of way, and the old lady began to suck her thumb of her right hand, and take on baby attitudes. Then I noticed that her right leg was only half the length of her left, and was only like a half grown leg.

In this dream there are clear indications of the psychological meanings of the right side of the body. The thumb sucking shows a childlike need and the right leg, the strength to meet external life, is not properly developed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting about this dominant side of myself?

Is there any suggestion of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here?

Can I recognise what the dream shows about the right side?

See Ages of Love and Easy Dream Interpretation

 

If you are right handed, the left of the body represents: The left side of our body, or left arm, leg, etc, often links to inner feelings that support your outer action – such as confidence. It indicates your less used or supported functions. If you are an intellectual, the left might depict your less used or totally ignored feelings, intuitions, irrational urges, whereas the right might depict orthodoxy, the rational and accepted.

The left may represent your mother’s influence in your life and body, the right the influence of your father.

A difference in the way the left and right sides of the brain function, and what they control, was defined because of a form of treatment given to a few sufferers of an acute form of epilepsy. Usually there is a connecting bridge of nerve fibres, some 200 million of them, called the corpus callosum, between the two lobes of the brain. This bridge was severed in some epilepsy patients, forcing the lobes of the brain to act independently. From this is was seen that each lobe deals with different functions and perceptions, as well as different sides of the body.

The left lobe of the brain for instance is almost always larger than the right lobe. Considering that the left lobe controls behaviour of the right side of the body, and the right lobe the left side, there are direct connections between the brain lobe and the hands.

Other differences than size also occur between the lobes. The left lobe contains many short neural fibres that provide rich interconnection within limited areas of the hemisphere. The right lobe contains many long neural fibres that connect widely separate areas.

It was discovered that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body; speech; reasoning; a sense of past and future.

The right side of the brain controls the left hand side of the body; the spatial sense; intuition; awareness of gestalts – arriving at meaning through putting together many small bits of information; feelings; the present.

All the above might be opposite for the left handed, but not necessarily so, as the left handed dreamer might share similar associations with ‘right’. See: Right side of body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream indicating something to do with my less dominant feelings and skills?

Does the dream suggest any weakness here or injury – if so what is happening to my confidence or supportive attitudes?

Is there something I am not accepting or in touch with and keep myself from expressing?

See The Life Will and Dreams are a reflection of your inner world

 

Limbs, loss of Usually pertains to the sense of inadequacy or lack of psychological function connected with the limb. Loss of a leg for instance would be lack of ability to stand up for yourself, stand your ground – the strength that enables you to meet opposition or to motivate yourself and get a move on in life. The ability to be mobile.

Loss of an arm would relate to inadequacy in the ability to reach out and influence other people and the world, giving and receiving, keeping others at bay or holding on, depending on dream. See: armslegs.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of not having a full expression of the psychological aspect of this limb?

What has happened to me to damage my ability in this way?

Is there anything I can do to change or heal this situation? See: carry the dream forward.

What is the theme of the dream suggesting as to how the limb was lost?

See Use the body to discover dream power and Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Possible need to cleanse body of toxins or infection, or a sense of dis-ease emotionally in that area of self; something, like a fear or resentment, eating away at one. It could also indicate a decay or part of you lacking life, something ’eating away at you’.

The unconscious telling us that a part of our attitudes is not wholesome or ‘well’. So repressed emotions causing tension in the chest might be represented as maggots. See: body; corruption.

The secret witnessed in dreams is that if you dare stop running from these emotions and cut-out cartoons of death, with their maggots and rotting bodies, you will break through the screen the images are projected upon. The wondrous reality of life will be waiting for you there, ready to share the love and transformation that lies in death. Dare to challenge the mirage.

Example: Some children are going to show me the “life thing.” They pull me into a room and are going to stand me up on a short platform but I want to be more important or higher, so I insist I stand on a dresser. I hold my arms up in the air and then notice a clingy sensation around the fingers of my left hand. I pull it down to look at it and am appalled. A thick spider’s cocoon is wrapped around them and spider eggs are in there and hatching! I squirm to get it off me, and then I see there are snakes wrapped around me and termites or maggot insects on me. It is all nightmarish and scary and disgusting. I wish I’d never been so arrogant as to want to be higher. The children knew this and see I’ve learned my lesson and help pull off the snake. There is a strong sense of life among the decay – the seamy side of life. Barb.

Here we see a wonderful example of the fact we are all things at once, the rotten maggoty side of us and also we are part of the wonder of Life. We should not ignore it. See parasites.

Example: I was in a dark room developing prints. I believe Les was in charge, but I cannot recall details of what he said or did. I don’t know whether I was doing all that good a job. Then I was wearing a cream coloured blanket, a bit like Mike’s poncho, but different. I happened to rub or scratch my flesh and felt like bits of something on me. I looked and saw they were maggots. They had come off the blanket. I tried to brush them off, and it was like pieces of dirt or scum coming off the body, but I could not seem to get rid of all of them. Doing active imagination afterwards I saw my sexual feelings rise like a thermometer. This didn’t clear the maggots, but I felt impressed to rise thermometer right up to my head. I watched the liquid rise. Then it came out of my head like a fountain, raining down on my body. This fell upon the maggots, which fell off me. As they did so they became seeds that grew in the ground.

Another example of how maggots are simple signs of something rotten in oneself, and how when our attitudes become positive they are seeds of life. Remember that maggots only live on rotting things. Because of this they are sometimes used on humans to eat rotten flesh. As soon as they have eaten all the sick flesh the maggots drop off.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I in any way meeting the feelings felt in the dream – if so in what context and situation?

Do I feel ‘maggoty’ in any way, and if so what about?

What part of the body are the maggots existing and what does that link with? (Look up the body part or object).

Try Being the Person or Thing or Talking As

 

This usually refers to a period of your life, or aspects of you, that have been angrily pushed out of consciousness because of difficulties felt. This can also be an image of anger toward someone, or a member of your family, such as a brother or sister. Such anger is sometimes a defence against becoming aware of the root pain behind it. In such cases the murder in the dream may be a way of avoiding the pain. The murdered body may also represent oneself – or at least, feelings one has about being murdered by lack or love or a difficult birth. See: Dead bodymurder.

We usually resist seeing ourselves in the role of the dead body. The reason the difficulties do no surface, become known and resolved is because we resist them. These resistances are obvious and need to be melted for healing to take place. Dreamers wake with terror from a nightmare for instance and desire nothing more than to blot it out from their feelings. The nightmare is an attempt to make conscious the intense feelings from a trauma, but we resist this because we have not learned the ability to witness such feelings and personal emotions without fear. Another resistance is the automatic withdrawal from pain. Just as we automatically draw out hand away from a hot surface, so we draw our awareness away from a painful memory. The methods we use are many – using redirected attention, as when we rush to entertainment, alcohol, talking with friends, nicotine, breath holding, and so on.

Many dreams I have been sent are about someone they know who has been murdered.

Example: I’m an Ojibwe woman, 50 years of age. On February 26, 2011 my only child (son) was the victim of murder by gun (3 shots). In June a few days before my son’s birthday this year I had a dream: Knock at my door, answered my door to find a dark skinned man in a white robe flowing to his feet was standing there. He said, “I have come for my bird” and he had his hands held together forming a cup. I allowed him into my house…. dream ended. Today, October 5, 2011 during my nap I dreamed the first time where my son was present in my dream. I was preparing a meal for several people; my son was assisting me with the meal preparation. We finished and the people were all seated around the big table eating, talking and laughing. I told my son to go eat. He said “I don’t want to eat with them I want to eat with you, Mom.” So we fixed our plates and went to the back yard to eat together. While we were eating my son says “Mom you were right that girl is pregnant.” I woke up.

Many dreams like this are ways that one can come to terms with the loss. Some times this is by releasing passionate emotions such as in the following dream.

Example: I need help to understand this dream. Last night I was dreaming that my love one had killed somebody and didn’t tell me until he had been arrested by the police. And then I kept seeing replay of themurder but the thing is my partner didn’t look like him but he just had his name but look like someone else. And then I started seeing the murder replay over and over again and I started getting verbal abuse from people telling me my partner is a murderer you can’t marry him. I was so confused until I admitted that I can’t not marry him anymore. My feelings in waking life are not at all like that. I love him very much and we are getting married in about 5 months. In my dream I felt so sad and kept on crying throughout the dream and no one would befriend me. I am so puzzled.

To understand your dream you first have to accept that we are all murderers and poisoners. Of course we do it out of sight and in the dark, unconsciously. To murder is to repress our feelings or departments of our life. We are taught as children to murder our dreams and our love. A man may kill his love for a woman because she does not come from a wealthy family. Or we may kill our feelings because we are ashamed of them or guilty about them. We may kill a creative streak in self due to feelings of incapability, unworthiness. The murderer is a representation of a fear or anxiety that is threatening to, or is killing, feelings and energy. Trauma in childhood can often lead to murderous rage encapsulated in the unconscious, and only appearing in some dreams.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the victim someone I know – if so do I want them out of my life?

If I imagine myself as the body of the victim what do I feel? See Stand in role

Did I feel guilt about this – if so when in my life have I killed my love or connection with someone?

See Characters and People in Dreams and The power of Habits

 

Immature sexuality and emotions. This usually shows itself as strong and unaccountable feelings that are normal in young children, but painful and out of place in an adult. Examples are enormous jealousy; difficulty in letting ones love partner out of ones sight; powerful emotional reaction to any sign that ones love partner is emotionally distant; difficulty in leading an independent life financially or emotionally.

Dreams sometimes illustrate this when we see ourselves in the dream with an adult head on a baby body. Or we have an adult body but the genitals of a child, and so on.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any ways that I recognise in myself as childlike? See: love – ages of.

Does the dream show how I might help this part of me grow up?

What is happening because of this baby or child head – i.e. what are the consequences in my life?

See Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Such as prehistoric form: Strong basic responses such as anger, sexual drive, fear; like and dislike; territorial defence. Very often the dream shows the meeting with these basic responses. Perhaps something has released them more fully, or uncovered them.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of meeting very primal or natural urges recently?

Have I been allowing my deeper or unconscious self to express more fully – perhaps through such activities as meditation, free dancing, a powerful sexual relationship, etc?

Am I relating well to this or am I in conflict with it – if in conflict how can I resolve it?

See carry the dream forward and Talking with a dream character

 

This suggests that you are becoming aware of feelings or parts of yourself that were previously internal or unconscious and perhaps need to be got rid of. The dream might also point to thoughts or attitudes that were previously taken to be important parts of you but are now seen as separate. This could relate to something that got into you from a previous relationship or event.

Example: My mouth is full of chewing gum and I am in public trying to carry on a conversation. I keep surreptitiously pulling great wodge’s of the stuff out of my mouth but it never seems to get any less.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there something I feel uncomfortable about myself – if so what is it?

Has something stuck in me from the past that is now being got rid of?

Does the dream give clues to how this got into me – or the body?

If I imagine getting this thing out what do I feel?

Try Being the Person or Thing and Talking As

 

If you are right handed, the right of the body represents: Outer activity and dominant functions. The abilities and personal traits you express outwardly. This may also relate to your father’s influence in your life and body. For instance if father is an anxious man there might be a lot more signs of stress on this side of the body. This is probably opposite for the left handed. See: Left side of body above for fuller description of left right split.

Example: Morning began to dawn, and the old lady went back to bed. Then a horrible woman, like a nurse, came in and lifted her in her arms. She held her and rocked her like a baby, in a revolting sort of way, and the old lady began to suck her thumb of her right hand, and take on baby attitudes. Then I noticed that her right leg was only half the length of her left, and was only like a half grown leg.

In this dream there are clear indications of the psychological meanings of the right side of the body. The thumb sucking shows a childlike need and the right leg, the strength to meet external life, is not properly developed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting about this dominant side of myself?

Is there any suggestion of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here?

Can I recognise what the dream shows about the right side?

See Ages of Love and Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Can refer to an awareness of illness in part of body shown. Most often depicts psychological problem symbolised by part of body – see body parts below. See: Diseased bodydead people dreamshiding; illness.

Top half of body: Thinking; feeling; rational conscious activity. This is also the most vulnerable part of the body, and so some dreams are about protecting or feeling vulnerable.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being shown regarding the top half of the body, and what does that say about myself?

Is this showing as too rational or not rational enough?

What strength or vulnerability am I experiencing?

See Use the body to discover dream power and What is the main action in the dream?

Body – Parts of

(Abdomen Womans DreamShot inVomit)  (Abscess) (Ache In Chest Lower Back)  (AnusRelaxed Tense Entered – Feces Holding) (Appendix Operated onHaving had Appendicitus)  (Arms Right Left Injury – Tied Bicep) (Artery)

(Back Carrying on backSomeone on Back)  (Beard) (BloodBleeding From CrackOn GroundOn Clothes Blood SampleSucked Sexual Dark Blood) (Bone Burying – Backbone – Digging Up Bones)  (Bowel) (Brow or Forehead)  (Brain No BrainSomething cut out)  (Breath-breathing)  (Breasts Woman’s DreamIn Man’s Dream)  (Buttocks)

(Calf) (Chest – Man’s DreamHealthy Woman’s Dream)  (Chin) (Colon Bowel)

(Ears) (Eyes Blindness Loss Sight Right EyeLoss Sight Left EyeLoss of Eye ContactClosed EyesMany Eyes Hair in Eye)

(Face Someone Elses FaceBlushingSomething Wrong with Face – Changing ones Face or HeadHiding Ones FaceNo Face)  (Feet Barefoot Loss of Foot or Feet)  (Forehead)

(Hair Baldness BeardBrushing Hair – Changing Hair StyleChest HairColour of HairCombing Hair Cutting off BeardCutting Hair Right OffDark Hair – Disheveled HairFair HairGenital or Armpit Hair – Hair on chest of Female or ChildLong MattedLong Hair – Plaited or Pony Tail Pubic HairTight StyleVery Long BeardWhite beardWig – Woman’s Dreams Leg or Armpit Hair) (Hand Fingers Claw Like HandsDirty HandsFingernailsFist Handshake Palm of HandRough Hands)  (Head Head Without a Body)  (Heart) (Hip)

(Internal Organs)

(Jaw)

(Knees)

(Legs Having no LegsOne Leg Shorter than the otherHand on LegSmooth or Hairy Legs Trying to Run but Legs do not Respond)  (Lungs)

(Mouth – Pulling stuff out of MouthChewingMouth Fixed ClosedTeeth Coming Out of Mouth)  (Muscles)

(Navel) (Neck Back of NeckHead Hanging offHeld by Back of NeckHung from NeckGripping Neck or StrangledThick NeckSmall or thin Neck)   (Nose Broken NoseMalformed Nose)

(Ovaries and Uterus)

(Paralysed or Paralysis)  (Pelvis In a Woman’s  Dream)  (Penis Replaced by a VaginaLoss of Penis Penis Turns into a Snake Bleeding from PenisIn a Woman’s Dream)

(Rectum)

(Shoulders) (Skin Animal SkinRough SkinBurnt SkinSeeing through SkinShed SkinSpots Blemishes MolesSomething or Stuff on SkinThings Escaping from Under Skin) –Spine

(Teeth Baby Tooth or TeethBad ToothBig or Small TeethCaninesClenched TeethDirty TeethDracula Type TeethFinding a ToothHaving Teeth Attended to No TeethSingle ToothSpitting out lots of TeethSwallowing TeethTeeth Falling outCrowns falling Out Tooth Being Pulled OutToothless Woman Swallowing TeethFalse Teeth)  (Testicles Woman’s DreamMan’s Dream)  (Tongue)

(Umbilical Cord)

(Vagina In a Woman’s DreamBleeding VaginaIn a Man’s DreamBleeding Vagina in Man’s Dream)

(Womb)

Your dream may be directly about your physical health or diet needs. If so it will in some way be connected with food or activities bringing illness or health.

Almost half the dreams on file that mention abdomen, belly or stomach, show the dreamer being shot, as in the example below. This is obviously to do with a particular type of hurt. When human beings learned to stand up, they exposed their vulnerable underbelly. If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. The sort of hurt referred to is that related to when we might be deeply criticised, feel badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

So this might point to vulnerability, or the sort of hurt that results from being deeply criticised, badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

Pleasure in this area show a sense of integration within yourself and with the world.  The solar plexus also links with hunger, the longing to be held, desire to give of yourself, or to be at the real or figurative breast. If these urges have been hurt, we tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

We link the abdomen with ‘gut feelings’ or intuition; feeling reactions in a relationship. For instance we use such phrases as ‘you make me sick’ – ‘I can’t stomach what you’re doing’ – ‘you haven’t got the guts’ – ‘like being hit in the guts’ – ‘I’m really hungry for you’. See: solar plexus.

The opposite is to dream of waves of pleasure moving within us, which gives us a sense of integration within ourselves and with the world.

The solar plexus might also link with the potential of our fully active natural drives such as hunger; longing to be held; desire to give of oneself. If these are hurt, we tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

The dream might point to gut feelings or intuition; feeling reactions in a relationship. For instance in the English language we use such phrases as you make me sick – I cant stomach what you’re doing – you haven’t got the guts like being hit in the guts – I’m really hungry for you.

Our abdomen is our digestive ability, both physically and psychologically. See absorb

Stomach or abdominal dreams may refer to some dis-ease in the actual organs. We might not be able to stomach something we have met in the everyday world. We may not be integrating our experience.

In a woman’s dream: May refer to her childbearing ability or pregnancy.

Shot in the belly: something to do with sex, a painful response to relationship, or feeling a target of someone’s verbal or emotional attack.

To vomit: A discharging of unpleasant feelings resulting from ingesting, hearing, reading, being told, experiencing, something unpleasant.

Example: The people watching are saying Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside. Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it engendered.

Here is a very interesting example of relating to such hurt.

I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach. I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from fears and hurts that haunt us. See What we Need to Remember About Dreaming.

Idioms: Belly aching; have a bellyful; eyes bigger than ones belly; have a strong stomach; turn ones stomach; butterflies in stomach.

Useful questions are:

What was happening in this area in terms of my feeling responses to people and events?

What was the feeling involved?

Was there pain or swelling that might indicate emotional wounds?

Might it have something to do with digesting new experiences in my life?

Is there a health or diet issue that is causing some concern?

See Body

 

Painful and withheld emotions or memories. Occasionally it might represent a site of actual physical illness. Perhaps the abscess represents a situation in which old and painful experiences are coming to the surface to be dealt with.

The part of the body on which the abscess appears might give a clue to what part of yourself in terms of personality or abilities the dis-ease is felt.

Abscess still swollen and unrelieved: Emotions still repressed and may be causing psychological infection – influencing views and decisions negatively. The dream abscess may also represent a site of physical illness which may or may not be obvious while awake. In the example below, the abscess has released its pus, or painful feelings, perhaps through Hilary’s prolonged crying. The emotions are, with Hilary, affecting her ‘grasp’. She also uses other imaged word play in ‘near the knuckle’. Washing up shows her clearing away the influence of her ‘evening meal’ of experience. See: individuationbody dreams.

Example: ‘Was looking at my knuckle and saw that I had a nasty boil which had come away as I did the washing up and all that was left was a big hole, pink and healthy looking skin around. It felt very close to my knuckle bone. My lover had told me he was leaving me for good, and going back to his children. That evening, I cried most of the night.’ Hilary K.

Useful questions are:

What part of my body is this on, and am I aware of any problem in that area?

Are there painful past experiences, or irritating thoughts that may still be causing dis-ease in my life?

What does that part of my body represent psychologically? (Look it up in the rest of the dictionary, i.e. armlegschest.)

Explore you dream by using Dream Processing.

 

Indicates where we may be holding back the energy relevant to that part of the body. A man who dreamt of an ache in his throat later discovered in therapy that he had been holding back emotions about his father who had died suddenly. On release he was able to say how much he loved his father. Look up part of body to see what the ache might relate to.An ache is a warning that all is not well. Perhaps some part of the body has been hard used, or your dream could be using your body symbolically .

An ache is a distress connected with wherever the ache appears in the dream. For instance an ache in the chest probably refers to heartache or unexpressed emotions, and therefore pain about relationship. See: Body for the various parts of the anatomy the ache may appear in the dream.

An ache can also show a problem in that are of the body that is not yet acute enough for you to be aware of it consciously. An ache can also suggest a longing for or about something, thus the idiom. Idioms: Heartache.

Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.

When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, an done should check out ones health in the area. See the example under Body.

In Chest: Withheld emotions.

Lower back: Sexual energy blocked. See Back Pain

Useful questions are:

Is this about a psychological ache I have or a physical problem?

Am I aching/longing for something – if so what is it? See: bodyArmLegsHead.

Does this connect with any ache or discomfort while I am awake?

If I imagine myself in the dream, what feelings or intuitions arise about the ache? SeeDream Visualisation for help with this. Also Talking As.

 

The area of our nervous system around the anus and genitals is highly sensitive in babyhood. So it may link with the self expression, the pleasure, and the feelings of deep connection the baby feels in this area. As it also links with the huge experience of learning self control, and how ones parents dealt with you going to the toilet, so it can also connect with holding on or letting go; control or relaxation; pleasure or guilt. This in turn could involve feelings of success or failure. Therefore it associates with your WILL. feeling punished and treated like a child, to feelings or arousal and sexual pleasure.

The anus also deals with what we get rid of that our body does not use. So it can link with the experiences or the attitudes that we want to or need to get rid of. These are the waste products of our life.

If relaxed: Easy self expression.

If tense: Not letting go of feelings you might be judging as ‘shitty’; feelings to do with being hurt or holding back. The holding back might link with sexual pleasure or performance.

If playing with or being entered by penis or finger: Introverted sexuality; self pleasure; narcissism. Perhaps self examination.

Excrement: The negative emotions and ideas we might not want to let go of; sometimes money; worry over something judged unclean; a cleansing or need for cleansing of inner feelings, such as guilt, inhibitions, resentments, hate, worry, or fear.

Holding or letting go: How we give of ourselves; whether we can ‘let go’; our generosity or lack of it.

Idioms: Talking out of arse; pain in the arse; an arsehole; head up the arse; disappears up; all tits and arsehole – no ability to reason. See: excrement.

Useful questions are:

Does this in any way relate to childhood feelings, and if so what are they?

Is there any connection with sexual pleasure in the dream?

Is anything emerging from the anus, and if so what does it suggest I am discharging?

Use Acting on your dream

 

Something within yourself that may become a problem; an internal problem; possibly referring to the appendix itself. But it is often a psychological or a physical or energy problem as the following example shows. The man was using LifeStream.

Example: The movement involved not only the hips swaying left and right, but also the shoulders, or at least, whole rib cage, swinging left and right, in opposition to the hips. The result of this was an extraordinary amount of pain internally. The areas of pain wereappendix area, liver area, left and right side of chest.

So intense was the pain I could only do the movement slowly and carefully at first. I was surprised at the degree of pain, also at the pain in the right of the chest, and area I have never felt discomfort. The nearest I can arrive at a description is to liking it to muscular cramp. As one massages such cramp it gradually melts. Such was the internal feelings, as if the intense pain were being massaged away, broken down, dispersed, as a lump melted.

As the pain was dispersed, the movement became more flowing and active. Last week I had to rest frequently during this movement, but this week it kept on for 30 or 40 minutes causing much heat and perspiration.

If you have had appendicitis: Feelings you associate with that time.

Having appendix out: Inner pain or problem needing attention or being attended to.

Useful questions are:

What am I vaguely aware of that might be a grumbling problem needing attention?

Do I have actual discomfort in the area of my appendix – lower right abdomen – if so maybe I should have a check?

What do I need to remove from my attitudes or from my past experience?

See Life’s Little Secrets and Easy Dream Interpretation

Bodyguard

It may be a sign of your fears of being attacked. Sometimes in male dreams it is about a sexual theme – guarding a female person.

At times it tends to be saying, you, the dreamer, is having a fantasy of guarding a very important person.

A dream bodyguard can also be a mixture of a guarding influence, and a force within you that leads to personal transformation. It is your connection with the whole of life, with collective wisdom, or the collective unconscious, as it relates to your life. The guardian is not so concerned with physical welfare, as to the realisation of your eternal nature and life as it connects with the whole. Thus the figure in dreams will usually guide you towards greater self understanding, deeper relationships with him/her/self, and instruct you in any necessary disciplines of mind and body.

 

Bog

Feelings that undermine confidence and well being; might depict feelings about a relationship, perhaps with mother. Feeling stuck in a situation or relationship or feelings of depression.

When the earth is like a bog, or does not support you, it is usually because you are feeling very insecure at the time of the dream. Ask yourself how you find or maintain confidence, and move back to firmer ground.

It can suggest you are in an emotional bog, uncertain ground, having loose footing, and feeling insecure. Bogs and swamps are like a dark and formless power that can rob you of all you will and suck you down into darkness. But they are also a promise of rebirth if you are not afraid. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

If it is someone else’s body:  It usually a part of you that you are unaware of that need attention and help.

If the body is of the opposite sex: It can represent your own longings or sexual needs tat have been lost in negative emotions or having lost our way in uncertainty.

If it is  dead body: It may be showing that a part of you has been neglected so long it is shown in your dream as dead. You have probably repressed a side of you or been frightened of expressing it.

If in you are up to your waist in a bog or marsh: There is always a way out of such situations. You can call for help to any individual or hero figure or saint. Or use carry the dream forward

Example: I am now in the countryside. The landscape is pale watery green. It is bright and sunny. I am at a raised bog. Part of the bog has been cut away and the sods of turf laid out in a semi circle on the grass to dry out in the sun. Beneath the green grassy top the sods are dark brown peaty colour.

The dreamer says of this – Here goes my interpretation: This is about trying to uncover all the issues in my life that have built up and left me confused and depressed – the bog. By exposing them to the sun – awareness – they can be come fuel /energy?

Example: The following dream has a very deep meaning and a clear guidance-message: The dreamer is in a dark, swampy forest. It is night. He has lost his way and is desperate, not knowing where to go, wallowing in the morass . . . He is not religious, but he falls on his knees and begins to pray, imploring the Higher Forces to help him out of this predicament and to show him the way!. . Suddenly a clear ray of light appears from the black sky, moving and showing a stable way among the boggyness. He rushes forward! But after several steps on the right path — he loses it and feels very frightened and lonely. He falls on his knees again, praying and begging for guidance and help. . . The golden ray reappears from above, leading him out of the dark and swampy dangerous forest. . Three or four times he goes astray, losing the right way. The helpful golden beam always reappears after he offers a sincere and deep prayer to be shown the right direction, where to go, the way out of the darkness and bog. . . His prayer was right: he asked no favors, no gifts, only the right way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I felt ‘bogged down’ in any way lately?

Do I feel stuck and not known how to change?

Have I asked Life for help as in the example?

See Facing Fear and  Life Changes

Bogey Man – Boogey Man

This is usually thought as a dark and threatening figure described to children to get them to ‘be good’ take their medicine or generally to scare them. It has its place in nearly every culture.

But if we take it out of its folklore connection we find it clearly in fears children have and also we can see how their imagination can take certain images and create awful terror for them – especially if they are anxious or threatened children.

This was very clear one day when my three children slept in a basement room. My eldest son Mark was telling the other two stories trying to frighten them. Strangely the two fell asleep, but Mark was so frightened by his own stories he could not sleep – the bogey man had got hold of his imagination and was torturing him.

In dreams this is extraordinarily clear and can be see in in terrible dreams in which either a dark and vague figure terrifies a person, or they have a nightmare of the devil – a real bogey man figure told to children (and adults to scare them into being ‘good’). See devil; Archetype of the Devil

 Example: I looked back to check over my baby self, to see if the recent massive experiences about premature birth needed any more attention. In general the area appeared okay, but I experienced the quiet life in the womb, and felt a tension in the chest area that seemed to have started at that point of my development in the womb. It manifested as the ache in the chest I have had so many years. On examining it I arrived at the sense of there being a basic anxiety about existing, as if behind the scenes there is a bogy man, the doctor with a knife, some dark figure that will come to give pain. The dark figure is basically someone who hasn’t got any love, and can therefore do one damage. This wasn’t a big issue though, and it was easy to deal with it once recognised.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise the images or words that set the fear in place?

If I face the bogeyman and feel the feelings often it will go away.

What awful images have I taken in to haunt myself with?

See Possession And DreamsBlack Magic, Evil and DreamsEvilSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Boil

If this refers to water or things boiling, then it suggests something very powerful happening or coming to a head. Perhaps there are ‘boiling’ emotions about something.

If it is about a boil on a body –  see: cystAbscess

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you trying to cook or sterilise something?

What is causing the liquid or substance to boil?

In what way are you involved in what it boiling?

Try using Acting on your dream and Being the Person or Thing


Bomb Bombing

These often depict an explosive situation that has either happened in the past or is happening at the moment. Other possibilities are of sudden anxiety producing events – as when we say something occurred out of the blue. Such events, past or present, are felt to be devastating and often destroy or change old patterns of behaviour and ways of living. This is shown by the bombs destroying buildings or ones house.

Bombs in dreams can also indicate aggression, fear of death, remembered anxieties of war experience or social bombshells – such as being criticised in the press.

Example: We could hear bombs dropping and exploding. We were just carrying on with our normal activities though. Then I was standing near a big floor to ceiling glass window. I heard a bomb whistling down and it landed just outside. It exploded and the whole house disintegrated, glass was flying around and I was flying through the air from the explosion. I felt like the explosion had taken place in my head and blasted my brains, and I thought although the people near me had got it pretty badly too, that the children, being nearer to the ground, would have avoided the worst of the blast. It was a horrific mess and I knew I had been killed. This didn’t seem to worry me though. At this point I was waking from sleep and found myself thinking I had kept awareness through the whole situation, so there was part of me – an awareness – which did not or had not died. I was left wondering – is that what happens after death, and can one communicate with others in that state? H. C.

This interesting bomb dream occurred just as HC was entering menopause and great changes occurred in herself and her life. A break-up began to occur with her husband as well as external changes in work. So the death suggests the end of the life she knew up till then. The awareness that did not die shows HC experiencing her central self, her core self, that does not die and is not the external personality or body that constantly changes and can die – in other words undergo massive change.

Bomb site: This usually shows major emotional trauma has happened. The bomb site indicates what the trauma has done – devastated some aspect of your feelings or ability to relate easily or deal well with external situations. The example below shows this.

Example: Dreamt I was on a bomb site. I found old shells from the war. I was interested in them and dug them up, but felt that they might explode. Throwing them to one-sided I crawled away sheltering from expected explosions. None came, only smoke. Then a friend offered a basement to Chinese restaurant owner. It was enormous, with great possibilities. I began to work in the basement. Brian.

As Brian explores his inner life through his dreams he comes across damage that occurred in his childhood and youth. The war was the personal inner conflicts he experienced. Meeting these was not as difficult as he had expected. Then, in doing this a whole new area of possibility opened up – the basement, an area of himself that had previously remained unconscious. See: air raid; airplane; Mines; war; .

Idioms: a smart bomb; came as a bombshell; earn a bomb; go down like a bomb; go like a bomb; I feel blitzed; put a bomb under someone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream suggest this is in the past or present?

If in the present what are you facing that is either creating anxiety or bringing about great life changes?

If in the past what anxiety or emotional disturbance are you meeting that has its origin in the past?

What do the other parts of the dream suggest this connects with?

Bondage

Imprisonment or anchorage. The feelings or links that bind you to others, or to work, or a religion, or set of ideas. One can be in bondage sexually as well, perhaps out of need for love, or even out of deep distress.

There is in many lives a bondage to ones mother, even in adulthood. Read Individuation and Identity and Dreams

Example: The dream felt as if it were set in Germany, but I was my present age and temperament. I was relaxing in a city, it was daytime, and I was sitting on a bench on a wide pavement. There didn’t seem to be many people about. As I sat there a woman came up to me and asked me if I wanted sex with her. I told her that I was not interested in sex and she took hold of my arm in a way to make physical contact with me, and said to me something like, “Oh yeah!” I put my hand over hers in a very warm compassionate way, and I could feel that gentle love for another human being who is having a hard life. As I did this I said to her that I didn’t want sex but if she was hungry we could go to have a meal somewhere. She looked at me and said that she didn’t want to do that as she had to work. I understood that if she didn’t work she couldn’t survive in her world.

I explored the dream involving the prostitute. It was clearly a confrontation with the possibility of sex. But it was sex represented in a particular way, the power of being possessed by the desire. The prostitute gains her living because men are directed to her by their desire, a desire they cannot stand aside from. They therefore risk disease, social condemnation and personal accusations. However, I do not reject this with any judgement, simply with compassion. In fact the dream felt as if it incorporated the wonderful feeling of transcending much of what ties the human soul in bondage.

In the Bible coming out of bondage to Egypt means to come out of bondage to material values and unconscious fears. On the material plane, bondage are generally are a symbol of marriage, blood relatives and comrades-in-arms. On the spiritual plane, bandage symbolise the marriage of heaven and earth. They are a form of the spiral, a lunar symbol of the Mother Goddess and of the eternal cycle of renewal.

So bondage can indicate slavery, and imprisonment-to places, people, jobs, situations, beliefs, dreams, addictions, etc. Positive associations are anchoring, binding, and communication.

Example: Anyways the reason I am responding is when I was 7 years old my father died and I had only ever seen him paralyzed on his right side. He always dragged that side around when he tried to walk. He went to see Oral Roberts in one of his tent meetings to be healed. Maybe he didn’t have enough faith or it just wasn’t meant to be at that time. I was there to witness this great healing that was to happen and didn’t. At any rate the day he was dying my sister screamed for everyone and we all ran in and the strangest thing I have ever seen and will never forget…He had that arm and that leg that hadn’t moved for years up in the air shaking them and then his life force was reclaimed. To me it had always been a signal that although he had always been a mean man God or his higher self, power or whatever had released him from that bondage and had welcomed him home. I haven’t actually been afraid of dying since that happened. Just felt like sharing. Thanks for reading. I think it odd that I have your link on my site and I had been trying to figure out my inner being and I clicked to your site. Anyways thanks again for reading.


Example: Yesterday my wife told me I had been calling out in my sleep, obviously dreaming. She said I had been calling my mother. She described it not as a cry of pain or anger, but as if urgently trying to get my mother’s attention.

My mother had died shortly before this dream, so I tried to explore the feeling of calling to my mother and experienced a spontaneous waking dream of my mother being in something like an old people’s home. She was very withdrawn and non communicative, and as I explored the feeling of this I sensed she felt as if she had been abandoned and felt resentful and angry about this.

My mother had died from multiple strokes and so was not aware of her process of death. I could see that in fact she had not been abandoned, but was in a place where she was creating her own environment through her emotions and attitudes. I attempted to communicate with her but she refused to respond at all, and I was unsure if she really was withdrawn to a point where she couldn’t hear me, or if she was angry and so not responding. So I called to her aloud and said she must realise she was dead, not abandoned. She had failed to realise her new condition and so through resentment from feeling we had all left her, had created a growing isolation and barrier to being with others. I explained that if she remembered something of the love she had given and received in life, this would release her from the bondage of her loneliness, and bring her into contact with many people who wanted to be with her who were dead.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way to I feel in bondage, and to what am I bound?

Can I honestly admit what binds me?

Have I found any ways to release me?

See Victims and also Life’s Little Secrets

Bonding Bond

Each person we spend time with, fall in love with, make love with or grow up with, or even animals, we develop an incredible and often invisible bond. For instance many women and men write and ask why they keep dreaming of partners, parents of even old friends they have moved on from.  You keep dreaming about your dead husband, your ex from years ago or old friends because while you lived with them you experienced millions of memories, situations, conflict and learning experiences. So you carry them with you as memories, lessons learnt, love or anger still trying to find a way of being absorbed.

So in a way it is not your husband, ex or others you are dealing with but yourself. We cannot have a mass of experience with someone and move away without it influencing us. Life is, in a very real way, a learning experience, and every new experience has to be fitted into what we are learning. See Moved on from

But there is another type of bonding that many people do not acknowledge.

Example: While at work I saw deeply into Flo some weeks ago. She was just standing talking to Vic, the boss. There was nothing in conversation or obvious actions that showed – yet suddenly every tiny movement they made seemed to tell me about them. It showed, suddenly, that there was a wider awareness in me, that sometime back, Flo had a physical, sexual, relationship with Vic. I saw as though words could have been said, that any intercourse, especially if with deep feeling, forms a tremendous although invisible bond between people. They literally become linked in their souls, and intercourse must therefore not be lightly undertaken. I saw as if a real action was taking place that things flowed between them all the time from this usually invisible linked they had forged trough sexual intercourse. Afterwards I asked Flo whether she had been deeply related to Vic. She told me she had slept with him, and said she would never look me in the eyes again.

Also another form of bond is formed. We know that if we do not feed the baby and protect it there will never be the full development or flowering of it in a physical way. That is equally true of the infant consciousness, and the bonding it is attempting is the formation of another type of umbilical cord, but this time a more mature one that flows two ways. If this does not form the child will be as restricted in the growth of its psychological and spiritual potential as the infant body is when not fed.

This bond is subtle, and if it could be seen, it would appear as a cord of energy connecting mother and child, or carer and child. Through this bond the child and mother exchange vital psychological and spiritual nutrition. If the mother is emotionally, intellectually or spiritually impoverished, then so will the child be – and by spiritual in this context is meant an awareness that extends beyond the mother’s physical senses, her external environment, and the limits of her own mind and understanding.

What the baby learns at this point about making a connection at this level forms the foundation of all later relationships. However, like any living and growing thing, what is established or learned at this basic level can be extended and transformed later as long as the feelings evoked at the time can be met.

Although this new umbilical cord is subtle, we can of course see when such a living bond exists between mother and child. The exchange of glowing pleasure in each other is obvious, as is its absence. With such a positive experience of relationship the baby soon starts, as it grows, to reach out to others to enjoy the wonder of that exchange with those who can respond. Even when very small such children reach out their arms to those they recognise as being able to exchange what we usually call love, but might be defined as a sharing of their own feelings, responses and pleasure, at a physical, emotional and mental level appropriate to both of them.

If this bonding is not well developed the individual may lose their direct perception of kin relationships within the group; of how they are an integral and useful or respected member of the group; what part they play in the group, and of any shared bonding experience within the group.

We still need meaningful shared activity within which we can find bonding. That millions of people watch a TV soap at the same time is not bonding in the same way that gathering and celebrating a harvest together was bonding to older communities.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part in my life as the character or bond arisen from?

Can I see how memories or lessons learnt are causes of our dreams?

What is your dream telling me?

Please see Past People also Talking As

Bone

We may associate several things with a bone, strength for instance. So a broken bone can be a loss of strength and ability. Also something giving structure and support. So a broken bone could suggest that ones arm – your ability to reach out, to act on and make real your desires and ideas – has been injured or a functional difficulty has arisen; or it has developed new strength.

We often associate bones or a skeleton with death. So bones can be the remaining material sign of a life, as with archaeology. The bone dug up can be a source of information or memory, and is worth exploring.

Conversely, our bones are a part of us that have the possibility of lasting way into the future, and being a witness to our life. So could represent what will remain after the death of your body.

Burying a bone: Hiding something from someone or from yourself, especially if guilt is felt in connection with the hiding. It might also suggest storing something for the future.

Digging up bones: Remembering something from the long past. Looking at the memory of something you repressed in the past.

Backbone: Strength; moral power; support.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is my bone, what is being said about my strength or supportive system?

If this is someone else’s bone what am I seeing or feeling about it that I can gain information from?

What do I feel if I imagine myself as the bone and describe myself as it?

For help doing this see Stand in role and Talking As

Boobs

See Breasts

Book Books Bookshop

Especially if old, a book can suggest your life experience or memories; therefore experience you have learned from. They can also indicate other people’s experience and ideas that you are considering, learning from or in disagreement with. In this sense they are acquired information – or information received from other people.

A rejection or acceptance of a book could point to your attitudes toward learning or to other peoples opinions. In some dreams the books, while suggesting past experience or phases of your life, show you either still involved with them or moving on to something new.

Old books: These can also link with inherited wisdom and learning or awareness of the synthesised overview you have gained form your life.

Bookshop: Your gathered experience, even from the long past. An attempt to find a solution to something, to find answers. It could also suggest a confrontation with the many and varied opinions and standpoints people have, or a search for who you are and what the meaning of your life is.

Pages of a book: If it is one that has been torn out and kept, it is probably a reminder of something important or a reference to something. A page marked is probably similar as that of a page torn out, or an important part of a story, or even where you have got up to in your life story. A page is only representing a whole book, and so needs to be part of a whole.

Then there are different coloured  pages indicating things like ‘yellow pages’. Or look at colours to see any other meaning.

Reading a book: Sometimes this points to your searching for something, your curiosity or desire to learn, or a search for your own meaning. It might also, depending on the feelings in the dream, shows you discovering something new, a new approach or standpoint. It can also indicate the way you escape from the world and your own anxieties or fears, as in the example.

Example: I dreamt I was sitting at home in my armchair reading a book. It’s something I do quite often, so the dream seemed very real. Then I looked up from the book and I was high up in the air flying, still in the armchair. It was wonderful but I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to get down again. Why does one have strong feelings about such strange things? Sara.

Sara experiences flying because reading has taken her away from her down to earth everyday experience. It has helped her escape from the difficulties or loneliness of her life. Then, when she feels what it is like to be at a remove from such difficulties she is feels scared of re-entering her normal life.

Example: It was a being from another planet, completely human, but with a furry body and tail. It had a son with it. I slammed the door because I was afraid, but the catch did not connect and the door opened again. I threw a book in for the aliens to read. They threw out a book for me to read. It had loose pages – like my ready reckoner. I put them in order and read the story and lived some of it. As I read some of the words were in alien symbols, but I could understand them. Gradually the book changed to alien words. I/it progressed. All the lines sloped down from left to right. Now the sky was like a vaulted or squared ceiling. The two aliens looked down from one of the open squares and called. There was an answering call from two others of their kind. I knew these were the only ones on our planet. I also knew that they had to completely be themselves. I wondered why, and they told me it was because their whole race was within them. Peter M.

This dream of Peter’s that he explored shows his religious feelings, the church, directly presenting him with something alien. This new experience is gradually seen as himself – ‘I now looked within myself and also began to see all of them within, and was becoming like one of them’. Not only is Peter accepting this aspect of himself more fully, thus not seeing it as completely alien or different, but also it presents him with a new type of awareness – a feeling of connection with all of his race. In fact Peter had been a loner and very independent, feeling disconnected from society as a whole. This was a massive change, with very deeply felt fears and joy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the book in my dream suggesting I am learning, escaping my life situation, or looking back on my own experience – whatever it is, what can I gather from that?

Do I get particular ideas or feelings from the book(s) – if so what are they?

If this is a very old book, what do I feel if I imagine holding and opening it?

Try Talking As or Processing Dreams

Bookkeeper

This can represent your efforts to keep a watch on your energy consumption and your reserves.  So the business of running your life and expressing your energy/activities well. A sort of measuring or weighing up the sum total, the worth of what you have done in and with your life.

 Example: Experienced a long, long dream this morning. It all seemed to centre around the process of sorting out the account/bookkeeping for, I think, two of my sons and myself. The dream went on and on, with different sorts of ‘foreground’ events, but with the process of bookkeeping going on in the background.

Boot

See: Shoes.

Or for boot of car see Car boot/trunk under car.

Boot Trunk of Car

The memories, the karma, or influences from past actions and experiences that we still carry with us. Also the necessary things we carry about with us, such as shopping, that would connect with caring for personal or family needs. Occasionally something you want to hide or get rid of.

The boot might also suggest the ‘baggage’ of anxieties and thoughts that you carry in the back of your mind; or tools for dealing with difficult life situations.

The boot is a storage place too, so can relate to things you have such as qualities or values, that are not being used, but are at hand if needed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is in the boot/trunk in the dream, and what do I connect with them? i.e. are they things connected with work, holidaying, clothes (social attitudes), leisure things such as golf clubs.

Is this something I am hiding in the boot, or am I okay about it?

What resources do I have in the boot?

Please see Processing Dreams and Role

Border

You are probably meeting some sort of barrier or hesitation. A point in your growth where you may have to prove yourself or make changes. If you cross the border you may be facing a different way of life, or a different experience of life. Hesitations and uncertainties may prevent you making the crossing. See: Frontier.

Boss

The prevailing major driving force in your life, as ambition, desire, love. There is also a possibility here of the boss figure representing authority, and so the dream of the boss dramatising your relationship with an authority figure.

The boss can also stand in the place of father or mother, and depict some of the less apparent aspects of your relationship with them. Any suggestions in the dream that the dream boss links with an actual person who is or has been your boss could obviously be about the way you relate to that person, and feelings, difficulties or emotional ties revealed.

Whatever of these most fits your dream and feelings, it is still useful to stand in the role of your dream boss and explore what is felt and observed from his/her standpoint. This is because such characters in our dreams often incorporate perceptions about them you may not be aware of consciously. See the entry on characters or people for more information on this.

Sometimes dreams deal with a sexual relationship with the boss. Such dreams need exploring as in the characters link above. But sometimes a boss in a dream can represent an example of a helper who knows you and can guide your process of growth, spiritual or otherwise.

Example: The owner was gruff. He was ordering his help around in a mean way. They were pissed at him. There was a commotion at the door. Some blacks were crashing, and the whites got up to leave. It was riot city. I jumped up and said, “Wait. We can all work it out.” I ran to the stage. The men grabbed me and started to pick me up and carry me up the stairs. I pleaded, “No please, don’t! You’ll hurt me! You’re all angry; I can do it myself.” The men said, “The boss told us we have to. We don’t want to, believe me.” I started ordering everyone. I told the boss he’d better shape up and treat people nicely and he might get better results. He was shocked and started to argue. I stopped him. He glowered and then agreed. I told the men to carry me to the stage and I’d introduce them to a nice blonde woman, “Sandra,” who was rich. They were surprised and then got nice and agreed. They got me up on stage. People were walking out. I got the mike and said, “Wait. You’re gonna miss something neat if you leave.” I started belting out “I am woman.” I pushed the curtain back so I could play to the whole club (arena-like stage). I saw on the left, a red plush banquet set up. No one was there. Everyone started dancing and enjoying themselves. Blacks, whites, men, and women, all together. I was the pivotal peace maker. Barb

Barb is obviously a woman with spirit and doesn’t bow down to authority but manages to make it work through her own power.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this suggesting a struggle or conflict in any way – if so is it showing an authority or personality conflict?

What is the essence of the relationship with the boss in the dream?

Is there any love connection here?

Is the boss directing or encouraging me to do something – if so what, and how does that tie in with my life?

Please try Stand in role and also carry the dream forward.

Bottle

A bottle can depict many things depending on how it is presented in the dream. Fundamentally it is a container so can represent the vagina, or the function in you of holding – perhaps as we might hold on to an idea or a resentment, which we later ‘uncork’ and pour out. But because it can contain things it may often link with what is in it. As such it suggests the quality of what can be poured out of. In this sense you need to wonder what you are pouring out or holding onto in your life. If the bottle is corked or difficult to open it is suggesting that you have resources or feelings that you are not expressing or accessing easily. Maybe you are ‘bottled up’ in some way.

If the bottle is empty: Resources you have used up, or that you are feeling empty or have nothing to offer others.

If something in it: Resources you have.

With wine, spirits or beer: Sometimes an influence that changes the way you feel, just as alcohol does.

If red wine: Similar to above, but with the added possibility of depicting a sense you have of there being more in life than your own ego, its worries and desires; a sense of sharing life. See: alcohol.

Hot water bottle: A real comfort if you feel cold and cannot give warmth. If it is cold then ‘cold comfort’ would apply.

Example: Some of the huge limitations that exist for most of us during physical life are to do with how small our range of sensory awareness is. We might feel almost as if our body is a bottle and we are encased in it; or that we are the bottle, separated in time and space from all other bottles. If the bottle is black we think we as a person are black. If the bottle is female we believe that fundamentally we are female. If the bottle is damaged, we may feel certain that as a person we too are inadequate in some way.

Example: I picked up a bottle marked Mr. Crisp – or so I thought – but I can’t quite read the name. Maybe it was Mrs. Crisp, or Mr. Christ, or something. It was a bottle of vitamin C, and said on the label that it was for inflamed or red eyes.

Example: Suddenly a bottle in the bag she was carrying the picnic lunch in, fell over and spilled a sticky brown liquid on the floor and on me. It was a large cider bottle. I tried to stand it upright. The bottle is the pouring out of your own soul, the love you find it hard to let pour out of you. Being sticky means you do not enjoy the feeling of this.

Idioms: bottle drive; bottle man; bottle up; chief cook and bottle washer; hit the bottle; new wine and old bottles; spin the bottle.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the bottle empty – if so what might it have held or what has been ‘poured out’?

Does the bottle contain anything – if so what do I associate with it?

Am I holding onto anything in myself that needs to come out?

Is there any indication or analogy with sex in my dream – is so what is it suggesting?

Try using Being the Person or Thing and LifeStream.

Bottom

This is sometimes used in England to suggest the posterior, the behind. So it might be word play for that; if about the bottom of a garden, hill or hole, it can suggest something at the back of your mind – known but pushed to the back; If you are at the bottom it suggest difficulties, or a long climb, effort to get to the top, or even back to where you were; being at the bottom can also be despair. The bottom of some sort of container depicts the holding power, the power to contain and support.

If so, it indicates something you do not usually expose publicly, or something to do with your sexual characteristics; the you that others see but you may not know about or be personally aware of.

If the dream is about the bottom of a garden, hill or hole, it can suggest something at the back of your mind – known but pushed to the back. But if you are at the bottom  of a hill or hole it suggest difficulties – perhaps something difficult to reach or obtain, or a long climb, difficult to climb out of, an effort to get to the top, or even back to where you were. Being at the bottom can also be despair.

Getting to the bottom can also link with finding out what is the cause of something, what is ‘at the bottom’ of a mystery or someone’s behaviour. It also means going deeply into something, perhaps into oneself.

Example: We are alone. Death confronts us. We reach rock bottom. We fully accept our humanity. Then comes death and all falls away except that Reality innate in all things.

Bottom of a bucket or box: The power to hold, to contain something. So when we say ‘the bottom fell out of the world for me’, we mean that we no longer feel held up or sustained by the world.

Bottom of a bag: This could refer to something you had forgotten you had, or something difficult to find amongst your memories or resources. Can occasionally refer to sexual feelings in some form.

Bottom of a hill: This suggests the beginning of something such as the start of a climb or of reaching somewhere in life.

Bottom of a road: Far away, or not immediately important but something you are meeting.

Bottom of the sea or river: What is hidden, unconscious or difficult to get. May sometimes show something precious.

Idioms: bottom fell out; bottom line; bottom out; bottom rung; bottoms up; from the bottom of my heart; get to the bottom of; hit rock bottom; scrape the bottom of the barrel; you can bet your bottom dollar.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is about my body, what is the dream suggesting?

What hill, hole or situation am I at the starting point of, or down to earth about?

If I am finding something or reaching to the bottom of something, what am I reaching for in life?

Try Easy Dream Interpretation and Because Factor

Bought Buying

See purchasing

Bounce Bouncing

bounce bouncing This has many meanings, everything from exhilaration to sexual excitement. It can also suggest that your not settled but bouncing around in you attitudes and responses, like not being able to have a clear idea of what you want or being indecisive.

In some dreams it is a lead up to a lucid experience. Or even that something you are trying to do bounces back and you have to start over again. Bouncing can even be a way of stimulating your energy and enabling you to change your situation or overcome something.

The bouncing of something in your dream can be a threat of something trying to reach you, or of a means of coming to your attention.

Example: Experience of bouncing in my dreams is quite common. Control of the ability to bounce is completely within my power. Great exhilaration is felt in realising this ability. Power to bounce up and down and also to travel by bouncing is experienced. If I want to examine something higher than six foot I can bounce up and with great facility alter my bodily position in whatever way I choose. Speed of bounce varies. Small bounces are always quick. As bounces become bigger they also become slower. The bigger and slower the bounce, the more enjoyable it is. Too big a bounce causes the experience to terminate and I awake. The vividness is so clear that even after waking up a great feeling of freshness and well-being continues. In travelling by bounce I seem to have to be more aware of what I am actually doing. It is not very familiar to me, as though I was learning to ride a bicycle. The result is that I am not as free to observe things as I would like to be. – In some dreams happiness and exhilaration may appear unpredictably -for example this dreamer’s relish in his supernormal bouncing powers.

Example: As I began to do the splits, my poor flexibility compromised the movement and my knees bent forward so that I fell forward into a kneeling position, legs spread. I began to bounce up and down and realised that I felt like a woman having sex. This felt weird but incredibly sexual. It felt good. My right hand moved to my imaginary clitoris and my perineum and rubbed. It felt intensely sexual but I wasn’t displaying outward signs of arousal.

Idioms: bounce back; dead-cat bounce; that’s the way the ball bounces.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How you would describe what the bounce is doing?

Is it threatening or exciting – is you or an object?

If you imagine yourself as the object what do you feel or realise?

Can you in fact use Being the Person or Thing and even Talking As the object or person/you?

Boundary Boundaries

A way of life or behaviour you cannot, or fear, going beyond. Probably rules of conduct you learnt as a child and there may have been consquences for disobeying.

They are often felt as a trap you cannot escape from.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the boundaries made up of?

What do you fear or feel as you get near to those boundaries?

Can you dare to cross them?

See Wall; Rules; Face Fear; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Bowel Colon

Links mostly with how you deal with the waste products of your experience and in your body; with what your being rejects as no longer useful. For some people it connects with squeamish feelings about their internal organs and being unclean. Also, if you have had connections with bowel illness it might well point to worries about that.

Some dreams show concerns about what you have taken in that might be ‘rotten’ – and such things can relate to ideas and motivations that do not harmonise with who you are.

The rectum is the final part of the colon or large intestine just prior to the exit, which is called the anus. Sometimes the two words are confused, so the exit might be called the rectum. What matters in regard to your dream is what you have understood it to mean prior to the dream.

This whole area is one that is very sensitive to emotions and sexual experience. It links with very primal feelings and may easily become tense, or respond to hurt in oneself or others. One of its main functions in life, as with the bladder, is to control or release the excretion of faeces. As a baby the process is spontaneous and beyond our control, so has to be learned. It therefore frequently becomes a physical focus for any problems or lessons to do with control or letting go. Thus we have the phrase ‘he/she is really anal’ meaning they hold on to everything or try to control everything.

This holding on or ability to both control and let go, are at the very basis of dealing with adult life, and influence whether we can allow our creativity and sexuality to flow. Problems here deeply influence how we deal with our sexual and emotional love, and our ability to let ourselves flow out into activity and creativity. Tension and holding on can lead to a type of auto-homosexual experience. In other words instead of the flow going outwards to others and the world, it is turned back on itself and become inturned sexuality and aggression.

As already mentioned, this area, which links very strongly with the genitals, psychologically links with the earliest stages of our development and our earliest experiences as a baby. Many muddled or unconscious experiences are contained in this area of our psyche regarding sexual feelings, desires and self expression. So if you are dreaming about this area it might be that you are becoming more aware of these things. If so you may begin to experiences many sexual urges and confusions that previously remained unconscious or buried in your body.

This base area of the body also depicts the powerful instinctive and biological forces or potential lying at the base of our being – at the base of our personal development. These forces, sometimes represented by a snake or lizard – the instinctive reproductive, flight and fight drives – are the power flowing into our life. If they are not allowed to flow into the development of our personality, we will lack energy and power in some way. In other cultures they are encouraged to flow beyond the fundamental pathways of genital sex toward the functions of greater awareness and insight, thus opening their other possibilities.

Example: For the past year and several months I’ve had a recurring dream at least 10 times pertaining to my menstrual cycle and bowel movements. These dreams have always been embarrassing. Either my period has came down unexpected while I’m sitting on the toilet and/or I am catching a bowel movement in my hand and trying to hide it from people around me. I have been thinking of what possible meaning this could be.

This is about the person holding onto their inner emotional rubbish/shit because they feel embarrassed if they allow it to be expressed.

The bowel and everything associated with it are of course a constant source of humour and fun:

Example: a fat hippie guy says, “I have to go to the bathroom. I hope I can make it.” The crowd answers sympathetically. He starts to walk, then his face grimaces up as he has a bowel movement in his pants right there in front of everyone. “Oh,” he cries, “I couldn’t help it, and it’s a hiney.” He turns around so we can see his butt. Two pounds of butter is in a plastic sack and stapled to his shorts. Some guy jokes about it, “At least it wasn’t chili,” to ease his embarrassment. Raul jokes, “Is there any money on it?” (betting he could do better).

Example: It seemed as if I were watching a married couple in their house. The woman had been out somewhere and the man had perhaps eaten something and now had pain. The pain was not specific and he and the woman talked over what began to be felt as a serious developing illness. The morning of the next day the situation was worse. At that point their son, about eighteen, walked in, very bright and positive – apparently now living independently. They told him the situation, remaining bright and positive he asked his father to lay on the bed with head on pillows and knees bent. Then he took hold of his father’s ankles and moved his legs up and down in a pump like action. Farts accompanied each movement and the problem was resolved.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I meeting any experiences to do with controlling or letting go – if so what is involved?

Am I getting rid of some of the crap I have carried around internally or externally?

What struggles with infant feelings or sexuality am I meeting – if so what are they?

Am I in any way worried about my digestive system – if so what is the worry, and do I need to have a check?

Am I dealing with difficulties to do with a need to discharge parts of what I have experienced – i.e. do some experiences still remain undigested or are bringing emotional discomfort?

Am I holding myself back in some way?

See Use the body to discover dream powerWhat is the main action in the dream?

VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreamsabsorption – Easy Dream Interpretation Anus; toilet

Bowing

bowing This can indicate reverence for someone or greeting with respect. It is also used in dreams where there is a feeling or prayer and humility.

It was always in the past used to show submission and bending of ones will to a powerful person – or sometimes devotion.

Example: Was in a room with a number of people. It was some sort of gathering to do with the spiritual way. A man reminiscent of Krishnamurti was there. People were bowing and scraping to him, and he was telling them what a mistake they were making. I believe I was in some slight disagreement with him.

The mistake was that they were failing to realise that they had within each of them what they were worshipping.

Example: I stop in a red brick building which is strange because all of the windows have been newly bricked up. I go inside to see what is going on and suddenly it begins to collapse. I turn and see a man going into a position of kneeling and bowing forward as if paying respect or praying to something, so I do the same thing. The building collapses on top of me, but I am not hurt because of this posture I am in. Instead of bricks slamming on top of me, it is like a mosquito net falls over me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I showing reverence or submission to?

Do I identify with the bowing – after all it is your own dream?

Am I accepting my own relationship with my own inner light?

Try Methods of Awakening and Victims

Bowl

This very much depends on context in the dream, and whether it is a bowl for washing, is being used as a container, a collecting receptacle, or in giving something.

It might at times depict the womb, or a receptive attitude, how you receive or contain something; or how something is contained or held. So it might suggest an open giving attitude as when a bowl contains food. The bowl can also represent the receptive and containing side of your personality, your receptive feelings and intuitions.

If it connects with the womb, such bowls sometimes have small fish in them, or even a kitten.

In some dreams the bowl is that of a toilet, and it is then both a state of receiving and a condition – full, unclean, etc. See toilet; vase.

See Bowling

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is in my dream bowl – Look it up to see what is suggested?

Am I in a receptive situation at the moment?

Do I feel there is a connection here with the womb or the vagina?

What happens in my dream that will give a clue – dropped, offered, used, etc?

Try Acting on your dream and Processing Dreams.

Bowling

Bowling This can be about enjoyment, competition or even boy meets girl situation.

Example: Example: I was swimming in the sea and a huge breaker swept me up and started bowling me over and over and to start with I tried to keep myself upright and fight my way to the surface for breath, but then I just relaxed into the wave and let myself be thrown all over the place, waiting for it to pass and trusting that I could hold my breath for that long. Susan.

This dream illustrates both the attempt to stay in control, and then the letting go and being out of control. Both of which could work.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is bowling for me in the dream – competitive, fun or disinterest?

Are you a witness of the game?

What is happening in the dream? See Plot of the Dream

Try carry the dream forward and Stand in role

Box

Things you store inside you, such as memories or emotions. A closed box can represent the womb, or things you hide from the view of others or even yourself. Depending on the size of the box, it can represent memories, or treasured experiences. It might, like chest, represent the way you store feelings. See: Chest.

It can be about abilities you have that are only used on special occasions, such as tools, art equipment, special knowledge etc. Maybe a box in which you keep your instinctive animal urges to stop them being free. See Animal

Bird box: This is a place where birds bring up their young, and so it may be a comment on your own parenting ability, or even about pregnancy – the eggs being hatched.


Closed box: Often represents the womb/uterus and its connection with childbearing; or if not that, something you have experienced that you have closed away in you or in the past.

Mail or P.O. Box: This often shows some sort of excitement about what might be in there, or disappointment if there is nothing of interest. It can be about waiting for news, hopes for or even real communication. Hopes about opportunity; surprises or bad news.

Example: I look in the mail box and wonder why I don’t get as much mail as I used to as a teenager.

Received box: Something you now have but perhaps have not yet opened to explore or become conscious of.

The IN box of email: Similar to mail box.

Window Box: A special area of growth that you have to tend to care for.

Example: One person, “looking for herself, came upon a tightly closed box. Tearing it open – in her fantasy – she found inside a lovely rose, and realised that she had been enclosed in a box of Puritanism, of self denial and physical shame. The outer petals of the rose, pink and mauve, seemed to whirl and dance; they sent her fancy spinning off like a ballerina into flowered landscapes of delicious femininity. The inner petals were shaded from the light, obscure and mysterious. Here the colours darkened to deep crimson and velvet purple. They reflected her deep animality. These she avoided, until she realised that it took both the light and the dark to make a lovely rose. She could not have one without the other. Gradually the rose became a nourishing symbol in her life and growth.”

An example of how we can shut up or hide important and even beautiful parts of us. The walls of the box can be made of fear, or as in the dream, Puritanism, shame and self denial. It takes all of us to be whole and beautiful, the lights and the dark. Only when they merge can we see the wonder that we are.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I aware of that I have within myself, and am now exploring or discovering?

If this is a received box, what has recently come into my life?

If an old box, what do I hold from the past that has maybe been stored away.

What is in the box and how do you  relate to that?

See Methods of Awakening and Processing Dreams.

Boy

– i.e. male under the age of thirteen.

Boyfriend Your emotional feelings, attachment to, or fears about the boyfriend. This includes the difficulties, struggles with feelings and sexuality felt in connection with boyfriend or other males. It might also be your insights into his behaviour.

Boyfriend dreams often have an element either of fear or dreaming of possibilities. In other words the dream explores what you fear might happen in the relationship, or what you hope will happen.

Example:  I was sitting in my boyfriend’s house and the phone rang. My boyfriend answered it. In real life he always goes upstairs away from me to speak on the phone, and I am frightened he is talking to an old girlfriend. I heard him say that he wasn’t seeing any one. When I heard him say this I flipped and ran out to get a taxi home. Karen.

This dream is typical of how Karen’s fear of not being wanted or loved pushes her to run away from the relationship.

Example: An old man, rather Merlin magician type, lived in an open area near the flats. His house was disguised, rather like camouflage on the outside. I was like Tarzan, somewhat undressed, and was trying to induce a young boy to go into Merlin’s house, which I managed with difficulty. Then I had to get a large spider into the dwelling. At one point it was like trying to get the spider into a narrow necked bottle, and the spider was as unwilling as the boy, and bit my finger.

If known: What you feel about that boy. Whatever it is this is probably referring to yourself. i.e. One might think the child cautious and anxious; so it depicts one’s own childhood feelings of caution and anxiety. See: Characters and People in Dreams

Male dream: Yourself at that age; the difficulties faced, habits acquired, attitudes imprinted on you by experiences at that age – circumstances may not have permitted parts of you to mature, so your relationship with a woman and the world might still be conditioned by that age mode. So this could be a part of yourself you need to ‘father’, or help grow toward maturity.

The boy might depict the eternal potential for growth, openness to the new and enthusiasm about tomorrow.

If older than yourself: Your potential or how you feel about maturing.

Female dream: Your own developing ability to express in outer action. Feelings about a son or brother. See: son under family.

Useful questions and hints:

What is my relationship with this boy, and does it suggest love, personal qualities or parental feelings?

If I imagine myself as the boy what impressions and feelings do I meet? Characters and People in Dreams

If this is my younger self, what is it expressing?

If I know the boy how would I describe him -what characteristics or qualities?

If teenage female: Feelings you have about a boy, boys in general or a brother. In many teenage dreams there is a lot happening in connection with emerging feelings of attraction. See: adolescent.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with this boy, and does it suggest love, personal qualities or parental feelings?

If I imagine myself as the boy what impressions and feelings do I meet? See: Stand in role.

If this is my younger self, what is it expressing?

Try Talking As and Processing Dreams

Boyfriend or Ex

Dreaming about your boyfriend is usually about your emotional feelings, attachment to, or fears about the boyfriend. This includes the difficulties, struggles with feelings and sexuality felt in connection with boyfriend or other males. It might also be your insights into his behaviour. Please read Ages of Love

Boyfriend dreams often have an element either of fear or dreaming of possibilities. In other words the dream explores what you fear might happen in the relationship, and what you hope will happen. See Inner People 

Example: I constantly have a dream that me and my best friend/boyfriend of 3 years just suddenly aren’t together. I never know why, but I am either with another guy or simply alone and just have this horrible feeling in my stomach, and know it’s not right. In my dream I get upset my bf never called or contacted me after breaking up, and I never know why we ended either. The dream ends with me giving in and trying to find a way to call him but then I wake up. The obvious conclusion would be I think I belong with my bf, but is there anything else possibly?

This is a wonderful example of how the mind works, and the play between what we allow ourselves to think – our conscious mind – and what we do not allow ourselves to know – our unconscious. As an example of this here is another young woman’s dream.

Example: During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased. I don’t understand what this means, and its really bothering me. Why am I dreaming of this? Can you help me understand the meaning of these dreams?

Each person we spend time with, fall in love with, make love to or grow up with, or even with animals, we develop an incredible and often invisible bond. For instance many women and men write and ask why they keep dreaming of partners, parents of even old friends they have moved on from.  You keep dreaming about your ex from years ago or old friends because while you lived with them you experienced millions of memories, situations, conflict and learning experiences. So you carry them with you as memories, lessons learnt, love or anger still trying to find a way of being absorbed.

So in a way it is not your husband, ex or others you are dealing with but yourself – we dream about them and use them as a symbols of what we picked up from the relationship. We cannot have a mass of experience with someone and move away without it influencing us. Life is, in a very real way, a learning experience, and every new experience has to be fitted into what we are learning.

Cheated on: Many dreams of this are sent and here is an example:

Example: In my dream I’m with my ex girlfriend (who I still hang out with) we are hanging out being really close and lovey on each other. Then I leave the room for something and when I come back she is with a man. In this reoccurring dream she is always with a different guy and I don’t know who any of them are. When I walk in they are really close to each other and holding hands sometimes she is sitting on his lap. In my dream it always breaks my heart and I tell her how I feel and she acts like she doesn’t care. Then I wake up. In real life we were together for 2 years and I’m a girl. While we were together she cheated on me with men. We still hang out today but we are just friends with benefits.

This type of dream is usually from a young woman who either sees her boyfriend with another man or has powerful suspicions that he is seeing someone else. The dreamer is actually meeting her unresolved feelings of jealousy, of feeling not as good as the other person and not being lovable.

Ex-lover/boyfriend: This frequently shows any feelings or hopes still connected with him. The ex-boyfriend or lover often becomes a symbol for all the hopes for love that are not being satisfied at the moment, or in the present relationship. Sometimes it is a way of digesting or living in the past. It may occur in some dreams that the ex-lover is seen as a dead body, or a murder is involved. This is usually because we are killing, or have killed some of our longings and love for that person.

Example: Although married for almost nine years, I have been dreaming almost every night about an old friend. We used to date twelve years ago, but although we still meet occasionally, our relationship now is purely platonic.

About two weeks before I found out he was getting married I had a dream where he handed me a single red rose and said ‘I love you, but the time’s not right’. In the latest dream I was reading a paper with the heading ‘Broken Hearted Babies’, with a picture of both of us as babies, with our names underneath. Amanda – Teletext.

Obviously Amanda still has unfulfilled longing and dreams in regard to her ‘old friend’. Even so it is worth reading the things in the previous section.

Example: I dream I am in a room with my ex-boyfriend – Gary. I feel scared about having sex with him but want him to show me all the excitement and thrill of sex. I love him but can’t tell him how much I want the enjoyment of his body closer to mine. You are the first person I can write to telling about having sex with my ex-boyfriend. Donna – Lancs.

Relationships are complicated and here Donna is experiencing the conflict of wanting him yet being separated. Remember that dreams are like computer games I which you can be killed, make love a thousand times, and come away none the worse – unless of course you feel that what happened was exactly like waking life. Then you would have the sort of questions and dilemmas you are telling me about. See Dreams Like a Computer Game; Dreams are a reflection of your inner world.

Daughter’s boyfriend: This may illustrate your judgements and feelings about the boyfriend.

Male dreaming of boyfriend: Usually this is about the qualities of weaknesses you witness in your friend. See the entry on Characters and People in Dreams to understand this. It can also be about the reasons you have become friends, and the intricacies of the relationship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is about a past love, what do I honestly now feel about him and why?

Do the events in the dream show what I fear – and if so can I honestly see them as fears, not reality?

What relationship situation does the dream depict, and how does this comment on waking life?

See Growing Up to LovePeople Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections

Bracelet

Display of special qualities; richness of feelings, or feelings connected with the giver.

It can also point to augmentation of personality, social attractiveness, charm or amulet. Such things can be seen as women’s magic. For instance if we think back to the time when humans emerged from an ape like body, there must have been a time when a woman wore what we now call jewellery or make up. This would have made her stand out from the other women, and so appear more attractive. Women still recognise the magic they can do by altering their appearance with dress, make up and jewellery.

It can be a means of psychological protection through belief in it. See amulet. Because a bracelet is a circle it can represent your wholeness and feeling well in yourself. If the circle is broken suggests your attitudes or direction is not bringing what you want.

Any jewels in the bracelet are an indication that there is a link with the invisible forces of Life that can express through you.

Given as a gift: An acknowledgement of your special qualities, or that you are loved. Sometimes it can be the wonderful feelings the gift gave you.

Example: Then the door opens and Fletcher comes in. He’s lost weight. He gives me a ring and a bracelet. I say, “What’s this?” He says, “It’s a token of my love for you.” He has come to tell me he loves me. I feel uncomfortable because I don’t love him. I say, “I can’t accept these gifts,” and he sits with his back to me at the foot of the bed and says, “Oh, don’t worry, they’re worthless. Just trinkets I picked up.” I ask, “Are you sure?,” (because I think he’s lying and they are valuable).

Example: I have fallen in love with a Japanese princess. A highly illegal relationship. She had been forbidden to fall in love with anyone, but her feelings for me have overcome her. She is a very delicate young girl. We are lying on the ground not far from T’s mother when we start kissing. Then we are kidnapped in our blankets or sleeping bag. She is forced to give me an injection in my shoulder to make me sleep after she was given something that makes her groggy. “Oh, no,” I nearly cry out. I recovered a small gold bracelet that she instinctively threw to the ground. I also got something – a tie pin or key chain – that one of the kidnappers dropped on the sidewalk.

Both examples show how love plays a part in dreaming of bracelets.

But here is a bracelet dream that was explored by the dreamer –

Example: Then I discovered the inner competition going on within aspects of myself, and finally, I had something I could work with! At least in this dream I’m getting a reward! In being the thing, the bracelet was the importance of the material world and the joy it can bring, pretty girl things that are not just shallow but energising, also the white stone was calm emotions and peace, infinity, the carvings were the energy that art can focus into a small space. So my sense is this part of the dream is saying I get what I desire, by not rushing, by letting the others do what they feel they need to do and by I myself doing what I need to do.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings or associations do I have with the bracelet?

Is it a bracelet I know or is it just new in my dream?

Does it have precious gems in it?

Try using Acting on your dream and Easy Dream Interpretation

Brain

This can suggest intellect, thinking, insight, creativity or what someone really thinks. But there are many other possibilities.

Often we feel that our real self is somewhere inside our head in the brain, so the dream might be referring to your sense of existing. Also we use the word brain or brains to mean cleverness or the lack of it, and some dreams use just this type of imagery. We have a belief that injury to our brain is an injury to us. Therefore we associate brain injury with death. But the brain is simple a wonderful organ that connects our core self with our body. See I died but I’m alive; Tony’s Experience of Stroke; Talking with the dead.

The brain is made up of billions of cells, and sometimes dreams use this to illustrate how we interact with some events – all our cells, or an auditorium full of people – interacting with the event. There is some evidence that we are not our brain as science has told us. It is an organ that enables us to express though our body in such ways as speech.

People often say, “but part of my brain is telling me that I know this house, I know the room very, very well.” But scientific research has now assured us that all our thoughts come from a part of our being that is unconscious. See Unconscious. We now know that even our sight and hearing are a virtual world we unconsciously create. The light you receive in your eyes is translated into nervous impulses, sent to the brain where it is again translated into images and associations. So you cannot actually ‘see’ the world, only a virtual reality you creates. So when you dream and enter the virtual reality of your dreams, in the widest sense there is only you. That is why it is difficult to interpret dreams because we create our own reality.

Also your brain has three separate sections; the reptile brain, the a mammalian brain and the human brains. Each of these can be the cause of particular types of dream. See Brain Levels.

No Brain: Loss of personal awareness or having no self awareness – maybe brainless, not using your brain.

Something being cut out of brain: Loss of some function or sensitivity. If you are taking anti depressants or some other drug it may be due to the drug’s action. This is because some drugs suppress certain brain functions.

Idioms: Brainstorm; brainchild; pick someone’s brains; hare brained; scatter brained.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the suggestion about the brain – is it growing, sick, bits missing – and what does that suggest about me?

Am I giving a self assessment in this dream, and if so what is it?

Is there something that woke my interest and involved lots of my attention?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Levels of Awareness and Life’s Little Secrets.

Brakes

This suggests your ability to be in control of a situation, or out of control if the brakes do not work. This might be control of anxiety or sexual feelings or emotions. If the brakes are working they allow a feeling of confidence in dealing with life. See: Car.

This could also point to social situations. In other words we might not be taking notice of the ‘stop signs’ in social settings, personal relationships or as far as the law is concerned. Maybe it is about the motion of events that you could stop.

Brakes not working: Might suggest high anxiety or losing control of a situation or events, thus may indicate a fear of taking chances or initiating things in case they get ‘out of hand’; difficulty in controlling sexual desire or emotions.

Our brakes might not be working in some settings, such as in a relationship or work. This could mean you collide or are on a collision course with someone or with a situation. Banging into another car, person or house would depict this.

Example: Then there’s snow on the ground and I’m on a dirt road. In the snow, I skid and lose control. I realize as I pumped the brakes that I have no control, so I just sit there and steer to a soft as possible “crash” into a bank. I sit there, wondering what I’ll do now! Barb.

Example: Dreamt by a man who reported making love to a girl and finding it difficult to stop short of sexual intercourse. ‘I was in my car driving along and I wanted to stop the car immediately but my brakes would not work. This went on and on until I wakened.

Example: In an Edgar Cayce-interpreted dream we read: I was driving down a lakeside road close to an embankment when suddenly I appeared to go over the edge. I had time to jam on my brakes before I reached the edge, but instead I did nothing. I jumped out of the car into the lake. The car fell on top of me and I was killed.”

Cayce: This is a warning to change conditions in the physical body while there is yet time! Don’t just think about it. Do it!—Now! The lesson: To know how to do good and to do it not, is sin.

See Control-No Control – Learning the brake, gears and accelerator

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part are the brakes playing in this dream – to avoid something; to stop; to control speed?

Can I recognise how I use control and release in my life, and how well I can operate them?

Why am I dreaming of brakes at the moment – is there a situation I am in that needs skill in controlling or letting go?

Am I feeling anxious about what is happening to me sexually or emotionally?

Have I done something that is like running through the red light?

What is it I need to review about being in control?

Try using Acting on your dream and Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Branch Branches

See branches under trees.

Brassiere

This will depend on what is being done with the brassier in the dream, and what part it plays. But some general associations are that is a means to enhance attractiveness; to hide ageing breasts; as something that can be taken off to lure a man fancied.

It also can be a symbol of the breasts, of female freedom if removed, so can depict any of the huge range of feelings connected with female sexuality or emotions.

As underwear it might point to the hidden side of your nature, or of someone revealing their real feelings – especially sexual feelings and feelings of vulnerability. Or is it about getting a decent brassiere that fits?

If it links with breast feeding, then it will be pointing out something to do with what is felt about that or what is emerging. See breasts; underwear.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is the brassiere being presented in the dream, and what feelings are involved – and how do those feelings appear in my daily life?

If a male dream – what feelings do I have in connection with these brassieres, and where do I meet those feelings?

What are the surrounding events and the environment, and what do they add to the understanding of the dream? (i.e. is this in a hospital after childbirth – so about motherhood and the return to not being pregnant/ Is it about a sexual situation and so a comment on your relationship with sex – etc?)

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Bread

Fundamental nourishment; our basic emotional and biological needs, but also as in ‘give us this day our daily bread’ it also means our daily needs for survival. It can also suggest substance in the sense of wealth or possessions. In a spiritual sense it represent our universal experience of physical or bodily life, so connection or relationship with others. See: Food.

Being fed bread or giving it to someone else suggests being cared for or caring for others. It is to do with sharing life, or recognising the deep connection one has. As such it is given as a sacrament in churches where the dread represent the holiness of all physical substance – holy because everything is a part of creation. See Creation.

Bread crumbs can relate to what has passed or what is left from things past. They might also depict scraps given or received.

Sometimes represents a baby/pregnancy, especially if uncooked and being put in an oven.

Unusual or exotic bread: This probably depicts greater pleasure or enjoyment, such as sweetness in malted breads. .

Idioms: bread (money); bread and butter (ones daily needs); don’t know which side your bread is buttered on; breadbasket.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I not getting the bread – and does this point to any lack of pleasure, nourishment or relationship in my life?

Is the bread whole or rotten – and am I easily sustaining myself in life or have things gone ‘rotten’?

What am I doing with the bread, and what does this suggest?

Try Being the Person or Thing and Talking As.

Break Breaking Breakup

This can suggest the ending of something if an object or thing is broken, or it can link with the strength or weakness of a situation or relationship, as suggested by the words ‘break-up’.

Depending on the drama in the dream it might also link with a broken promise, shattered idealism, hope or faith or feeling broken in spirit. We are moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we have still are prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves.

A break can also depict changes as we ‘break’ with the past, or feelings of loss or damage. But breaking something, or breaking through a wall or obstacle, show you freeing yourself from old habits or restraining influences. But a big thing in people’s life is that way a break can show how they have broken through the barriers of our physical senses into a wider world of experience. See Answer to Critics.

Example: ‘For several hours I could find nothing about the dream. My mind simply wandered. But with help I persisted. Suddenly I seemed to break through, first to seeing how my father’s shop was a place in which I had unconsciously experienced great emotional pain. My father was always criticising. Never a word of encouragement. Then I burst into powerful sobbing as I felt the pain of wanting my father to love me, and help me grow into somebody capable of meeting life, instead of criticising me all the time.’

Example: Example: I dreamt I was on a garden with an old man, a young boy and a young man in his thirties. The plot of land had something of the feeling of an allotment. It was well tended, and I had the sense the young man had been doing most of the work on it. The soil was rich but at the moment dry. A few shoots were just breaking the ground from hundreds of bulbs which had just started shooting.

This shows how growth can be a break.

Idioms: Lucky/bad break; break a habit; break away; break the bank; big break; break down/ up; break new ground; break a leg; break a promise; break a spell; give me a break; broken heart; break the ice; break the news; break through; break with.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is broken, and what might that link with in my life?

Did I do the breaking or was it someone else?

What were my feelings in the dream, where can I recognise those feelings in waking life, and what do they connect with?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation and the Because Factor


Breasts Breastfeeding

In general the breast represents a giving of oneself, or of ones sexual pleasure. But at the most fundamental level it is LIFE ITSELF. Having watched and even help in the birth of babies I noticed something that isn’t shown in the media. As the baby is born it is connected with a very evident umbilical cord. This cord I realised was the continual life connection for the infant. In many birth situations this cord is cut as quickly as possible, I wonder if the nurse feels that is being efficient, but while it is still pulsing the baby feels connected with its life source. Watching kittens being born, as soon as the mother breaks the sac it was born in and disconnects it from the cord, the first thing these tiny creatures do is crawl to the nipple and so connect with the life flow again. Unfortunately newborns can’t crawl but they too want to quickly connect to the life giving source again.

The breast is an expression of female love and nurture, and an expression of female sexuality. To go to a woman’s breast in a dream may represent an expression of the baby’s desire to be fed, be loved and made feel secure. That is, a regression, or reliving of infant desires. A woman expresses male sexuality through her breasts, in that she fulfils the body of the infant. May also represent emotional security.

But kissing the breasts with much tenderness and lack of lust can indicate the soul receiving its own sustenance. It is releasing the power from the breast and mouth to be lifted to a new level of experience by love.

Self giving, nourishment or the wonderful bonding and connection that arise from motherhood or sex.

But at the most primal level it can mean many things. The other emotion that the breast may arouse is ultimately as rapturous as the first, the joyously orgiastic, but it is entirely different. The two raptures are prototypes, ultimate extensions of almost every emotion we feel in life. They express the most fundamental split in the psyche: one, the passive release, dissolving into ecstasy; the other, the hot, aggressive conquest which ravishes its object. Every psychic feeling, thought, or act seems to fall on one side or the other of this great divide of the mind. Hostility, aggressiveness, sadism, masculinity, egotism, self-aggrandizement, the attempt of the self to become a god and destroy all else—these are all expressions of the hot fire of conquest which reveals itself in oral cannibalism. Submission, masochism, sexual passivity, mysticism, selflessness, humility—all these are the attributes of the passive release.

We are psychically always on one side or the other—tiger or fawn, destroyer or destroyed, taker or giver, object or subject, active or passive, creator or created. Here is the dichotomy of our fall from the greater self of primitive psyche into the forms of reality, the division of self and other. All our lives we try to achieve a balance of these contradictory opposites, and whether in our egos we succeed or fail, every function claimed by the ego is balanced by its opposite in the subconscious. Only in the fusion of infancy, or of sexual orgasm, or in religious ecstasy do we escape the psychic wound of division.

In woman’s dream: In quite a number of women’s dreams the breasts appear in a health sense, connected with the anxiety about breast cancer. To dream of that does not mean you have cancer, only that you are anxious.

The breasts also link with how positive you feel about your own womanhood and ability to feel proud and easy with your sexual as well as intellectual functions. So in some women’s dreams the breasts are exposed to say, “See, I am a real woman.”

Of course the breasts also are used in dreams where the desire, lust or love feelings link you with a man. But such a link is not necessarily to do with an external male. They also indicate how well or badly you are relating to your own wholeness.

The size or development of the breasts in a woman’s dream are often used as a self assessment regarding how fully you have emerged from childhood.

Breastfeeding: Quite a number of dreams are about breast feeding, and this usually indicates how easily you can give of yourself. At times it can be about past experiences of feeding and any difficulties encountered.

Many dreams received are about giving birth to a baby and breast feeling it, even though there may not be a man involved. This is about caring for a new aspect of you that has come into your life. See Woman’s Creative Power.

Kate in the example gives of herself even though frightened, and feels whole – the circle.

Example: ‘I was about to lie down naked near my grandmother as I was caring for her, when she started to suckle my breast. For a short time I was very frightened that she would hurt me or even suck my breast right off, but she didn’t and it felt very good as I fed her. It felt as if we were one, our bodies forming a circle.’ Kate.

This next example shows how the breasts are a measure of emerging womanhood, especially when young. Lin was near to being anorexic.

Example: I’ve been meaning to tell you about a dream I had when I was so sick. Truly weird. I sort of woke up and rubbed my chest. It was so bony, and I thought in that instant I have the chest of a guy. I then fell back asleep and dreamt I was a boy! Needless to say, after that dream, I began my campaign of making myself eat! Lin.

Example: In this dream it was as if I had just remembered that I had a baby, and as I remembered this I also realized that I hadn’t been feeding it. I was upset and thought, “How can I have forgotten something so vital and important as feeding my baby!?”

I thought I had better start feeding the baby again, but I was worried that my milk would have dried up. I picked up the baby to feed him, and was struck by what a lovely child he was – he seemed calm and serene even though I had been neglecting him. He had a beautiful face and shiny, longish straight hair. He didn’t look malnourished or dehydrated and I was relieved at this. I was even more relieved when I put the baby to my breast and he started feeding again. As he started to suckle I could feel my breasts filling with milk and I could see that he was swallowing, and thus getting milk. I knew that the more I fed him, the more my milk supply would increase – I was happy then, to know that despite my neglect of the baby, all would be well.

Woman’s breast in a man’s dream: In some measure this is usually about a return to infant dependence, or childhood pleasure and wonder of accepting a woman’s love and comfort. Even when this is directly sexual, it still links in some way with how well or badly you were bonded with your mother, and what traits you carry from that.

In some men’s dreams the breast are a confrontation with what is felt as the woman’s power in your life. If you feel emotional pain or fear when you get close to a woman emotionally, that is the power you feel she has. Or is when you become intimate with a woman you feel enormous dependence and pain if you feel you are losing her, then that is the power of the woman in you. In other words each man carries deep imprints of his maternal relationship, whether for ill or good, and that acts as a powerful force in his life influencing the way he relates to females. The breasts in dreams can indicate this.

Example: When I was about six or even younger, because my mother worked constantly I was left with our next door lady who had a daughter who must have been in her late teens or maybe a bit older. One morning I was standing at one side of their large dining room table, on the other side was the daughter standing side on to me. As I watched her I saw that her blouse had a spilt and through it I could see her naked breast.  Immediatly my whole abdomen was fulled with an exquisite hunger. It wasn’t hunger for food, but for the beauty of the feelings a child gets when at the breast.

The following example shows Grant, the dreamer, meeting his ability to unite with his inner ‘woman power’ and to recognise this as an aspect of himself.

Example: Two night ago I had a fascinating dream that left me feeling more at peace with myself, and more hopeful of a real sense of growth than for a long time. The dream was one of those that seemed to go on and on. In one section of the dream I was with a number of women in what felt like a classroom or semi public building. I felt completely at ease with the women and the marked feature was that I had easy and relaxed intimacy with any of them. With one of them for instance I was gently stroking her breast, which was very cone shaped and nice to hold. Even as I dreamt this part of the dream I had quite a high level of lucidity. Enough to realise that I was experiencing the ability to claim any of the female aspects of myself.

This then also occurred with males. In this section of the dream though I actually became any of the males who appeared in the dream. Again I was lucid enough to realise how I was able to accept any aspect of myself and identify with it easily, and how wonderful this was. There was another section of the dream which is difficult to remember. I believe it was more general in that I was realising some of the pleasure or wonder of being able to accept life – myself – so fully. Grant.

Example: I felt lonely, terribly lonely, for it, longing for the nearness of someone I loved. My face was against my left bicep. It was the only human comfort I could find – myself. I rolled my head back and forth across the softness of my bicep. Then, as my aloneness became more intense, I suckled my bicep like a breast, longing for the warmth only I could give myself at that moment.

Breast Implants: I want to bring the word “natural” in here because it is relevant to what is being explained. If we see animals as examples of what is natural, or what happens in nature without human intervention, then we could say that it is not natural to have one’s appendix taken out when it is inflamed. It is not natural to have breast implants. It is not natural to have vaccinations against disease. But these things are all options we are capable of, along with the countless other things that humans do because they are possible.

Dreaming of breast implants could have several associations, such as what would be the consequence; would I feel better with them; is it safe. So you need to ask yourself what thoughts and desires you had felt before the dream, and what the dream is commenting about this.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings about breasts in this dream?

Are the breast(s) linked with feelings that I am usually repressing or accepting?

Am I at ease in this dream – if not what is it that prevents this?

You can explore your dreams to find otherwise hidden meaning by using Processing Dreams or Talking As

Breath Breathing

Breathing links with being alive and in a normal state of awareness. The speed, ease or difficulty in breathing point to pace of life and your emotional state – i.e. peaceful or disturbed; holding on or releasing.

Different types of breathing link so fully with states of mind or altered states that dreams often show this in various ways. So the held breath can suggest anxiety or an attempt to be still. Fast breathing can link with excitement or effort. The held breath can also be a way of stepping out of ones normal awareness, as the following example shows and is often a way of avoiding feelings.

Example: Gliding from a mountain top. Then I am with Pat Brown, a girl friend I knew at school. I am lying on top of her holding her breasts. Then I was being led into rooms but avoiding them each time as I felt some sort of trap and threatened imprisonment. To avoid being caught I take a deep breath and this caused me to fly up into the air and away.

Breathing in – Inhaling: Taking in something or someone; absorbing an influence; absorbing life. To absorb something, to take into your thoughts or experience, to consider, or to accept mentally.

Breathing something in: We often associate breathing things in with anaesthesia or smoking, and therefore with powerful influences entering us.

Fast breathing: Excitement; emotional release; experience of fear. Also stimulates our whole being in some way and can lead to emotional release in some cases.

Holding the breath: Expression of will. We breath-hold when repressing emotions and anxiety, but it may at times be a means of experiencing the non-breathing and deep absorption of life in the womb. the slow breath; the breath of life.

Struggling for breath: This usually relates to great fear or the feeling that existence is a struggle to survive. It can also link with feelings that you are being smothered or overwhelmed in a relationship or situation.

Under water and not breathing: Womb like state; experience of level of awareness without sexual, biological drives, and without opposites; return to deep relaxation – healthy if you can easily emerge. Might be an escape from waking reality if you cannot. See: lungs; air.

Example: ‘I was getting married. I could hardly breathe, I was in a room with my brother and I was really terrified.

Example: I started by considering the recent nightmare of the ‘thing’ at the foot of my bed. Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing. The touch of death was like a disease though. Once touched the disease was incurable and gradually took over ones body. I could hardly breathe as I experienced this, and I understood the sort of emotions that might lie beneath asthma attacks. This struggle with death went on for some time.

Idioms: breath of fresh air: bad breath; bated breath; breath of wind: don’t hold your breath; out of breath; under my breath.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the state or type of my breathing suggest, and can I link that with my life experience?

Is anybody else involved in what is happening with my breathing, if so in what way, what relationship?

Am I breathing something in? If so what is the influence of it suggested in the dream, and can I recognise that influence.

Try Techniques for Working your Dreams; Talking As; Processing Dreams


Brick Bricklaying

Many dreams show that brick walls are powerful blocks we find it hard to pass through or deal with. Sometimes they represent attitudes of mind that need changing, or even lack of information or some situation that we do not understand and so are lost in. See examples below.

Often people dream of jumping over brick walls, meaning that they are faced by difficulties but have the skill or experience of meeting and passing over what would appear as impassable to others.

Bricks can mean small, individual thoughts, ideas, or hardened attitudes we form. We often build ourselves one brick or thought at a time. Bricks can imply the hard shell of defences and resistances against change, and the walls we build.

Dark Red Bricks: Several dreams mention red brick buildings, sometimes as a home and refuge, but it can also suggest a life situation we have built and now are living in –good or bad.

Example: “I am not a medium so I cannot talk with my dead son” is like a brick wall that we have created and cannot get through.

Example: Years ago good friend died of a heroin overdose. She’d gone missing for a while, but before that she had stopped talking to me (I was being pushy, I guess, telling her to quit the hard stuff…didn’t realize quite how serious her drug habits were getting). After I didn’t hear anything at all about her whereabouts, I started looking myself, and kept hitting brick walls after bad signs.

Example: It is our acts, now or in the past that creates our life, so we cannot escape from who we are. But we can build, brick by brick a different future, a different life.

Example: ‘I am trapped in a bricked room with no way out and I shout for somebody to help me. Then either a big bird or a creature with long arms tries to catch me, and I scream.’ Karen S.

Karen had previously lost a baby, been divorced, had an unsatisfying relationship with a man. She feels trapped by the defences she has herself built ‘brick by brick’, but is frightened of the opportunity of change represented by the bird. What encloses or traps us in our dream gives a clue to what constrains us in waking.

Idioms: a brick; a brick short; a cat on hot bricks; a few bricks short of a full load; banging ones head against a brick wall; built like a brick shithouse; come down on like a ton of bricks; hit the bricks; shitting bricks; thick as a brick.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I built brick by brick in my attitudes?

What, like brick wall, is something I will never give up?

Can we build a different future brick by brick using a different way of life?

Try reading Resistances and Victims.


Bride

This usually relates to feelings about or desire for marriage; love; receptivity and fertility; or integrating parts of your personality previously not expressed. The bride also depicts ones soul – the open and receptive qualities that are fertile and ready to open into new life and creativity.

The bride is a wonderful and powerful image, holding in it enormous feelings, potential and life. The following dream illustrates some of this power.

Example: A young woman, a bride, was given a bunch of flowers. The flowers were covered up, or wrapped, in paper, or newspaper. This was removed, or I removed it, and the flowers looked rather wilted and lifeless. As soon as they were uncovered however, life seemed to come into them. The buds opened before our eyes, blooming into lovely white flowers. The flowers had many petals, and lots of fine moving stamens. The flowers seemed to be constantly moving within, and everybody cried out, “Oh, orchids!” As I looked at them I experienced intense joy.

It is this opening to the fertility and flood of life energy that a bride depicts. The flower represents this perfectly because it is an expression of the profound forces of nature as they open ready to become fertilised and help to create new life. But this opening need not be toward a man, it can be in relationship to your own potential and creative power.


Of course the bride in a dream links with marriage, but not necessarily a marriage of the body. It frequently links with your own growth to wholeness, and it does this with the ease or difficulty shown in the dream marriage ceremony. The marriage, if it takes place shows the integration of your male and female characteristics, and thereby an achievement of greater maturity. See Archetype of the AnimaArchetype of the Animus

Some of the classic difficulties faced or depicted by the dream bride are to do with – for the male – the challenge of surrendering independence and youthful manhood in service of life and the female principle. And for the woman, the finding within oneself of the ancient female power that can accept and meet the male as a woman – i.e. receptive, fertile and nurturing. This does not relate to the outer life, but to the inner power of the male and female recognising and enhancing each other. The example under relationship and dreams clearly shows a man involved in this struggle. See: Beware of Love; Growing Up to Love.

Female dream: Your marriage and what it means to you; feelings, fears or hopes about marriage; feelings about your daughter. The bride also depicts all those perhaps unlived dreams, beauty and love within you; all your womanhood perhaps never linked to and recognised by a man.

If getting married: Integration of inner aspect of yourself never previously known or expressed, especially if bride/groom is oriental or black.

Male dream: Frequently depicts your relationship with your own feelings and non rational nature, as well as being an indication of how you relate to real marriage and the integration of your female characteristics. See Archetype of the Anima

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am the bride, is this about my hopes for or involvement in marriage – or is it showing what stage of unity I have with my male characteristics?

If I am a male dreamer what is my relationship with the bride, and what does that say about the way I relate to women or my own female characteristics?

What feelings accompany the dream and what do they suggest about myself?

See Characters and People in Dreams and Stand in role

Bridegroom

This can indicate a desire to be married or find a partner. It often shows the dreamer gradually meeting his female half. See Archetype of the Anima

Female dream: Meeting or relating to the groom shows how well you are managing to relate fully to a man or your own male characteristics. Feelings about marriage or getting married. The following examples show the subtleties or difficulties of these situations.

Example: I am in a church attending a wedding.  Niki is the bride.  I am to escort her down the aisle.  I see her standing at the top of the aisle looking beautiful and serene.  She starts to walk down the aisle but suddenly she loses her balance and stumbles.  I sense that she is very nervous.  I rush to her side and hold her up.  She’s near panic.  I support her and earnestly whisper encouraging words in her ear.  I tell her I love her and everything will be alright.  …. We step across the rail and again she stumbles. Then she laughs nervously but with relief that she finally made it.  I let her go and she moves toward her groom.  She’s eager to join him.  She’s freed of her fear.

The dreamer is here dealing with her fears and sense of inadequacy in relating fully to a male, but she is helping and supporting that part of herself to move beyond past anxieties.

Male Dream: Feelings about marriage; attempt to integrate conscious and unconscious. But if you are a man it often, through the drama in the dream, shows what difficulties or success you have in relating fully to a woman or integrating your own female characteristics. See: marriage; example concerning marriage.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I facing any difficulties in this dream? If so what are they, and do they relate to my waking life?

If I imagine myself as the groom what do I feel and see about myself?

What have I been thinking or feeling lately about marriage or male female relationship, and what is the dream commenting on that?

What difficulties am I facing in relating to my own internal male/female?

See Stand in role and Talking with a dream character

Bridge Bridging

The bridge often has the significance of crossing or moving from one phase of life, activity or emphasis to another. So it can be used to represent leaving youth behind and meeting old age. It can also depict connection between yourself and another person, a relationship, a link between self and opportunity, yourself and change in life. Another possible meaning is a way of passing over obstacles or difficulties, as the song ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ suggests.

The bridge is a way of allowing passage, and it can show a constriction or a release of what was previously held back, blocked by a barrier. In personal terms this means that fears or other feelings can block the free flow of your creativity, love or growth. So what happens with the bridge in the dream might be illustrating something relating to blocking or unblocking of personal energies.

However, in many dreams crossing a bridge shows a change of outcome in your life, a deep shift in the way you relate to yourself and opportunities.

Example: ‘Having been enjoying ourselves with some work mates at a social club, my husband and I are travelling down a country lane in an open horse drawn carriage. It is dark. We come to a hump backed bridge. As we arrive at the brow of the bridge a voice says, ‘Fair lady come to me.’ I float and everything is black and peaceful. Then great fear overcomes me. I wake with terror and feelings of horror.’ Evelyn K.

Evelyn’s dream paints a vivid picture of her journey through life, drawn by the natural forces within her shown as a horse. She has enjoyed life, but comes to the ‘brow’ of her life, her 40th year, and feels it is all down hill now into old age, which horrifies her. But of course the horror comes because she has a wrong view of herself and old age.

Example: I do remember is leaving someplace and embarking on a journey at night. I’m frightened but I want to make this journey. I approach a stream with a very narrow bridge. It’s dark and I’m afraid I may fall off the bridge. But to continue I must cross the bridge. Suddenly a young man appears to help me across. I’m grateful. He takes me to a small cottage where there are other young adults.

This is very much like the Night Journey.

Broken bridge: A break in a relationship or connection. To drive off into space suggests a totally unexpected and emotional difficult situation. This is also a warning to watch out for difficulties ahead.

Building a bridge: Creating a way to deal with difficulties; building a link with others or another person; overcoming problems or hesitations.

Draw bridge: This is something, a right of way, that can be withdrawn, making it difficult to carry on. Perhaps a warning in some dreams, to be careful.

Fallen bridge: this might link with a lost opportunity; broken bonds and connections; parting in a relationship, or broken opportunity or a difficult obstacle.

Falling or jumping off bridge: This is still about change or connection, and is therefore about avoiding change, trying to escape from what change is confronting you with, or making a break form something or someone.

Standing on a bridge: When we stand on a bridge we can see the flow of events on the river, so it may relate to gaining an overview of your life. It  might also depict a change or being in the middle of change – maybe indecision.

Standing on a bridge looking into water: Often refers to looking deep into oneself from an overall perspective. What you see in the water, or under the water relates to what feelings or fears you hold within yourself. The fears may indicate what is preventing you from making changes in your life, or extending into a more fulfilling life.

Under a bridge: In some dreams this points to what is involved in changes or links of relationship. There is also shelter under a bridge, and sometimes it is out of public gaze, so it may link with those feelings.

Idioms: Burn one’s bridges; cross that bridge when I come to it; water under the bridge; bridge builder; bridge the gap.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the underlying feelings or theme in the dream, and what does that indicate about me?

Are there any difficulties or barriers to my crossing the bridge? If so what are they and how can I deal with them?

What is the feeling difference between being on one side of the bridge and the other? Imagine yourself being on each side of the bridge and notice the difference. Then see what this is saying about your life.

Try Acting on your dream – Magical Dream Machine

 

Bright

Anything bright usually is about something more interesting or important. So brighter colours are also about catching your attention and showing a brighter mood or attitude.

So anything brightly lit would suggest that it is an important  dream, and one worth trying to understand. But see light, as that will say more about this.

Example: I had a dream where the outline of a heart appeared and one half of the heart was ruby crystals and the other half was diamond crystals. Then as I watched, the colour gold outlined the heart again. Then all of a sudden a bright white light burst out of the heart at me. It was so bright it actually woke me up. I had just learnt to do Reiki at the time and had done quite a lot that day, so I’m assuming it had to do with that. Is that the case or can I attach other meanings to this dream as well. I would appreciate your input.

The dream is about initiation, and is certainly bought about by opening to your core self. And by corer I mean the drama of how humans long for a connection with life that transcends time, space and death. It is a desire for wholeness. But another way of defining it is that which doesn’t change, what does not shift in human nature, what remains as the foundations of existence. The lovely images of your dream shows the heart, the centre of you, filled with jewels. And jewels mean something that have been formed through ages and are usually dug out of the rocks – and so are very precious. So to have many of them tells you that you have such a treasure in you to uncover and allow to express. For your dream shows you something that needs to be allowed to grow into your everyday life, and could be forgotten and covered up again. And the light is the sudden wonder of touching the source of your self.

Idioms: future looks bright; on the bright side; bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is bright – a colour, a scene, a light or even a person?

What impression or feelings did you experience in connection with the bright thing?

If you imagine yourself as the brightness what do you feel?

Try using Being the Person or Thing and Talking As

Bright

See: Glowing; Light.

Broken

The word or image of something broken enters into many areas of our life. It can be about a relationship, something in a house that might indicate a physical situation, a piece of equipment, a plant or object. Being broken indicates something is no longer working, that it has been clumsily used, worn out, or old and no longer something that can meet the demands of active life.

Something broken can also relate to oneself, as when we feel broken and hopeless or a failure, broken by events and people.

Look up the object or equipment elsewhere. For instance a broken water pipe could show either a physical weakness or that your way of channelling your emotions is no working well. See: damaged.

Useful questions are and hints:

What is it that is broken, and what does that indicate in me and my life?

Can this be mended or changed in any way?

Is this information I need to take seriously in regard to my health or my relationship?

Try using Being the Person or Thing and Talking As

Brooch

See: Badge.

Brook

Usually a peaceful feeling that may suggest closeness to nature and life.

Example: This was a vivid dream, in brilliant color. I dreamed I was working in a beautiful garden. There was lush vegetation everywhere, with a meandering brook off to one side. There was an alive feeling to this place. It made me think of the Garden of Eden. I was turning the soil with a spade and I noticed how exceptionally rich it was. Suddenly I uncovered a silver medallion which I picked up and cleaned. It was covered with fine engraving of ancient design. I continued to dig and found another and another of these medallions, all beautifully engraved. And then I found two gold coins with the number “705” on them. With that the dream ended.

The dreamer was a hard working man trying to keep his family but was pressed for money and prayed for help. He had six children, the two youngest were twin boys, who had golden hair. Their birthday was on July 5th thus 705. The beautiful garden, where these precious objects are found, is symbolic of the dreamer’s life. He toils in the vineyard… and the fertile soil he works with represents his life work. The meandering brook is seen as a spiritual symbol. It lends a peaceful tone, indicating that conditions may not be as desperate as they seem. The vivid colors and alive feeling of the garden also indicate a close spiritual presence.

The dreamer went to sleep with the thought uppermost in mind as to how he might earn more money. The dream answered this request by showing him where his fortune could be found. But the fortune the dream speaks of is not in money or any kind of material wealth. Instead, his fortune is found in the flesh and blood of his family. Quoted from the Dream Journal BBS by Aurelius. See river.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the feeling of the dream?

Where there any sign of drama or theme in the dream?

What way was I interacting with the brook?

Try Talking As and Easy Dream Interpretation

Brook

See: River.

Broom Brush

An effort to clean away irritating or old thoughts and feelings or things such as influences that are still in your life from the past. It usually links with efforts to clean up your thoughts or life, or to wipe/brush away cares or irritations. It therefore links with change or efforts to change.

Broom can also represent the male penis.

The broom or brushing can also refer to pushing something aside, such a relationship or other things you want out of your life.

If it is a paint brush then it links with making changes, but still has the association of getting rid of things.

Example: I am a teacher and I am mildly interested in one of my students. I know it’s not right, so I resist. He tries to interest me. In a fit of energy, I start to clean up the room. I get a broom and sweep Toostie O’s on the floor. He also starts to help. We feel good about being responsible and taking care of business before pleasure. After it’s clean, we (now my daughter Dovre and the young man) laugh and frolic together. I (a mature person) am pleased with them and approve of their actions. Barb

Example: ‘I dream insects are dropping either on me from the ceiling of our bedroom, or crawling over my pillow. My long-suffering husband is always woken when I sit bolt upright in bed my eyes wide open and my arm pointing at the ceiling. I try to brush them off. I can still see them – spiders or wood lice. I am now well aware it is a dream. But no matter how hard I stare the insects are there in perfect detail. I am not frightened, but wish it would go away.’ Sue D.

Idioms: brush cut; brush it off; brush up on; brush with death; brush with the law; paint with the same brush; tar with the same brush; brush-off; give him the brush-off; the brush-off.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in particular am I brushing away or cleaning?

Am I managing to do this or are there difficulties?

Is the brush or broom working?

If not maybe I need to use a different strategy.

Try Acting on your dream or Being the Person or Thing

Brothel

The examples given below show at least three different things dreaming about brothels can mean. The first one depicts how one can feel sexually liberated without guilt. The second one is about expecting to enjoy himself but on closer inspection found the scene ‘sick, ugly and without beauty’.

The third example shows a man trying to find a way out of the worlds attitude to sex, and doesn’t want his younger self trapped in that attitude.

Money plays a part in the second example and this is how many people earn a living. See Archetype of the Prostitute.

A brothel can also be a dream scene where you are trying to work out a problem, such as repressed sexual feelings; a great shyness or physical difficulty that a professional sex worker might be useful for; a tremendous need to express your sexual energy; a way to learn about sex; or a lover you enjoy without the wife or partner knowing.

Example: I went to a place with my mother and her best friend where we had intercourse with male prostitutes, one after the other. I was lost, and before my turn came I was in a corridor from which I could hear but not see. This was the most exciting part. I felt that my orgasms would be extremely intense since the men were “professionals,” and since I was excited, and in a brothel with my mom. From Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney.


Example: A youngish man went into a place like a brothel and paid his money. He took a big box of assorted contraceptives. The man at the desk made some remark about enjoying himself. The man went upstairs to the “girls”. At first sight these were very beautiful and sensuous. Closer inspection showed them to be sick, ugly, and not at all beautiful in anyway.

Example: I went down the steps looking for my children, and found myself in a high walled garden. The walls were about ten feet high, impossible to see over. In the garden and old and slovenly woman was on a couch. She seemed to be in charge of the place – like a Madame of a brothel or disreputable club. She asked me what I wanted. I told for I was looking for my children. They had somehow got over the wall, beyond some of the walls, and I was trying to find within which walls they were trapped. I had a feeling that lots of walls of other gardens ran off those around me, and planned to look over them.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part am I playing in relation to the brothel?

Am I learning something from the brothel?

Am I attracted or repelled by my dream?

Try using Key WordsEnergy Sex and Dreams and Context

Brother

Oneself, or the denied part of self, meeting whatever is met in the dream. These may include rivalry, anger, feelings of persecution, love and admiration, authority, or an outgoing ability to deal with the world.

Brothers often appear in different ways in a sisters dreams. She can be used as a helpful DIY guy; or someone to share fun with, or even someone who needs your help. See Characters and People in Dreams.

If you don’t have a brother, it most likely depicts an aspect of your personality illustrated by the dream character, or your male characteristics.

Example: Dabney was a baby about 10 months old. I carried him around but he was still capable of doing all these craft things. Now we were in the farmer’s house. The baby had grown up. Now he was a younger brother and he was sort of me.

In the dream the person recognises that the dreamt of brother is actually as aspect of herself.

Brothers: If you have brothers in a dream can mean many things depending on what is done or the dream context and environment. So look up What is the main action in the dream?; Background; Context and any other things they are up to, like fighting, helping each other, etc.

Death of a brother: This suggest the death of the Elder Brother, and Its significance to the world. So is loss of a talent because of defects, imbalances, or weaknesses in the physical body. Death of a younger brother the loss of vulnerability, or something you cared for or were at odds with.

In woman’s dream – younger brother: Outgoing but vulnerable self; rivalry.

Older brother: Authority; one’s capable outgoing self; feelings of persecution.

In man’s dream – if younger brother: Vulnerable feelings; oneself at that age. See: boy; man.

Idioms: Big brother; brothers in arms; blood brother.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Could this indicate ‘brotherly love’, or perhaps rivalry?

What do you associate with your brother?

What was the relationship in the dream?

Try Talking As and Easy Dream Interpretation

Brow Forehead

This usually refers to thoughts, especially clear and insightful realisations. In some dreams there is a mark or even a swelling in the middle of the brow. This indicates the ability to be aware of things beyond the limitations of your senses. It suggests that the instinctive urges or energies have been lifted up into a new form of expression or perception. This sometimes occurs through loving feelings or learning to become detached from desires, anger, moods and longings. But detachment does not mean you do not have anything to do with the world and its ways; you can still have anything you want but you can let go of it easily.

But as the last example points out, what you are that is often hidden to others is written on your forehead.

Example: I recently took three antidepressant pills over 6 days. During this time I had dreams that my brain was being snipped with scissors. I also developed a large pimple between my eyes – the region of the third eye or brow chakra. And…my friend in Singapore developed a searing headache between her eyes (again the brow chakra) just after I took the third pill. When she called me to tell me about it, her headache automatically went away.

All of this suggests to me that antidepressants cut off our third eye connection to our higher self or whatever spiritual connection exists.  Jan

The brow definitely links with our mind and our potential as the following example shows.

Example: It was very beautiful and symmetrical in every line, silver in colour; but as it appeared I saw that it was not so much a fish as a great creature, a mixture between a black panther and seal, with a smooth legless body. It reared its head, and I saw it had an emerald at its brow, just above its eyes. Our reason for calling it up was to get the jewel.

Example: The Buddhist monk then told me to look at his forehead and see what was written there. I looked and saw the lines on his forehead were placed so that they spelt out a word explaining what he was. It was something like MEEK. He then told me to look again and I would see my own self written there. Again I looked, and this time saw the word BITTER. The other people there could not see the writing, and he told me everyone had what they were written on their forehead. He then pointed into the audience and said, “But you will do the thing you came to do. You will do it!” He pointed beyond me, but I felt the words were for me.’


Useful Questions and Hints:

If there is a mark or words on my forehead, what is suggested, or what do I feel about this?

Am I gaining new insights about something – if so what?

Have I had some new form of perception lately – if so how would I describe or define this?

See Using Your Intuition; Victims and Being the Person or Thing


Brown

As a mood this can depict gloominess, dullness or even depression. But it depends what is brown in the dream so it can refer to the earth or earthiness and processes of the body. A muddy brown can suggest unclear or selfish emotions and thoughts.

Brown is in some ways black that has become more light, and so might refer to things that your bringing to awareness, or facets of yourself you have enabled to grow and express after being unconscious and unexpressed. So in some dreams brown transforms into other radiant colours, perhaps in a way a plant draws something from brown soil and transforms it into the colour of its flowers.

Excrement is brown and in some dreams the feelings show this depicting things that need to be left behind, recognised as not needed, or like manure something that is rich and needed for or holding in it the potential for growth.

Brown in regard to objects can show them as being old or worn, as leaves are that have served their purpose and are now ending their life. But brown can also relate to parts of you from the long past, or containing much experience – but also perhaps to do with feelings about ageing.

Brown animal: Your natural urges that you are probably comfortable with.

Brown clothes: Middle of the road and perhaps feelings that are a bit dull or conformist, but are easy to live with.

Brown eyes: Perhaps relates to feelings you have for someone you know with brown eyes.

Brown skin: Feelings about health and perhaps attractiveness. However, brown marks on the skin suggest either feelings about ageing, or that there is something wrong, or something has hurt your hand. See: hand.

Idioms: Brown study; browned off.

Useful questions:

Am I experiencing or moving from feelings lacking colour, vibrancy or life?

Do I seek a comfortable situation that allows me to relax and avoid the energetic processes of life?

Does my dream relate to feelings of ageing?

Is this an old thing – and if so what do I feel it contains in terms of past experience or information?

Brute Brutal Brutality

This may hide experiences of pain during your youth or childhood. Sometimes it replays scenes of violence witnessed or felt.

Bubble

Illusion. Something delicate and easily lost such as day dreams. Sometimes it depicts the transitory human existence. If on the skin it can suggest injury or the site of poison or hurt – perhaps old hurts being realised.

A bubble is an entire and enclosed world. So inside the bubble might suggest a different ‘world’ of feeling, attitudes or experience. In this case the bubble might be a protection, and can indicate strengths or attitudes that are protective or inhibiting. But an ovoid can express the power of your own potential, the power still unexpressed that can come to life and flow through you. This is sometimes shown in a dream as a floating bubble or flying saucer.

Occasionally a pregnant woman might use a bubble to depict the amniotic sac holding her baby.

Also bubbles can show that something is leaking, as with air in a tyre, so might point to something needing attention.

Example: I am standing in the toilet peeing into the water. This creates lots of bubbles. As I look at these bubbles I notice each one has an eye looking at me. Fascinated I bend lower to look back at these eyes. When I do so I see they are not ‘eyes’ but ‘I’s’. Each is a tiny reflection of myself looking back at me. Amused I ponder this multitude of me. Each tiny being, with its own individual sense of self, its own eyes and legs and fingers, feels it is separate from its fellows – and it is. But what they don’t realise is that their awareness, their consciousness is a reflection of me. I am their god. Out of me all have their being. – Then suddenly I realised I am myself a bubble. I too have a sense of being independent, with my own eyes, fingers and legs. Yet in reality I am only a reflection of one great life – One Self existent in all diversity and multifarious forms. I felt afraid.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I relating to the bubble and what is it indicating?

Is there a sense of something easily burst in the dream?

Is anything inside the bubble? If so what do I associate with it?

Is this a leak – if so what is it pointing to?

Use Being the Person or Thing or Easy Dream Interpretation

Bud

As can be seen in the example under bride, the buds are about the wonderful essence of womanhood and femininity opening and flowering. The bud therefore often symbolises the richness and beauty of the vagina – not so much the physical vagina, but all the feelings, desires, opportunity of creativity and love the healthy vagina involves us in.

Occasionally it is seen in male dreams, or dreams relating to males, and the penis is shown as a bud. It has in this case a similar meaning to that above – the flowering of the richness of male sexuality

Buds can also be pointing to things you have ‘planted’ in the past – i.e. things done or set in motion – that are now beginning to become apparent outwardly in your life.

The few idioms associated with bud and budding are descriptive of these meanings: nipped in the bud – or nip it in the bud and budding genius.

Example: There are 3 candles burning. One, his candle, is near something and I go over to look. A plant is too close to the candle, and a bud is on fire. I pull it away and put out the flame. Most of the plant falls off. I exclaim, “Look how it’s grown. I got this plant this evening. It just had a few shoots and now there are long shoots and 2 or 3 buds.” I feel sad that it’s burnt and broken, but I feel O.K. because it grows fast and will regrow new buds. In a way, it’s like it’s been pruned and will regrow faster. I blow out all three candles and get back in bed with Paul. Barb

Example: “….I felt as if I were the bud of a crocus. I seemed to be slowly unfolding with difficulty. Not until I fully opened did I feel a great relief. The results of this have made me feel very positive in my outlook, and far happier…..I am a trainee yoga teacher and have been teaching for three years. I have a small class of fourteen students who are keen and attend regularly. I decided to have my students try this to see how they would react. I explained it as well as I could, and the feedback I got was:- A man in his thirties said, ‘I felt I was in a womb. It was very comfortable, cosy and dark. I wanted to stay there. I didn’t want to come away – it was so peaceful. I have never experienced anything like it before.’ He was very impressed. A woman in her thirties felt like throwing her arms around and kicking her legs. ‘I felt I wanted to give birth and was about to deliver.’ She didn’t fling herself about, but held back. I think it was a pity she didn’t let go. (A description of a woman using LifeStream).

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the bud, or buds, living or dried up and dying? How does this apply to your feelings and life situation?

What is the drama in the rest of the dream linking with the bud? See keywords for help with this.

Am I aware of something growing and opening in myself or events?

Try using Key Words and Talking As

Buddha Buddhism

Depends a great deal on personal associations with Buddhism, but may represent your core self and wisdom from a wider awareness than your everyday knowledge. In this type of dream there is an awareness of wonderful release from the limitations we impose upon ourselves through believing the illusion we erect from our sense impressions, or beliefs and habits. So the Buddha sometimes depicts a form of liberation from thinking and desiring, and the worldview that arises from the sensory impressions of the world and the belief that one is only the body.

But often, in Westerners dreams it is associated with the denial of, or loss of, ego.

In a Christian persons dream it may depict a threat to their belief system. See: archetype of the self and archetype of the buddha; Buddhism and dreams.

The Buddhist beliefs are built upon the statement that human pain can be overcome or left behind. This could be seen as emerging at a time and historical period where masses of people were in a social condition causing pain. The second example is comments from a person exploring in a dream state.

Example: The memorandum also contained this grim warning: “It is probably no accident that the society which most consistently encouraged the use of these substances, India, produced one of the sickest social orders ever created by mankind, in which thinking men spent their time lost in the Buddha position under the influence of drugs exploring consciousness, while poverty, disease, social discrimination, and superstition reached their highest and most organized form in all history.”’  Quoted from David McClelland, Chairman of the Harvard Center for Research in Personality response to the use of psychedelics.

Example: As I explored the states of being suggested in Eastern practices I saw something I had never seen before. Firstly it was to do with the whole social situation of Eastern countries. Always the individual cells – the individual men women and children – were in stress in the sense that society pushed them to conformity. The cast system of India, the killing of students in social conflict, the conformity seen in Japan, and the recent feudal systems; all pointed to individual stress and pain. I saw the image of the termite hill as representing this. If the mound satisfies the individual members then their needs are met. But supposing there was not enough oxygen in the mound, this would show as individual and collective distress.

The other telling point was that the information I had received about the ‘answers’ to life in the Eastern system were always suggested as a release from pain. Buddha’s nirvana was an extinguishing of the integrity of the individual, so there would be a release from the pain of life. The sight of death, illness, suffering in Buddha’s life was what motivated his search for an answer. The path of Buddhism is a way toward release from suffering. This suffering I realised as the individual ‘distress’ such as the termites might feel if their ‘social system’ were not actually supplying the needs of its individuals. The massive concretization of the caste system suggests this from another angle.

In fact the whole story revolves around a young prince who lived a life of intense advantage and in looking at the life of those not so advantaged felt their pain. He did not preach a way of the rich sharing what they had with everyone, as was and is done in such systems as the Native Americans or many tribal people, but taught a way to escape from pain. And of course it still carries on, and today we are a people who are medicated out of their social pain. See We do Not Realise

What are my feelings or central experience in this dream? Is it of peace and liberation or threat?

Is there something in my dream that is like a paradox – if so what can I learn from that paradoxical experience?

If I imagine the mood or feelings of the dream what does it create in me?

Read LifeStream; Methods of Awakening and Victims

Buffalo

See: bull below.

Bug Bugs

They are small things that might still ‘bug’ you. Small irritations or things that might scar you. But some dreams are about how beautiful the bug is or how useful. Also, what are the bugs doing and what do you feel about that?

Idioms: bitten by the same bug; bug (someone); chicken on a Junebug; cute as abug’s ear; Love Bug; put abug in my ear; snug as abug in a rug. See insects

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way am I relating to the bug?

Is it annoying me or stinging me?

What do I feel about it?

Try using Talking As – Being the Person or Thing

Buggy

If it is some sort of automobile see car. If it is a child’s buggy see push chair stroller buggy.

Build Building

build building This suggest that you are or are thinking of creating something new, a new idea or project. Our imagination and mind are constantly building things which show in our dreams as images. Our ideas and beliefs are the main builders, and it is a world we then live in. We build an inner world that few people realise they have, and that inner world constantly controls how they relate to and deal with the outer world, the people, animals and events we meet. Unfortunately we often build a terrible world inside us, and this leads to sickness, despair and depression. See Avoid Being Victims; Inner World

If you work in construction and building then you need to see whether the dream relates to your work situation.

The condition of your consciousness is usually represented by a building of some sort, and you can actually build an inner  world of your own. You do this by using your imagination as described in the  first example. Maybe you start out with a simple log cabin or Lodge. But you can gradually add things of beauty that you dream or feel.

Example: T kept guiding me to describe the lodge, and I continued to fill in the objects that were found inside, animal skin rugs, baskets, everyday objects for living in those simple ways. Then he was able to add some things he wanted in the lodge and we continued working together to create the space in our ‘joint imagination’. We continued building the lodge over the next few years, adding rooms or spaces for various things. There is a room for healing, a place with a beautiful natural spring where we can drink or bathe in healing waters. There is a gorgeous room full of silks and pillows for intimacy. And we developed spaces outside the lodge as well. There are two beautiful tropical coves, one with a cave and white sands and another with black sands. All of these spaces evolved over time either through guided meditations by the two of us together, or as we individually meditated and then shared what we had done with the other. It was an incredible experience building these sacred spaces together.

So, my belief is that this process of Envisioneering, envisioning building a sacred space either for oneself or with another/others is an amazing tool that can be used by any of us to explore a part of ourselves working with the Unseen World. It has been a wonderful way for me to incorporate the gifts I have been given in my dreams into some structure where I have them accessible to me for healings. I find that these gifts/beings, whether they are animal spirits, mythical creatures, feathers, crystals, whatever, have really thrived by being acknowledged for their abilities and have responded heartily to being invited to share a healing space with all manner of others. Dakota

Here is a simple example of the dreamers wonderful fantasy becoming real in a dream.

Example: I hire my brother and Ron (a co-worker) to build an addition on a small house near my Aunts. Ron goes ahead and makes it look like an airplane and it appears it actually will be able to fly. I am not happy at first but then I like the idea only I am concerned my brother will be upset and also I am worried about how to pay for it. I decide to pay Ron $100 a month. He seems happy as he just wants to do it. A lot of people come to see it. I plan an open house with refreshments for when it is done. Barb

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I building or doing in my dream?

Am I building something nourishing or destructive?

Do I want to change the things I have built.

See Avoid Being Victimscarry the dream forwardTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Building Mental Hospital Asylum

This depends on what is felt in the dream. So it could be a fear of your own mental and emotional stability, or a process going on within you of meeting the traumatised or neurotic aspects of yourself and transforming them.

Example: Dreamt I was a voluntary worker in a mental hospital or insane asylum. I was only an untrained helper, and there were many professionals, doctors. I walked down a staircase from higher floors. There were many closed doors behind which, I knew, were women living as enclosed nuns in the life of prayer. But I felt there was much mental illness contained in what they were experiencing. This recalls another previously unremembered dream in which I wandered a corridor where there were cells of nuns living an enclosed prayer life.

This dream suggests the dreamer is actively and voluntarily approaching and trying to deal with his own irrational nature and neurosis. The women behind closed doors depicts aspects of his own emotions, of himself that have been closed off through practices he used to control or deal with his own neurosis. He had practised a lot of prayer and meditation, and the dream suggests a lot of ‘mental illness’ was contained in that practice – both involved in and also held in check.

The irrational shows itself in our daily life as moods that arise for no apparent reason; feelings of despair or emotional pain that destroy the pleasure of our life; crazy urges or actions; body tics and unwilled movements. The source of any or all of these we approach when we dream of an asylum or psychiatric hospital.

Example: This caused large numbers of inmates in the asylum to gather about us. The expression of love had attracted them, whereas ordinary movements or conversation did not make one conspicuous. Such a large group of these people was dangerous, because they were unpredictable and could be violent. The woman attendant withdrew because of the danger. I was in the middle of a tight crowd pressing in on me, and was afraid. The tension mounted and people began to jab or push me. Someone poked their penis in my buttocks. I tried to push them away but was so crowded I could hardly move. My fear melted, and I wildly sought some way of dealing with the situation. I began to chant, feeling that this might ease the situation. Gradually the tension lessened, and my fear decreased. Then I surrendered and allowed LifeStream to occur, knowing this was the way to deal with everyone’s sickness. Other people also began the healing movements, and I knew the healing had begun, but I would have to come back weekly and help the people until the shaking spread to everybody, and help them until they were healed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of irrational feelings or behaviour does my dream point to, and can I recognise it in myself?

Am I in a helping role or do I feel lost or imprisoned in the asylum?

What can I do through visualisation to shift and difficulties I find in the asylum? For help doing this see Stand in Role and Acting on your dream.


Buildings

This section is about large public buildings such as hospitals, factories blocks of flats, depicting particular functions suggested by their nature, such as work or healing. But of course, if the house or building has a personal connection – the house you live in, or place you have worked – then you need to define what is the essential feelings about such. See processing dreams or Easy Dream Interpretation to help with that. If a house or building has a quality of some other type of construction, such as a library feeling like a factory, or a house a church, both aspects should be accepted as important. See: house for home and house links.

To quickly find what you want click on the links below:

AbattoirAbbey – church – chapel – templeAirportAisleApartment – ArenaArt GalleryAshramAuction Room

BakersBank Barber/HairdresserBarracks Book ShopBowling AlleyBrothelBuilding damagedBuilding enteringBuilding dream examplesBus/Coach Station

Castle – Cattery – Charity Shop Chemist PharmacyChurch CinemaCircusClassroomConvent –  CorridorCrypt

Damage or structural faultsDental SurgeryDruggist

Elevator – Entering building or houseEntering new buildingExamples of interesting dreams about buildings

Factory Fairground Falling down or Destroyed BuildingFarm Fire Station – Flat/ApartmentFortress

Garage Glasshouse Gymnasium

Hallway Hiding PlaceHospitalHotelHut

Kennels

LaboratoryLaundromat LibraryLift – Lighthouse

Mansion Mental Hospital AsylumMortuary MorgueMosque Museum

Observatory AstronomyOffice

PalacePlumbing – Police StationPost OfficePrison Public house/BarPublic or dance hall

Restaurant Radio StationRuins

School Showroom Stable Stairs Station Train Station Bus/Coach – Store Room –  Supermarket SurgerySwimming Pool

Theatre Tower

Underground/MetroUniversity

Vault Veterinary

Warehouse Workshop

Zoo



Buildings Damaged Destroyed

It may suggest damage to your ability to work, or even a desire to end your work there.

Something that is passing away or has passed. This can refer to a way of life or a particular personality style. For instance one may be very moral and rigid at one stage of ones life and then a major change happen and one may be more mobile and adaptable. This could be depicted as a building or house that has fallen or been knocked down. It could also suggest ageing and the process whereby one loses some functioning or sexual attractiveness of the body in ageing.

Buildings can be destroyed by fire, by bombs or earth changes. Each of these suggest big changes in your life, and should be explored to find other alternatives.

Example: A woman, planning to marry, dreamed of her fiancé in this fashion: “Paul, who has five children, was pulling his children and mine on a toboggan. The children were bickering and fighting. In the next scene, I was alone. Up the street, a big fire broke out, spreading and destroying all the buildings around. I didn’t want to get caught in the fire so I backed down. Then I looked at another street ahead and to the right. I saw black clouds gathered together like a hurricane. I went into my apartment and found the children home and suffering from nausea. The hall fixture, a fluorescent light, was about to explode.” Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

Here the building was actually the building of a relationship with the new man. It is showing everything is wrong and she should avoid any close relationship. She should as the dream suggest, back down.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where you in the building?

Can you think of any aspects of your life that has been destroyed?

What changes are you aware of that have or are taking place for you?

Try Being the Person or Thing or Talking As

Buildings Entering

Looking for something or going inside yourself. It can also suggest entering a new relationship and becoming intimate with someone.

New building: Entering a new phase of your life, or new undertakings.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of building did you enter?

Where there any feelings felt as you entered it?

Does it remind you of anywhere you have been?

Try these – Acting on your dream; Easy Dream Interpretation.

Buildings Examples

The next example illustrates the dreamer feeling anxious as she leaves the everyday world of the ground floor. Maureen sees life as full of pitfalls, though she recognises that others deal easily with what she faces.

Example: ‘I climb a few flights of stairs. As I go up the stairs start wobbling and breaking up. At the top the last flight breaks away from the landing and I am left to cross a gaping hole with a few bits of debris to cling to. It is very frightening, but I see other people passing me on the caved in stairs and onto the landing as if nothing has happened.’

Example: I worked on derelict building dream 27. 9. 95. I realised on Sunday that I could not pull tower block down and that I was left frustrated until it came down I could not build anything new.

Realised that I was this damaged block, yet while I stood there I was keeping my head up like I have always done. I stand always being seen but never knowing what way I will fall (or go). People are never sure about me. I felt that this feeling was from an early age. I was 19 when I got married there had been a cut off point, I felt that it had something to do with being pushed around by Maria – my wife. She was not my partner, I was in fact her convenience. I took this abuse with my “I’m above it all stand”. When the building crashed I cried and cried it was the death of my adulthood, for want of a better word. I was now confronted with old age and the way I had lived trying to stay above it in all ways. I hated my Mother and Father and how; instead I always kill myself as I couldn’t kill them. How I deprived myself of my needs—the picture of Jesus suffer the little children unto me (at Sunday school ) in Hampden rd. where I lived before I went into the orphanage. Even he never came to get me out. There has been no ability to believe in anyone since that time. I also saw that if my partner was happy then so was I. Yet this growing up has come about because of all the misery I have seen in my relationships. I then felt a deep fear that I must turn to God as I am now in old age, to know the Divine Principle as much as possible before I die. The thought of the pain that I would have to go through to achieve this. The building is down now and there is a strong feeling that I should turn inwards and focus on rebuilding my inner character. With a sense of self worth and not just an acceptance of my lot as given by parents and society. I was also happy that I had got Max – my lover – out of the building. I felt it showed a gentle love was still within me, leaving me with a wider feeling of gentleness that has encompassed me since. Kevin.

Here is a dream experienced after Kevin’s death from lung cancer.

Example:  Suddenly it was as if Kevin was with me, talking with me. He seemed in one of his pissed off moods. Not badly, but certainly frustrated. He said that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t get home. Being half asleep I started to feel sorry for him. Then I suddenly realised that this was Kevin dead, and not being able to get home was his life-long problem – at least the feeling of it – because he had been put in an orphanage when a child. So I excitedly told him that his life problem was now his death problem. That because he felt he couldn’t get home, he created this environment for himself now. I tried to help him create a different feeling stance, one from which he could ‘get home’. He began to get the idea, and the scenery gradually changed. He created a walled courtyard, sunny with vines and plants, with an adjoining house. The house had a room with a huge window overlooking a view of the sea.

Buildings Hallway

The hall or passage in a house may depict how you relate to other people, how much you let them into your life. It might also suggest the connections between the different parts of yourself, such as different interests or talents. Occasionally the hallway in a woman’s dream indicates her uterus.

The way one meets other people or allows them into ones life or intimacy. It can also be the receptive female reproductive function; connecting link with aspects of oneself.

Example: ‘I find myself in the entrance hall of a very large house. The hall is very large with a curved staircases either side meeting at the top to form a balcony. There is nobody about and I am frightened. I start to walk up the stairs but then find myself hiding in the roof with very little space above my body.’ Mrs B.

The hall is probably Mrs B’s childbearing ability and her image of herself as a woman. The words ‘little space above my body’ suggest her main area of life has always been her childbearing function or physical attractiveness as a woman, and she has not developed her mental self. See also: corridor under house and buildings ; white under colours.

Buildings Hospital

Hospital represents needing or being involved in a healing process of body or mind; worries about ones health. Healing also signifies change, so the hospital may have the difficulties met in making changes.

Example: ‘I was a prisoner in a hospital, although there were no locked doors or bars. It was a psychiatric hospital, but we were allowed to believe we had a physical illness. I had been very ill, but was trying to escape.’ Joan P.

At the time of her dream Joan was feeling trapped in depression and also attending a therapy group.

Buildings Laundromat Laundry

This shows some way that you are changing or cleaning up your attitudes, represented by the clothes. Attitudes that need to be, or have been, cleansed; relating perhaps to unclean experience. See: Washing.

The washing machine can point to faults within you. A woman dreamt she was washing white clothes in a large amount of water while her friend Alice watched her from the background.

In this dream, Alice, the “friend” in the background, was the dreamer herself. Her own comments on Alice were that she possessed a great deal of spiritual knowledge, but applied little of it to her daily life. Therefore, the dream was urging her to greater application—represented by washing clothes in the machine. Clothes, according to Edgar Cayce, often represent a state of consciousness. Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

It can be less dramatic and relate to washing away yesterday’s problems, or refreshing, restoring, making the best of what you have.

If you usually wash your items in a washing machine at home and are in the laundromat it could suggest you are washing your dirty items in public.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I washing, it could be a clue, so see items of clothes.

Did I succeed in washing the items?

Do I usually visit a laundromat?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Settings in DreamsAvoid Being Victims

 

 


Buildings Library

 Acquired wisdom or life experience. Sometimes the books are very old, suggesting wisdom antedating this present life and experience. This is the meaning of Jung’s theory of the racial unconscious, and equally that of reincarnation.

A dream library is also your enormous range of information within you, perhaps not opened yet. We all have millions of bits of information within, and very often we discount it, yet if we listen to it – open the door to that library – we will be amazed how much we know and how big we are inside. In fact have remembered life lessons from in the womb and so much more since then. You have a faculty of your mind that also creates new patterns of connectivity between previously unconnected pieces of gathered information. The result of that is often seen in dreams.  See Using Your Intuition

It can also suggest a search for information,  a search for the truth of who you are. Ones life experience, the wisdom and skills we have gathered, the intellect; research. Also relates to thinking and the head.

The many minds, lives and imaginations you can find within you – as shown by all the books.

If you work in a library: It shows you have a relationship with the books and the information or fascination they hold. You are in a situation where you can help people find that they are looking for. Are you yourself looking for something – yourself?

Huge library: Collective unconscious and collective consciousness. The vastness of the mind or cosmic mind. See: the conjuring trick; book; school.

 Example: Mary who is also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, had come to him with a disturbing dream in which she’d had sex with a man who, she said, she heartily disliked because he was such a terrible liar.  Mary then confessed that she’d recently been guilty of lying herself. She’d borrowed the tape of a lecture from her local library in order to duplicate it, but had wiped it instead. And then handed it back without admitting what had happened. Her dream had highlighted the fact that she too, was a liar.

Example: Only one remembered sequence today. I was involved in helping to extend a library service in a small community – possibly an American small town.

In exploring this dream I saw there was already one section/building opened, but we were going two form two more. I identified the existing library as connecting with the head. The other two would be connected with the chest/heart, and the pelvis/genitals. This connection – or the realisation of it – was repeated several times, perhaps to engrave it in memory.

 Example: I was at the library with Ken and a little girl who was about 8 years old.  She was only present in the background in the beginning of the dream.  She didn’t say or do anything.  I was no longer aware of her after that.  I don’t know who she was, but she appeared to be someone I was very familiar with.

The dreamer explored the dream and found: Library – As a seeker of truth I was suffering from not being true to myself. To seek the truth was of utmost importance – though I was not consciously aware of the full extent of what this all meant.   Within me there was a strong drive to find the truth of whatever it was that my spirit was calling me to find.

Little Girl – She represented my untruthful childhood living out of fear that if I disagreed with anything my mother said, or didn’t like what she liked, I would hurt her; she would withhold her love from me; or punish me.  So I lived contrary to what I believed, felt, thought at all times.  My mother never really knew the real me and my heart because I hid everything from her out of shame, fear, guilt, disapproval.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the connection with the library?

Was it just a mention or did I find something?

Is a library something I use?

See Summing Up QuestionsMagical Dream MachineSeeing into our Far Past

 

Buildings Lighthouse

Warning of danger of unconscious elements that may wreck areas of your life unless avoided. Use the light to become aware of what the danger is. It might also relate to loneliness or feelings of isolation. See: light.

The sea often represent the tempestuous and unruly aspects of our experience, or the unknown depth of our nature. So the light from the lighthouse can act as a guide through difficult times, or lead us into the unknown as the example shows; it is a true example.

Freud felt that anything the shape of a lighthouse represented sexual feelings. Having searched through 7000 dreams I cannot find any particular mentions of sexual feeling in connection with lighthouses. There is a very wide range of people meeting difficult situations in various ways. But regarding the phallic symbolism of the lighthouse, I feel it shows a wonderful power that faces all storms and throws light in the most difficult of times. It offers protection and care to those wise enough to stand in its light.

Example: The dreamer considering suicide then goes on to dream: Unlike any dream environments she’s known, her mind feels clear, alert, and free. Is she awake, asleep, or somewhere in between, in this place that’s more vivid than previous reality? Her surrounding is cylindrical, vibrant, and vast; white light emanates with a strength that almost hurts. The only route is up the helter skelter stairs of this lightening bright, snow blindness light-house. Tentatively, so unsure she starts to ascend; round and round she coils windowless walls forlorn, until she reaches the top and it’s sacred platform.

Relief from the piercing light is achieved where windows open on to darkest space. Her anxiety easing, she approaches the central display: an exceptional, universal camera obscura. Far from static it reveals the whole world and with just one thought from the viewer’s mind, a place and a loved one instantly appear presented real time for one to observe. Standing mystified, a presence then joins her and informs her with seemingly no external voice at all: “This is the place where people come after death’s fall.”

With instant recognition of her self-mortification, she spontaneously utters: “Oh, so I’m dead!” The presence inwardly sighs: “No, you’ve misunderstood my intention: I’ve brought you here to show that each of the dead choose someone to guide and watch over on earth. And that you have a someone still loving you. Your self-destruction is unnecessary; you just need to give life a reasonable chance. Please think on this experience and what I have said; your duty is still to life, it’s not yet to death.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

What events or feelings surround the lighthouse in our dream?

Do you recognise that you are in the presence of a great light giver?

What would you say was the theme or plot of the dream?

Try reading the Plot of the DreamEasy Dream Interpretation 

Buildins Kennel

In the doghouse, so may represent being shut out of your home and relationship. Place where easily expressed feelings resides. Being punished or being ostracised.  See: Dog. It can also be where you can contact your easily accessed and reliable instincts. See Mammal Brain  

Useful Questions and Hints:

What associations do I have with kennel?

Have I ever felt treated like a ‘bad dog’?

Am I enough in touch with the dog in me to feel free in expressing my feelings?

See Associations Working WithBeing the Person or ThingConditioned Reflexes

Bull

The symbol of the bull often refers to the instinctive responses or energy in us that are powerful enough to drag us along, cause us anxiety if we are in conflict with them, or carry us further in our endeavours if we can work with them. Such instinctive urges may be in connection with sexual attraction and desire, feelings about people invading our territory, and protectiveness for family. But we have to remember that the bull is a domesticated animal, and so its enormous energy is available for transformation or direction. See Mammal Brain

Where the bull connects with sex drive, it may depict the aspect of it that is generally under control, but may occasionally be wild if provoked. The bull can also represent the basic drives toward parenthood, and caring and providing via sex. The bull might link with aggressiveness, a ‘bullish’ trait in you or someone else; or personal traits to do with being very basic or earthy, and perhaps sexual in ones relationships, and being moved by impulses such as sex or aggression, without being aware of this. The bull is of course a symbol of strength, ferocity, obstinacy, maleness and power. So at a times it can represent your father, or an enraged father.

The bull in your dreams represents the way you may have faced this power in the past. If you have faced it without love it will cause enormous tension and frustration. That is the negative side to the bull. The problem is that of the will turned back on itself. It was perhaps frustrated by guilt about success and love. The reason it is difficult to face the bull was because the bull was your lust, your sexual love. The conflict you felt about love also turned against and destroyed your sexual desire.

The bull also represents striving to break through. This might not be allowed because to break through would-be to face your past.

The aggressive bull: Often shows the frustration arising from your basic drives being taunted or thwarted. For instance a person may wish for a family, yet be frustrated by a form of sexuality in their partner that does not care for children. Or their inapt ability in sexual and family relationships causes such frustration blocking an easy and satisfying life.

The killed bull: A killing of the natural drives connected with family, sex and procreation.

If sacrificed: May show self-giving, or the abandonment of the life in which sexual relationship occurs.

The ridden bull: Shows a harmony between self awareness and its decision making, and the basic ‘animal’ drives, or the reverse if the riding is difficult or a fight.


The Chinese illustration of the ox herding pictures are a wonderful statement of how we relate to this powerful side of us. In the picture titles Riding the bull it says:

“To mount the ox is to become one with your true nature; once united with it you’re already home. Flute and hands beat in harmony with the 10,000 things. All things, directly perceived, form the path (Tao) of the enlighten one.

To realize your place in this flow of events there is neither joy nor sadness, rather infinite satisfaction. Once achieved this realization of the perfect harmony of all things will never be voluntarily renounced.”

Example: I dreamt I was in a farmyard. A small boy climbed all over the bull, and it became terribly angry. It had been chained without attention for too long. Now it tore away and sought the cows. The gates were closed, but the bull smashed through the enclosing fence. I had rushed to the fence and sat astride it, but on seeing that the bull smashed it like matchwood, I looked around for some safe place. Meanwhile the Bull charged the first cow to mount it, but so terrible was its energy and emotion that it could not expressed as sex. It smashed the cow aside as it had done the fence. Then it rushed the next and passed it over its head, charging and smashing the next. Meanwhile I climbed into somebody’s garden trying to get out of the district.

Example: Was in Wilson’s farmyard. There were some puppies or something – not sure – and I went to get them some oats. To do this I walked to the top of the hill where the oats were kept. I had a bucket and a young man came with me. As I was filling the bucket with oats, we saw a bull nearby. It looked a bit thin in the flank, slightly cow like. My friend was a bit nervous, but I told him the bull was all right, and to give it some oats. The bull was so hungry it emptied the bucket in a couple of mouthfuls. So I scooped some more oats out for it. My friend looked at its penis, remarking how huge it was. I said, “I should think so. After all, it’s a long way into a cow.”

Example: Dreamt I was on top of the hill opposite Amersham hospital. There were bulls and cows in the field. I was afraid they would chase me, and tried to get away on a bicycle. But seemed to go very slow.

The dreamer explored this dream and says: When my feelings began to be released through dropping thoughts, sexual desire and love arose which I felt threatened by. I therefore attempt to escape by my efforts at self-advancement or meditation.

Idioms: Like a bull at a gate; bull in a china shop; red rag to a bull; score a bull’s eye; sacred bull; take the bull by the horns.

As an astrological sign the bull is the sign of Taurus. Therefore with Taureans the bull may depict their innate characteristics and how they are dealing with them. Taurus is a ‘Fixed’ ‘Earth’ sign. The bull, and the time of year it is within, symbolises being in tune with the instinctive earthy side of oneself. An animal born out of season, a calf for instance, would find it difficult in nature to survive, because there would be less food, and it might not be strong enough to face the winter. Therefore the Taurean is born ‘in season’ and has a harmony with the natural cycles. The sign denotes bodily, mental or spiritual strength; also inherited qualities of possessions; practical, useful powers or gifts. Its essential characteristic is that of service. The person born in this zodiacal sign is said to be a steady-going, reliable, practical, rather conservative person; slow to anger, but likely, if angered, to be a formidable adversary.

In past cultures the bull was considered sacred. In Egypt for instance the bull was never sacrificed. But in Mosaic times, and in the Persian cult of Mithras, the bull was used for sacrifice to God. In these approaches the bull was a symbol of servitude. But there are many different cultural approaches to the bull. In Christianity it was seen as representing brute force or the earthy quality of human life. In other cultures it was male procreative power, or the power of nature or God in action. It was occasionally called the Shaker, as it was seen as a symbol of the earth shaking – earthquakes.

There is a theme which appears in many cultures or myths connected with the bull. It is of the Hero confronting and overcoming the bull. Lao Tzu for instance, struggled with and eventually rode the bull, representing the human struggle and victory over instinctive or reactive habitual forces influencing consciousness. Also Theseus saves Ariadne from the Minotaur, suggesting that the conscious self has to meet and transform the instinctive sexual drive, the entangling forces of emotional dependence upon cultural norms, mother and public opinion, to be capable of a mature heterosexual relationship. Theseus, or our active growing self, frees Ariadne, the feminine or intuitive feeling principle. From this a new life can be born or emerge. While we live within and do not recognise or acknowledge the instinctive nature we all have, we fail to see the opening to a new form of awareness, one that is still in harmony with the instinctive and yet is not controlled by it. See animals

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the bull in the dream, and what does that suggest about my relationship with sex or natural urges?

Is the bull out of control or peaceful, and does that show my own inner condition?

Am I using or abusing the enormous energy of the bull in my dream, or am I afraid of it?

Try Being the Person or Thing and read Mammal Brain.


Bulldog

These dogs are not known for their aggressiveness but for the protection of the person and their property – a good working dog. The dreams I have  collected with bulldogs in are all very loving and caring. Even one where the person dream of a bulldog growling as if warning. The dog wasn’t attacking and seemed to be warning that there is something wrong; something you need to be aware of that is out of sight. Like a dog who is feeling something amiss and wants you to know. See dog; animals and Do you imagine that is a real creature

Example: A classmate of mine brought his brown fat bulldog with leash. As I saw the dog, since I really love dogs, I approached it and started petting, the bulldog doesn’t seem fierce, and in fact it looked behaved/well trained. I was surprised when it started talking! It was saying (what’s your name?) that was the only thing I remember the dog saying and some other mumbles I can’t remember. The dog was amazing like one of a kind, everyone was petting him…and then the dream shifted to another scene.

Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the dog doing in my dream?

How did I react or feel about to?

Did it speak to me or communicate anything?

See Stand in role and Talking As

Bullet

A bullet often links with feeling wounded, hurt, or the desire to wound or hurt. Therefore, being shot in the chest or stomach suggests feeling the impact of someone else’s attack in one form or another. But remember that in the end it is you doing the shooting. See Dreams are a reflection of your inner world

Dodging bullets might therefore illustrate the way you are dealing with anxiety, with difficult life situations or hurtful situations in a relationship – perhaps criticism or direct verbal or social attack. Firing bullets would be the opposite of this, directing aggression or criticism at someone else.

Bullets can also depict sexual impregnation or aggressive sex.

In some dreams there is a link with fear of or exploration of death – a sort of ‘what happens when I die’ feeling.

But remember that whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so all the things that scare or hurt you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

See: shot; war.

Useful questions are:

What is my dream suggesting I am anxious about or hurt by?

What hurtful words or actions am I aiming at someone?

Am I feeling wounded by someone, or by events from the past?

See What do You bring to Your Dreams? and Stand in role

Bumblebee

See Insect

Buoy

It indicates that you are held, or can be in the middle of uncertainty, of shipwreck, or being lost or drowned in a rough sea/difficult even raging emotions.

It also can show you a safe thing to hold onto when you are in difficult situations. A way to weather a storm. It can be like miniature lighthouse marking the dangerous ways to go, or the sage passage.

There can also be weather buoys, navigational buoys, marker buoys, tsunami buoys to give warning or immense unconscious shifts, ice hole buoys and many others. But they would only appear in your dream if you knew of them, and are self explanatory.

Example: A man who took his wife very much for granted, and was consciously unaware of all she did to make his life pleasant and easy, dreamed of being caught in a heavy sea and being buoyed up and carried to shore by a sturdy woman lifeguard.

Example: The bonds are developing between people who are transcending race, religion. We say “I trust you to take care of me. I trust you to handle me like yourself.” This is the only personal attainment we have got. Our society in the end is still formed around followers and leaders, groups and kinship ties, and bringing our resources into those kinship ties. What actually happens is that they form kinship bonds which form huge alliances. They form massive organisms made up of thousands or millions of people. But where does the individual stand in relationship to them?

If we don’t form bonds which transcend through love, we have no chance against these huge organisms. We’ve got no push, no power. What a beautiful craft or ship such bonding would make – made up of human wreckage and derelicts. The old craft was structures out of projecting onto the leader stability within the storm. Where is that leader, if it is not in human form, in tangible human giving and sharing. As I understand it people were induced to put their family bonding into the church – to invest that bonding and their future, their eternal future, in the church. Because people wouldn’t face the necessities of – originally there was a huge marker buoy left in eternity, so that if humanity got lost they had an ark – what we call the Christ. Christ rocks like a boat in the eternal energies. The bonds we create and live by are a part of the system itself. What survives is to create a bonding system which actually survives and perpetuates itself. It cannot do this without utilising the hidden but powerful underlying systems in cosmic processes. There is another fundamental action that I see – it is that when we move against an implicit social conditioning, we feel the pressure or pain of that – whether it is sexual, clothing, or whatever it is.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What relationship did I have with the buoy?

And what was the situation in the dream in which the buoy was a part?

Can you take from any of that what your present situation is?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation and also Settings in Dreams

Burden

Perhaps it indicates nursed anger or other negative feelings – if we feel parenthood a heavy load you may see your child as a burden. It can also depict resources and ability to meet changing circumstances and needs. See: knapsack.

A great burden that many of us carry is the culture we grew up in and live in. We may not see this, but we live in a sick society, and in many dreams it is shown as a burden. A systematic review of our society estimated the size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe in 2010. It found that 38% of the population suffers from mental disorders, and that disorders of the mind account for about 26.6% of the total disease burden. And that is Europe; the figures for the USA are worse, and that is not counting the alcoholic burdens many people carry or drug addictions. So we live in a sick society. See Ikarian Society to see the difference.

Example: I was with a male figure who seemed of stunted growth and was quite short. He was bent beneath the heavy burden of a huge weight of a huge burden he carried on his back which caused him to keep falling on the ground at every short distance. His purpose was to reach a certain destination but his burden harried him all the way. His destination seemed to be a building on the distant horizon.

I was the observer, but also the participant. He eventually fell to the ground unable to rise, he asked me to remove the body from his back – the burden he had been carrying; to pick it up and carry it, to run with it. As I lifted the body from his back he got up and ran toward his destination. I also ran, carrying the body, toward the same destination.

The example shows the spirit of the dreamer, who had carried a burden all her life, overcoming it. The dream shows her taking up that burden herself, and that was because she had grown enough strength to take the responsibility for it. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: I had a dream that I was carrying a foetus inside me. My uterus was see-through, so I could see the foetus’ every movement which made me feel sick to my stomach. I loved the baby but it was a burden to me. The next thing I remember from the dream is that I was holding the baby, which was somehow still a foetus inside a bag of fluid. I cared for it, but suddenly realized that the bag was punctured and the baby was suffocating from the lack of fluid. When the fluid was completely drained from the bag, the bag got so tight that it was about to suffocate the baby. So I took scissors and cut it off, knowing the baby would die no matter what I did.

The dream tells me a story that the dreamer has been carrying a conflict inside of her. It is difficult to have conceived of this and yet it is creative act and yet a burden. Then she is  ‘holding the baby’ and she realised that what she has taken so long on giving life to is suffocating. What it means is that she has taken a lot of time and bad feelings to bring this out of her to here awareness, and it is a conflict between love and being burdened. Is it about a risk she has taken with love?

Guilt or hard feelings due to family relations or criticism, or even a wrong you felt you did could be shown as a burden in your dreams. A dream even showed how a man carried a burden all his life because of his relation with his father. Here it is expressed as a poem.

I knew the magic as of old.

It’s in us all,
That forbidden rite to raise the dead,
To call back into life the thing we lost,
And make it speak to us again.

So, on my knees before that lifeless form,
I called his name to bring him from the dead.
“Father! Father! Hear me now,” I cried.
And with his ghastly face,
He looked upon me mute.
And I, with never-ending hope,
Appealed once more.
“Dear Father — oh dear God –
Please say you love me.
For pity’s sake dispel these years of pain.”

So cried I in the dark.
So wept my tears
In silent night, without response,
Until, passion in me spent,
I wrapped that bundle in its rags,
And in the dawn walked on.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the burden in the dream?

Where there feelings in the dream – if so what where they?

Can I recognise what this burden signifies in my life?

See Avoid Being Victims and Secrets of Power Dreaming

Burglar Intruder

This might indicate fears or difficult emotions arising from within you in a way that threatens you. If this applies it could indicate neglected parts of yourself which if met could enlarge who you are as a person.

 

Burial Bury Burying Buried

This is obviously connected with death. So it can represent fear of death of self, or loved ones, unconscious desire to see others dead, or at least out of the way. But it also is often used when we feel buried away from society, or buried under the events of life. Sometimes we bury or repress a memory, emotion, desire or talent. Our past is buried within us. Your dream might also use this drama to show you letting go of the past, of something that is now dead, or has been let die.

The earth also can represent our mother or the past. Burial may therefore symbolise being killed or ruled by an over possessive mother, or inability to break from her dominating influence. Being weighed down by past actions.

This often expresses our desire to either leave something behind, something that no longer has any life in it for us, or our urge to repress or distance ourselves from something. We might bury someone who is still alive to show how much we want them out of our life.

This may be a letting go of the past as we knew it, and opening the way to a meeting with what we gained from it.

Burial can also hold in its images feelings about death or loss.

In a positive sense burial is a doorway to a new life. Long before Christianity taught of resurrection ancient cultures were sure that, like putting a seed in the earth, it’s death led to new life.

Buried alive: Memories of birth and its fears. Horror of being trapped in a situation that might kill you emotionally or sexually.

Burial mound: Several things might be expressed by this. Firstly it can link with your inner awareness of the influence of your ancestors as it affects your life today. It can depict the ghosts, or influences from the past in this way – the things that haunt you. Sometimes it is used to give you an experience of touching the spirit of the Earth again, the return to your own primal feelings and wisdom. In this way it is like a temple to all we have inherited and the timelessness of the Earth.

See: coffin; funeralarchetype of death and rebirth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel in the dream that I am glad to get rid of what is buried – if so what do I associate with that feeling?

Is this something I buried a long time ago in the dream? If I imagine myself as the buried thing or person what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in role

Am I wishing to see something or someone out of my life?

See Dreaming of Death and Steiner Life after death

Burning Burnt

This can show burning emotions, and usually connects with the release of emotions or energy. What this means is that sometimes emotions are so strong in us they burn away attitudes or feelings in us that are leading to the pain we feel. By concentrated thinking or pursuing something, this too is like a burning action, consuming old habits or feelings. Do burning can also mean pain, the pain of something injured in you at some time.

Of course, the burning thing can also give warmth.

Love can be a fire that burns through things we have held on to in our nature and cleanses us if we can allow it. For instance jealousy in a relationship can be burnt out if we maintain love instead of allowing the pain of jealousy turn to anger and blaming.

Your body is constantly burning the fuel you put in it as food, so anything burning can also represent the process of life in you. Burning cleanses anything it consumes, and usually alters it. So burning can suggest enormous change, the transformation of what existed previously.

Burning has often been used in attempt to get rid of evidence, of things from the past, so can point to something you want to remove or destroy.

See: phoenix; fire.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there pain connected with the burning or pleasure?

Am I experiencing strong feelings about anything at this time?

What in my is being burnt out or cleansed?

See Being the Person or Thing and Talking As

Bus Coach

You are driven along and so it may indicate habits, going along with the crowd, so maybe lacking the ability to chart a course for yourself. It can also mean that you are trying to get somewhere but depending on others, or another person to get your there. This can point to the experiences you gain with other people, or other people’s influence. It is particularly about what you meet in your undertakings or relationship with a group of people, and the direction taken in company with others.

Occasionally it might point to an overweight problem.

The journey and its events can sometimes point to what you are doing or trying to do in your waking life.

Bus stop: Waiting for events to take you somewhere; being involved with strangers or other people in a direction you are taking; depending on social events to get you to where you want to go; trying to get somewhere in life; trying to leave something or someone behind.

It can also be a danger point where you meet your own fears of attack.

Example: I was walking toward a busy street where I could get a bus or a taxi. A man walked up to me and started to harass me. He was going to rape me. I got angry. At first, I warned him to leave me alone. He grabbed me and in one swift and powerful kick to his groin, I got him. He fell to the ground, groaning.

Bus depot or coach station: Moving toward something new; making a choice or having a choice of directions – directions that may need decision, planning and or choice; changing scenes – i.e. from family to work environment. Leaving something behind – a relationship, ones youth. Ones ability to change; effort to get somewhere in life or experience something new; parting or meeting, saying farewell or waiting for someone. A change in a relationship or work. The station can also depict the ‘station’ you have reached, or are moving toward in life. So it might therefore be a situation you are in or trying to reach.

Bus Driver: The aspect of you in charge of where you are going  – is it fear, not taking responsibility, wanting to relax? Try using Being the Person or Thing to defined the character – or use Characters and People in Dreams.

Catching the bus or coach: This suggests a move toward getting to a goal you have, maybe with help from another part of you. A feeling of success that you are on your way and can relax now.

Missing the bus: This is to do with missing an opportunity. Not being ready to effectively be part of a relationship or situation. Sometimes problems or attitudes we have that stand in the way of being able to maintain a love relationship or take an opportunity that comes along.

Riding a bus to work: If you take a bus to work each day, then the bus can link with  your associations with your career and represent your general attitude and outlook about work, also those you work with, or things you do as a group.

School bus: This probably links with attitudes and behaviour you had as a school child; the lessons or reactions you developed or even the love, hate or pain you felt on such a bus.

Idioms: Miss the bus; big as a bus; take the bus/plane.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is my life direction linked with others?

How much am I depending on others to help me get to my goal?

What have I missed out on through not being up to it?

See What is the main action in the dream? And Talking As

Bush – Burning

A love that dies not consume the body and is without pain through being lost in emotions of ‘love’ or lose. To move beyond the influence of the changing world. It can be seen as a sign or initiation into what lies beyond the awareness of our senses, a sign of recognition. It is a baptism into the realisation that You Are It – I Am That I Am.

It can represent the beginning of spiritual awakening in you. May indicate your spiritual purification and preparation or your need for this, with the promise of a great spiritual awakening to come. See Definition of Spirit.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel or experience in connection with the burning bush?

If you imagine yourself as the burning bush what happens?

Is it simply a fire that has caught the bush or is it something more?

See Being the Person or Thing and Easy Dream Interpretation

Business Woman/Man

The businessman or woman in your dream represents your ability to function well in the working world, it can also indicate a shrewdness about people and their ability. But it can represent something in you that only thinks of making money without concern for other people, a sort of scrambling to get to the top trampling on other people. We can see this in the massive difference between the rich and the poor.

Example: A businesswoman I knew from my hometown is there and tries to quietly tell me not to let these people put anything over on me. She was in business 30 years and had insurance and people try to take advantage. She says this while walking down the aisle to go to the bathroom and is trying not to be obvious.

This is an example of the dreamer’s shrewd assessment of people around her, who may try to take advantage of her.

Example: As I am jogging, I see a group of people, mostly men, all in a bunch, talking. They have plates that are valuable and are sales men or business men. I have a stack of 6-8 china plates myself, but I’m just carrying them, I’m not trying to sell them. They are looking for the rich old man to do business with.

Here is a woman dreamer who is walking in the business world and summing it up.

Example: The apparent mask has suddenly a face sticking out, and wants to talk to me. I do not remember what it says to me in the first part, but then it asks me if I have taught about properties? It’s something I should think about in my future planning. I answer that I do not know anything about business. The mask replies that I should think about it. So I ask about love, but then it responds that the time has not come yet. In the next part of the dream, I’m in the office with a lady. She is skinny. She is a headmistress of a school. She has a gold chain in her hand. She waves with it, and tells that she has been working/studying shamanism.

And this example shows how the business and shrewd mask can give advice that is useful to the dreamer.

Idioms: business as usual; fifth business;  get down to business; got no business; like nobody’s business; mean business; mind your own business; monkey business; no business; risky business; strictly business; take care of business.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the feeling of the business man/woman – was it an advisor, a person with insight into people and opportunity, or a trickster?

What was I doing in the dream?

If it was an unsatisfying ending could I alter it? See Secrets of Power Dreaming

See Business and dreams

Butcher

A butcher may denote a fear of another person’s anger; or being a butcher symbolise your own aggressiveness. Or it can represent material philosophy, worldly attitudes, lack of love and feeling. An aspect of you that makes dead think appetisable and edible.

It can represent some some form of aggression, either directed to others, or toward yourself. May also relate to dealing with parts of your life that are dead but hold useful functions or experience.

Someone who feels easy about killing things and cutting them up. So it could point to either your inturned anger which is often about frustration, or emotional pain which becomes an urge to hurt yourself. One dream suggests it is about tearing yourself apart to find out where the pain comes from.

Example: Woman: I am the transpersonal Feminine, and I come in a Sherlock Holmes cape so that you will use your skills of detection and get the meaning of my lesson. You really need to get this lesson. So just experience the position you are in, and look, and put the pieces together.

Judith: I GET IT, pure and simple. With my “Knife-Wielding” Feminine self, I have too often “cast a Male Shadow” for people to see in order to protect myself from attack. I have raised my fists in anger, I have opted for analysis, psychologizing and thinking things through, rather than experiencing the fear or passion or love or vulnerability of the moment. I have taken controlling positions in my work, rather than owning up to my own feelings of insecurity. In my fight for ridding my life of sexism, I became possessed and outshadowed by my own masculinity, and became male-like in a fight which I thought was against men. Allowing the Feminine in me to live and breathe felt like asking for assault and sure death. The so-called resistance was always against experiencing the Feminine. I have either been personally oppressed and weakened by the Masculine, or I have become Masculine myself, and in either case, there has been no room for the Feminine.

It is obvious that there is a subtle payoff in allowing male domination to continue and in staying stuck in “Knife-Wielding.” However, our Feminine selves, in all of their myriad forms, become flat, pale, weak and passive, suffocated, and we do not then have to experience them. Aspects of our Feminine selves become bloodied and butchered by our own hands. A “right” relationship with the Masculine would allow the Feminine to emerge; we would have to experience the very thing we have feared all along: our Feminine selves in their full form.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your relationship with the butcher?

What is the butcher doing?

If you imagine yourself as the butcher what do you feel.

Try using Being the Person or Thing; Secrets of Power Dreaming and Processing Dreams

Butter

It seems in may dreams to be the thing that gives a feeling or goodness or satisfaction, satisfaction in fact. It is, like the example, the extra something that makes it extra special and tasty.

Perhaps it could also be linked with worries about health issues, slimming or avoiding cholesterol.

Example: I weave the loaves together and cook it. It is beautiful. I cut it open. There are interwoven tunnels in the white, feathery, textured bread. I pour melted butter down the tunnels. I am impressed with my own cleverness. I decide to carry it to the General myself. I am wearing a long silk, white evening gown. I am older (late 40’s, early 50’s), but looking good.

Idioms: bread and butter; don’t know which side your bread is buttered on; butter fingers; butter up; butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; shit fire and apple butter.

See food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you avoid eating butter?

What did you feel about butter in the dream?

What part did butter play in the dream?

See Easy Dream Interpretation and Because Factor

Butterfly

Something beautiful, such as a delicate realisation that is fragile and easily destroyed. The butterfly also links with the caterpillar, and therefore the ability to transform and leave an old way of life behind, therefore transformation and the spirit.

To leave an old way of life behind means a sort of psychological/spiritual death, followed by the long period of transformation. Like caterpillar that has to grow beyond its old self, it goes inwards into a quiet chrysalis before bursting out in a new life and form.

A butterfly can also be such a seemingly fragile creature, and yet can fly up to 2000 miles. So it can signify not only your vulnerable nature but also your wonderful strength. See butterflies; Freedom.

Example: A pram and cradle are in the middle of a room. Then a strange woman runs in and says ‘She’s got a baby in here with all these creatures’. I see beetles, snakes and lizards crawling around, and a massive spider in a web. Then I’m a butterfly and the woman is a caterpillar. I fly to the web to destroy it, but am on the floor as myself again.

The dream from a thirteen year old girl is showing the wonder and difficulty of transforming into a woman. The pram and cradle show what is happening in the ‘middle’ of her to get ready to have a baby. This is what the butterfly and caterpillar refer to also, the transformation going on. Her hopeful and pleasurable feelings, represented by the butterfly, might get caught up in negative attitudes – the web – about womanhood presented to her, perhaps by her family, or others. Being aware of these can help her avoid them.

Example: Leaning close I looked at the worn teeth and filmy eyes of the great body before me. “It is all dying,” I said. “Nothing left. A dead American body.” For there before me was not just John, but a whole nation dying – a reflection of all its ways and hopes. I felt hopeless in the face of such huge death, such enormous absence of life. Yet the eyes remained open and tried to look out at the world despite the thick white film of death across them. The lifeless would not stop looking at life. I felt I must comfort, and help it to die. With my fingers I closed the eyes, slowly recognising that the formless inner surgings were already at work reshaping this being. The crust of the body was like the dry skin of a chrysalis. But the Caterpillar had to die, to sacrifice itself to the unknown, to emerge as a butterfly. This I told to that flicker of life that was holding on, looking out of the dead eyes – the eyes closed. “You must die, and then we can bring you back to life. But you must trust for a little while. There is only a little bit left, all the rest is dead. It’s no good holding on to it, it’s no good. Let go of it. Die, and then we can bring you back to life.

“Now there is nothing to do but wait. Just go to sleep for a while.” I lay down on the floor beside him. “This is a bloody good floor, let’s lie here a while.”  I was the priest, the hierophant, leading the initiate into the underworld. “Then we can bring you back to life,” I said. With one hand on his solar plexuses, and one cradling the dying head, I slipped down into the darkness, merged completely into the being of John. In that darkness we were one as I had never been one before. For an age we remained, and then gradually arose, as I gave him the keys to new life. “All that was dead has become earth. It’s no longer sick or rotten, but bloody good earth. The new thing can grow in it now. It is been a hard winter, and it’s going to be a good summer. There is a good harvest coming.”


Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings were involved in the dream?

What was the butterfly doing?

Did you interact with it in any way?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Dreaming of Death; Key Words

Butterfly

The beautiful that emerges from the unpromising, or ugly. The spiritual that emerges from physical experience. Transformation.

Buttocks

The buttocks have many possible associations. Sometimes it connects with feelings about uncleanness or dirt. Also, like any orifice of the body it is a vulnerable place and so might link with feelings about being entered or abused.

This area, because it is so linked with the anus/rectum is also connected with how we control our spontaneous urges – going to the toilet. It therefore might indicate self control or lack of it.

Due to early training in controlling bladder and faeces there may be feelings about being naughty or doing wrong with this area.

Punishment is often associated with the buttocks too.

For men a woman’s buttocks are often sexually attractive, and so some dreams use this to link with sexual feelings, as is sexual stimulus from spanking.

Example: Then I saw George Hamilton, a star, come in. He came over to me and peeked in. I was a little embarrassed because my butt was showing. I got up and he wanted to hug me. That was O.K. He suggested we go to his hotel room to make love. I said, “No, I don’t want to,” because I wanted him to care for me, or be caring and then the sex would be good. He looks like, “Uh, oh. She wants to get married.” and I said, “No, it doesn’t mean we’ll be together forever, just that when we’re together, I want to feel close, cared for.” He agreed and so I agreed to go to his room.

Idioms: a pain in the buttbust my buttbutt inbutt of the jokebutt outkick buttthe butt of the joke.

See: anus; rectum under body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings do I experience in the dream that gives me a clue to what I associate with the buttocks?

Is there any sense of uncleanness in my dream, and is so where does that emerge from?

Am I feeling sexual feelings here, and what does the rest of the dream comment on that?

Is there any sign of homosexual tendency in my dream?

To find out try using Talking As or Processing Dreams

Button

Buttons are usually closely related to clothing. In films they are often used in sexual scenes as the people unbutton their clothing. So it can relate to intimacy, the opening of oneself to another, to revealing something if unbuttoning, or covering or protecting or securing if buttoning up.

Buttons can sometimes represent restriction or tight moralism as when one is buttoned up tightly. But it could be a way of saying ‘button your lip’ meaning do not let anything out – do not speak.

If it is a button you press as on a machine, then it links with influencing an automatic or autonomic response. You hope that by pressing it, it will do what you desire. There are so many things that work with buttons – telephone dialling, car windows, lifts/elevators, cameras, computers, washing machines – so you must see what the button relates to and what happens in the dream.

You can of course press your own buttons. Think or feel the wrong thing and you have pressed the ‘depression’ button, or is the fear, worry, angry button, or even the self destruct button? There are also the joy and pleasure button. In some dreams there is a secret button that you have to use your finger to find and press – the clitoris button. See Avoid Being Victims

The red button is usually for emergencies or something that causes high emotional response.

Idioms: button your lip; on the button; pop your buttons; press the panic button; push the right buttons; buttonhole; buttonhole you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is it a button I press or undo – and what is the difference for me?

What happens or doesn’t happen if I press or undo the button?

What does this button mean or suggest to me?

Try describe yourself as the button using Being the Person or Thing.

Buy Buying

Your desires for thing, or your search for something you want, or feel you want. Making choices, or being able to make choices. See: Shop.

This often indicates some level of choices being made, decisions faced; there may also be elements of how much or little you are being influenced by internal desires or external sales pressure; one dreamer says when she feels so good at work she immediately goes out to buy a new house. This suggests confidence and social power are involved in purchases. But sometimes we make purchases when things go wrong, as a means of counteracting the down feelings. In some dreams the question of your financial status arises, so purchasing may be dealing with how you are feeling about your money situation.

One dreamer said that when she feels so good at work she immediately goes out to buy a new house. This suggests confidence and social power are involved in purchases.

But sometimes we make purchases when things go wrong, as a means of counteracting the down feelings. In some dreams the question of your financial status arises, so purchasing may be dealing with how you are feeling about your money situation.

Have you bought or accepted an idea, or bought into a situation or condition? How much did you paid, or what is the price you had to pay for this. Is it worth it?

Example: I have bought a very large old wooden home. When you enter the home through the foyer you walk into what is a very large dark ballroom. The only furnishing is a very small round table in the far left corner with an oil lamp on it lit. I don’t enter. Instead I walk up the stairs to the right which are above the kitchen. When I reach the landing there is a very long hallway with a rail running the length of the hall. On the right there are many, many doors lining the hallway that I have no interest in opening and I never have. What I truly love is standing at the rail and just looking into the ballroom. I long to sit at the table and read, in a long black dress. I am incredibly happy there and don’t wish to share the home with others. How I wish I could find the home to buy it. I look for it all the time.

I sense that this dreamer has a very rich and varied inner life, which she only let some people see or share. But she have so much more, all inherited from the past, which she does not open the doors to. And I am wondering if the reason is that you have not met the mystery of your house.

Buying a bargain: Feelings of capability.

Purchased from: Success or failure to succeed, depending on whether the sale is made; may also indicate change, as when one sells a car or house. See: sell; shopping.

Idioms: buy a round; buy favors; buy into; buy out; buy that; buy the farm; buy time;

buy up; buyer’s market.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it you have bought or wish to buy?

Or are you searching for something?

If you cannot find satisfaction try imagining one.

Use carry the dream forward and Easy Dream Interpretation


Letter C

Cab

See: Taxi.

Cactus

Your dream cactus may be suggesting that you are confronting a situation in life in which you can be hurt if you are not careful.

Some cacti also act as hallucinogens so if you know this the cacti could depict your ability to shift your state of mind.

The cactus is also a very hardy plant, capable of living in very dry and infertile environments. Your dream might well be using this to point to a situation in your life in which you feel lacking in some way. See: desert.

Is it something or someone you can’t ‘pick up’ because they are so prickly?

Example: T. seems very impressed with a kind of cactus plant at an open air market/nursery. She takes a picture of it. Leach is the name of the salesman? The photographer? That I see in the picture. The plant costs $14,000.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling I need to be careful in handling a relationship or situation?

Is somebody, or am I, being very prickly?

Am I in a dry and sterile situation at the moment?

See Easy Dream Interpretation and Talking As

Caduceus

These linked snakes usually link with forces of power and possibly healing in yourself. Like any power, it can be creative or destructive, or even quiescent. So the dream context is important in understanding what the power is doing in your own life. See: Snake.

Cafe

Easy going source of relaxation and sustenance. Meeting point of different parts of your nature. See: Food; Bar (room).

But there are many possible associations here.

This is basically a place you go to satisfy hunger or thirst. So it may link with what you have eaten at a physical level, but with need for emotional and sexual hunger at a personal level. But each café has its own atmosphere and class. So it may be referring to a status or level in society or your environment.

It can also relate to easy going ways of relaxation and getting your needs, or a meeting point for different parts of your nature. This can include an indication of family connection, but often involves sexual connection in one way or another. In some dreams it may indicate danger as when the driver assaults one, or it may be the opposite as in the following example.

Example: A couple of leather jacket types started to verbally harass me. I told them to watch out, because I’d protected myself before and I’d do it again. A 3rd man said, “Ya, she’s right. Leave her alone.” I walked on. I went into a cafe to call a taxi. I think I was crying. A taxi driver there said “Hey, where do you want to go?” I said, “Are you a taxi driver?” He said, “Ya.” I said, “Let’s go.” I feel rescued. Barb.

Example: It started with me meeting a man (or rather a boy of about 17 – I’m 25) that I don’t recognize, but in the dream we knew each other. We were sitting on a couch at a café and for some reason I tried to kiss him, but instead of kissing me back, he spat me in the face. I ran out of the café to take a bus home. At the bus stop, there was a trash bin with a dead fox and a dead crow in it.

So I feel you offered love, and that is a very powerful thing – but you didn’t get the response you expected. Then you ran away. The young man represents, I guess, your feelings about wanting a man in your life, and then the rejection. The spitting comes from being confronted by something so painful. Then when you do not return you are faced by death and trash can. In other words, a dead end. You could change what are habits of reaction by using Secrets of Power Dreaming

For some people the café is a work situation and so would refer to that. See: restaurant.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the atmosphere of the café like? Is it course, working class, refined, expensive, etc?

What am I doing or seeking in this café?

Am I in relationship with somebody or am I seeking food or drink?

Try using Stand in role and Acting on your dream

Cage Cell

This usually points to your feelings of frustration and perhaps anger, or even a sense of defeat or emptiness. The prison in our dreams is of our own making, created out of our attitudes and fears. So it is important to define just what you feel in the cage, and what the associated feelings are with he cage/cell itself, and the other people involved. See: Prison.

If the dreamer is in the cage: Frustration arising from a sense of social pressures restraining expression – or from one’s moral, sexual or conceptual restraints imprisoning one. You might be feeling caged by lack of opportunity or lack of developed abilities. We might however, be choosing to inhibit or restrict an aspect of ourselves. One might restrain anger for instance.

The cell also often depicts how we imprison ourselves within our own anger, resentment, or depressed feelings, or we may be trapped by childhood trauma and be imprisoned by fear of pain or losing love. If a child is in a cell this almost certainly points to this type of imprisonment through emotional pain. See Avoid Being Victims

The cell is also often linked with living a life apart from the normal consumer, nine to five life, and can show a facet of you living a life of meditation or inner seeking.

Example: ““I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.”

A cage or cell is often used to show the mind and how we live within certain ideas and beliefs and maybe do not wish to move out of them.

Occasionally it might refer to your rib cage.

Something or somebody else caged: Desire to restrain whatever is represented by the thing, person, caged.

In a cage with something or somebody else: Pressed into a close relationship or confrontation with the person or thing with you – and it is a situation difficult to escape from.

See: escape; fence; holding; hospital under house and building; prison.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am imprisoned what is it in myself or environment that is holding me?

What does this situation confront me with?

Am I unable to feel really free in the relationship I am in?

What of myself or another am I restraining?

Are the restrictions of this situation made of pain?

Try using Secrets of Power Dreaming and Easy Dream Interpretation

Cake

Pleasure and sensual satisfaction. It might even relate to childhood pleasure, or rewards. Similar to symbolism of bread, but more luxurious, less practical. See: Bread; Food.

This is often linked to the pleasure we feel at special times of sharing, so suggests shared pleasure, a time to celebrate something. But many people eat sweet things as a way to deal with boredom or difficult feelings – perhaps as a way of quieting the inner child.

Cake is a high energy food, and it might be used in that way in your dream – as a source of sustenance as you meet high energy expenditure in a difficult task.

But cakes are often made with a lot of love, and can indicate love in your life. So if you are sharing then you are giving of yourself to others. Or if received it is a sign of love and care given.

Example: I was about 8-10 I had this recurring dream once a year for about 3 to 5 years it would be right around my birthday. My parents would be getting in their car and starting to leave the house (forever). I would start to get worried and try to run to them but my brother and sister would call out and I would turn around seeing them eating cake and they would be really fat all the sudden but I didn’t want to go by them I was afraid and then I’d wake up. Aaron.

Aaron this appears to be a terrible shock your parent gave you, and it probably happened as you say, around your birthday. The threat to leave the child is the most devastating thing. It is much better to smack a child than to make threats that can last a lifetime. Once the child has received this threat it can mean, to the child, that its parents could give it away or leave it at any time. So from there on it lives in fear.

If you are eating the cake it shows you allowing yourself some enjoyment, satisfying a hunger or need. It may also relate to celebration, as with a wedding or birthday cake. If so, ask yourself why your dream is reminding you of this. But making the cake depicts you being independent and creating a pleasurable situation for yourself or others. If it is for someone else, who are they, and why are you giving it? They might be a needy part of yourself.

If you were making the cake and can remember why, it will give you insight into why you need pleasure or nourishment at this time.

Wedding cake: This traditional represented fertility and plenty. It also signifies all the plans and preparation that goes into marriage, and the shared fortune that lies ahead of the couple.

Folklore: In folklore there is a tradition that if you sleep with a piece of wedding cake tinder your pillow you will dream of your future mate. If you have this dream it probably refers to a prediction and depends on what the dream says.

“A Greek girl, on St Catherine’s Eve, bakes a cake with salt and wine, explaining that it is no more than an old custom, but secretly hoping it may help her to dream of her future husband. Traditional beliefs and practices of this kind have their counterpart in every country and in every age, as is shown by historical records that date back as far as Rome, Greece, and the Egypt of the pharaohs.” Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming by Norman MacKenzie.

Idioms: a piece of cake; have your cake and eat it, too; icing on the cake; nutty as a fruit cake; take the cake; that takes the cake

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the atmosphere surrounding the cake – celebration, sharing, hunger – and how does that apply to me?

Did I make this cake, and if so why or who for?

If I am sharing it, in what situation?

See Being the Person or Thing; and Talking As

Calculator

Your attempt to figure out a situation or dilemma. It appears in dreams where the dreamer feels uncertain about a situation in a relationship and is trying to deal with this and be clear. It can also link to the cost of things – i.e. what sort of effort or risk something is going to ask of you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am trying to figure out?

Do I arrive at satisfaction, and what might that apply to?

If there is cost involved, what am I feeling about this while awake?

Try Being the Person or Thing and Dreams Like a Computer Game

Calendar

A reminder of time passing. Perhaps associated with things that have happened in the past, or to happen in the future. So a reminder of important times or dates.

This also links with a need or urge to plan things. Because of this it might point to agreements you are making with other people, and whether you have or are going to keep the agreement.

Occasionally it might deal with prediction of what you intuitively sense is coming into your, or somebody else’s life. Of course this prediction might be an expression of wish fulfilment or even anxiety, so take care in deciding what it is you are feeling.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is this dream reminding me of or pointing out to me?

Am I looking ahead here, and if so what is suggested will or should happen?

Is there something here I need to take care of or plan for?

See Acting on your dream and Talking As

Calf

(See: calf body) Because it is a baby animal it can represent your own childhood, and your dependent link with your mother. It might also suggest feelings about a baby or your feelings about babies. The calf might also be associated with food or money if you are a farmer or in the food industry. See: Animal.

In some dreams calf is used as a measurement to see how deep water or mud is when walking, or dress length.

The calf is new life striving to survive in the world.

There is also the fatted calf, which if dreamt of represents the return of ones will to the highest in you rather than giving your life to grabbing everything for oneself. If you do not know what the highest in you is, ask your dreams to show you and give you a taste of it.

Example: I dreamt I was a disembodied observer watching a young calf with its mother cow. There was a sheepdog with the calf. Because the calf was new-born the dog was stronger, but it was a friend of the calf. They were following the mother over the hill behind where I used to live. As they went over the top of the hill the calf became stronger. At the bottom of the hill, there was a stile. The cow tried to crawl under the stile, but got stuck. It appeared almost to be dying, lying flattened to the ground, looking no bigger than the calf. As it was lying there, the calf and the dog were lying together patiently waiting. They were curled up on the ground together, motionless. Then a change occurred, and the mother cow seemed to gain strength. The calf and the dog then leapt and danced together like two dogs playing.

The dream was explored by the dreamer and he said, “The hill behind the house I lived in was a huge barrier for me as a young boy. My house was on the edge of fields in which were cows and cart horses. I felt so small and scared by them; but gradually I found the courage to cross the hill to visit a friend. So the dream is about feeling vulnerable and yet with the dog, which is the life that supports and cares for me and gives me confidence, and the mother who was a powerful mother, I made a big change in my life by facing things I had been scared of. Also when I got to the stile – the other side of which was the place my loved grandmother had lived – it felt like I had to died to reach my dead grandmother. Then all the strength I had inherited from my mother rose up and I danced with the feeling of life in me – life that was at the same time death, for I was no longer afraid of death.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do my feelings suggest this is pointing to my own childhood – if so what is my dream showing me?

What has been recently born into my life?

Am I meeting dependent feelings in a relationship?

Try Being the Person or Thing; Easy Dream Interpretation.


Calf of Body

This represents your physical ability to get about in the world. Or the ability to do the many things your calves enables you to do, such as dancing, stand on tiptoe, and also be nimble on your feet. So it can be about your abilty to stand up and be mobile or strong psychologically.

In some dreams calf is used as a measurement to see how deep water or mud is when walking, or dress length.

The calf is also an easy part of you for some animals to attack, as in the example.

Example: I was still walking along the roads in this town that looked as if it were in Central Europe somewhere, not at all modern in its buildings or feeling. As I walked another dog began to follow me. This one looked aggressive and seem to be excited by my anxiety. I made the mistake of starting to hurry away, and the dog bit at my calf while my back was to it. I now turned to face the dog and it backed away but certainly did not run away. It was waiting to see what I was going to do. I had no weapon and could only stand and face it, wondering if the situation would now degenerated with other dogs or people starting to surround me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening in my dream that related to my calf?

If it was injured how did the injury happen?

Was there a because factor involved? See Because Factor

Try Acting on your dream.

Call Box

See: Telephone.

Call Called Calling

In many dreams there is a call for help, a call for the police, an ambulance, a call for the help of a friend or family member. In a way these are acknolegements of our need for for love, for caring and protection. But also our admittance of our weakness of spirit.

Then there is the call for something of ones own – why don’t I have someone to call my wife/husband; why don’t I have a baby I can call my own; why don’t I have a penis or vagina I can call my own? Such cries carry depths of feeling even though they may never be voiced. The question is always  “WHY”. And if you are not satisfied with answers that do not give you any sense of release, and dig down in yourself you may find answers. Sometimes it is painful to give birth to such answers – but after the pain there is satisfaction.

Calling out for your mother, father or lover. This may contain a lof of anguish or beauty, depending on the call. It is worth taking time with such dreams to see if you can open them up to become more aware.  See Stand in role and Talking As, or even Easy Dream Interpretation.

Sometimes something MORE calls to us. It can be a call from within or a call from without. You might think of the MORE as a call from God, Life, Intuition, an Angel, or from the Silence, but it is still a call from more of yourself you knew before. Obviously such a call is very personal, but maybe some ways might be appropriate: Methods of Awakening also You Are a Dual Being

Example: My recurring dream – some disaster is happening. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep.

Idioms: a close call; a tough call; a wake-up call; above and beyond the call of duty; at your beck and call; call a spade a spade; call attention to; call for; call his bluff; call into account; call it a day; call it quits; call it square; call off; call off the dogs; call on; call the shots; close call; cold call; duty calls; give me a call; last call; nature calls; take calls; the call of duty ; tough call; wake-up call.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I calling for?

Is there any sign of this in my everyday life?

Have I had any dreams where my calling has been answered?

Try Secrets of Power Dreaming and Easy Dream Interpretation or Talking As


Camel

This often associates with the ability or personal qualities to face difficult experiences the dry places of life. Such dryness is when there is little satisfaction, no feelings, nothing growing in your experience maybe even sterility of one sort or another. A word that can be connected with this in some dreams is barrenness. So it is saying that you can survive such dryness of spirit or of body – you are a survivor.

The camel may also link with patience, long suffering, perseverance. Or having inner stores of energy or resourcefulness that will carry you through difficult situations. John the Baptist clothed himself in camels hair. This means his patient, persevering seeking of truth despite living in the wilderness of intellectual doubt.

The camel at times can also represent pregnancy because of it hump/bump.

Useful questions are:

Is there an aspect of my life that feels sterile or lacking growth at the moment?

Is the camel in the dream helping me to deal with a difficult environment, and if so how does that relate to my life at the moment?

What is the action with the camel, and how does that translate to my present life?

What are my personal qualities in regard to dealing with difficult times?

Try being camel and see what you get from it Being the Person or ThingEasy Dream Interpretation

Camera

This usually shows some aspect of memory or taking notice. The dream may also show you something important that you have seen out of the ‘corner of your eye’ but not processed into waking awareness. It also links with wanting to carry the essence of people with you if you have to leave them or be away from them.

The camera can show your ability or inability to be really aware of what is going on around you. It can also be used in a dream to show different perspective of life than your usual views. Sometimes in dreams the camera is like a time machine in that it captures moments of life that can be looked back on or replayed. See: photos.

Example: dream about my camera. I was in a car full of people and remembered I had left my camera at home and asked if they wouldn’t mind if we went to fetch it. They did not mind and took me home. My father was curled up looking pitiful asleep on a chair. I got my camera and then lowered it through a square opening and threw it down to the level below. I was a first worried that that action might damage the lens but it rolled quietly and was fine. I decided not to follow the camera through the opening.

The camera links with memory, memory of your father. The level below suggests a move to the past, maybe to be with your father. You do not follow that feelings however.

Movie or video camera: Being filmed has elements in it of parts of your life being on display to other people, and shows how you feel about that.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I trying to capture or memorise here?

Am I trying to direct my attention to something – if so what?

What person am I trying to take with me through life?

See Being the Person or ThingAvoid Being Victims and Secrets of Power Dreaming

Can Tin

Cans or tins are mentioned in so many ways in the dreams I have in my collection that it is impossible to give general meanings. You have canned soup, tin shed or tin roof, a tin of tobacco, tin toys, tin art work and so on. So it would be helpful to read Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

But if it is canned food or goods, it probably indicates something that has been kept in good condition for ages and can now be used or accessed. It might help if you used Being the Person or Thing. It could also be softness or protection. If a can it can suggest storage of memories or nourishing feelings and experiences.

Example: I dreamed that I was eating a tin of sardines in a house with friends, although none of the friends were people I actually know in real life, just made-up dream friends. As I was eating the sardines I noticed that they were quite large pieces of fish. There was a giant piece of tail I took a bite of, then I noticed that there was a large whole eel underneath the chopped fish.

The eel started to move and lift its head as I backed away from the tin, startled. Then I realized that to wasn’t an eel, but an otter. It was covered in slime from the sardine tin, but it crawled out and began running around the room. My friends and I looked on in disbelief and when it went for the screen door, I gave it a nudge to let the otter outside. My friends started yelling at me for letting it out, but I didn’t see why we should keep it captive.

The dream shows the man living out of a tin – artificially preserved lifestyle. But in eating the fish, something from his real life feelings he finds a living experience that he gives it freedom of expression.

Canada

See: Abroad.

Canal

The dream is probably a comment on the way you direct your emotions and energy, and what this control or decision making means in connection with your relationships and goals. There may be a link with relaxation or pleasure if you have holidayed on a canal. Or other associations if you live near one. See: River; Water.

Sometimes this refers to the birth canal.

Example: ‘I’m trapped in a long passageway or corridor. I can’t get out. I’m feeling my way along the wall – there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t get to it. I’m very frightened. I wake up before I get to the end. Then I feel afraid to go back to sleep.’ Margaret.

The above is an example of a typical birth dream, or of someone feeling really trapped.

The canal may also indicate what you have inherited from your family or the past in the way you direct or control your urges and emotions. So the morals you live by or the standards of behaviour you accept might be already formed from the past.

A canal also has the association of danger in that it often has steep banks and people drown or commit suicide in canals. So it might depict the depressed of gloomy side of your feelings.

If the canal is blocked or in ruins, then it suggests your controlled emotions need a bit more flow and freedom to clear away old feelings and experiences that are holding you  back.

Example: The previous night I dreamt I was driving someone else’s car (borrowed) and wasn’t paying enough attention to the fact that I didn’t know the car and managed to scrape it. I just thought ‘I’ll have to get it fixed.’ Then I drove across the road in preparation for a three point turn and found myself at the edge of a canal. I put the gear in what I thought was reverse and pressed the accelerator but I hadn’t checked where the reverse was and put it into 4th instead – I flew over the edge and into the canal. As the car sank I(as in waking me) was rehearsing how I had to open the windows and get out but me in the dream had the thought, ‘Maybe I’m going to die now!’ I wasn’t doing anything to get out and woke up with a bit of a start.
I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt about dying before, so that struck me as significant.

Example: I had a dream last night about my younger sister Ruth wanting to go to a certain place. I didn’t want to go because I had something important to do but she persisted and so I went. Then, we arrived at this dark underground with a wide canal filled with flowing murky water. She was so excited to jump in to the water and swims past a tunnel that stretches to a dark end. She said she wanted to have an adventure in her life and want to see a crocodile at the end of the tunnel.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream canal flowing well or is it blocked?

What are the surrounding events in the dream and what do they suggest?

If I imagine myself as the canal what do I feel and understand – how do I describe myself?

Try Stand in role; Being the Person or Thing

Cancer

There are two major links with dreaming of cancer. The first is that many people meet cancer in their dream because it represents death. So the dream is a way of experiencing their fears about death.

The second is that cancer depicts parts of ones emotional or thinking character that are sick and/or unhealthy. With these dreams you need to consider what part of the body you dream has cancer, then understand it psychological meaning. See: body – Body Dreams – Dream Body – Body Images.

Example: Before I knew I was ill with cancer I dreamt that an angel came to me and explained that before we are born we are all angels and are without limitations. When we are born we take on a life of limitations in order to learn something important to us. Then when we die at the end of that life we return to being an angel. All the limitations of life then disappear again.

The man who dreamt this died within a years of lung cancer – he had smoked heavily all his adult life.

Example: Dear Tony, My beloved sister passed away last week of brain cancer after 7 struggling years. I haven’t dreamt of her, however my cousin dreamt of her the morning after her funeral. He dreamt – There was a bright calm meadow, with a small white cottage at the far distant end. My sister then appeared at the foreground of the meadow – appearing as she did before she was ill, and very happy and giddy giggling shyly and smiling to my cousin. She was beautiful and her smile was calm and beautiful to my cousin. My cousin said he felt happiness with her just like the familiar feeling he had with her as when they were kids together growing up. She appeared very happy. Just as he was about to take a photo of her and she posed for him with her smile, his alarm went off in his bedroom and so he suddenly woke up from the dream.

The remarkable thing about the alarm is that he works at home and so never sets the alarm to go off, but it did go off suddenly in his room.

The time on the alarm clock he saw was 8:28am. August 28 was her birthday.

Example: I am “alive” in this underground chamber with thousands of other people (hell is other people). But the girl and I take the chance to escape. Actually I am chasing her on a motorcycle, then I join her. But it is too late, I am nearly dead with cancer when they catch up with me (and let me go walking down the road). (I am afraid that I have cancer.) The dreamer never developed cancer.

In some dreams we see someone else with cancer, but to start with they need to be considered as representing a facet of yourself – such as your worrying anxious self; your sexual self; your business or streetwise self, etc. Dreams accurately predicting the future are very rare. So it is unlikely though not impossible that the person you dream has cancer actually has it or will get it.

Occasionally the dream is an expression of how we feel about other people’s – especially our mother’s – emotional influence on us. This influence might be eating away at our own sense of well being. Or in some cases we sense it in the social attitudes we live amidst that is likewise eating away at our own health and wholeness.

Occasionally it is an awareness of illness in part of ones body. If this is suspected get a good health check. See Example under Death.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this feel like a ‘fear of death’ dream? If so see death and dreams.

Am I becoming aware of attitudes or inner problems that are being shown in the dream as cancer – if so can I put into words what they are?

If I describe myself as the cancer in the dream, what do I say, and what do I understand from this?

See 

Candle

Usually is associated in dreams with dispelling difficult feelings, a darkness of soul being dispersed. Sometimes the candle is difficult to light, and this points to a lack of confidence about ones own ability to push back the depressed or morbid feelings in oneself. See Avoid Being Victims

Here is a typical dream of this sort.

Example: At the bottom right of a hill was a lodge house. I went in. It was very dark inside, and it was said to be the source of hauntings. I did not feel frightened, but felt the need for light. I found some matches, but they were very difficult to light. I tried to light candles, and eventually succeeded, but they were not very bright, and it was still dark. A cat moved about in the darkness. It did not frighten me.  Using a candle I tried to light gas lamps seen by the candles. They were as difficult as the candles, but still not very bright. Then I noticed electric lights, found I had some sixpences and shillings, and put them in the meter, and switched on.

A candle can also represent the light that is the core of your existence – the light of Life that lives through consuming substance/food. As such it is sometimes seen as a great being of light that burns away the dross of your thoughts and turgid emotions. But a candle can also be seen as a timepiece showing the duration or shortness of your life. See: Fire; Light.

In this connection the seven candles indicate the seven centres of light or bridging in your being. These are the point within your body, the collections of cells that act as links between the local and limited life you experience in and as the body and body senses, and the larger life of unlimited awareness through your fundamental consciousness. These are the seven churches in the New Testament, the seven candles on the Jewish candlestick, the seven chakras in yoga. See: chakras; consciousness- the brain mind split.

A candle can sometimes represent the penis, and if one has ever been used for masturbation, then it has direct sexual connections.

Candles lit in a room can show a feeling of celebration or intimacy – occasionally something special to celebrate, or being in high company.

Lighting a candle: A birth; prayer for someone of something. Also a positive feeling of dispelling depression or fears. But often a way of remembering a person, feeling care and love for them, or asking help from the hugeness we are part of.

If lit amid darkness: Finding understanding or courage amid doubts, fears, depression.

Occasionally: Measurer of how much time we have left in life.

Idioms: Burn the candle at both ends; not fit to hold a candle. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling anxious in this dream – if so what is my difficulty in dealing with the anxiety?

Is there a suggestion of time or length of life here – if so what do I feel about that?

Does my dream have any feeling of holiness of greater meaning, and can I put that into words?

See Easy Dream InterpretationSecrets of Power Dreaming

Candy

See: Sweets.

Cane

This suggests the use of authority or aggression, either by you or toward you. Sometimes it links with memories and feelings about school or parents aggression, punishment, or sadistic sexuality. When being used it can depict anger or domination of the weak by the strong. In some cases it is an image of male control over women, and often linked punishment with sexual pleasure.

But the cane has associations with discipline also, and can at times represent the disciplining of oneself in a process of strengthening resolve or direction.

Example: My daughter was trying to escape me and leapt into the river tributary, putting her head under water. I pulled her out and gave her a thrashing with a cane. Once that was done we both felt very close and able to communicate easily, as if a great burden or impediment had gone. We hugged each other. Peter W.

This is about disciplining Peter’s own emotions that have been causing him great misery and difficulty in his relationships. The daughter representing his unruly emotions – a good example of how we see something in another person, and then use an image of them to represent it in ones own life. The discipline leads to greater harmony within himself.

The cane, perhaps not so much in present times, but in the past, was a symbol of the oppressions and authority of the ruling classes or the punitive minions of the state.

It can also depicts support, or the process of ageing or vulnerability, as in a walking stick.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the cane being used for, and does this give me a clue to whether this dream is about oppression or discipline?

Am I using the cane or is it being used against me – and what is my response? To understand about your possible response see – active/passive.

Does this link with feelings from childhood, or is this about my own anger?

See Acting on your dream; Characters and People in Dreams; Secrets of Power Dreaming

Cannibal

The part of us that lives off the lives or efforts of others, instead of producing for ourselves. This might occasionally depict a problem with your diet. People often dream of eating their own flesh if they are undernourished or starving. Eating our own flesh might also suggest we are absorbing a facet of ourselves that has not previously been fully a part of our waking life.

Being the victim of cannibalism might show that you feel “eaten alive” by work, a relationship, or a condition in your life. Like incest and murder cannibalism expresses the worst form of what is forbidden.

Eating another person suggests that you have felt anger and resentment to another person, or even aspects of yourself. See Talking As It would be good to see what was the character of the person being eaten, because it might point to you wishing to take on that person spirit or quality.

Example: I was once travelling a very long way and missing the directives I received from enquiries I made, I strayed into the town which was notorious because they were cannibals. and the worst thing was that I was alone. While going through this village section of the town I met one man on the way as I passed him. He turned and looked at me with curiosity obvious in his looks. As I was going I met another man talking with another beside the path, They also gave me curious looks which made me to perceive that I was actually in the midst of that dreaded town. Dream of an African.

Other possibilities might be suggested by the surrounding drama in the dream. For instance cannibalism was originally practiced for two reason. Firstly the flesh of others was eaten to take on their power and essence. It was also a critical act to survive extreme circumstances.

There is also a religious side to this in that the Mass in Christianity is a form of eating another being’s flesh and drinking their blood. The flesh is eaten to share in the spirit and power of the willing sacrifice, and thereby receive the spiritual influence. See: flesh.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream suggesting the cannibalism is an act or parasitism?

Is it my own flesh that is being eaten?

Am I experiencing a greater union with a higher power in my life?

See Being the Person or Thing; Secrets of Power Dreaming

Cannon

An explosive possibility or a defensive feeling or action.

It might therefore refer to old attitudes or ways that you defend yourself from attack or criticism. It can also refer to desires to attack others. So it could indicate that you were going to use explosive emotions because something drastic needs to be done, with the possibility of a big blow-up.

If the dream has a farcical side to it perhaps it is showing a silly side to your dream meaning – the clown shot out of a gun.

Example: I assured him that our passports were quite in order and that we had nothing to declare. He remained unconvinced, and when the cannon fired in a rather desultory way, he managed to land on top of it in a very undignified manner, and fell down onto the other side. My associations led to a childhood memory of a clown being fired out of the mouth of a cannon, indicating that at this particular moment in time, I saw my friend as a clown insisting on taking the most difficult course of action in spite of the fact that there were much easier ways of doing things. Quoted from Dream Power by Dr. Ann Faraday.

The male penis is sometimes referred to as a cannon, especially if sex is something of an attack or defense against difficult feelings.

Idioms: a loose cannon; cannon fodder; fired out of a cannon (circus).

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream cannon being used for, and what does that indicate about me?

Is this about attack or defense?

Am I feeling aggressive about someone or something?

Do I feel there are issues about sex to sort out?

Try using Secrets of Power Dreaming; Energy Sex and Dreams; Easy Dream Interpretation

Cannot Can’t

See yes; no.

Canoe

See: Boat.

Canyon

See: Valley.

Cap

See: Hat.

Capital

A capital city can represent the core values, social order and culture the nation has developed – good or ill. It can also mean the living centre of you, a great power in your life.

Capital letters: Usually means emphasis or importance. 

Capital cities such as London, Tokyo, Moscow, unless the home of the dreamer can depict: Material opportunity; central issues in dreamer’s life; the core sense of self, around which other issues revolve.

If somewhere like Jerusalem, Rome or Mecca: Then one’s central religious drives and ideas.

If you were born there: See the entry under city and town.

See: city and town.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with the capital – is it opportunity; the big time; being a small fish in a big pond – what?

Does my dream suggest this is something I am experiencing in connection with my central feelings and motivations?

Is this a holy city – if so what of my own experience does this link with?

What am I doing or seeking in the capital, and am I doing or seeking that in waking?

To find out more try using – Being the Person or Thing; Carry the dream forward and Secrets of Power Dreaming

Capsize

This might be an indication either that you fear the failure or overturning of a project, situation or relationship – or that you have an intuition of it.  Obviously it is important to define which it is for yourself. It is also important for you to note what the rest of the dream imagery is suggesting about the capsize. The point about a capsize is that it is unplanned and often unexpected, but it can be righted. See carry the dream forward

For instance, does the capsize occur in a stressful situation – such as a canoe going down rapids? Or does it happen without apparent cause?

Or has something ‘upset’ you?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel any threats of failure or upset at the moment?

Am I in a stressful situation at the moment and fear for my ability to survive it well?

Are there suggestions coming from others that I am heading for a downfall?

Try using Acting on your dream and Secrets of Power Dreaming

Capstone

The shape of a pyramid with its base pointing upwards represent the physical world or self  reaching up till at its apex it is nothing – it become the spiritual. The capstone is the final piece that completes the physical structure and leads toward the spiritual. Referring to Christ it has been called “… the Stone the builders rejected.” See Steiner – On Life and Death.

Example: I am on top of a huge pyramid structure, and I am placing the capstone into position, it is inscribed with various Egyptian glyphs and slides into place with a clunk, the outer scaffolding we have used to build the structure is removed, and I become aware of the tremendous height and feel a little insecure. I get a grip and decide to abseil down, I arrive at the bottom safe and sound, a female who was with me, says something quite strange, I love you, pointing to some other person present. Then again to another, she then turns to me and says, but most of all I love you! She then kisses me passionately. I am taken aback by all this, as it was definitely unexpected. This dream had a BIG feel about it, and I felt that whoever this female was, I had to go with her.

Placing the capstone in position is an incredible thing to do. It seems like an end to a long journey that has occurred in your dreams. It is an end but of course every end is a beginning. And it seems that the love you were seeking at the beginning of the dream journey.

Another term for the capstone on a pyramid is the “all seeing eye”. Which suggests the beginning of break through to wider awareness. The first stages of this are intuition and steps onward to enlightenment. See Enlightenment. It is because at the top of the pyramid you have a full view of everything around you. With that view you can predict events because you can see those moving in a way that would bring them into contact with others – thus prediction.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were the feelings in the dream?

Did you have any sense of meeting something bigger than susal?

What was the theme of the dream?

Try using Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Captain

The daring, doing, positive side of self; how we relate to father figures or dominant male authoritative men; the side of our nature that is capable or is in touch with the wider issues in our life, and makes decisions out of comprehensive awareness.

Or as a symbol of a father figure it could show the captain plotting against you. Or being a real support in your life – depending on your relationship with your father.

A captain can be in the army, the police force, the navy or air force – so one needs to work with the character as suggested below.

An authority figure – so God, father; boss, school teacher, or police man/woman. Are you an authority?

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the captain play in the dream – coward/leader – active/passive – controlling/allowing?

What did I feel about the captain?

Who of the characters in the dream do I identify with most?

Try using Characters and People in DreamsTalking AsEasy Dream Interpretation

Captive

Fear of or feelings of being bound or subject to other people, or trapped by circumstances, marriage, or work. Guilt about deeds or desires, or a prisoner of moral beliefs, ideas, opinions or emotions, depending on dream. See: Prison

We can be held captive by so many things it is difficult to list them all – fears; drug dependency; fear of pain; terror of being abandoned, unloved, alone; anxiety about being a failure or a jerk; and on and on.

Example: That I was being held “captive” in an apartment in Mexico City by M – my ex-wife. I went there to find something and instead of helping me look for it, she kept me away from it – kept me captive. I couldn’t even get in touch with my own parents when they came to visit and see me. And she kept me fearful of her parent’s thoughts about me all of the time.  I went to Mexico searching for something and M. kept me from it. How passive I am/was!  Reminds me of dream I had in San Francisco about the girl from Long Beach who kept me/a little boy captive in San Francisco.  PG

What PG makes clear in his dream and added comments  is how his passivity was a fundamental of his own captivity. See: active/passive.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who is it or what is it I feel trapped or held back by?

What would I say in answer to the question – I am trapped because? And is my response an excuse?

Are there fears I am not really confronting?

In what way do I keep myself from expressing or living my best?

Try using Easy Dream InterpretationActing on your dream

Car

Cars are such an enormously important and frequent part of modern life they represent all manner of things. But they particularly depict ability and opportunity. That is, ability to move around freely, and the opportunities this allows us. Through them we have the ability to get to work that might otherwise be out of reach; to enjoy leisure times; to meet and spend time with people; to carry things that would otherwise be impossible; to live a lifestyle that without the car would be out of the question. So a car allows choices, independence and freedom that are missing without it.

Example: Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming by Norman Mackenzie – page 23. ‘Robert Graves in his book The Meaning of Dreams cites the case of a woman who dreams that she was having difficulty turning a large car in a narrow lane. Such a dream, Graves suggests, could symbolise the anxiety of the woman, who was not a good driver, about turning her car. It could also represent a problem in her life. She was living above her income (the large car), she felt constricted by this (the narrow lane), and felt she must change her style of life (to turn round), even though such a change would be difficult for her to make. Or the dream might well epitomise the problem of checking and redirecting any powerful emotional impulse where the road of habit is a narrow one.’

In a wider social sense, a car is a symbol of the expensive and opportunity filled lifestyle most people in the Western world enjoy. Even the poorest in the West are incredibly rich compared to third world countries.

Cars in our dreams can illustrate the ambitions, attitudes and care, or lack of it that drive us in our life. The manner we make our way through life of course involves us in countless relationships of various sorts. We might mutually travel with someone, collide with them in a damaging way, take a similar route, or give them a ride to help them, etc.

Example: I get in my car which is always full of my children or relatives. Instead of driving it I put one foot inside the car and one on the road. Holding the steering wheel I propel the car forward like a child riding a toy scooter. This is extremely hard work but I somehow manage to keep it going, even up hills. Christine K.

A clear portrayal here of the car representing Christine’s relationship with her family, and how she is doing all the work in their communal journey together.

So the car is again a symbol of such meetings and partings. But car dreams may also relate to the business of driving our actual automobile in everyday life, and the manner in which we do so. Therefore some car dreams may warn us of attitudes we have that are dangerous, not just in relationships, but actually on the road.

The car can reveal to us our motivating drives – sex drive, ambition, sense of failure – whatever is driving us in life; means of or desire to ‘get somewhere’ in life; independence; personal freedom; personal space into which you can invite other people to share your life; privacy in which you can be yourself; feelings about the particular car in dream; your body.

Example – This is my dream. I am driving my car, alone. I can see a female friend and stop to offer her a lift. I partly want her to be impressed by my new car. She looks at me. Now she tells me she doesn’t want a lift and I am watching her walk off with a man I do not know. ………………. I have recently bought the car I am driving in the dream. I like it very much and like to have my friends ride in it. (Joel)

Quick Search 

Accelerator/gas pedal – Accelerator pressed down – No Accelerator

Accident – Air Conditioner – Alone in vehicle – Another person driving

Being in car – Brakes – Brakes not working– Body of Car – Boot/trunk – Breakdown –

Car on fire – Car not in control of – Car parts – Car torn apart or dismantled – Collision – Car crash –

Dashboard – Doors – Door Can’t open Wide Dreamer Driving – Driven by Someone Else – Driver’s seat – Driving Carelessly – Driving on Wrong side of road – Driving without license –  Drunk driving –

Engine – Examples of car dreams – Exhaust Muffler –

Fan belt – Fear in connection with car – Fuel/Gas – Fuel empty –

Gears –

Headlights – Headlights Off –

Lost Car –

Mirror Car –

One other person in car – Overtaken – Overtaking

Parking lot – Car park – Parking – Parking place none – Passengers – Petrol – Puncture –

Reversing – Run over –

Scrapped car old – Seat belt – Servicing Car – Somebody else’s car – Spark plugs – Sports car – Steering Wheel –Stuck in mud or sand

Towing or being towed – Traffic-jam – Tyre/tire – Flat tyre –

Wheels – Windows or windscreen – Wrecked car –

Accelerator/gas pedal: Ability to govern your expression or expenditure of energy or speed of advance in work, a relationship or life. What you are doing with the accelerator shows the amount of power or ‘drive’ you are putting into what you are doing or where you are aiming to go in life.

If the car is not responding when the pedal is pressed it suggests you are out of energy, or that you is a problem with how you are motivating yourself.

HARVLINE

If pressing down on accelerator: Desire to reach ones goal or desire quickly; frustration; ability or ‘drive’ to succeed, to win or to overtake someone or something.

HARVLINE

Lack of response from accelerator: No inner enthusiasm for tasks or goals; a sense of getting no response from something you are involved in.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this depicting my desire to control things, or speed up things in my life?

How much am I depressing the pedal and how does that relate to where I am aiming to go?

If the car is not responding I need to ask myself why my emotion or body are not responding to this decision.

What are my feelings as I use the pedal, and what are they showing about how I drive myself?

Try using Being the Person or Thing

HARVLINE

Accident: See: Car crash; Collision; Run Over; Wrecked car.

HARVLINE

Alone in vehicle: Being independent and/or confident; making your own decisions; feeling lonely. There is sometimes an expression in such dreams of trying to get away from a relationship or a situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why am I alone in this dream and what do I understand from that?

Where am I driving, and is that significant?

Is driving alone unusual for me in my dreams?

Try using Being the Person or Thing

HARVLINE

Air conditioner: Check you breathing and the air you are breathing in the car.

HARVLINE

Another person driving: This might suggest you are being passive or are in a learning situation with the other person. Perhaps you are being influenced by the opinions or emotions or desires of someone else, or are ready to allow someone else to make decisions for you. The other driver might show you are dependent on someone.

It could also show another aspect of you driving your decision making, so make sure the direction is to your liking. For instance anxiety or emotional pain may lead you to make many decisions, so they are then the driving force in your life, rather than what might be more satisfying.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who is this person driving and what do I feel or associate with them?

What am I feeling about being the passenger?

In what place are we and where are we going – do I know?

Try using – Characters and People in Dreams

HARVLINE

Being in your car: A sense of protection from the weather, changes of temperature and other people. A feeling of security and even comfort. Perhaps also a feeling that you are in control of your life as you are in control of the car, for the car does what you want from it, and you can choose where you want to go.

HARVLINE

Brakes: Your ability to be in control of a situation. This might be control of anxiety or sexual feelings or emotions. If the brakes are working they allow a feeling of confidence in dealing with life.

This could also point to social situations. In other words we might not be taking notice of the ‘stop signs’ in social settings, personal relationships or as far as the law is concerned.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part are the brakes playing in this dream – to avoid something; to stop; to control speed?

Can I recognise how I use control and release in my life, and how well I can operate them?

Why am I dreaming of brakes at the moment – is there a situation I am in that needs skill in controlling or letting go?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming

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Back seat in car:

This is about the realisation that I am threatened by women. Also that I seek a dependent relationship. The back seat is the fear of women, but also being led by my feelings.

 

Brakes not working: Might suggest high anxiety or losing control of a situation or events, thus may indicate a fear of taking chances or initiating things in case they get ‘out of hand’; difficulty in controlling sexual desire or emotions.

Our brakes might not be working in some settings, such as in a relationship or work. This could mean you collide or are on a collision course with someone or with a situation. Banging into another car, person or house would depict this. See: Example 3.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling anxious about what is happening to me sexually or emotionally?

Have I done something that is like running through the red light?

What is it I need to review about being in control.

See Secrets of Power Dreaming

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Car body: The car body often refers to your body, yourself. So any damage or dents would suggest you have had some knocks in life, physically or emotionally. Therefore the car body might illustrate feelings about your own appearance or physical condition.

There might also be an element of ownership or territory involved in this. So anything done to the body of the car is, through identification, done to you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is shown in the dream about the car, and what is it suggesting?

What are my feelings about this and how do they relate to my waking life?

If I imagine myself as the car body, what do I understand about what is shown in the dream?

Try using Stand in roleBeing the Person or Thing

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Car boot/trunk: The memories, the karma, or influences from past actions and experiences that we still carry with us. Also the necessary things we carry about with us, such as shopping, that would connect with caring for personal or family needs. Occasionally something you want to hide or get rid of.

The boot might also suggest the ‘baggage’ of anxieties and thoughts that you carry in the back of your mind; or tools for dealing with difficult life situations.

The boot is a storage place too, so can relate to things you have such as qualities or values, that are not being used, but are at hand if needed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is in the boot/trunk in the dream, and what do I connect with them? i.e. are they things connected with work, holidaying, clothes (social attitudes), leisure things such as golf clubs.

Is this something I am hiding in the boot, or am I okay about it?

What resources do I have in the boot?

Please see Processing Dreams and Role

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Car going wrong: My failure in some way. If it keeps gong wrong a deep sense of failure. It could also suggest ill health in some way.

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Car on fire: Stress of some sort causing ‘burnout’ either physically or emotionally. Such a fire would end the usefulness of your actual car, and in a dream it would mean damage to or the end of whatever was being depicted in the dream – a relationship, a work situation, a planned activity.

Example: I dream of M. and the German chick, but as if we had just come from the beach.  There is a lot of changing of clothes by the girls, a lot of watching of boobs by  us.  Several times the German girl plugs in a wall socket and there are a number of  small fires.  Later, there is some controversy over a dress of M’s that shows her  nipples. Another plug is plugged in, and this time the resulting fire destroys our car.  DP.

DP’s dream shows the very clear connection between his sexual excitement about watching the women’s breasts, and the car fire. M. is his wife, so there is a suggestion his mutual journey with her – the car – is damaged.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the whole car on fire or just part – if just part, what does that part signify?

What or who caused the fire and how does that relate to what I am feeling or meeting in life?

Are other people involved and in what way?

Try using Easy Dream InterpretationEnergy Sex and DreamsTalking As

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Car parts: Body parts, but also the function in oneself they might suggest – steering wheel for instance could suggest control over ones direction or emotions. In considering the meaning of the many car parts, define what you feel or know that part of the car does, then ask yourself what that might be an analogy for.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the basic function of this car part, and what function of mine might it depict?

What is happening to this part in the dream, and what does that say about its meaning?

Is this in any way linking with my actual car?

Try using Acting on your dream

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Car torn apart or dismantled: This often depicts stressful life events or failure to care for your body; or even feelings that events or people are destroying your freedom, opportunities or ability to work. See: Wrecked car.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel things are tearing apart my ability to work or achieve things?

If my car is my means of being free or having independence, what do I feel is dismantling that?

Are there circumstances that lead me to feel torn apart?

Try using Being the Person or ThingAvoid Being Victims

The dismantling of a car may also show you the way you self-destruct as explained in Crashing vehicle. Or if the car is being taken to bits to repair or improve, then it shows a real process of change and growth in you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I doing the dismantling or is someone else – is it anyone I know?

Is it an impersonal thing or event that is dismantling the car?

If this is for improvement, what changes are emerging in myself or life?

Try using Being the Person or ThingAvoid Being Victims

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Collision: Possible conflict of opinions or feelings with another person, and so the likelihood of a painful encounter. It might of course be warning you of careless driving in waking.

It might also show careless behaviour leading to problems in relationship or work. In general I illustrates two different directions or desires meeting or conflicting in an injurious rather than harmonious way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

With whom or with what am I coming into conflict with?

Is there a difference of direction or opinion that is leading to problems?

What is it that is driving me at the moment, what attitude or fear, that is leading to destructive tendencies?

Try using Talking AsAvoid Being Victimsfear in connection with car

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Crashing vehicle: Depending upon how badly the car or you are hurt, it shows the ending of something. This might be a direction you were taking, a business venture or a relationship – depending on who is with you in the car and what else is in the dream.

Often a crash involves another or other people. If this is in your dream it shows a difficult relationship with another person, one that might damage your won sense of well-being or confidence. It can mean a difficulty in a sexual relationship too if the person is of the opposite sex. But even if not that, certainly it is about a confrontation or conflict in regard to decisions, directions or opinions.

The car crash can sometimes show a self desired failure – perhaps to avoid stress of responsibility and change. The crash also suggests fear of failure or loss of control. This might be failure in relationship or an argument – you may be on collision course with boss or partner for instance. See: wrecked car.

Occasionally it points to psychological or physical breakdown looming. If the vehicle crash has a sense of death in it, then the dream may be exploring the anxieties or feelings around death. This is not usually a prediction of death, but a meeting with whatever values and fears one has about it. It may however be warning you about activities having a negative effect on your life or health. See: Dreaming of Death

If you die in the crash, what you feel and learn is very important. This is because it can depict a radical change in your life, or an experience of meeting death.

Example: He dreamed he had crashed his car. He walked out from the crash unhurt, and actually felt glad the car was wrecked. We examined his feelings, he saw with surprise the car was his means of getting to work and achieving things, so why did he feel pleased? When he dug deeper he came upon the desire to constantly ruin his own achievements or means of achieving. The reason being that he never wanted to give his mother the pleasure of seeing him succeed in life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What led up to this crash, and can I see any signs of those feelings or activities in what I am doing?

Is someone else involved, and in what way – if so what does that person represent or mean to me?

What can I learn from this?

If I died in the dream, what do I carry into waking from the experience?

See Dreams are Like a Computer GameProcessing Dreamsfear in connection with car

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Dashboard: The dash is where we see all the information about the cars inner working. This is your own personal dashboard to show what changes are coming or are going on in your body.

We are probably all acquainted now with looking at the instruments on the dashboard of a car. On such a panel we can see an indication of the speed, of the amount of fuel, and of the temperature of the water cooling system. When we look at any of these gauges we are not of course directly aware of the hot water, of the amount of fuel, or of the engines revolutions. We are only seeing a graphic display of what is taking place in unseen parts of the car.

Our body and mind are far more complex than any car. There is far more that goes on in the hidden places of our being than ever goes on in an engine. But dreams perform the same function as the gauges on the dashboard. They illustrate processes that are going on in the depths of our body and mind — and in fact often in the very deepest places of the unconscious. As with the gauges, we are not directly experiencing the processes displayed in images and drama. What we are witnessing is a process that puts into imagery, into emotions and drama, things that in themselves may be quite formless, that may never previously have come near to verbal definition or conscious conceptualisation. The word imagine has its root in the word image. We literally put into images those things that lie beyond our usual senses in the formless and timeless regions of our being.

In some dreams there is stuff stored on the dashboard. You will need to see what uou associate with it. See Associations Working With

But dreams can have some strange mixtures as this dream:

Example: In the dream a woman poured white paint all down the right side of the dash board in my car.

Thinking about it now I have been doing some painting with white gloss.. last night I was in bed and couldn’t breathe properly so the air vents must be showing that my lungs are being clogged up with paint fumes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What happens in the dream and what does it suggest?

Does the plot of the dream give any clues? See Plot of the Dream

Have any recent events led you to suspect any ill health?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

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Doors: Your way of letting other people share you life. The passenger door in particular refers to the people you let near you or push away if you do not let them in your car.

The car door can also suggest allowing something to be seen or as access to things you have ‘within you’. The door is also a barrier, a protective shield against people trying to harm you, or against other influences.  The lock on the door links with how confident you feel about your own strength.

Not being able to open your car doors shows you feeling a loss, or at a loss. It is a loss of power to be able to go where you want, or to access what you have in the car. This is like being pushed right back onto your very personal resources. See Doors

Useful Questions and Hints:

What or who are you letting in or shutting out of your life?

Does the dream show you opening up to others or closing down?

Are you feeling safe and protected in the dream – if not try to define why?

Try using Being the Person or ThingProcessing Dreams

Door Can’t open Wide: Considering that a car is something you direct in various ways, it can relate to your body that you are only partly in control of. Also as the driver you can be free of the body senses and drives in different ways. So trying to get out of the car indicate feelings of being trapped in some way – trapped by an automatic functions?

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Dreamer driving: Being independent and confident. It also suggests making your own decisions and being responsible for your own life direction. See: Drivers seat.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How well was I driving in this dream?

Am I in control of the car?

Where am I going or what am I doing?

Try using Secrets of Power DreamingPlot of the Dream

 Driven by someone else: This suggests that you are trying to get somewhere in life but are not fully in control of your decisions in driving. This often happens because we are often deeply influenced by another person, so there is some measure of conflict between what you want and the influence someone else has on you.

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Drivers seat: Perhaps more than anything else this suggests responsibility and personal decision making. It can also point to the attitudes that direct how you live your life.

Whoever is in the seat is influencing your life, either through your permission, through dependence or dominance, perhaps even fear.

Being in the driving seat is a very special situation, whether it is a car, a plane or a rocket. Every tiny shift or thought, of motivation or doubt redirects where the vehicle – you – are going. So it is very important to clarify your feelings and state, as with the example below.

Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Being in the driving seat also means you can see all the instruments on the driving panel. This means being in an observing situation with yourself. You can if you wish, observe all the instruments of your being. You can watch and acknowledge what is happening to you sexually, what is happening with your fantasies, what is going on in your physical body – am I tired, am I relaxed, am I stressed, am I confident? You can observe all this in the driving seat and you can make changes. From the observations you can slightly shift, change, make adjustments, and so keep balance and direct the process of interaction and where you are aiming to go in life. This self observation also means you can more easily observe others and understand their needs.

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Driving from another seat: This is about being able to ‘stand up to the plate’.

It is an American term and it is about whether you are ready to take command, to show your skill, to be in charge. See http://dreamhawk.com/poems/the-plate/

Are you in fact facing a situation which needs you to be responsible for the directions you are going in life, the decisions you make and take responsibility for who you are and are capable of being?

Try using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ and imagine placing yourself in the driving seat in one of the dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am in the driving seat what are the attitudes and feelings hat are directing me?

Where is it I am actually taking this vehicle or my life?

If I am not in the seat, what are the skills or failings that are influencing my direction?

Try using Being the Person or ThingEasy Dream Understanding

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Driving carelessly: Lack of responsibility socially or sexually and need for more awareness. It also suggests you are not really in charge of your life in any positively aware way. There may be an over-riding feeling such as anger or frustration that is eating away at you and causing the carelessness – or are you exhausted?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a situation or emotion behind the carelessness?

What results from the carelessness in the dream, and does that point to anything in waking life?

Can I take control of this situation and imagine a different result?

Please read Avoid Being VictimsHabitsEasy Dream Understanding

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Driving the wrong way up a one way street: Going against prevailing attitudes; defying public opinion.

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Driving without license: Feeling guilty about your way of life or social conduct. Or perhaps you do not dare to test out your quality against social standards, therefore may hide your sense of inadequacy. Or else you are just ready to be a criminal and risk other peoples welfare in what you feel is being daring – and ‘fuck the authorities’ feelings. This point to a conflict with social rules and regulations – the social norm. See: conflicts.

Example: A massive force underlying the basement of my house was threatening to emerge. It had already torn down part of the ceiling of the basement. This force was in the shape of a woman and a serpent. But when it did emerge the figure of Christ also came into the room and the two seemed to change each other.

When I explore the dream I felt the woman represented my own natural and unrestrained desires and needs, the criminal or anti authority part of me; and Christ was the power of social pressure to conform. In releasing them both my natural urges and needs could be expressed in creative acts – such as a punk singer might do in performances – and therefore be acceptable, though still containing the socially dangerous natural impulses.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this about being caught or avoiding notice?

What feelings are evident in the dream and where do you meet them in waking life?

If it is difficult to get a license, what are the barriers or difficulties?

Do you enjoy feeling ready to be a failure?

Try using Avoid Being VictimsBeing the Person or Thing

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Drunk driving: Not in control of your life; occasionally refers to spiritual influence leading you to do things that are not rational; or perhaps alcohol is dominating you.

Basically this is about losing real awareness and control of a situation or relationship – and especially your ability to direct your life well. See Alchol

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am not the drunk driver, what or who is irrationally influencing me?

Have I been acting out of careless or irrational feelings or ideas lately?

Am I losing my hold on what is happening in my life?

Please read Avoid Being VictimsHabitsEasy Dream Understanding

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Engine: This often represents your heart or your ability to motivate yourself. It therefore links with your personal energy or drive.

Because ones energy and drive are so linked with how confident and expressive we feel, the engine, its size and performance are often indications of this.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream saying about my ability to motivate myself and get to where I want to go?

Do I feel adequate as a person, sexually or as a man/woman?

Does the dream suggest anything needs to be done to the engine – if so what is that pointing to?

See Energy Sex and DreamsActing on your dream

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Exhaust: This might be used as a play on words to suggest exhaustion. Otherwise it could link with your need to detoxify in some way, to vent poisons – either physical or emotional ones. If an exhaust is blocked a car loses power, and if our body is clogged with toxins we also lose energy and drive.

If you are being exposed to the poisons from an exhaust, it could be about the bad influence from a person you are involved with, or that you are living in an unhealthy place.

Engines make a hell of a noise without an exhaust, so losing the exhaust or making it noisey might be suggesting you are being a nuisance in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening with the exhaust in the dream, and what does that suggest as a metaphor?

Can I do anything about this situation by changing it?

Am I feeling exhausted lately?

See Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

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Fanbelt: The fan belt on a car is a great driving force which if broken leaves the car un-usable.

It can also sometimes indicate how physical and psychic energy is channelled in you.

Example: Dreamt I was looking at a car dynamo. There was something about the fan belt being checked. But the dynamo was not in a car, and the belt led up to a wheel. The wheel did not drive the dynamo, the dynamo drove the wheel.

The dreamer explored his dream and realised that, “I was striving to release the sexual powers to the solar plexus. The solar plexus is the wheel. The dynamo is the sexual centre. Love releases sexuality inwardly. Love, integrating with sexuality, lifts it to the solar plexus. The solar plexus begins to turn. This power links love with sexual penetration. This enables love to penetrate other person. Through lifting the sexual power to the solar plexus, there will arise the power to penetrate more deeply into another persons life.

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Fear in connection with car: Any fear of anxiety we may feel with our car may be shown in our dreams. For instance we may feel that our car will let us down on a long journey; or that we have a fear of crashing or killing ourselves; or that we will run someone over. All of these can be dreamt, and are about what we fear rather than what we predict will happen.

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Fuel/gas: Feeling drives; motivation; whatever has ‘fuelled one’s drive’. Petrol/gas is also a resource, something you know you can call upon to achieve something or ‘get somewhere’. So having an empty tank would suggest you have no such resources of energy, or motivation or ‘drive’ to achieve what you desire or need to do. It can sometimes indicate exhaustion and poor health. So it might indicate a change of diet or life style – getting more rest?

There is an interesting complexity here as you need resources – money – to get the resource of fuel.

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Out of fuel/gas: No motivation or energy to do what you want. This could also be frustration and irritability or the loss of a meeting or opportunity. Feeling stumped.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream saying about my energy or resourcefulness, and how does that apply to me?

If I am without fuel is there any indication of how I can get it or why I am on ‘empty’?

Is there any sign in the dream what my relationship with my energy reserves is?

Try using Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

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Gears or gear box: Gears in a car give us control over the speed and power of the car. So it suggest that we have the ability to change from one mode to another – we can be tired one minute and energetic the next. But the word gear is often used in describing the right sort of clothes. See clothes

There is the option of putting a car in gear to get it moving, so indicating you need to do something to get you motivation going. So a ruined gear box would be a need either to get the ability to be able to change from one mode to another, or that you have ruined your health and energy in some way and need attention.

Idioms: Get you ass into gear; gear up; give you the gears.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What gear are you in?

What is the plot or theme of the dream? See Plot of the Dream

Is there anything I can change in the dream?

See Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

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Headlights: Being able to see what is happening in your life. But this especially applies to what is happening unconsciously, in the dark of your mind. So it suggests seeing what lies ahead, and so can refer to insight or intuition, even prediction.

Example: My husband and I were driving along a country road at night, when the headlights of the car fell on a group of black and white cats straggling across the road. We stopped, waiting for them to cross. A beautiful collie dog was guarding them. Because some of the cats seemed loath to move, I went back on foot to find the owner. I knew she was an Italian noblewoman.

On meeting her, I was struck by her beauty and nobility. We walked back together to find the road clear. My husband and I proceeded on our way.”

“This woman’s dream is rather unusual, because it seems to summarize fully her search and struggle for a spiritual life. She told me that she and her husband enjoyed night driving, especially on country roads. Thus, in the dream, night driving signified progress along the high road of life. The black and white cats signified the good and evil within. In this instance, because her association with cats was their independence, the dream was related to a need for greater cooperation with her spouse. The black and white cats emphasized the constructive and destructive aspects of independence for there are times when we must be firm on principle, but there are other instances when we should yield. The collie dog symbolized a portion of her sub-conscious, which brought to the attention of her conscious mind (the headlights of car) the animal characteristics obstructing the spiritual road ahead. The Italian noblewoman represented to her the higher self, which she must manifest in order to remove the obstructions within herself, for she associated Italy with early Christianity (Italian woman).” Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the headlights revealing and what does that refer to in my life?

Are my headlights – ability to look ahead – working well?

Where am I going or what am I doing in this dream that needs to have light thrown on it?

See See Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

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Headlights off: Loss of awareness or inability to be aware of what you are meeting or the way ahead. The inability to use your intuition or precognition.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any hint of what my inability to see in the dark will lead to?

Can I throw light on what is involved in any way?

What is the drama of the dream suggesting?

See Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

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Lost Car: The loss of something that enables you to go where you want to in life, or that you are carried along by to your goals or toward something. This loss can be a belief or a fear or any strong feeling or motivation that carried you through life and enabled you to reach goals.

If you connect your car with independence, then this links with the loss of that and your ability to have your own space or freedom.

This type of dream sometimes comes while you are really questioning who you are and what you want – a turning point in your life direction. The dreams also occasionally include one returning to where you left the car and not finding it. This is about a life situation connected with losing the motivations and ordinary everyday convictions or stimulus that you usually had. It can happen when a mother arrives at the point her children leave and are independent and she suddenly loses the motivations that kept her going for years.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I define what it is in my life I have lost, and how it went from me?

Are there external circumstances that have led to this loss?

What do I feel in the dream when I realise I have lost my car, and where do those feelings appear in my waking life?

See Plot of the DreamActing on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

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Mirror: Looking back on what is ‘behind’ you, what you have left behind, or what is approaching you from the past. An awareness of what you have left behind, or what or who is going to overtake you.

It might also be a way you check your appearance – a sort of ‘who am I’ – ‘how will I appear to others’ question. See: mirror.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I see in the mirror and what information did I gather from it?

What am I looking at or for in the mirror and what does that suggest.

If I am looking at myself in what way are my features presented?

See Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

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Not in control of car: This often relates to strong feelings or impulses that you find difficult to deal with. Or if  there is a mechanical problem with the car it could suggest that your usual physical and/or psychological checks and balances aren’t working properly, and so, as with a woman experiencing mood swings during menopause, perhaps you need to find ways of helping this.

The dream might also depict that in some way you are either not watching what you are doing, or are feeling anxiety about not being in control of things.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What causes the car to go out of control, and can I see that applying to my life situation?

Do I manage to get the car under control, and if so with what attitudes or strategy do I do that?

Am I aware of any psychological or physical condition that might be causing this?

See HabitsEasy Dream UnderstandingQuestions

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Old car or scrapped car: Sense of old age, or exploration of feelings about death.

Example: My most frequent dream is of scrap cars and breakers yards. Acres of old cars piled on each other at crazy angles; some with plants and trees growing through them, having been there many years. I enjoy walking among them. An enormous magnetised girder swings over them picking them up in all sorts of disarray en route for the furnace. On one occasion as I walked along the isles between the cars a voice shouted DUCK! I did so as the girder swing just above me followed by three large Alsatian dogs. I noted the dogs were sleek and appeared well fed. I thought they were in such good condition by eating up the people injured by the swinging girder. I thought they wouldn’t get me as I had taken the tip and ducked down. A.B.P.

This dream seems to clearly say that A.B.P. is ageing and still enjoying being one of the ‘old crocks’. But he realises that death can come at any time if he is not careful enough to avoid life threatening situations.

An old car can also points to old way of doing thing or getting what you want. By old is meant ways you lived, behaved or thought in the past – but ways particularly related to getting about, being independent etc. See Habits

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this car remind me of a particular period of my life, or a time, such as the 90’s?

Are there indications this dream is about ageing – if so what do I understand from it about myself and my age?

What am I doing with or in the car, and what might this be an analogy of?

Try using Avoid Being VictimsActing on your dream

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Overtaken: Feeling of being left behind or not competing. Or perhaps you are relaxing and letting things go by in life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling as I am overtaken, and what does that say about my own competitiveness and attitudes at the moment?

Is this because I can’t get any power out of my dream car – if so I need to ask myself what is holding me back?

Who is with me in the car, and how do I feel about being overtaken in their presence?

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

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Overtaking: Getting ahead or being competitive. Having confidence in your own ability to get on in life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is what I feel as I overtake something I can see is a reasonable attitude?

Am I trying to prove something here – if so what?

Am I fully in control of this car in an easy way?

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

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Passengers: The people in your dream car are usually those who are important in your life. Even if they are not people you know. What they represent in age, sex or temperament is usually indicating something you need to take notice of.

The interaction with the passenger often shows how you relate to others that are ‘travelling with you’ in life. They are also people who influence your direction and the choices you make. See: the Example under abandoned.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who is the passenger and how do I relate to the?

What major influence does the passenger have in my life?

What is happening between the passenger(s) and myself?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

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Parking lot – Car park – Parking: A socially acceptable place to rest, to meet, to make some sort of change or exchange, or to change modes of behaviour to get involved in something else. Finding a parking place can suggest being in the flow of things.

The parked car might also mean you have stopped ‘going anywhere’ in life, or that you have changed to walking – getting somewhere through personal effort. Or even that you have stopped ‘driving yourself’ – relaxing. If you change modes of transport – car to plane or train for instance – then it suggests dropping your own independence and relying on others, or social actions or groups to be with.

There might be an inference that you have stopped employing some of your resources and using others.

Parking can sometimes be stressful and bring to the surface anger, fear or bloody mindedness.

Example: I had just parked my car and saw a woman I knew coming up to an empty parking space in a really big car. The woman looked terried and seeing me she called to me for help. The car was so powerful she felt she couldn’t control it. So I sat in the car and parked it for her.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where have I parked and what sort of environment is it?

What am I going to do after leaving the car, and what does that suggest about a change or new involvement?

Is what I am doing a rest or is it work?

See Secrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

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Can’t find parking place: Perhaps you are finding it difficult to relax, to get out of the demands of the ‘traffic’ of your life – other people, demands made upon you, responsibility and commitments. This might also suggest you can’t find your place in life, and feel out of the flow of events – sort of mismatched timing.

There is also a possibility it shows you feeling that you can’t get on with things you want to do.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is stopping me from parking – is it I don’t know the way, too many people, or I don’t have the ticket – and what does that suggest about me?

What am I feeling as I try to park, and can I recognise that feeling in my daily life?

Is anyone sharing this difficulty with me as a passenger?

See Secrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

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Petrol: See Fuel.

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Puncture: See: Flat tire above.

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Reversing: This might point to feelings of not getting anywhere, of slipping back into a situation, relationship or experience already passed through. It can also be about reversing a decision or a change of direction.

Reversing can indicate that you are returning to a point or time of your life to deal with issues that occurred then. In such cases the word regression might apply.

In some reversing dreams the car is going so fast it suggests being out of control, or doing things in a way that is not as efficient as it might be. Maybe you feel tremendous anxiety or panic.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why am I reversing and does that connect with current feelings or activities?

Am I regressing to an old state of mind or dependence at the moment?

Is some thing, or are events pulling me backwards instead of progression?

Do I feel anxious?

See Easy Dream UnderstandingAvoid Being Victims

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Run over: ‘Killing’ or injuring some part of yourself or someone else through misplaced drive or ambition. If it is an aggressive act then it suggests a desire to hurt.

Being run over or a threat of being run over sometimes suggests getting in the way of events, ‘traffic’, that is part of the social or local action. So a small privately owned store could be ‘run over’ by a large supermarket opening near it. But it can also mean someone is ‘bulldozing’ or threatening you in some way.

Sometimes it is an animal that is run over in our dreams, and this probably indicates that in our ‘drive’ to do something or get somewhere, we have not been aware enough of our basic animal needs, such as food, sleep, sex, companionship. A similar thing might be said of running over a child – not enough care to deal with our dependent or vulnerable emotional needs. See: Mammal Brain; Accident.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who or what is run over, and what is suggested by that?

Am I the victim or the perpetrator – and does that tell me something about how I feel or my actions?

What would it mean in my life to be more aware or careful?

See Secrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

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Seat belt: Taking care in a preventative way. It might suggest an action to prevent an accident or injury. So not using it in a dream might suggest not taking enough care. It might occasionally be used to suggest restraint or something limiting you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a suggestion here about a life situation I need to take more care in?

Is this about using or removing restraint – if so in regard to what?

What issues do the other parts of the dream link with?

See Being the Person or ThingCharacters and People in DreamsActing on your dream

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Servicing car: Because the car sometimes represents the body, it could indicate that you need a check over, so was there any particular thing the car needed done to it. If so look up that part.

Sometimes it actually is about the car. Some people dream for instance that the brakes need fixing and then find that if fact the dream was a warning. Or perhaps it is about your own loss or lack of motivations.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If the dream shows something wrong with the car ask yourself what it might be if seen as a symbol?

Have you been worried about your car not being able to do what you require of it?

What would you say if you put yourself in the position of the car?

See Talking AsBeing the Person or Thing

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Somebody else’s car: Borrowing somebody else’s methods, skills or motivations to get somewhere or achieve something. It can also suggest a relationship. If this is the case what is being done with the car comments about the relationship.

If you are not driving the car or riding in it, then it suggests the way you respond to or relate to the person the car belongs to. The car is representing them or their qualities in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Whose car is this and what do I associate with them – i.e. what are their basic qualities or weaknesses?

What am I doing with or in this car, and what does that suggest as an analogy?

Where am I going or what am I trying to do with this car?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingPlot of the Dream

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Spark plugs: The basic ‘spark’ in your life, love life or creativity. Without these there is no ‘get up and go’, no desire or ability to get on with things. Depending upon what part the plugs are playing in the dream, this could suggest either great enthusiasm or energy, or sluggishness.

Because the spark that ignites the fuel is an electrical process, this might also at times refer to the ‘spark’ or lack of it in a relationship or work situation. It might therefore link with sex and the contact it leads to.

But the spark is also the spark of Life that gives you everthing you are. See Life’s Little Secrets

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part are the plugs playing, and what analogy might this be referring to?

Am I lacking a spark or ‘current’ in my life?

Am I firing on all cylinders in my life at the moment?

See Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

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Sports car: Self image to do with being rather free, daring, unconventional and high powered. Also probably to do with having money and letting people know.

Dreams that include a sports car often also involve sex or excitement in some way – as with the example – so may be dealing with the more risky or less orthodox side of your life. It might reveal that you have an image of yourself as ‘being a man’ or a ‘woman’ wanting to be unconventional, high powered and daring.

Example: I was working in an office. An old boyfriend turned up in a sports-car and asked me to get in. I tried but couldn’t as it was low and I had a bad back. I told him I was married anyway but was wondering if I should have an affair. I left to avoid an office party. A security guard stopped me and said I had turned the wrong way.

In her mind however, getting that much stimulus equates with having a lover again, and that is something she will not even consider. But she doesn’t need a lover outside marriage to do something a bit more challenging. A lover, she feels, would be stooping too low, and against her principles. This causes her to hold herself back until she aches. Even the security guard is suggesting she is going the wrong way about this. So she needs to stop and listen to her back-ache, to her dream. What is your feelings telling you? You may be pulling away from people, you need.

Example: I was in a prison. It was nice but I wanted out. The gates were open, but I couldn’t make myself leave. I saw a black man walk out and eventually I did too. I stood in beautiful countryside, happy and relieved, drove home in a sports car, but caused £20,000 of damage on the way. My parents hit me and screamed how bad I was. Caroline 16.

At the end of the dream she admits what she fees the prison is – life with her parents. It has an open door because they are probably beginning to encourage her to be independent. The difficulty is making it on her own. Of course she has to learn new tricks, but most of is manageable in various ways, so why shouldn’t she? The black man is her own passionate and natural reactions, which if she follows will lead her out of feeling imprisoned. As for the sports car I guess this reveals her have an image of herself as wanting to be unconventional, high powered and daring. The dream may be saying this could put her back into the feelings of being dominated by her parents.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I doing something unconventional and ‘sporty’ – and if so what is the dream saying about that?

Is this my car in the dream – if so do I identify with being energetic, daring and high powered?

What risks am I taking at the moment?

What is the dream suggesting in the form of an analogy?

See Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

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Steering Wheel: This connects mostly with the ability to control the situation in terms of where you are going. So it particularly connects with decision making or urges. If you were struggling with someone else over the steering wheel, then it shows how your own decisions or feelings, and someone else’s, are in conflict.

The steering  gives direct feedback about the car and how it is dealing with the road, so it would also at times suggest the intuitive awareness from the deeper levels of yourself about how you are relating to your life journey and recent events.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where am I deciding to go in life, and what does my dream point out about that?

Does my dream show me in control of where I am going, or is something uncontrolled or spontaneous being shown as coming my way?

What am I feeling about my hold on the steering wheel?

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Is someone else steering?

Has the steering broken – if so what is happening in my life that reflects this feeling of losing control or ability to direct?

See Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Stuck in mud or sand: A problem difficult to solve. Trying to go in a direction that is not suitalbe. Loss of power to do or be what you want. Feeling stuck in a life or work situation.

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Towing or being towed: If you are being towed it suggests you are lacking the usual motivations and ability to move toward your goals or manage things on your own. It also suggests you might need help from someone else or other people.

If you are towing someone else it indicates either that you are having to deal with a breakdown of some aspect of your own drive or activities, or that you are dealing with this in another person or situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in my life fits the imagery of this dream – what has broken down?

Who am I helping because of a breakdown in their ability to help themselves?

What am I feeling in the dream and where do those feelings appear in my waking life?

Try Being the Person or ThingTalking As

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Traffic-jam: This might link with many things depending on what you feel in the dream. Some possibilities are feelings of frustration about not reaching your goals; a life situation in which you are caught up in a public or communal activity or event and find it difficult to escape and go your own way and your own pace. This might also be an expression of feeling trapped by circumstances or other people.e things in your life not flowing well with feelings of frustration, blocked emotions or finance.

Example: Jim and I are in a car in a traffic jam. Some guy with a hidden gun says he will give us three bucks if we will steal his car/truck. We are standing outside our car. I immediately see this is a trick and I tell Jim not to do it. Not to do anything. The next thing the guy goes to some other people now with his gun out and points it at them and say something. Jim sees this and goes to his car and gets his gun and points it at the guy telling him to drop his gun. Before I can do anything they are shooting at each other.

This points to some sort of frustration or conflict in the person due to blocked emotions.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I experiencing frustration or delay with something or someone?

Have events led to a situation in which I feel trapped or held back?

Have I chosen a direction – route – that is not proving productive and is not letting me get ahead?

See Talking AsEasy Dream Understanding

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Tyre/tire: The attitudes and skills you use to smooth out the rough patches in your life. The support you have that enables you to carry on with your movements and activities. It is probably a form of support you usually take for granted, such as your health or psychological well-being. Life is a lot bumpier without that sort of support, such as losing ones confidence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part did the tire/tyre in your dream play?

What was the theme of your dream?

Were there any feelings involved – if so wat were they?

See Easy Dream UnderstandingBeing the Person or Thing

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Flat tyre: If you are dealing with a flat tyre, this suggests physical problems or injury; something causing you to feel let down by something unexpectedly. It might link with an unexpected delay in some area of your life, with frustration or irritation, or even lack of energy to move or be sexual.

An interesting play on words with the flate tire and being tired.

Example: Ginny, my Aunt Millie, Bonnie and I got into a car to go to a fair for the disabled. I was angry because I realized that I only had a bicycle with flat tires to assist me when I got to the fair and I was going to get tired and achy walking around.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the personal attitudes or skills that support what I do or where I am trying to get in life?

Have I recently been let down in some way, or am I feeling ‘flat’?

Am I feeling stuck and unable to get on with what I was planning?

Is this about sexual lack of performance?

Try using Being the Person or ThingTalking As

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Wheels: The ability to meet changes, to be mobile. The ability to move oneself or heavy objects easily. What gives ones energy “wheels” and increase ones speed and ability, like kids on scooters or bikes.

Idioms: Behind the wheel; set the wheels in motion; take the wheel; wheeling and dealing; wheels within wheels; oil the wheels; spoke in ones wheel. See: shapes and symbols.  

 Example: Dreamt I was looking at a car dynamo. There was something about the fan belt being checked. But the dynamo was not in a car, and the belt led up to a wheel. The wheel did not drive the dynamo, the dynamo drove the wheel.

The dreamer explored his dream and realised that, “I was striving to release the sexual powers to the solar plexus. The solar plexus is the wheel. The dynamo is the sexual centre. Love releases sexuality inwardly. Love, integrating with sexuality, lifts it to the solar plexus. The solar plexus begins to turn. This power links love with sexual penetration. This enables love to penetrate other person. Through lifting the sexual power to the solar plexus, there will arise the power to penetrate more deeply into another persons life”. An excellent example of how dreams are about our inner self most of the time.

Windows or windscreen: Protection and your view of the world and other people. Attitudes you use to open to or close off from other people or your environment. Therefore a shattered window might suggest someone has invaded your space, or you are feeling more vulnerable or exposed.

Example: Today a horrible thing happened. A stone hit my windscreen and made a big hole in the glass. Then the windscreen started cracking. Not the entire thing, maybe about 5 inches. I was quite traumatized. I began feeling – why is this happening to me.

If only I had … . It’s just more money I am going to have to spend. Why, why, why, was my anguished silent cry. I did not even do anything wrong. The car speeding in front of me caused the stone to hit my car. I just want to die. I felt a terrible thing had happened and took it all so personally. I felt insecure all the way home. It reminded me that anything could happen, it reminded me that I am powerless. I felt I was at the whim and fancy of the Universe. It confirmed my fear that I am constantly at risk. It showed me that something bad could happen to me at any time. Again I felt in constant peril; that danger lurks behind every corner; that I am in danger of something bad happening to me at any time. C.

An example of the massive and often hidden feelings that underlie our dream images, See Avoid Being Victims

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I meeting that has to do with protection or vulnerability?

Has some change occurred or is there a current issue in connection with my ability to isolate myself?

Do I feel invaded?

Try using Being the Person or ThingTalking As

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Not being able to see through windscreen: Avoiding seeing something that is important to you. Something is stopping you seeing what is vital and right in front of you. In some way you have blanked out feeling or being aware of something.  See: Fourth example.

A smashed windshield suggests you are exposed to the elements, wind, insect and rain. You are either feeling vulnerable or ready to face life unprotected.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I seeing just before the windscreen going opaque?

Is there something that I am aware of not wanting to look at?

If I imagine putting my head out of the car side window, what do I see?

Try using Being the Person or ThingHabits

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With one other person in car: Relationship with that person. What is happening between you and the other person gives a clue to what this is about. So if you are driving somewhere it suggests you are in a relationship with the aspect of yourself depicted by the person, or with the actual person, in which you have a common direction and are linked in some way – emotionally, sexually or because of common aims.

If the other person is driving it suggest what they represent is taking the lead or initiative. See Characters and People in Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening with the person, and does that link with life events or feelings?

What mutual direction am I taking with this person, or what relationship am I in with them in life?

What is the character, skills or weakness of this person, and what does that suggest about myself?

See Facing FearDreams are Like a Computer GameEasy Dream Understanding

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Wrecked car: The damage to your hopes, beliefs or motivations that enabled you to do things in life and achieve goals. It might also point to a sense of failure – failure to carry on with the normal everyday things like work and caring that one usually has enough ‘drive’ to move through each day. See: crashing car.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel I have wrecked, or has been wrecked, lately?

Is something in ruins that I had hopes or need for – my plans, a helpful situation or something I relied on?

Does the dream point to this relating to work or my life in general?

See Easy Dream UnderstandingAvoid Being VictimsBeing the Person or Thing

Idioms: Back seat driver; drive at; drive away; drive somebody mad/round the bend/ round the twist/to drink; what are you driving at?; taking someone/ being taken for a ride.

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Examples of car dreams: Dreamt by a man who was making love to a girl and finding it difficult to stop short of sexual intercourse.

Example: ‘I was in my car driving along and I wanted to stop the car immediately but my brakes would not work. This went on and on until I wakened. 

Example: In my dream there was quite a lot I can’t remember but I am driving along a motorway with other people in the car when there are suddenly lots of people walking in the slow lane. I swerve to avoid them and am quite cross that they are there. I start to find visibility difficult and put my windscreen wipers on. I swerve again to avoid more people and then my windscreen goes completely blank like fog. I don’t know if it is fog or just something on the windscreen. It will not clear with the wipers and so I brake a bit but do not stop. I think I scream at the person next to me because I am too frightened to make a decision. If I don’t stop I might run someone over and I cannot let myself do that, but if I stop then we may be crunched by a lorry behind and killed for no reason if there are no more people on the road. I don’t know if we are still even in one of the lanes or if I have gone off course. I am paralysed. The dream ends. Louise W.

Louise had experienced several dream about not seeing, so she explored this dream with a friend, K. She says – ‘Later, after we ate something we did a bit of work on a dream each. I had already told K. a bit about my most recent dream of driving and not being able to see through the windscreen. Anyway I started to tell him about it, and just stuck at ‘the windscreen went blank’. Although I knew I could tell him the rest, it was like I just went blank. So I straight away became the blank screen. I, as the screen, seemed to have been made by Louise when she was about four years old but utilised by her parents. As the screen, I knew I was there to stop Louise seeing ahead or seeing something at different times, and that my use had been abused. Maybe for social reasons which was wrong for Louise.

Then I was back in the car and with a lot of courage I broke a hole in the windscreen and could see a man running ahead. At this point I was aware of feeling very sick and my head started hurting. With quite a lot of resistance I managed to get a look at this man. Lots of what I learned is unclear but I felt I was getting somewhere. After the dream my head eased a bit but not properly. We went downstairs and I took some aspirin because I thought if I didn’t I was going to be sick with my headache. It was so bad I felt I couldn’t move and I lay down on the sofa. K. touched my feet and it was at this point that I clearly realised the wave that came over me was connected with his touch. I fell asleep and about an hour later I woke and I was fine.’

The pain Louise experienced on trying to break through her resistance of not seeing something about herself, shows how strongly we guard some areas of our own memory. In this sense we don’t really want to know who we are.

Example: In Dreams Your Magic Mirror Elsie Sechrist gives the following. ‘A friend with a sweet tooth revealed this dream: I was in an automobile with a man whom I knew only casually. He was driving the car the wrong way on a one-way street. Another driver shouted to us to get off the street, and as we did so I saw five buffalo advancing between two pale-grey, ghostly looking, wolves. The rear window of the car was open and I felt the breath of the wolves on my throat. As I ducked out of reach of their fangs I woke up in fright.

Elsie said they both felt that driving the wrong way on a one-way street was a warning concerning the dreamers health or physical body, as it would be if she actually drove up a one-way street. The driver, whom she knew, was a man who suffered digestive problems, and therefore, represented a digestive problem for herself in relationship to what she ate. The wolves represented her ravenous appetite for candy that at times almost consumed her, and she had been ‘buffaloing’ herself into believing her diet was good.

Card Business Membership

This often has to do with your identity, opportunity, or who or what you present yourself as. If given to you the card can  also be an invitation to something, an opening, like a doorway or an introduction from someone.

If it is the address on the card that is important, then it might be referring to looking for or finding something.

The membership card shows you having a connection with a particular organisation or activity. It also depicts your right to enter or be a part of that organisation or group. Sometimes it is similar in meaning to ticket. See: ticket.

Example: Dreamt about being in a house or building. The clear part is that quite often a young woman came to me as if she were helping me in something I was working at. Last weekend I was cooking for a group. There was a young woman in the group whose family came from Pakistan. We talked quite a lot and she helped me in the kitchen occasionally. She was the woman in the dream. At the end of the dream she came and stood very close to me and at first, playfully I put a business card down the front of her low-cut blouse. Then I realised how close she was and how easy and warm she was with me. I had the feeling we could be partners.

Here the dreamer is giving away his address and means of contacting him in a very intimate way

Useful Questions and Hints:

What ‘business’ am I involved in or undertaking here?

Is there an opportunity here – if so what is it?

What is the situation and feelings surrounding the card?

See Business and dreamsActing on your dream

Card Greeting

This might represent hopes for news about someone, or your thoughts and feelings about the sender. This type of card also links with a desire to extend warmth to someone, to be remembered or to maintain a link or good feelings. It might also be a way of extending love or thanks.

If the card particularly links with a wedding or birthday, then its meaning will be determined by what feelings and events are in the dream. See: birthday; wedding.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the card referring to and what are my feelings or connections with that?

Am I trying to extend to someone but not acknowledging that – or wanting to feel a connection with someone?

Is there a message with this card, and if so what do I get from it?

See Being the Person or ThingEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Cards Playing

Basically an interaction with others unless you are playing solitaire. It can depict the game of life in which you win or lose, or are an observer. If you regularly play cards, then it can suggest your skill in dealing with plans or schemes that involve other people. In other words, are you playing your cards right? So it could indicate planning, scheming, figuring out moves in a relationship, etc. It is very noticeable in playing cards that our response is often dictated by what card the other person or people put down, links with the portrayal of moves made in response to others. The card game for many people is a time of socialising, relaxing, and being in an environment other than work.

If playing for money it often involves your feelings about and present relationship with how you are dealing with money, or your financial situation at the moment. Are you gambling with a situation or relationship?

Example: I am watching high stakes gamblers playing cards for billions of borrowed dollars. After his bank collapses, one tries to win his money back unsuccessfully. What are they going to do now? Go back to farming? Look for gold? He needs to do something big to get the money that he owes.  PG.

PG’s comment on this dream is that he dreamt it after pulling out of the stock market prematurely.

Dealing cards: This might portray what you are ‘dealing out’ to someone else or yourself. You might be doing this consciously or without realising.

Psychiatrists based a complex system of analysis on what they called ‘Game Theory’. This was evolved from the study of people playing poker. It analysed how people interact with others to get what they want, by acting a response, by lying, by cooperating, etc.

Cards are often used to depict the different life situations we face, and our own feelings and fate. As such the different suites depict different things.

Hearts: Emotions; relationships.

Diamonds: Riches; intellectual.

Spades: One’s body; movement; sensuality.

Clubs: Instinctive drives, such as fear, sex, hunger.

Ace of Hearts: Love and good relationship.

Ace of Diamonds: Financial good fortune.

Ace of Spades: Feeling of success in work.

Ace of Clubs: Wealth, health, love and happiness. A letter concerning money.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the underlying situation in my dream – is it about socialising, gambling or expression of skill?

How am I feeling about the ‘game of life’?

Have I been deal a good or difficult hand at the moment in my life?

See Acting on your dreamCharacters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Carnival

Dropping social or moral restraints; letting go; creativity; social connections; sexual opportunity.

Carnival

Ones public activity; the range of human fate – rich to poor, midgets to giants; ‘swings and roundabouts’ of life. It can suggest meeting many parts of yourself and the desire to find love. It can confront you with your own talents or destiny, and also your own lies and deceit – depending upon what you bring to it.

In some dreams there is a dropping social or moral restraints, which can lead to letting go, creativity and social connections. So there can be meetings of every sort – an expression of being seen by many people, sexual feelings, joy at the novelty and of course meeting and being seen.

Many of us have been taught that we are only a body and a mixture of hormones and that our brain is us and if injured we are also injured. That is like telling the carpenter that he is nothing but the hammer he uses!

But in many dreams there is a lot of fear or even terror, as if the carnival is a front for something threatening. It is probably a fear of being exposed in way that has so many unknown people and factors in it.

Example: I’m in some strange place, like a carnival or a party. There are lots of people. Tricks are played on me. Some of them have dangerous overtones. Some are just in bad taste. I’m in a crowd. Some man and his son are giving me an award. It’s a trick cup. The milk spills out of a hole in the bottom onto the table. The son gives me one of his favorite toys, out of 4. I am with my daughter. We are on a patio. A maroon cloth thing comes out of a hole in a wall. It’s a stuffed woman. Her face is set in fake interest. There is a feeling of danger. I sneak away from her. Barb.

Example: I am walking rapidly down a very crowded street. I am in a blue velvet suit, and I am the star of the opera which is about to be presented. All of the people are recognising me as I walk through the streets.

Now I am in line as one of the spectators waiting for the show. I have a ticket in my purse and my dog, Duffy, in a kennel box.

Now I am with Cliff, an intimate college friend of mine, in his house. Attached to his house is the building where the opera is to be presented. He is the carpenter, builder, and logistics supervisor for the production. All of his work is done backstage. I have great feelings of love for him and prepare myself for the show in the sunny spacious apartment where he lives. Quote from Sundance.

This dream is clearly about his life’s work, as the very word opera comes from the Latin opus, meaning work. Opera as an art form includes, as does life, a variety of artistic expressions: singing, dancing, high drama. It can also be seen that I experience all of the perspectives in the dream which people experience in their own lives: the spectator, the star, the producer, and director. What isn’t said clearly is that all the work of the carpenter takes place ‘backstage’, out of sight in the unconscious.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I experience of feeling the dream?

Did I find the dream frightening – if so what was it scared me?

Was  I more relaxed and sexual in the dream?

See Facing FearDreams are Like a Computer GameEasy Dream Understanding

Carpenter

This depicts your ability to shape desires or ideas, and how you build something in your life from raw materials. It illustrates your power of reasoning, and how your control emotion. See: Wood; tree; Roles.

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Carpet

Sometimes depicts one’s financial state, bare floorboards being poverty. So it can be the colour or design that are important, or the comfort or lack of it in life – do you feel satisfied with self? Carpets can also be a cover up or depict a feeling of being walked on.

A carpet in a much used room can also indicate, like a swimming pool, your shared experience with another person or family, or your own collective experience, as it is on the carpet that so much takes place in your life. It is difficult to create an image that summarises the mass of time and events you share with family or loved ones – or even your own lonely existence, but a carpet does that.

Under the carpet: Things about the way we have lived that we do not wish to acknowledge. Things we have pushed out of sight without dealing with the mess. A hidden place within us.

Wet or Damaged Carpet: This may represent what you are standing or standing in. Is your attitude ‘wet’ or damaged in some way. Is the carpet in your own home or somewhere else? Note where and explore it.

Idioms: Sweep something under the carpet; on the carpet; roll out red carpet; rug pulled out from under ones feet.

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

What do you feel or associate with the carpet? See Associations Working With

What is the theme of the dream?

Do you fee; you are being walked on?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

Carriage

If it is horse drawn or pulled by an animal, it is similar to car, but because drawn by an animal, more suggestive of a direction brought about by biological drives such as sex and ageing. Can depict how you are dealing with such drives. Or it might depict a special occasion such as marriage or a funeral – but the biological process of change also underlies these. See: car.

If it is a train carriage see railway.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is carrying me or pushing me along in life, and what do I feel about it?

Is there a change happening in this dream, and if so what is it suggesting about my life?

Am I involved or an observer of this? If an observer what am I understanding?

Try Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power Dreaming

Carried Carry Carrying

General carrying: Using your ability to deal with something. It can also point to what you are ‘carrying’ in life – such as carrying a grudge or taking responsibility or your child or elderly person. It might also show you supporting or giving your strength to someone or something. This usually suggests you posses, or are carrying something within yourself. What it is depends very much on what you are carrying.

In some dreams carrying something might simply refer to your life situation, as when we use the phrase, ‘I carried on.’

We also carry hopes, attitudes, a grudge, a plan in ones mind, a love for someone. All the time we carry about with us the sum total of all we think and feel – the burden of being who we are, so what you are carrying in the dream is important to understand. See Inner World

Being carried: A desire to drop responsibility or a return to childhood in a relationship. I could also show you being in a dependent relationship or lacking any personal motivation.

Some things and the influence from other people motivate us and so we are carried by them over rough patches, or influences, often subtle, carry us forward.

Example: Because he was my favourite singer, I got excited when I saw him and went to hug him. He gladly accepted my hug with much enthusiasm and we began talking. This was nice because he was very humble and it felt like we somehow knew each other and had this connection. Later in the dream, He ended up carrying me around the house for some reason.

If it is an object like a chair or carpet that we are carried on or by, or an animal, try to define what the object suggests or the animal represents.

Carrying someone: Treating someone else, or some part of yourself, as a child or invalid; feeling you are ‘carrying the load’ in life, work or a relationship; over zealous as depicted by idiom ‘carrying things too far’.

One can of course be ‘carrying’ a baby as when one is pregnant. And some things we carry are tasks that we willingly undertake and are part of our life-work – what we are working at in our character and learning.

Carry usually suggests you posses, or are carrying something within yourself. What it is depends very much on what you are carrying.

Example: My father died when I was 3 – 1973. I recently dreamt I was carrying my father’s coffin at his funeral. On the way to the church I dropped the coffin and the lid fell off exposing his face at the advanced stage of decomposition. I replaced the lid so as not to grieve my mother further. But I followed my father’s spirit into the gaps of the coffin. Rosina.

Here Rosina is still carrying powerful feelings about her father, and they are not healthy.

We are all carried every day of our existence. We seldom acknowledge it, but we are carried by Life. We take it for granted, yet we ought to be grateful for such a living presence. The You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, are all used as a sort of crutch, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. See Avoid Being Victims

If it is a positive living thing: Can you acknowledge that you have this energy or feeling, and can use it to your own benefit?

If it is a dead thing: The example above shows how we can carry a lifeless thing around in our memory, or our feelings. If such a thing appears in your dream, ask yourself where in your body or feelings are you carrying this deadness. Why do you need to hold on to something that is not living and growing? Can you now let go of it?

If it is an object: Is this a useful object? Does it suggest a burden or a possibility. Is it useful in some way? You need to ask yourself what it is you are carrying around. Is it a waste of energy, such as old memories that are not productive? If so can you let go of it? If it is a useful thing, what talent or skill do you have that you may not be using?

 

Idioms: Carried away; carry a torch; carry it off; carry on; carry the can.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings are so much a part of me that I constantly carry them around? (If this is difficult to answer ask someone who knows you well.)

If looked at as an analogy, what does the thing being carried suggest?

What can I learn about myself from this?

What does what I am carrying suggest – bucket and spade suggest holiday  with children for instance?

If I am being carried – who or what is carrying me?

What can I learn about myself from this?

Try using Secrets of Power DreamingKey WordsActing on your dream

Carrot

A carrot is a food, and there is food for the mind, food for thought, food for the body, and spiritual nourishment. We can digest information or experience, the latter being food for our growth as an individual.

What is it you are taking into yourself if you eat a dream carrot? In other words what feelings of thought do you take when you eat a carrot? Is it thought of health, or do you not like carrots – in which case you are taking in negative influences.

Some people have an association with carrots being good for the eyes, so be aware of that as a possibility. Also it may represent something to temp an animal. Promise of reward, as used with Donkey. See: Food

Sometimes represents the penis. It can also depict what you have to pull out of yourself through hard work, or ‘digging’. Or fruits of the earth culled from worldly experience.

Example: A powerful wave of emotion flushed through me leading me to bang on the floor with anger and frustration. I was shouting out that I was pissed off about forever chasing a carrot or rainbow and never getting the reward. A fucking carrot dangled to keep the workers labouring on till they are too old to work. And at the end of it no satisfying reward for their life of labour. They are just dumped. If it isn’t sex that is dangled as the reward it is financial riches or some dream. Politics, religion, all dangle these dreams in front of us and give nothing – just a fucking mirage. Nothing real at the end of it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with the carrot? See Associations Working With

What part did the carrot play in the dream?

What was happening in the dream?

See Being the Person or ThingProcessing Dreams

Cart

This is something usually pulled by an animal, so suggests it is a life process, like ageing, or instinctive drives such as survival or sex. But if it is pulled or pushed by a human it suggests using ones own energy to get things done. Lovers in a cart together can indicate a good relationship.

There can be a shopping cart, a go-cart, a horse and cart, a golf cart, or what used to be a cart for invalids to be carried in, a tumbrel – a cart to carry people to be guillotined, road sweepers cart, a luggage cart, a milk cart or even a military cart for transporting ammunition. So it depends very much on what actions occur in the dream and what is the plot. See Plot of the Dream. Also the Background and the Settings in Dreams can be useful in understanding so many options.

Example: I was examining my father like a doctor. Another doctor (male), came up to watch. My father looked “caught” and said, “Oh why are you here? I don’t want you to know.” The male doctor picked him up to take him to the hospital. He had had a stroke and couldn’t make his legs work. As he was being taken away, a cart with many beautiful things from all different foreign countries was coming down the hall for him. They were gifts from his daughter who was returning from his (her?) many travels to see him. Funeral or mystery music followed the cart.

Example: My husband and I were sitting in a cart being pulled by a donkey up a hill. We were very insecure on our seat as it was very high. I thought I would topple off onto the donkey’s back. I felt very sorry for the poor donkey who had to pull the weight. My husband was wearing only a white loin cloth. We were on our way to do some kind of missionary work. I didn’t really want to go, but I seemed resigned to it. I was holding on tightly to my husband.

Idioms: cart before the horse; upset the apple cart; cart him off.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of cart was involved in the dream?

What relationship or associations do you or did you have with the cart? See Associations Working With

What was the main thing that impressed you in the dream?

See Processing Dreams and Emotions and Mood in Dreams

Cartoon

Picasso once said, “Art is not truth. Art is a lie that helps you understand the truth.” The bizarre symbolism of dreams like that of the art of caricature, are not the truth, but in their distortion they reveal aspects of the dreamer’s life that an exact representation could never do.  

The dream can be likened to a cartoon, which expresses or comments upon a situation by using images. So a dreamt of cartoon can represent parts of yourself in an attempt to have you see or understand yourself.

Cartoons can also be a form, as we find in cartoon characters such as John Bull, representing the British, and Uncle Sam, which represent a collective realisation or opinion.

In a way many people are scared of the cut-out cartoons of death, with their maggots and rotting bodies, and if you realise they are simply images and face the fear, you will break through the screen the images are projected upon.

Cartridge

See: Bomb.

Carve

Similar to carpenter. To work on yourself and carve out inner qualities. Leave indelible marks, memories, fears, regrets, on your feelings or thoughts. To work hard at difficult situations and carve a niche for yourself.

Carving

Carving takes a lot of effort and skill to do well. So carving in wood or stone is a way of expressing in the natural flow of things what is held in the artist. Also people who will it, can carve their lives. From the awful state some people are in, like an artist they carve, polish and produce quite extraordinary change. Such carving of human lives is still evident if we look within ourselves.

We can see that a pool of shared consciousness exists now in our unconscious. At the early stages of human development though, it was the everyday experience to share in that way, but the individuals who attained self-awareness, and moved from animal lives, began to build a new type of life. They left stone monuments, carvings, paintings in caves, stone circles, pyramids; each person, each group realising deep down that this new level of awareness was a thing to be given and built.

The Sphinx is an image of this half way state of human and animal. What we cannot quite grasp – what is too vast and many sided for us to hold entirely in our thoughts at any one moment, we give form to in paintings, in carvings, in stone, in piling rocks one upon another to form a monument. We may then venerate or hold as of immense value such art forms. They contain in them the vast dimensions of the ungraspable, of the infinity of our own within. They stand before us as representatives of the alien in our midst, in ourselves.

The passage of time shapes and carves our surroundings and even our lives. Time also leaves enormous memories, and I understood that enormous time had carved or created, through events in the passage of time, a great mosaic. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions.

 Example: ‘I was standing in a very beautifully carved chapel or religious place. There seemed to be shadowy nun or monk like figures around. But it was the exquisite colouring of the place which filled me with a sort of ecstasy. Everything was in the most delicate shell pink.’ S. C. Example: I have a cave man art store, pottery, rickety wooden shelves, mud floor. It’s not good enough yet, so I suddenly shift into another time dimension with my art works and wait. Then I push rock slides into the cave and time beats it into a solid rock foundation. I come back and now my store has beautiful carved items of obvious high quality. I have a pool of water that works as a mirror. People call it magic. It is still prehistoric times. I do a thriving business. Carved stone and glass leopards and statues on the shelves. Example: I was on a beach in somewhere like Ibiza. I met Danny, I knew that I didn’t have the money like him to live a different life, so I wondered what I could do. I saw a rock mound with water running through it. I then saw that ancient peoples had carved out some more of the rock and had inserted abalone shells around the running water creating a trough. as I looked on, I suddenly realised that this was an expression of the divine, and that I could live here and dedicate my life to the divine, thereby giving my life as much meaning if not more than Danny’s.

Case

See: Bag.

Cash

See: Bank; Money.

Casino

This can indicate hopes of winning, the experience of losing, or the feelings that are about relationship with a gambler. See Games and Gambling.

A casino can also represent something very colourful or even exciting – sometimes it can be, because of its surroundings and colour, a stimulus to creativity, going beyond the normal everyday life. See carnival as this can be very similar.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings in the dream? See Emotions and Mood in Dreams

What was I doing or seeking in the dream?

Do I have worries about money?

Try using Being the Person or ThingCharacters and People in DreamsEasy Dream Understanding

Casket

Secret hidden memories. Wonders hidden in ourselves. Special things. See: Coffin for burial casket.

If this is a small container for valuables or objects, it often relates to long held memories that are important or precious, or to qualities or skills you have that you need to be aware of.

Being in the casket might mean the things are not used much.

Is there a jewel in the casket? Are you wearing it? What type of jewel is it?

Marcus Aurelius the Roman emperor and stoic philosopher said, ‘Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.’

Hopefully each of us at some time has an experience that shows us there is much more to life than we commonly experience or understand. When we touch that moment vistas open, meanings are grasped, the hidden becomes revealed. That jewel of experience is buried within each of us, and in some dreams we find it in a casket and wonder at its brilliance.

If the jewel is buried or boxed, it suggests you are still largely unaware of your own wonderful potential. Wearing the jewel indicates that you have unfolded some of your expanded possibilities. You may have developed greater intuition, or experienced your central self.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I describe myself as the things or things in the casket, what would I say? For help doing this see Standing in Roles.

Have I been keeping things inside myself that I need to bring more fully into my everyday life?

Does what is in the box relate to anything in my waking life, and if so how?

Try using Talking AsBeing the Person or ThingProcessing Dreams

Cassette

Can simply be the sort of pleasure we feel on listening to music; the impressions left on us by events, people – therefore memory. But often memory integrated by the unconscious into insights; information we have gathered; the impression we might leave behind at death – what remains of us; the impression we would like to give others.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the cassette have music on it, and what associations or memories have you with the music?

What are you doing with the cassette?

What is happening to the cassette?

Try using  Associations Working WithTalking AsActing on your dream

Castle

Feelings of security or insecurity; our defensive attitudes; the way we defend ourselves against ‘attack’. Our past attitudes which may have been necessary in childhood to defend ourselves while strengthening our identity or our way of defending against the remembering or experiencing of childhood pain. See: defence; defence mechanisms.

Castles often have memories or associations with fairy tales or myths, and so can point to important changes going on in you. The castle of the Sleeping Beauty for instance that is a wonder of information. If, in reading the story, you have no previously discovered the ideas relating to an unconscious, hidden part of you, with its promise of greater love, wisdom and beauty, then you have just heard the legend. But you have not heard the legend unless feelings have stirred in you telling you there is a ‘sleeping beauty’ to discover. The legend is the dim, subtle, difficult to prove feelings and hopes within us, that suggest a greater beauty sleeps and can be found. The legend is those hopes that tell us there is more in life if we would only search for it.

It is a legend because most people believe there is no truth in it; a story fit only for children. While the prince represents our conscious mind, our intellect and worldly experience, that feels incomplete, that knows a longing for this ‘other half’. He is more than just our ‘conscious mind’ however. He is a particular state of consciousness; for he dares to search for a Myth. His longing, his incompleteness makes him brave, ready to test the truth or falsity of the Legend. He is certainly not an indifferent consciousness, who stumbles accidentally on the Beloved. He has to cut his way through the terrible briars and thorns surrounding the hidden castle. In these brambles others have been lost and died, for they are all the confusion, pain and ignorance that surround and hide our own ‘Sleeping Beauty’. To reach her we have to face, to experience, to cut through this hedge of ignorance, fear and cynicism that has grown around our own happiness and completeness.

But the Prince breaks through, and stands in amazement at the sleeping court. Then, finding the Beloved of his quest, he kisses her awake, and the court wakes also. So, when we dare to face the attitudes of mind, the events, the pains and fears that have cut us off from wholeness, then we enter our innermost self and find how much of us has remained alive yet asleep; in us yet unconscious. Kissing with our consciousness that which slept and was unknown, it comes into our awareness and awakens in us. Then they marry and live happily ever after. For when consciousness unites with its source, it finds completeness and happiness, and eternal life. This interpretation may give a slightly false impression unless a further comment is added. Namely, it would appear that the princess has to go to sleep in us so that the critical intellect can develop. When this development has taken place, then the two aspects of self, the rational and irrational can marry.

Example: ‘I stood outside a castle. It was closed and guarded by soldiers in armour. Wondering how to get in I thought that if I dressed and acted as a soldier I would be allowed entrance. It worked and inside Christ met me and said he had important work for me to do.’ Sonia.

The closely guarded secret is Sonia’s own impulses to do some sort of socially creative work. She doesn’t want to own her impulse as her own. It is much easier if she can say ‘Christ told me to do this.’ In this way she avoids direct encounter with opposition and has a feeling that she has greater authority than her own. Joan of Arc might well be seen in this light.

Also we might be convinced, or possessed by, a set of beliefs, as for instance religious convictions. And I am talking here about convictions of any sort that make a person completely rigid, and unable to take in or listen to any new experience or idea.

Sometimes we use such convictions like castle walls, to defend ourselves against anxiety, against uncertainty, against actually meeting the vulnerable and perhaps young and lovely self we were before the castle walls went up.

Example: ‘I went to the top of the turret and saw all the men getting ready to defend the castle if attacked. They had arrows and a lot of men were standing on little ledges on the outside of the wall, with no protection and I knew they were very brave to face an attack as sooner or later they would have been hit.’ Anna R.

Here the wall is obviously to do with defending the dreamer against attack. Such a wall might be made out of our aggressive feelings, with religious dogma which might defend us against fears and uncertainty, or from tightly controlled behaviour and emotions. But it can also be made out of the courate and conviction or the dreamer.

Example: I saw a man walking toward what looked a bit like a castle, but was a monastery or spiritual centre. I was both the observer and the man walking to the gated huge wall. As I watched I saw that a man was walking to the gate from within the monastery. So the scene was of a man approaching the gate from outside, and a man approaching the gate from inside. As they got near the gate I realised that the man seeking entrance was the same as the one who would let him in. They were reflections of each other.

The man who approached the gate reached into his coat or cloak for a gift to give as a sign of his desire to be admitted. As he did this the man inside reached into his pocket for the key to open the gate. Their movements were reflections of each other. The giving and receiving, the request and the opening, were one and the same. So the man met who he already was, though he had sought it so long.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware olf any defensive attitudes or feelings in this dream?

Am I trying to get in or out of the castle?

Is there any feeling or mystery or spiritual in the dream?

What were you doing or feeling in the dream?

Try using Talking AsProcessing DreamsAvoid Being Victims

Castrate Castration

This represents a fear of not coping sexually. Losing sexual confidence or desire. Cutting off deeper feelings, sympathies, ambitions and energies. To cut off the penis or testicles illustrates the action of repressing the feelings, emotions and urges represented by them. This cutting off may be done by a fear, by feelings of guilt about sexuality, conviction of inferiority, dread of pain or being repulsed or thought repulsive.

Trauma and or/ fear regarding sexual drive, possibly leading to ‘cutting off’ full sexual flow. It might also point to fear of the responsibility which develops with sexual maturity, or the many difficulties in facing the pains and adjustments, which come with rejection by the opposite sex, or through competition for work and wealth, standing without parental support, making decisions, discriminating in the world of ideas and exercise of will.

Sometimes there is a powerful link here with the mother/father relationship from childhood. For some reason there may have been a disturbance in regard to the need to possess ones mother sexually, and so a self restraint about expressed sexual feelings. Sometimes it also suggests ones father was not a sexually potent male. In other words unsure of himself in regard to women, and perhaps still emotionally dependent. Castration also means you are no longer a threat to anyone, and do not have to face a woman’s full sexual and emotional needs.

For a woman it can mean a disturbance during childhood caused by parents not supporting or encouraging the child’s inner development. The penis envy that was so strongly supported in Freud’s theory has been seen differently by others. Karen Horney for instance states that, “Penis envy might occur occasionally in neurotic women, but stated that “womb envy” occurs just as much in men: Horney felt that men were envious of a woman’s ability to bear children. The degree to which men are driven to success may be merely a substitute for the fact that they cannot carry, nurture and bear children. Horney also thought that men were envious of women because they fulfill their position in society by simply ‘being’, whereas men achieve their manhood according to their ability to provide and succeed.”

The need for ones father’s or mother’s love or approval can be a factor leading toward homosexuality or lesbianism.

Example: Hear a recording of a well known recording artist (Tom ***) a homosexual who became straight through facing his unconscious tendencies. RECORDING.

Castrating oneself: Denying one’s own sexual drive, or introverting anger because of sexual drive. It might also suggest the conflict of choice between being feminine or masculine.

Being castrated: This suggests a real trauma that deeply influences your sexual relationships. This includes feeling that your innate being has been repressed or brutalised by another person.

Castrating another person: Your own sexual pains or trauma may lead to the unconscious killing out of sexuality in your children or others.

 

Example: ‘On looking at my son I see his penis has been completely cut off. I feel terribly upset, but notice that on each side of the remaining hole, special pieces of tissue have been implanted. These are budding, just like a plant, and I know, or am told, that a whole penis will grow.’ Edmond U.

Edmond did in fact frequently ‘cut off’ his own sexuality by abstinence. The dream graphically shows that sexual drives are like a living process.

Psychological castration: Peter had grown up in a Christian culture that, at the time, looked upon sex as something not to be spoken about. Underlying that attitude was that restraining sex was somehow a spiritual discipline. Also, while in his early teens, Peter’s mother had pushed a strong fear into him that sex could kill him. She probably did this because tuberculosis was a killer disease at the time, and a strong sex drive was one of the signs of the illness, and she was scared that Peter had caught TB. Consequently Peter avoided sex until overwhelmed by his own desires. In fact it took most of his adult life to find normal loving and sexual feelings.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise how I cut off or repress sexual feelings or relationship?

What has led me to the situation of my sexual nature being so injured? (Defining this is important as it helps to recognise the causes and leads to an emergence from the condition.)

If I really am honest about my early feelings about my mother and father, how would describe my relationship with them in terms of my sexuality? Also, dare I imagine sex with my mother – if I do what feelings stand in the way?

Try using Stand in role Avoid Being VictimsTalking As

Cat Cats

Allergy to catsAlley_cat

Black cat

Catching mouseCattery ClawsCat’s Tail

Fear of

Group of cats

Having Kittens

Kitten

Neighbours cat or kitten –

Speaking

WhiteWild

 

Because a cat is often an easy source of physical contact and affection it can depict the need to be cared for and warm affection, even sexual love accompanied with intense warm feelings.

But cats live by their own wits and do not need an owner to walk or care for them, just food and comfort. So a cat can represent a form of street wisdom learned through stress.

You may have felt a lot of affection from a cat, and so associate it with sensual, or even sexual pleasure. It can also represent your need to care for someone or be cared for, to have close physical contact.

Example: ‘I went to the fridge to get out some mincemeat to feed the cat. It came in. As it fed I had a strong urge to touch it, such strong feelings of love were pouring out of me. The animal looked up at my face as I wanted to kiss it. The lips had pink lipstick on. I kissed it, it’s paw came up around my arm, I could see the black claws. We were rolling around on the floor, it felt very sexual.’ Monica.

A male cat can represent male sex drive.

For some women cats are a substitute baby, it is therefore used in many dreams to represent a woman’s urge or need to care for someone, or directly her need to reproduce, or be involved in sex. Therefore it is often used to signify a woman’s creativity, which is a very real part of a woman’s makeup. It is obviously linked with sexuality as that is a woman’s creative process, but it doesn’t have to be sexual as it can flow in any direction she chooses. So it can flow into creating a real or dream baby, or become a creative project or business idea.

The cat can therefore also link with refined female sexuality or ruttiness unless the cat is markedly a tom. See A Woman’s Creative Power

The term ‘catty’ refers to a spiteful woman, showing one’s ‘claws’, jealousy, anger or vindictiveness in a relationship. In this aspect it might refer to ones mother; independence; stealth; fertility. So if the cat in your dream is angry it might depict yourself if female, or feelings about a female friend.

Because cats are independent and often alone, they may represent the secret part of yourself, or independence. See: Kitten; Animal;

In a man’s dream it may refer to a woman or to the female, intuitive side of his nature. The cat can be your intuition and feelings, perhaps warning you, through its sensitivity to moods, or unseen dangers. In some dreams it indicates cattiness – showing one’s ‘claws’, jealousy, anger or vindictiveness in a relationship. It might refer to your mother, independence, stealth, or fertility.

In some dreams the cat definitely represents the fear of bad news or general fears, especially if it is a black cat.

If you have bred cats it may well represent your own, perhaps unconscious, desires to have a baby.

Jungians see the cat as representing a deep psychological secret, a hidden side of ones nature, the shadowy less obvious or outwardly displayed side of your nature. This is most likely because cats go about their business without any attempt to explain themselves or to accommodate us poor humans. Also they are creatures of the night very often, and live a dark life. Prior to the custom of neutering a cat and, in the US, removing its claws, this dark life was often very noisy and obviously sexual and aggressive. Left to itself the cat is a master predator

The cat is thought to have first been domesticated in Egypt about 2000 BC, and all modern cats are said to be descendents of them. They are desert creatures and so do not pant in the heat as dogs do, and are also easy with freezing desert nights. They do not like rain though. The Egyptian name for cat was ‘miu’ or he or she who mews. Although the cat never became a fully acknowledged god figure as the jackal and hippo did, it was perhaps the most popular. She was known as Bastet or Bast, and a household goddess, the protector of women, children and domestic cats. She was also known as the goddess of sunrise, music, dance, pleasure, as well as family, fertility and birth.

But there was a negative side known as Sekhmet the goddess of war and pestilence, though later tamed by Ra to become the protector of humans.

EXAMPLE: My husband died over a year ago, and I live alone, no pets. Yet I dreamt I opened my front door and there was a cat waiting to be let in. It was my cat, and I knew I hadn’t fed it for ages or looked after it. I felt awful that I had neglected it for so long. The strange thing was that the next day as I walked around the supermarket, I kept wanting to go to the cat-food section to buy food. – Winnie P. – Exeter

In losing her husband Winnie has lost her source of given and receiving affection.

EXAMPLE: I was with a young boy and went to his house. I believe his mother was there and a cat. The vivid part was that the cat spoke to me. It spoke in a rather female voice, very clearly. As it spoke I felt great amazement. I had lots of thoughts about how it had learned language – that it could speak because of human language – what did language do to its psyche – and so on. I didn’t reach any conclusions. I noticed as it spoke that it had tiny lips, but they were perfectly formed like a woman’s. They had lipstick on – or at least were red and attractive. Ben.

Ben’s dream has a mixture of sexual attraction, femininity and the ability to express in it.

EXAMPLE: I am sitting in the hotel staff room eating lunch at a large dining table. One by one I am joined by perhaps a dozen women. The atmosphere is pleasant, easy and light hearted. I enjoy the feeling of being the only male among a dozen attractive women. Then I notice a strange thing. One by one all the girls around me turn into cats, but carry on laughing and talking as if nothing is happening. I find this interesting and not alarming. I am aware each girl turns into the sort of cat that is right for her – a vivacious redhead becomes a purring orange tabby; an aloof, slightly superior lady becomes a Siamese; the only ex-girlfriend of mine present becomes a black witches familiar.

I remember turning to my left and asking: “Tell me Rebecca, how did you do this?” The Rebecca cat giggles with a human voice and says: “He doesn’t have a clue, does he?” As I look at the Rebecca cat I realise she still has her human eyes. This I realise is true of all the cats, they have human eyes in feline faces. As I realise this one says: “I think he’s beginning to understand now” and laughs. Paul C. Teletext.

This graphic dream so well illustrates how our human personality exists within our animal drives and urges.

Example: I was with a young boy and went to his house. I believe his mother was there and a cat. The vivid part was that the cat spoke to me. It spoke in a rather female voice, very clearly. As it spoke I felt great amazement. I had lots of thoughts about how it had learned language – that it could speak because of human language – what did language do to it – and so on. I didn’t reach any conclusions. I noticed as it spoke that it had tiny lips, but they were perfectly formed like a woman’s. They had lipstick on – or at least were red and attractive. Ben.

Ben’s dream has a mixture of sexual attraction, femininity and the ability to express in it.

The next example illustrates how we might not be caring for the natural and instinctive side of us.

Example: ‘I am given an animal to look after, usually somebody’s pet while they are away on holiday. I then completely forget the animal, go away and when I return the animal is either dead or very dried up or has been got at by another animal and is in the throws of dying. When I wake from the dream I feel most dreadful and it is only when I am fully awake and realise it is not true do I feel better.’ Lynda E

Example: Recently a neighbor brought a newborn kitten to my home hoping we would care for it. My daughter, Sydney, cleaned the blood off and put her In a box.  Meanwhile, I left work at five armed with doll bottles and powdered milk.  One evening after feeding her, I was wondering if she would live beyond her current three days old. Before I was fully asleep that night, I saw a picture of her at about seven weeks old, running and playing. She stopped, looked at me and said, “Of course I’m going to live!” Her name is Betsy and she has developed into a big, beautiful kitty that we all adore. Martha Folin

Alley cat:: Sexuality; promiscuity; down on luck.

Black cat: Depends what dreamer associates with it – so may be good luck or bad luck and evil – i.e. events working for or against one; anxiety. The belief of a black cat being evil is a throwback to times when people persecuted women accused of being witches. Their cats were also seen to be evil. Of course if you believe that cats are bad luck, then it may symbolise that for you.

Black cats are invisible in darkness and can apparently appear mysteriously. So they often represent something that arises from the unknown or unconscious. It can therefore indicate a woman’s creativity, which is a very real part of a woman’s makeup. It is obviously linked with sexuality as that is a woman’s creative process – and the black cat therefore suggest her creative potential is emerging from an area she did not known about previously. See Woman’s Creative Power

Bobcats: Bobcats, like other wild animals that are adaptable and can live on the outskirts of human territory, are very ‘street wise’ or capable of surviving despite heavy human hunting.

So in your dream it can depict your survival instinct, and your ability to fight back with real cat zeal. It represents intelligence and patience. Like most cats it is not a pack animal and so is solitary in its habits – and also brings up it ‘kittens’ alone. See cats.

Cat’s claws: Spitefulness; desire to hurt; hidden aggression; clinging, or ‘getting ones claws in someone’.

Cat having kittens: Desire for or feelings about babies or ones own babyhood; fertility.

Cat Cattery: If it is a cattery for breeding it could refer to your feelings about having a baby – or if you breed cats then look at Easy Dream Interpretation. In general it suggest you are having a rest from, or not taking responsibility for your female qualities.

Cat catching mouse: A problem solving activity in you; cat and mouse situation in work or relationship.

Cat’s tail: The tail is a very expressive part of a cat; a very visible and active part, so represent the expression of your instinctive feelings.

Fear of cat: Fear of the female in oneself; fear of females; difficulty in meeting feelings and intuition; sense of danger. See: Animal phobias at the end of the animal section.

Group of cats: Group of women; relating to the different moods or feelings.

If allergic to cats: If you are allergic and dream of a cat it would signify a negative and threatening reaction to a situation or relationship.

Kitten: Feelings about vulnerability or babyhood; feelings about caring for someone or something vulnerable; parental urges, perhaps protectiveness.

Neighbouring cat and kitten:  It could be that you have developed a link with a child that is not your own. If the cat and kitten were not from the same family as yourself, it may show you are making a relationsnhip with a new partner and their child.

Speaking cat: Ability to express feminine feelings, intuition or sexuality; a realisation of feelings of physical hunger or emotional or sexual attraction. See last example below.

White cat: Can represent your feminine intuition and a link with the natural beauty in you.

Wild cat: Stealth, ferocity, intelligence, cunning, ability to survive. Like most cats it is not a pack animal, so suggests living and bringing up children alone.

See: First example under the general information at the end of the separate animal definitions.

Idioms: Copy cat; bell the cat; cat and mouse; cat’s whiskers; cat out of the bag; cat and dog life; cat on hot bricks; something the cat brought in; a cat’s paw; cat among the pigeons; while the cat’s away.

Useful questions are:

What is happening or what am I realising in my relationship with the dream cat(s), and how does that relate to my life?

If I take out the word ‘cat’ from my dream description, and replace it with what I feel about this cat, what would I write?

If there are elements of caring or love in this dream, am I looking after that side of my life?

If this is about a kitten, what are my feelings or desires about my childhood, or about a baby?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Talking As; Processing Dreams

Cataclysm

Looked at from the point of view that dream images represent our own life and feelings in some way, the end of the world, and the fears that go with it, depict the powerful and threatening inner and outer changes that accompany major transitions. The transition from childhood to adolescence for instance is the end of the world that existed for the whole lifetime of the individual up until that point. Such points of transition occur several times in the life of anyone who dares to grow and adapt. Menopause for women, the leaving home of children, the loss of a job, retirement, can all be represented by the end of the world – or a world. See: Atom Bomb.

Catacomb

An exploration of your inner contents or past experiences and their effect on your present life. A descent into the unconscious, so meeting feelings about death and rebirth, deception and wisdom. A search for your inner roots, lasting values, underlying abilities. The unconscious link with forebears.

Usually refers to feelings connected with death as in the example. It suggests, even in this, a womb like condition, and birth or a child may also figure in the same dream. A place of power or hidden forces, where a connection may be made with our unconscious, our inner link with other people and the energies of our body.

Example: ‘I was in some kind of cave or crypt. My father told me and my family of his coming death. He was calm and caring but my mother, sister and myself were grief stricken and for some reason went to buy him gifts.’ Clare M.

Example: I had this dream about me and a girl my age in a dark ancient crypt and we were fighting/battling giant spiders and looking for something, once we were near done with the searching of the something she put hints in wanting to have sex and we ran through the cave/crypt looking for a place to have sex, upon finding the right spot we ran into a large spider than the rest and I found myself holding a butcher knife and I killed the spider, afterward a spectre or ghost appeared and I found myself standing with the girl in a mansion study.

The dark ancient crypt shows that you have found a way into your unconscious. You are with a girl – your female half – because in our inner world, of which dreams are a mirror, you are both male and female. To become a whole person you need to enter the girl fully and marry her – i.e. unite with her. But there are feelings in the way. You have not fully become independent of the influence of your mother. The fact that you killed the spider shows you have taken a big step toward independence. The ghost is probably an old trauma or experience that is still ‘haunting’ you.

Example: It seemed a terrifying thing to be dead and descends into a crypt, lifeless and without motivation. Here I felt or experienced a very strong sense almost like a dead body, if it had awareness, might feel in a crypt. This is quite difficult to describe. I suppose what I was experiencing was a sort of ready made or social image of death. The sort of fears we have about it. It had in it the sense of dust, decay and cobwebs – the quiet dead silence of the tomb. But here, right in the midst of death, I had the sense of eternal life, of resurrection. It seemed to me as if you could not have one without the other, and this was the meaning in Christian doctrine where it says you must die to be reborn.

I am not sure if it was at this point that many images of the mixture of death and birth came on me. I had the experience that one needed to be bitten by the snake and die before one can be reborn into that transcendent life. But what came next was a long experience of exploring the view of life arising out of being a biological bag of water, wind, and shit. This went on for image after image of rampant wet sexuality or eating, of seeing nothing in life except physical existence. Again it is difficult to describe because of the huge variety of the images and scenes.

I suppose the underlying thing I was searching for in this series of feelings and images of the very physical side of life, such as eating and fucking, and the question was, is this all there is? There was an underlying morbidity in what I saw and felt. But I think this was my view. I wanted to find the transcendental in all the aspects of life, but it was difficult within the way I was looking at these feelings or parts of life experience.

I thought, or at least I came to the conclusion, that they expressed the preoccupation with the body and the physical that most of us have in present times. We are preoccupied with the physical and with examining it in detail. We are all trying to arrive at an understanding of the meaning of things, of death, through this minute examination of the physical world.

The longer I was involved in these images, the more it seemed ridiculous in the light of everyday knowledge that all things rely on each other, and that everything exists as an integrated part of the cosmos. The theme of the dream then changed. The day before this session I had a long conversation with B. She had described some of the people she works with or cares for in the old people’s home. B. had described how frightened some of the people are of dying. Although they had lived a long and varied life, they had still not come to terms with death. In the dream I realised I was looking for some way of communicating certainty about the goodness of death to B. I wanted to be able to look her in the eye and tell her she would be cared for.

Tracing it back, when we go into death through the jaws of the hunter, the lion, what do we meet? If we go back far enough we discover not anger or lust, but the lion’s desire to feed its cubs, or to survive. We find ourselves back in, back behind things. Behind the snake, behind this tiger, behind the human being, behind the decay. If we go back far enough we find ourselves in the awareness of the pack, in the species, in the formative forces of survival and reproduction that lies behind things. We find ourselves in that mystery, in the jungle where the essence of life pervades the various forms. From that place the viewpoint that we are nothing but a physical form, that we are a small cog in the wheels of life, that we must put up with what we have, seems ridiculous.

From that place we look at ourselves and see what a fantastic piece of equipment our body and mind is. As a conscious person we are right in the middle of everything. To say, “Oh God, we are nothing but a piece of slime, a helpless pawn in the hands of destiny,” is ridiculous. We are the culmination of everything that has existed before. We are that growing tip, that exploring awareness, in touch with unimaginable potential. We are everything that can be. What can we do?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I meeting deeply buried memories from childhood, or the repressed parts of myself?

Do I have any feekings this might represent past lives?

Do I have unconscious fears or dreads of some sort?

See UnconsciousActing on your dreamWhat we need to remember about us

Catch Catching Caught

There are so many ways of using caught, catch and catching – as can be seen from the idioms below. So it is difficult to define the words easily.

Example: I saw my mom, sister and Aunt Ellen (she is deceased) on a hill by my dorms, and asked if they saw me graduate. They said they slept through it and thought they could catch me. I was angry with them.

This example could easily be seen under ‘see’ – “asked me if I saw me” instead of “catch me”. But consider if you did ‘catch’ someone in the sense illustrated, because it is a dream, it is really about catching themselves doing or not doing what is dreamt. See Dreams are a reflection of your inner world. So please read the idioms carefully and see if you can recognise any of them in the story of your dream. Then please use Easy Dream Understanding

Example: I went to pick her up to cuddle her, and she crawled away from me like we were playing a chase game. The daycare worker commented on how fast she is when she crawls. “I could barely catch her,” she said. When I was holding my baby in my arms, I felt so happy because I had been waiting so long to hold her.

Example: Usually I am swimming at the beach when the water would become rough and very dark and I am caught up in the waves and try to duck under the sea before the giant waves crash on me.

Idioms: catch 22; catch a buzz; catch a cold (catch cold); catch a glimpse; catch a plane/bus/train; catch a ride; catch as catch can; catch hell; catch it; catch me by surprise; catch me doing that; catch on; catch phrase; catch some rays; catch some z’s; catch the wave; catch up; catch up on; catch up with; catch you at a bad time; catch you later; catch you off guard; catch your death; catch your eye; there’s a catch to it; catch-up; play catch-up; caught dead; catch what they say; caught flatfooted; caught in the act; caught looking; caught red-handed; caught up; caught with his pants down; get caught; get caught up; wouldn’t be caught dead.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I caught or did I catch something or someone?

What was the action in the dream, and can I see it as indicating something in my life?

If I imagine myself in the dream what did I feel?

Try using Stand in role; Easy Dream Understanding

Caterpillar

Male sexuality. It can also depict prenatal forces of growth. Or sometimes destructive activities, like a bacteria, something causing disintegration.

Although sometimes the caterpillar in a dream refers to  sex in some way, it has many other associations. The caterpillar can transform from a grub like state, that sometimes depicts prenatal life and its power of growth, into a completely different creature – the butterfly or moth. So it can suggest the power in you that if cooperated with, can turn your life around from mere existence to life in a different dimension. Sometimes this links with enormous internal changes going on within.

Chrysalis and butterfly, crucifixion and resurrection, have the same significance. First there is death and burial, the caterpillar turning into chrysalis. Then a new creature is born and the resurrection takes place. These are symbols of the life of each one of us. We are all potential butterflies.

Example: Last night dreamt a science fiction sort of dream. I can only remember a small part of it. I was looking at a tiny caterpillar sort of creature. It was on the door of a cupboard, worm like, with a pointed burnt out looking tail. The thing was that the creature had within it the mind of a mature person. I was trying to communicate with it by holding up sheets of paper or cardboard on which Chinese script was written. I thought the being inside was of Chinese origin. Later in the dream I saw huge changes going on in the environment. I realised that the tiny creature and others like them were responsible for the enormous earthquake like changes occurring.

Example: Today my son dropped the container in which we had reared a beautiful caterpillar. It had shed one skin, grown to a wonderful size and loveliness, with enormous fur and shining colour. A few days ago it began to spin its web prior to becoming a chrysalis. It was dropped. It is now pulp, going moldy.

I loved that caterpillar. Like all things in the world, a small movement can destroy it. How many lovely children or people have been smeared upon the earth today.

Today, several days later, I saw that the caterpillar was not killed. Although the blow came while it was in its fluid condition it has transformed into a shining chrysalis. It is a symbol for me of the faith I must have in myself while I yield to love and life. I must trust myself to being undone, fluid, dispersed.

If there are destructive caterpillars: This suggests worries are eating up your emotional energy and destroying potential growth and positive change.

If moving to chrysalis stage: This suggests an urge to find environment in which to make changes in your life.

Chrysalis: Major change going on within yourself; a new aspect of yourself getting ready to emerge; desire to retreat from the world.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any sexual overtones in my dream – if so what do they suggest?

What were my feelings during the dream, and what do they link with – were they about personal growth, beauty, childhood, feeling grub like or what?

What is the process of change and growth I am facing?

Are worries eating away at me in some way?

Try using Acting on your dream; Talking As; Life’s Little Secrets

Cattle

It can often indicate the long suffering basic side of human nature, the which wakes, eats, works, eats again. Watches TV and has sex, without ever striving for anything except animal comforts. Sometimes depicts this side of self, the animal nature that is gradually transformed or left behind.

Cattle can also indicate the work scene where massive amount of people are used, milked and manipulated to be farmed by others.

 Example: I felt anger and loathing for what I felt at the time were the cattle human beings were. At the time I despised and hated them.  I also felt repugnance at the way people talked about sex or appeared to enjoy it.

Example: I see human beings was herded through the street like cattle. Not only that, for the most horrible thing about it was that those herded was walking with their knees and bare hands as if to say that they are four legged animals. They were led by three men and one of them at the rear to force them ahead if they hesitated to move due to long years of going through all sorts of ground surface, stony, rocky, etc. The friction they received was too much that their hands and feet was cut off or was on the point of doing so. Those that led them herded them through the streets, there was an alarm by the people at the approach of them.  Some ran away to avoid seeing such unearthly sight. They came to a certain place and I saw two of those men that led them in a shade, in the market. But of the other man and those that were herded like cattle.

 

 

 

Cave

It can represent a woman’s sex Organs, her womb, or experience of life in the womb, or prior to birth. Another possibility is contact with the past, with the inner life. Experiencing the past levels of consciousness, where treasures or fears may be found. Or we may find a spring, the source of our feelings or life.

Apart from a spring, there may be early man, or a snake in the cave. The ancient man is your earliest levels of consciousness. But the spring and snake can bring healing and peace, for you may have tapped deep sources of healing in such a dream.

Generally the cave represent your ability to withdraw into yourself in some way. Therefore it links with the possibility of experiencing earlier states such as those that were common to you in childhood, or even prenatal life.

Example: ‘I am in a large, airy cave like room. I am pregnant and wearing a white gown. I am lying on my back on a flat slab like surface with my legs drawn up.’ Joan D.

The cave is also an entrance to the unconscious. As such it may lead to completely different dimensions, environments or states of mind. The following dream illustrates this.

Example: I unblocked a hole in the cave and climbed through. It was like entering another dimension, for I was in a brilliantly lit room. In the room were many windows and doors. The room was in the shape of an arc, a semicircle. Looking out of one window I seemed to be looking at a Swiss landscape. The next window looked out on an entirely different place, and so with the third.  Eddie.

Entering the cave can therefore lead to re-experiencing life in the womb. But it links to the life beyond the restrictions of everyday awareness, linking our present self with all the links it has with the past and life itself. This is the path that eventually confronts us with the void we face at time of taking our next step in our personal evolution. We may experience this as an empty cave in which we thought there would be spiritual upliftment or treasure. This is a confrontation with the fact of our link with all things, in which we lose the sense of external things to find or rely on. In some dreams this leads to a real contact with the forces of our evolutionary journey. See Meeting Our Own Hugeness

Sometimes the cave appears in dreams dealing with your exploration of the deeper levels of your mind. So it depicts going back into the past levels of your consciousness, where treasures or fears may be found. This is like an inner archaeology. Or you may find a spring, the source of your feelings or life. Apart from the spring, there may be primitive humans, or a snake, in the cave. The spring and snake can bring healing and peace; in them you are touching the energy of your latent potential.

Example: This morning I woke up and as I opened my eyes and sat up there was this alien creature there in front of me. I was amazed and felt wonder because it was real and solid and was trying to communicate with me. I felt so much love for this strange creature and its attempts to communicate even though I couldn t understand what it was trying to say.

Christ is said to have been born in a cave, and this depicts your infinite potential being found in the ancient levels of your being. See: catacomb and crypt; unconscious; Archetype of Christlast few paragraphs in individuation.

Sometimes a cave has been man made by chipping away at the rock face.

Example: I have come across a cave dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found treasure in the cave.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.  Another person went in to get some of the treasure.  However, I knew that to have a treasure you had to answer a question put to you by something like a Guardian of the tunnel – maybe a sphinx. The person didn’t emerge and I knew they had not been able to answer the question.  But I heard the question I would be asking if I went for the treasure.  It was, “What goes into everything twice?” I thought the answer to be 1/2, but wasn’t sure.

The man who dreamt the above dreamt explored it fully. He says of it,  As the exploration begins I then start thinking about my life as it is at the moment and it is the work that I do, and the last big insight was in regard to preparing for the future and I wonder if I will find anything to add to that.  I have felt, for instance, that there are huge changes ahead, but I have no clear indication of what they might be for me personally yet. What I did find was that the cave is an absence of something.  It is the result of work done of clearing out, of chipping away at what was there.

This led to revealing what we consider to be treasure.  The treasure was there but it had not been revealed, it was part and parcel of the rock.  So I am left wondering what the something is inside the cave that asks the questions of those who enter.  I have a sense, not anything strong, but a sense that it is a question, or a questioning, that exists within me.  I feel that all of us perhaps have such innate questions; life itself questions how to survive, what it is.

Another feeling or thought that I have is the question that within the cave represents things that we need to deal with before we can actually access the treasure we have within ourselves.  What I mean by this is that we ask ourselves many questions that may divert our attention or energy, and those things that need to be in some way met before one can go any further. The question I met in the dream was, “ What goes into everything twice?” I think I know the answer.  It is a 1/2.  Divide anything by 1/2 and 1/2 goes into it twice.  But what significance that has I do not know.  The answer leaves as big a question in my mind as the question itself.

What I find interesting about the dream is that there are pieces of gold lying about outside the cave.  So one could gather a lot of treasure simply from what is already available.  There would be no need to enter the cave.  But there is the promise of enormous treasure inside.  It isn’t so much the wealth, but there is the impression that the treasure is not simply lumps of gold, but un-nameable things that one would find extremely valuable.  There is also the sense I have while that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

A question I asked myself now is, who are the men that come out with armfuls of treasure?  What aspects of myself are these men who had come out with the treasure?  Also – what part of myself – is the person who went into the cave and did not come out?  Is there a part of me trapped in the search, trapped in this inner exploration?

As I begin to feel my way into the question, I have a sense that the cave connects with the memory of my ancestral past.  This arises out of a feeling that both of them lead into the unknown, into a darkness that has not yet been fully explored.

I feel, as I enter more deeply into my wider awareness, that the men who came out with the treasure depict the enormous amount that I have mined from the long years of my exploring.  I have in fact already gathered enormous treasure.  Of course I still wonder what else there is left to find.

I am feeling that the person who went in and did not come out represents the unanswered questions that we all hold within ourselves.  Those questions of course keep us still within the mine, still seeking answers and understanding.  That is the part of self that continues to chip away at the rock face, knocking away the rock from the gold, uncovering more of the possibilities that were held within that solidity.

THE CAVE YOU FEAR TO ENTER HOLDS THE TREASURE YOU SEEK. - JOSEPH CAMPBELL [711-543] : r/QuotesPorn

We may find in the cave: A fear of madness or being lost; a sense of meeting the divine; our own traumas or destiny; a meeting with death and rebirth, or our long past.

The empty house/cave: There is an inner emptiness that is often thought of as nothingness. But that nothing is everything; if it were something it would be some-thing and therefore could not be everything. As such it is your core self.

When people think of emptiness they usually see it as a destruction of everything – a death of self. But the nothingness of the void is part of the paradox of existence – for the nothingness is at the same time everything. But everything is all inclusive. As such it cannot have any defined characteristics or shape, otherwise it wouldn’t be everything. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the Nothing is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of your life – you fundamental self.  The Next Step.

People often feel they are facing death. But what is death?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I trying to withdraw back into myself to avoid difficulties in life – if so what are they?

Am I experiencing deeper levels of myself in this dream, and if so how would I describe them?

What do I experience or find in the cave, and how does that link with my present stage of life?

Try using Processing Dreams; Associations Working With; Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

Cd

Can simply be the sort of pleasure you feel on listening to music; the impressions left on you by events, people – therefore memory, but often memory integrated by the unconscious into insights; information you have gathered; the impression we might leave behind at death – what remains of us; the impression we would like to give others. Idioms: For the record; track record..

Cd Video Computer Game

There could be several associations to choose from with this, so you need to consider the rest of the dream to decide which is appropriate. It could relate to the sort of pleasure you get, or the relaxed feeling that arises when you listen to music. It might also link with memory, or the impressions you leave with people that play in their feelings even when you are not there.

Video: If it is of yourself, it is a view of yourself as you were at the time of the video. Or it is an independent view of a person or life situation. Bother worth investigating.

If it is of yourself, it is a view of yourself as you were at the time of the video. Or it is an independent view of a person or life situation. Both are worth investigating. Seeing a video of yourself often shows an aspect of you that you were not aware of. See if you can define what the differences are.

Computer games – see Computer Games

 Example: So, the dream first is portrayed as a video game and the main character is me and I’m in a castle but it’s actually a school too. I’m talking to people I don’t really know if my life. But then I go up stairs searching for items in closets just like a video game. Then the video game style stops. Then I am going down dark halls upstairs that no one is in still checking closets. Then I come to a closet that has a light on. I open the door and it’s a bright room full of clothes and there is a man in there who looks like he is from the circus. He is giving me women’s clothes to try on. (I’m a boy by the way so this is cross dressing). I try and lock the door so nobody will come in, but the lock is broken. The last part of the dream is I’m searching for a bra and can’t find one. So, what does this all mean?

This young man is trying out roles to see what fits him. He is doing it like playing a video game because he knows no harm can come to him – it’s just a game. Even so he doesn’t want people to see what he is doing in cross dressing.

Watching videos: While watching something you are in a very special state of mind or being, for you are opening your being to massive impressions and allowing them in some degree to play the keyboard of your feelings and emotions. See Keyboard Condition

See Being the Person or ThingRecord player – record – cassette – cd – computer disc

 

 

 

 

Ceiling

The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity; the height or range of your imagination; your mental limit or boundary.

Protection, security, against the life’s difficulties, so protection against the storms of life. Something above your head, or out of reach. The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity, the height or range of your imagination, or your mental limit or boundary, so a boundary of ideas or awareness. If you live in a flat with people above you, the ceiling can mean the things other people do that enter your life, interfere with it, or even damage you in some way. See house and buildings.

The ceiling is often the place where we find ourselves the first time we experience being out of our body. So it can indicate higher awareness or an approach to the spiritual dimension.

In many dreams awful or frightening things come from or through the ceiling. This shows they are creations of your own mind, coming through the boundary of your imaginations. Of course sometimes a wonderful light or being comes through the ceiling.

 Example: I walked past the photo stat. room. Two girls came out into passageway, TERRIBLY distressed and spoke of Satan. I went into the room and saw Satan in the upper corner of the ceiling leering down and mocking head and shoulders. I calmed the girls and everything became okay. Mr. A. A.

Example: I’m in a flat in a skyscraper; I don’t like it very much because in real life I’m frightened by heights and this is a very high flat. There are some friends of my partner into alternative lifestyle; there is a girl who would like to make love with my partner. I feel there is a connection between them. We are in fact on the top flat so I can see the sky through the ceiling made of glass. There is a huge eagle; it is so huge I can only see his head, his eye and his big wings. I feel it is huge and it is looking like some kind of bigger awareness, looking at human life and at me, it has got to do with a wider consciousness above us and around.

Example: ‘I have to keep walking because there is something I am afraid of behind me. When I am pressed up against the ceiling being crushed I look down and the stairs and banister rail are swarming alive with a black moving wave of crawling things, like some awful insects. In the hallway is a swamp with crocodiles and other hideous things. My terror is terrible. The person who actually lived in this part of the house was the owner’s mother. She treated me badly but no one knew as she was artful in her abuse. She pulled me along by my hair, locked me in a cupboard, and once locked me in the orchard – four high walls and a hidden door.’ Rita

 

Idioms: hit the ceiling; scrape me off the ceiling.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel any sense of security or protection against difficulties?

Is something over my head, or out of reach?

Could this show mental or creative limits or boundaries?

Or does a feeling or horror intrude?

See Talking AsProcessing Dreams

Celebrity

Meeting or being a celebrity may show that you desire to be noticed and acclaimed. Or the famous person may be your own potential, often unacknowledged, and projected onto dream character.

If you are deferring to the character, or feeling they have power over you, they may be showing how you relate to a parent.

If you have difficulty relating to the famous person, you may be struggling with accepting yourself as respected, or your desire ambitions and efforts to become successful.

Sometimes: The person may, because of their life or role, represent a particular quality such as courage, love, ‘ruling’ drives in life, authority, etc.

Celibacy Celibate

The sexual urge is one of the most pressing and often troubling. Not as pressing as breathing or drinking/eating, but often more trouble to manage well.

Celibacy in dreams is not something that is often dreamt about in our modern climate where sexual feelings are used to advertise everything.  In the West, we have been influenced by a dualistic outlook where everything sexual was seen as unholy through the influence of the early Christian church. Sexual desire was seen as the work of the devil. See The Con About Evil

This swings backwards and forwards, until in the present age sex is seen as a wonderful thing, despite all the crimes committed and the failures in relationship.

There is a lot of false information given about celibacy; that it is a wonderful spiritual discipline that will bring great results, or that it is bad for your health. I know from personally been celibate for seven years of my life without ever ejaculated, that they are both right.

The body and the mind are all of one thing. Sexual energy if withheld or expressed frequently has a powerful influence on the mind. If withheld and not dealt with well it can lead to powerful neurosis. It can lead to flights of imagination because it is the energy of life and creation. If handle well it can also lead to growth of personal awareness and maturity.

If we admit that we are not simple a spiritual being but also a body that has in it wonderful functions such as digestion, thinking and also destruction ending in faeces we will remain with out feet on the ground and our awareness in heaven. We are a Part as well as the Whole.

When a new level of accessibility opens to us it feels like a dramatic event, a new level of experience, and manifests as further maturity. The new level of maturity offers access to greater power and opportunity, but it also brings with it new responsibilities. It is like an inverse balancing. The less that is available to us, the more we can be intensely egotistic and individually possessive or seeking personal rewards such as money, sex, fame. The more that is available the less personal, the less self-centredness is involved. So that I see grades of possessiveness, grades of dependence upon possessions and role, grades of personal sexuality. Within the grades of great access, need for personal possessions drops away, need for a personal sexual relationship drops away. That is not to say that simply by acting out celibacy or poverty that this inner availability occurs. It occurs because one has matured through growth and endeavour to that point. It occurs because one can ACTUALLY meet, be conscious of, the huge Whole, and not draw back because one has not met ones own childhood pains, ones own secret lusts, ones own hidden motivations. If this maturity is attained, life opens it treasures to you.

We can use our sexual energies to create from within something of you that is an expression of your core self, your destiny and creativeness.

In this way you may achieve some of the spiritual gifts such Using as healing, devotion, serving or worshipping God, serving humanity. (People with strong sexual urges are potentially powerful healers. Priests and nuns do not take vows of celibacy without good reason. Strong sex desires are actually spiritual desires not yet recognised and harnessed.) It is up to you to decide how you will use those energies. Tiredness After Sex

But the expression of real, deep love can sometimes be felt as a balancing of male-female energies resulting in an uplifting, inspiring, and even spiritual experience. But my main experience of avoiding physical sex is that it can stimulate a meeting with ones inner female or male. This is a really wonderful integration with each other.

Example: I was still holding my mother’s hand and gradually a felt change occurred. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of love and the being of Christ there with me and holding me. He said “I held your hand a long time ago when I made you mine. But I have never let go of you.” That realisation tore me open and I cried so much knowing the presence was and always had been with me. He said, “I am with you as a baby, as a youth, as a man, and even as an old man – who people call God.” And I saw him there in all ages, knowing as I felt all this that the wonderful being could meet me at any point. I couldn’t help feeling enormous waves of emotion flowing through as I realised all this. But there was even more to come.

He reminded me that in our culture he was seen in a particular form, but that was because we are from a male dominated past. In other cultures he is known by many names, such as Krishna and Rhada the male and female. But while I was in this wonderful sate I was shown that He/ It could be any form, because It was Life itself, and was everything and everywhere. And that was when I experienced the divine union in holy marriage.

Example: I also saw that the spirit woman and I were a combination of much that had occurred in my inner/dream life. For instance the sharing minds with the alien woman; the merging with the female side of me; the Chinese woman who smashed into my body and so became flesh of my flesh, and so on; so all that potential might be part of this me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel about being celibate?

What was I doing in the dream?

Have I ever been celibate?

See Secrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

Cell – Mobile Phone

For many people it is their constant means of communication, for others it doesn’t figure in their life.

Desire or attempt to communicate or being communicated with. An attempt to make contact with an aspect of oneself or someone else.

The cellphone can also have the meaning of reaching to, or becoming aware of the huge potential of the mind, or of consciousness. This is because via the telephone new people, new aspects of life previously unknown, can be experienced

Dreamer not answering phone: Avoiding contact or communication; someone is trying to ‘get through’ to you.

No reply to dreamers call: Feeling someone is out of contact with you, not aware of your feelings; having a feeling of being alone in the world, or nobody being there for you.

Emergency call: Probably a crisis in your relationship or life; reaching out for help; moral dilemma.

Telephone number: If it is of someone known, most likely an attempt to communicate with that person.

 Example: The Company did it all. All it asked of me was to wear a little gadget like a mobile phone. It represented intuition. I was told that if there was a big move within the Company I would be told what it was, and if I wished to I could co-operate.

Example: I dreamed I had been away from my boyfriend for two days exactly. I soon returned to his cell phone to call and did not answer, then someone told me that he had gone too far and apparently intended to return. I felt a horrible despair and kept calling his cell phone until I finally answered and it was a woman, who told me that he had sold the phone to time and had apparently decided to take a trip and not return, I felt a terrible sadness and started to mourn inconsolably, pulling me down and not stopping mourning, I worried about my future and my son, but without any consolation. I felt horrible waking as if it were real.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who did you or who did you try to communicate with?

Was the communication successful – if not why not?

What was the communication about?

See Using Your IntuitionDigestionEdgar CayceIncubating Dreams

 

 

Cellar

See: Basement; Cave.

Cemetery

You are probably dealing with thoughts and feelings about death, your family heritage of attitudes or traditions. In a few cases, the dream may be a form of contact with someone you know who is dead. The cemetery may also refer to things in your life you have ‘buried’; melancholy about life or feeling ‘different’ to other people; a relationship, which you think is ‘dead and buried’. See graveDreaming of Death

Depicts our thoughts and feelings regarding death and therefore our family and cultural heritage of attitudes or traditions relating to death. In western white stock who have been raised in a culture dominated by a materialistic view of life, the image of the graveyard often includes feelings of limited time left to live, of death as a final end, of death as a morbid corruption that is the concluding goal or meaning of life.

The cemetery can also indicate your personal contact with the dead. By this is meant either a very real meeting with the essence of the dead person, or a fuller experience of what you carry within you of them through your relationship with them.

The cemetery, and especially graves, can point to things you have ‘buried’ – memories or love, pain or guilt that you have suppressed or tried to hide from. Therefore it might indicate a relationship that we think is ‘dead and buried’. See Difficult Relationship

If you are an introverted person the graveyard can link with feelings of being melancholy about life or feeling ‘different’ to other people. See Archetype of death

Example: During a major operation I dreamt I saw my little daughter – dead for many years – standing in a corn field. When she was actually buried the cemetery was skirted by a corn field, and later in life, coming to terms with this early death of a child, I imagined my daughter walking into the corn field. In the dream I walked into the corn field. My daughter was waiting for me with her arms held up. I put my arms to her and we greeted each other smiling. At that point I felt it wasn’t time to die yet, turned and walked out of the corn field. Ken S.

Example: I was walking by a riverbank near a cemetery. As I walked and drew near to the cemetery, I saw submerged in the river a record player-in fact my record player. I walked into the river and pulled it out.

Prior to this dream he had experienced several dreams showing the river being blocked, or silted up, or made sluggish with reeds and weeds, and in this dream he was walking in the direction the river flowed, it being clear and free flowing. The river is the flow of his life, showing the energies of growth and creativity, the energies underlying emotions, thinking and sexuality. The dream shows him as consciously following their flow. The cemetery is the many past lives buried within him. The record player is the faculty of memory covered up by the emotions or flow of his inner life, but now he is bringing this faculty to the surface. He felt this dream had something to do with past lives, but was far from being sure.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling in regard to this cemetery or the graves in it – and where does that feeling appear in my life?

Am I meeting feelings about death here – if so what are they and can I really feel them?

What have I buried that is being met in this dream?

Am I feeling a contact or memory of someone who has died?

See Dead HusbandTalking AsEasy Dream Understanding

Centaur

Human nature has arisen out of the instinctive and powerful experiences of animal life and consciousness. The centaur is a beautiful image of this mixture of animal and human that we still are, and often deny. The techniques of yoga are in some ways an attempt to unite the two in harmony. The word yoga actually means unite or join together, like the word yoke.

Dreams often remind us of this connection, and how we may be ignoring it and losing the wonderful advantages of linking our conscious personality with this much older level of ourselves. So the centaur in our dream shows that you are in some way meeting and relating to this part of you. See: Horse.

This might be reference to your sun sing Sagittarius. As such it is said to deal with: Physically it is related to the pelvis, hips and thighs. It is said to have a masculine nature, and is therefore more active in its energy expression.

As a Fire sign it is connected with the identity – specifically with the search to find a deeper meaning in human existence. It is therefore connected with religious and philosophical urges. As a Mutable sign, planets placed here express their energy in a flexible and changeable manner, with a certain restlessness or inconstancy. Sagittarius in characterised by a love of truth and righteousness, and an unfortunate tendency to express it rather too directly, even when not asked.

There is a love of open horizons and travel and a need to expand on an inner intellectual level. There is a pronounced urge to rise above the animal nature towards the divine, and an impatience with the trivial issues in life. A dislike of superficiality may result in intolerance for the ordinary niceties between people

Useful questions:

In what way am I relating to the centaur, and what does that suggest?

Did my dream centaur communicate with me in any way, and if so what?

Have I recently been experiencing an awareness of things previously not met?

See Levels (Brain)Talking AsActing on your dream

Centipede

It depends on what you feel about insects. If you are scared of them then it can be you are feeling an old fear of insects. If you are not frightened then it can mean something that is irritating or uncomfortable.  See insect

Example: I was looking at a big kennel, and this one was full of straw. I thought perhaps I ought to set fire to the straw to clean it, but before I did so I took hold of the straw and lifted it. It seemed as if as I lifted there was a bottom surface which enabled me to look under it easily. Lifting it I could see the actual floor surface of the kennel and it was writhing with what I thought were worms. As I looked at them more clearly, and they were completely covering the floor, I realise they were not worms but centipedes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the centipede doing in my dream and what did I feel about it?

What associations do I have with centipedes? See Associations Working With

Do I feel like it is not a good dream? See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Also see Talking AsProcessing Dreams

Centre Middle

If it is a person or thing in the middle of somewhere, an event or something, then your dream is emphasising the importance of the thing or person.

If the middle is between opposite: This suggests either conflict or balance, depending upon the feelings in the dream.

Emphasises the importance of the thing, person or animal in that position. It can indicate conflict where the middle is between opposites or obstruction when something might be in the middle of the road, corridor, etc. Or it could be feelings of being involved, when in the middle of a crowd for instance.

When something is in the middle of a circle or square can represent contact or awareness of you core self or Spirit.

If it is a centre such as a garden or educational center: Use things like Easy Dream Understanding to define the dream and its meaning.

If you are in the middle of something such as an exam or having sex: Use things like Easy Dream Understanding and Talking As

Idioms: Middle of the road; piggy in the middle; centre of attention.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the middle or centre mean to you?

What is this the center of? Use Talking As to define.

Does this represent the unchanging core of myself, beyond thoughts and feelings?

Am I tapping into the unseen power behind my life?

See Acting on your dream and Easy Dream Understanding

Centrifuge Centripetal

An influence that is pushing you outward or away from a centre, person or thing. A centripetal force pulling you toward a central point would be the opposite. It might indicate powerful feelings in yourself, or fears

If you are pulled into the middle of something it may also link with the mysterious life that is in ‘the middle’ or centre of all things. Or it may suggest the growth or beginning of something, the emergence from the mystery in the centre. It may also suggest pregnancy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling as if a powerful force or influence is at work in my life at the moment – if so what is happening to me?

Do I feel pulled into or pushed out of something or a relationship?

How have I described this force in the dream, and what does that suggest?

Use Talking AsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ceremony Ritual

Your dream is probably emphasising something that is taking place in your life. For instance at puberty your body carries you from youth to manhood or womanhood. This is an incredibly important event, yet society seldom acknowledges you as a changed person. Your dream may do this, and even reveal some of the mysterious new qualities you have ass you move from one stage of life to another.

Similar to initiation. Such dream ceremonies or rituals often mark a point of change or transition, as ceremonies do in waking life – baptism, marriage, graduation, etc.

Ritual is also used to focus feeling or sexual energy in some way to gain an effect, such as healing or insight. So a ritual can point to important change – such as entrance into puberty; entrance into deeper levels of yourself; the opening of new attitudes or skills, just as marriage is an entrance into a new type of life and social situation.

As with marriage, a ritual can mark a promise of some kind. But occasionally rituals are the performance of habits – a ritualistic carrying out of actions that no longer have meaning or feelings attached to them.

Our unconscious has a wider sense of self, and things are seen as important that we might consciously feel are trivial. A ceremony in a dream brings such things to our attention.

In the example the girl is with her boyfriend. She may thus have been ‘initiated’ into sexual activity. Sex with her boyfriend has changed her image of herself.

Example: ‘A ritual began whereby a large knife was drawn and a few deep cuts were made to both our faces. I put my hands to my face and saw them covered with blood, crying and crying.’ O. S.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening in this ceremony, and what change, promise or new way of life is suggested?

Have I recently begun a new phase of my life, and is of what does it involve me in?

In what way am I involved in this – and what way am I involved in what I face in life?

Use Techniques for Exploring your DreamsTalking As

Certificate

Suggests the achievement of a new skill, or reaching a new phase of your growth or maturity. It can also link with feelings of confidence in your ability to attain a goal. See: Prize.

These are an indication that you have passed an exam or are now qualified in some way. They are sometimes man made distinctions and dreams often point out important things for you in regard to getting recognition and authority.

Example: I remember standing a room a few days after the baby was born and thinking “I should call my dad and tell him that I had the baby.” But I couldn’t remember when the baby was born so I got the birth certificate and I started looking for the birth date and how much he weighed at birth, but it wasn’t a birth certificate it was some type of paper that I couldn’t understand so I gave up on looking.

The thing about the birth certificate is important. It is saying that there is something you do not understand about your baby and its background. It was a dream baby without a father and known background. Because you do not understand your dream baby you could not understand what was said on the paper. I believe it was telling you that Life gave you this baby, and it will grow in you to change your life. It is small and vulnerable so take care of it.

Example: So, I’ve decided to attend a week long Dream Retreat at the Haden Institute, in part to see if I want to partake of the dream certification program. Around here, it seems one needs some sort of “authority” or “certificate” to be taken seriously in anything. I also have to balance that in myself – do I feel I need a certificate to be an effective dream worker? How much does my self-worth have to do with having or not having a “certificate”? So, I am hoping that attending this retreat will help me sort out that answer. I remember your words on this issue – how much you have been able to accomplish on your own.

Example: I was getting ready for the next level. But the whole dream was about these divisions or the sense of divisions – such as the dividing lines between the levels of experience. I find it difficult to define exactly what the pervading feeling was. There was a growing internal struggle though and a questioning. It may have been that I felt the divisions between the experiences were artificial – just as I feel, looking at Maria’s certificates of courses taken in massage and Reiki, that humans artificially create denomination to make them saleable or profitable – we create differences and demarcations for our own profit.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I seeking or have got a certificate?

Do I have any certificates in waking life – if so what do I associate with them? See Associations Working With

Do I feel the need for certification?

See Processing Dreams and Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cesspool Cesspit

All those parts of self, such as values, emotions, desires, ideas, hopes, that have been passed out of our living system and become the corruptible parts of human nature that become manure for new growth; and faeces can also represent money or riches, fertility. Such a dream image may also suggest decay, a part of yourself or society cut off from life and growth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing in connection with the cesspool?

Was I threatened by it or did I see it as opportunity?

What was the outcome of the dream and would I like to change it?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming and Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Chain Chained Chains

Very often a chain depicts restriction of some sort. The restriction might be in the form of dependence upon someone, or it might be in the form of imposed constraint. We might feel ‘chained’ to our marriage partner or work, or we may be chained by mental attitudes or habits. See: example in abandoned.

Chains have not only been imposed on prisoners, but also slaves, to stop them escaping. Women working in the sex trade often wore a chain around their ankle, and this probably has links with past servitude also.

A chain can be used to show strength or a powerful or even protective force. In this sense the image may suggest a serious of events – links – which lead to the present situation. Or the dream might point to the links in the chain – a connection broken by breaking any one of the links, or that is broken by a weak link.

Example: ‘My Mother asked me to go and buy some butter for her. A chain on my left leg prevented me from going very far. I look down the road and see my Mum, Dad and my four brothers in the back of a car. I wave and call and they drive right past me, going over the chain I am wearing on my leg.’ Lorraine. LBC.

Lorraine’s dream illustrates not only her feelings of being left out of family life, but also the chain on her leg shows her not fully independent.

Jewellery chains obviously suggest something different, and have been used from the beginning of human history. Originally they were probably seen as a form of magic. In other words, if a woman wore a certain ornament it made her more attractive to men. Of if a man wore something that his fellows didn’t have, it made others respect or notice him. So it was felt the chain was a form of magic. This type of ‘magic’ is still used by men and women today, helping people to feel more confident in their relationships and undertakings. As happens with people wearing a St. Christopher or a cross on a chain.

Chains have also been used to denote an official social position, and so might depict authority in some form.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the chain in my dream doing – is it a restriction or a link with something?

Is this suggesting strength, if so what does it refer to in my life?

What am I chained to or dependent upon?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Avoid Being VictimsQuestions

Chair

It suggests a passive, relaxed attitude or inactivity. It can indicate receptivity or openness or even escapism – escapism if you regularly sit in a chair to read or watch TV as a form or escapism.

If it is your chair it probably represent your rights or position. If you are relaxed in the chair maybe you need to rest or relax.

Putting things under a chair might be like sweeping things under the carpet – getting them out of sight or unnoticed.

A chair can be a place you have stayed in for years, attitudes, feelings, harboured anger that you have not moved out of.

Example: I called out to one person not to go because it looked dangerous, but she ran off. I stayed in that chair for twenty years. When I decided to come down, I was fifty years old and all of that activity was over. I had no emotions, and when I went down, it looked quite a distance. Before I went down, I had to get out of the chair, which was on a shaky and narrow balcony. I needed some help to get out of the chair.

 

Placing of chair in group: Sense of status or importance.

Wheelchair: An in-valid situation; a sense of weakness or illness.

If pushing someone else: Seeing self as carrying an invalid part of you.

Baby’s high chair: This could mean you are acting as a child, not being responsible or not in control.

Standing on a chair: A need for care, because it might indicate an unsafe position.

 

Example: At the end of the promenade was a path which we took. The path went along the top of a cliff. The sea below was pretty rough, a typical Autumn day at the seaside. All of a sudden the path came to an end and there was a steep slope to the right which led down to the beach, I decided to turn right and go down the slope. When we got half way down the slope the path started to give way on the left and I found myself without enough room for the four wheels of the wheelchair. I was desperately holding on, tilting the wheelchair to the right to keep it balanced on the two right wheels when my husband got panicky in the chair and moved. The chair tilted to the left and fell down the rocks. I started running down the path towards the beach, towards my husband and the wheelchair. I never reached the wheelchair or my husband because I awoke and that was the end of the dream. ‘ Mrs C.

Example: ‘I was in a house that I lived in many years ago, how I got there I do not know, but I saw myself sitting in an ordinary chair just behind the closed front street door. It was very quiet, and I was afraid, but I did not make any effort to move.’ Ms J.

Idioms: grab a chair; have a chair; musical chairs; play musical chairs; shuffle the chairs on the deck.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I doing in relation to the chair?

Is it another person in or using the chair? See Characters and People in Dreams

Was it a chair I know? See Associations Working with

Try using Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Chakras

See chakras; energy sex and dreams.

Chameleon

Changing emotions, instability, lack of stability or sense of duty. Will change values to suit outer events, rather than be true to promises or duty; or adaptability.

Something or someone that is overlooked or seems part of the background.

But a chameleon can represent the means we use to adapt to what others see us as –  I quote from Eric Fromm’s book Escape from Freedom, “A personality offered to you by cultural patterns; and you therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect you to be. The discrepancy between “I” and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness. This mechanism can be compared with the protective coloring some animals assume. They look so similar to their surroundings that they are hardly distinguishable from them. The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.”

Of course you can also master this as a shape shifter blending in and yet maintaining your own individuality. Either ones desire to fade into the background, or adaptability. So perhaps like a shape shifter who can be many different things. Or the trained hunter or predator who makes himself of herself blend in to approach the victim. See Avoid Being Victims

Example: ‘My wife and I saw a large lizard on the wall near a banana. It was there to catch the flies. The lizard turned so it was facing away from us – head up the wall. We then were able to see it had large wing like flaps that spread from its head in an inverted V. With amazement we saw on these flaps wonderful pictures, in full colour, of birds. In fleeting thoughts I wondered if the bird ‘paintings’ were to attract birds, or were some form of camouflage. But I felt certain the lizard had ‘painted’ these wonderful pictures with its unconscious art.’ David T.

In the example the banana is both David’s pleasure and sexuality, while the lizard is the creativity emerging from his unconscious through the attention he is giving it – in other words he is looking at the lizard, his instinctive life, through exploring his dreams. See the information about the reptilian brain under brain levels and dreams.

In this next example it can be seen how allowing the influence of the instinctive ‘lizard’ life into awareness is strengthening.

Example: As we were walking something touched my leg or ankle. It was some sort of alien lizard type creature. I realised it had scratched me and thereby put something into my bloodstream. There was slight anxiety about what this would do, but as I stood wondering I could feel some change going on with my hand and wrists. I looked at my right wrist and saw it had become thicker and stronger. It looked really powerful, and I could feel the same sort of change and strength occurring throughout my body. It was like a positive viral attack. As we walked along further the changes deepened. All of us were now changing and metamorphosing, a process we were learning to direct or change in some degree. I remember making my head bullet proof and my body almost armoured with a sort of scaled chitin.

Just after this dream a massive storage heater in my cottage fell on my right foot as I was cleaning it. The pain was awful and a large swelling came up immediately as if the impact had burst a blood vessel or broken bones. It was about two inches across. I thought I had crushed my foot, but was relieved to see I could just about move a couple of toes. The pain was too much to do more. Within an hour and a half all the swelling had gone and the pain was disappearing. By the evening my foot appeared normal apart from small abrasions. This was so amazing I wept to see how my body healed itself so quickly. The next day I went for a long walk with a friend without any pain.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel as if you are fading into the background or a shape shifter?

What was your feeling or reaction to seeing the chameleon?

Did anything happen to you in the dream?

Try using  Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsLife’s Little Secrets

Champagne

See: Alcohol.

Champion

The champion in a dream can be an indication of what you see as your highest ability and reward. It is the expression of your best, and as it says in the second example, he has done incredible things, travelled incredible difficulties to get to this point.

So the champion can be a representation of the highest in you, an almost god like figure, or a problem solver expressing your best.

As Jung says in Man and His Symbols:

“The animus, just like the anima, exhibits four stages of development. He first appears as a personification of mere physical power-for instance, as an athletic champion or “muscle man.” In the next stage he possesses initiative and the capacity for planned action. In the third phase, the animus becomes the “word,” often appearing as a professor or clergyman. Finally, in his fourth manifestation, the animus is the incarnation of meaning. On this highest level he becomes (like the anima) a mediator of the religious experience whereby life acquires new meaning. He gives the woman spiritual firmness, an invisible inner support that compensates for her. outer softness. The animus in his most developed form sometimes connects the woman’s mind with the spiritual evolution of her age, and can thereby make her even more receptive than a man to new creative ideas. It is for this reason that in earlier times women were used by many nations as diviners and seers. The creative boldness of their positive animus at times expresses thoughts and ideas that stimulate men to new enterprises”.

Example: I was with my partner and he wanted to have sex with me in a very male way. I felt embarassed and uneasy because I felt the children could come in, (in reality our bedroom door is not very safe), so I decided we were going somewhere better. I chose the toilets of a secondary school when all the children were busy in the classroom, I went to the toilets and took my panties down, it was quite sexy, Thierry was outside the door, inside came a young man who was watching me, he was attractive and he told me he was a motobike’s champion in the US. I felt sexually attracted by him.

Example: I am some sort of sports champion who has done incredible things, travelled incredible difficulties to get to this secretary and I want her to tell me why I can’t play, but she has gone to sleep in my arms. I am being threatened by some security agent, but he won’t hurt me while the girl is in my arms.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What stage of Jung’s definition was your champion?

Were you the champion or was it an external character? See Characters and People in Dreams to define the character.

Do you feel a connection with the champion?

See carry the dream forwardTalking with a dream characterBecause Factor

Change Adaptation

Indications of great personal change are shown in dreams of earthquakes, or tsunamis, storms, of meeting with a great woman or man, an angel or Christ like figure; an initiation; or meeting with death or something that is usually seen as terrifying that you often meet with fear, but are tremendous natural forces within you that are trying to change you.

Each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through middle age and old age, Then through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change; and is fought like hell by many as we are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death.

Other things might be that you have a vision or a voice of someone you can’t see giving you advice. If you see in a dream or vision like experience a great circle or mandala it is also a sign or change you are facing.

None of these are signs of difficult change. That is because dreams are like a mirror of that inner world – and in your dream you can see only what YOU have created, a world that might scare you silly, uplift you, instruct you, initiate you into new realms of yourself or even look deep into your body. Whatever you believe in is the world you live in, for belief, whether it is belief that ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’, or that that you creat your own future by your actions will  be shown in the mirror of your dreams, So why not let go of the prison walls you may have created and live in a world of possibilities? See Magic Mirror of Dreams – Makes Inner

Dreams of shipwreck, or car crashes and awful storms at sea or through wind are also signs of change that need to be met with understanding. See Avoid Being Victims

Remember that fundamentally you are a survivor – you were the survivor of millions of sperms. You have survived so far and have in you the power to meet whatever life brings. See Life’s Little Secrets

Change means moving or swinging from one long established way of thinking and living to something new. Sometimes the swing from one to the other makes you feel as if you have lost the security of the old way and have not reached the new, so are left uncertain and without any clear sense of what is happening. If you understand this it helps you to feel more sure swinging in space.

Dreams are like computer games in which you get very involved and face monsters and kill or be killed and nothing has actually happened – you are still alive and unhurt. But in this wonderfully alive virtual reality of your dreams we are all playing the game of life – the game we play in which we face or run away from the things that scare us; in which we explore the depths of our existence or learn how to love – or simply meet a reflection of our own weakness, terror and of course the wonder of your inner genius. For that is all it is – a magic mirror in which we see ourselves naked of pretense.

So use your dreams and play them instead of running away. Face change as the great opportunity and use it as a skill.

Adaptation or being able to adapt to change is one of the great abilities that our species learnt.

“It is an understandable fact that throughout all anthropological studies man has been found to look for an answer and meaning to life and to escape from or adapt to hostile internal or external environment with the aid of drugs. Throughout the many thousands of years of evolution, a number of adaptations had to be made in order to allow man to integrate the various stimuli and to develop a system which would enable him to remain alive and reproduce himself and to function as a social unit.

New areas of the brain had to be developed not only to integrate, but also to inhibit primitive, survival-orientated impulses and to enable him to store stimuli and act on them later. It is this ability to defer action and to act in a purposeful and objective rather than in an instinctive way that distinguishes the well-integrated man from the child, the primitive man or the neurotic.

As man’s awareness of himself as a separate character developed, new problems arose out of the need to identify, without which he could not sense the needs of others, and without which he could not feel personal guilt. The awareness of oneself as a separate individual and the creation of anxiety which had to be coped with rationally, created the need of a secondary process by which the individual can learn to cope effectively with internal and external threats. Thus we can reconcile the idea of the ego-formation and the physical idea of inhibition.” See Life’s Little Secrets

 Example: I recall this historical building with a river beside it and I was with this man who was wading his way across the river with a spear or pole he was using to check the depth as he moved. Suddenly the spear went deep and he caught something and pulled it up. It was a metal plug to a drain that looked like a giant thimble. The river began draining into a tunnel or basement area of the building. I somehow knew that the water would reveal some sort of treasure in the building in an area that was hidden before. I then looked upstream and I saw a wide and beautiful view of the river as it flowed toward us and there was a waterfall and hundreds of large rocks that were all very smooth and rounded from being in the river. The rocks were scattered all the way up the river and even in the waterfall. Some of the rocks were even moving down through the drain into the tunnel below. I then noticed how the drain plug had been blocking the flow of the river to this underground place for a long time and I knew that it had been put there by men.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Remember that fundamentally you are a survivor – you were the survivor of millions of sperms. You have survived so far and have in you the power to meet whatever life brings.

What great changes have you faced?

How about the change at birth or teenage?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming Dream YogaLife’s Little Secrets

 

Chapel

See: church chapel temple.

Chariot

The difference between this and car lies in it being drawn by horses. It therefore shows how your internal spontaneous feelings, or your natural processes, such as growth and ageing, are carrying you along. See: Horse; Car.

Charity Shop

Usefulness of the useless – the discovery of value in what has been discarded. Searching for our needs or things we want, recycling past experience. Also things such as ideas, skills, attitudes, we have got from other people, or ones own discarded or forgotten experience. See: Shop.

It might also point to searching for your needs or things you want in an unorthodox way or places. Also the recycling of past experience; the giving away or clearing out of things and memories that are no longer part of the mainstream in your life. Your own discarded or forgotten experience.

Things such as ideas, skills, attitudes, you have got from other people.

Example: Then I was caught up in the crowds again, partly standing back watching the whole cavalcade of what was happening. Apparently it was a big civic event connected with raising money for a charity. Some nuns were involved and I knew they had come out of a closed convent to be in the crowd. They had collecting bowls for people to drop money in. As a sort of emphasis some women who were collecting had put many coins in their bras, so as they walked one could hear the chinking and see their breasts/coins bobbing up and down. Some of the nuns were in wheel chairs and looked quite crippled.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I find or am looking for in the shop, and am I looking for that in waking?

What interaction do I have with the shop, and what does that suggest?

Am I buying or selling – searching or giving away?

See Talking AsProcessing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Chase Chased Chasing

Anything moving toward you in a dream usually signifies that you are becoming more aware of it, feeling it more intensely. So being chased in a dream usually denotes that you are feeling something you fear more intensely and are trying to avoid confronting it. This is not usually a good policy, as you can never get away from yourself.

If you are chasing something it shows what you are making an effort to gain in life, but the thing you are pursuing might be difficult to arrive at, possible because of your own feelings about attaining it.

Many dreams in which you are pursued illustrate how you are running away from certain feelings or fears. The way the action of the dream unfolds depicts how you deal with the things that you try to escape from.

The example below shows how we can be pursued by fears or emotions, and can either continue to avoid them or face them. We are, in a real sense, pursued by what we have created with our thoughts, emotions, action and inaction. What we are avoiding might be sexual feelings; responsibility; expressing what we really feel in public; our fear of death; sense of failure; guilt; emotional pain; childhood trauma; grief – but it might be our creativity; our love; our passionate response to living; our deepest wisdom and oneness with things; the ancient power of life in us. You can never escape from yourself however much you try, so such feelings may pursue you throughout your life unless you turn and meet them.

Example: ‘Three men with clubs were chasing me but never actually caught me as I woke in terror. I was determined to tell myself it was only a dream and the next night as they were chasing me I remembered it was only a dream and lost all fear – stopped running – turned to face them and said ‘This is only a dream, you can’t hurt me.’ As they came closer they faded into nothing and I never saw them again.’ Account of dreams when 6 years old. Mr C.

By animal: Your passions; anger; natural feelings. See What does the animal in my dream mean.

By THING or shadowy creature: Usually past experience or trauma such as a hurt from childhood. It is also sometimes our own wonderful potential we are avoiding through fears such as what it might lead to – success, love? See:  archetype of the shadow

Chased by opposite sex: Afraid of love or sex; haunted by a past relationship.

Chasing: Something you are pursuing in life; something or someone you want. In some dreams it is an expression of aggression. See: follow.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you imagine turning and facing who or what is chasing you, what do you feel? For help doing this see Stand in role.

Am I aware of what I am avoiding in my waking life?

Do I avoid love, opportunity, expressing myself – what is it I am afraid of?

Please see Facing FearDreams are Like a Computer GameAvoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Chasm

Sometimes in life we feel as if all the feelings and hopes, the relationships that have motivated us have fallen away, and there is simply emptiness and silence inside. This is typically what the chasm depicts. It is not necessarily a ‘bed’ experience as it allows us to discover the underlying hugeness beyond our small life.

The chasm also sometimes expresses fears or feelings about  death that we have. But it can also be about fear of sex, of the unconscious or the unknown. The following example illustrates such fears. See: Valley; Abyss

Example: My recurring dream is that I am on a spiral staircase with three or four people in front of me and throngs of people behind me. The staircase is not supported from the centre but the steps project from the sides of the stone walls. As we ascend the steps are getting farther and farther apart and narrower as they recede into the wall. There is a doorway ahead and the people in front of me have reached it and are urging me on. However, I can’t possibly reach it as the next step is only about half an inch wide by one inch long. The door is high above and beyond me out of arms reach! I look behind and down the centre chasm – it is very bright so I can see far – at the masses of people waiting patiently for me to go on, so there is no possibility of going back. I was divorced four years ago with no children. My mother and friends want to see me happily settled whereas I am terrified of repeating a disastrous marriage. V.S.

The dream is an illustration of the apparent futility and fear of takingthe next step in life. Yet the dream suggests that if she faces her fear and takes the next step there are people urging her on. Such dreams are simply images of our fears and feelings. The next step can be taken by using Secrets of Power Dreaming

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a big ‘hole’ in my life I am frightened of feeling or being engulfed by?

Is this something from the past I am scared of meeting again?

If I imagine letting myself fall into this chasm what do I feel? (Remember that dreams are simply images expressing your feelings or thoughts, and all you are doing here is to meet your own feelings.) For help doing this see Stand in role – Acting on your dreamAvoid Being Victims

Cheat Cheated Cheating

Being dishonest with yourself. Not living up to your real feelings. Feelings about being betrayed or your trust abused in some way.

But such dreams can occur to any woman. especially with ex’s. Dreamers often take theor dreams to mean a link with the actual person, but every thing and everybody represents something other that actula life. But when you think about a lover, a friend, an ex or a person you know, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and they change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

These are meories that have altered your reactions and unless you realise they are energies working in you, and not an external person, you will go on living in a fantasy, and perhaps painful world. You need to integrate your past experience. See How Can I Integrate The Effects From Parents Garnparents or Ex’s

This can also be about acting in a way that takes advantage of another person to win; feeling one’s partner is ‘cheating’ on you, or you on them; taking love, money or opportunity under false pretences; not giving as good as you get; feeling you are not respected.

Some dreams are about social situations, such as being cheated by ones employer by not being fairly paid, or not getting your money’s worth in what you have paid for. But we might feel cheated by life events as well.

At times, as when we dream of a partner cheating, it is about feelings of suspicion, distrust or of not being loved or respected.

Example: Last night I had a dream that I was coming through a door way to find that my girlfriend/fiancée was kissing a guy….. and she looked up at me and just said we were over and I started crying begging her to stay with me, and she just kept walking away like I didn’t matter anymore… she started kissing that guy again like they had been dating for a while or something and acted like it didn’t bother me… I woke up crying because it felt real… would you have any idea what this mean?

Example: In my dream I’m with my ex girlfriend (who I still hang out with) we are hanging out being really close and lovey on each other. Then I leave the room for something and when I come back she is with a man. In this reoccurring dream she is always with a different guy and I don’t know who any of them are. When I walk in they are really close to each other and holding hands sometimes she is sitting on his lap. In my dream it always breaks my heart and I tell her how I feel and she acts like she doesn’t care. Then I wake up. In real life we were together for 2 years and I’m a girl. While we were together she cheated on me with men. We still hang out today but we are just friends with benefits.

This type of dream is usually from a young woman who either sees her boyfriend with another man or has powerful suspicions that he is seeing someone else. The dreamer is actually meeting her unresolved feelings of jealousy, of feeling not as good as the other person and not being lovable. Please see Ages of LoveInfidelity

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where can I locate these feeling sin my waking life, and what do they connect with?

If I am cheated on in my dream, is this about fears or reality?

Is this about relationship with a person, an organisation or life events?

See Learning to LoveSecrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

Check

See: Bill.

Cheese

Is one of the basic foods for may people. It is a healthy and nutritious food, but for many people such as vegans and those on diets, may have negative associations. See Associations Working With; food

Example: My father and I were looking over the house of my childhood thinking of buying it. It had been extended since we lived there – mostly outbuildings adjoining the back of the house – but it was all in bad repair. Also, three thousand pounds was being asked, and we thought the price was high. I looked in one of the outbuildings. There were lots of chickens, and because nobody lived there, lots of eggs had accumulated. Also there was a milk from a cow or goats. I thought a lot of cheese and yoghurt could be made with all the spare milk, but still the price seemed high.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is cheese something you like or avoid?

What were you doing in relation to the cheese?

Do you have any feelings in connection with the dream action?

Try using Talking AsActing on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Cheetah

Like any big cat it can be an attacking force or a wonderful strength. If you are frightened of it then it will seem as if it is attacking you. But if you realise that nothing can husrt you in your dream and you are not frightened then it becomes an aid. See Do you imagine that is a real creature

Also our dream animals are most likely an expression of our own animal nature. See Mammal BrainFacing Fear

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I frightened of calm with the cheetah?

Can I face my fear in the dream?

What is happening in the dream?

See – Secrets of Power DreamingUse Body

Chemicals

This may refer to the fact that part of your being is chemical. So it might refer to the chemical interactions in you through food or drugs you put into our mouth; or to the state of this fundamental and material level of your existence.

Minerals or chemicals also hold potential energy or power of change in the right conditions, so can point to personal ‘chemistry’ or transformation, as when used in alchemy.

Chemicals play a large part in the subtle interaction in animals and humans, as already suggested by the word ‘chemistry’ when used in regard to relationships.

Socially and personally we also face the bombardment of chemical toxins on our system, along with the possibility of allergies and illness caused by them. So we need to be aware that our dream might be giving information about this influence on us.

Example: I stand and look at what I can see at the narrowest part of the path. Chemical waste is being pumped out of a factory into a large concrete pit to my right. But right in front of me to the right a ventilator is blowing some sort of jelly like substance onto a fence and large pipe. On it dozens of snails and slugs are feeding or have become trapped in it. They look very unhealthy. I turn to leave but somehow get some of the chemical waste on my trouser leg and on my arm or hand. I feel the stuff is poisonous and I am absorbing it through my skin. I experience images of the factory manager who has had many such contacts with the chemical, and has scars on him from where the chemical was on his body.

We need to remember that our experience of self is capable of being radically shifted simply by taking a drug or medicine? as with antidepressants, ecstasy or cocaine. This often reshapes the way we see ourselves, so an evolution in the process of identity building has occurred in our society. Identity in the end is not a set of beliefs or behaviours. The self is not limited to these. In today’s world our identity is often shaped by chemicals.

Example: The animal in your dream can portray your relationship with the fundamental life processes in you. Dreams depict these processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digest, beat your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ is you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to depression or illness. Remember that in looking at the animal in your dreams you are yourself an animal. You as a person are a tiny spark of consciousness, a little bit of self awareness riding an incredibly ancient animal you call your body. Remember that your body has formed from cells and genetic information that has gradually developed over millions of years. It holds that information in it unconsciously. The animal in your dreams depicts this ancient wisdom and how you relate to it. It shows you how you are dealing with the urges in you that are natural, but might need to be helped into modern life or transformed in some way, not killed out, maimed or tortured. Please read Secrets of Power Dreaming and Avoid Being Victims

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream about processes in my body, or the impact of external chemicals introduced?

What feelings are in the dream, and where are they evident and what connected with in waking?

What is the basic statement in my dream?

See Talking AsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsWaking Lucid Dream

Chemist Pharmacy

This is usually connected with health concerns, what the body needs, or some form of healing. The pharmacist can be similar to doctor – wisdom about self, insight into self. But also someone who understands the chemistry of life, so may be similar to a witch or wizard mixing potions in some dreams. See: doctor under roles.

The shop is a place to gain advice or help to change a difficult life situation, or to prevent one. In some dreams it also seems to be about searching for something. The search might be for a necessary thing we need, or the search for our own core self from which we find peace and well being.

Most of us have a chemical relationship with life – just look at the place you keep pain killers, alcohol, drugs, vitamins and medicines, even tea and coffee are powerful drugs and chemical alterations of our mind. They all interact with our body and brain – with us. See

Example: I was nursing a baby of about four months close to my chest. It appeared to be mine. Suddenly I was aware the baby was not having any food apart from milk and I became very worried. I set off to go to a chemist to buy some baby gruel to compliment its feeds.

Example: Was coming up out of an underground station. On my left I noticed a brand new shop, like a chemist’s, but called Sexuality. I knew it was a new scheme, legal, smart, businesslike, but prostitution. As I walked up the stairs to the exit, a man, the proprietor, came up to me and said, “Would you like to sleep with someone else?”

Knowing he meant a young prostitute, and making a joke of it, I said, “What do you mean? Someone other than yourself?” He was a bit shocked and said, “Oh yes, of course!”

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I looking for in the pharmacy, and can I recognise if that applies in waking?

Does the chemist offer advice – if so what is implied?

What is my involvement with the chemist or the shop, and does that represent something I can recognise?

Try using Dreams are Virtual RealitiesActing on your dreamDream Yoga

Cheque Check

This might represent a promise, or something unredeemed that is of value or has potential. It could even be a bad cheque, a promise that was never meant to be kept. See: Money.

Are you giving or receiving. In dreams giving and receiving are the two sides of the same thing.

The cheque could also point to something you have earned, but perhaps not yet redeemed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Who is the cheque for or from, and do I owe them anything or vice versa?

Am I hoping for money from someone?

What does the dream say about the cheque, and how might that apply to me?

Tr using Being the Person or ThingEasy Dream Understanding

Cherry

Cherry is a girl’s name and so dreaming of a cherry might indicate a girl or woman you know or have known.

In the US it can refer to George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, and so can indicate truthfulness or lack of it, depending on the dream theme.

Life is said to be a bowlf of cherries, a life of good fortune. Sometimes car are called a ‘cherry’ meaning a great car – or a lemon meaning one with faults. See fruit

Cherry can indicate the feminine principle and female sexuality and fertility.

Example: She said one was a cherry. I said ‘cherry path’ and she said yes, that was it. I was going to run for mayor or governor. I was going to vote.

Example: Then I was out in the front of the house, across the road. I was talking to a workman about a cherry tree that he said had been planted there, and one lower down the road. All I could see was the sawn off trunk of an old cherry tree. It was growing many new shoots from its trunk, and I felt would grow into a beautiful tree.

The above example shows how a man had cut down his own beautiful growth, but the roots were still strong and he could grow a new self.

Cherry tree: When cherry trees are in bloom it often gives a feeling of spring, new life, loveliness and beauty.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about the cherry or the name Cherry?

What associations do I have with the cherry or tree? Try Associations Working With

Does the dream describe any situation I can recognise?

Try using Being the Person or ThingTalking AsProcessing Dreams

Cherub

A cherub in a dream can sometimes be a message from a baby that wishes you to be its mother. But cherubs also were not originally in the form of babies but of great angelic beings, like gods. They are probably, in that sense, tremendous forces we meet in the natural world as the shaping forces, the forces of great change, and the flowing out of great blessings.

See Cherub – Prebirth Meetings with your Baby

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the cherub communicate in any way?

What impression doesw the cherub convaey?

Does it feel like a great presence?

Try using Talking AsBeing the Person or ThingSecrets of Power Dreaming

Chess

This probably represents the skills and strategies you use in meeting the circumstances of your life. It may also point to careful scheming or planning to win, or to defeat an opponent. Often this is about relationship too, so it is important to recognise who you are playing against or what the situation is in the game. See: Games.

This might also point to the game of life and how you are playing it – what are the situations you are facing could be indicated in the events of the dream. See: gamesDreams are Like a Computer Game.

A dream is like a game of chess with all the possibilities of the different pieces interacting. So you could be playing a game of strategy with the pieces/people in your dream.

Example: But now I must go back and fight him in order to save my family, now frozen in his power. I go, via instructions from some feminine voice, to a platform up in the clouds and there are some remote control-like game boards in a basket. I pick up one. The voice says, “This one can be adapted well.” I look at it closer. It is a chess game, electronic. I say “Ah, the good old chess game,” satisfied it can be modified to fight this powerful man and save my family. I turn it over and look at the back side of it and see the tiny shapes of the black “men” or pieces. I want to review the rules of how they are allowed to move.

Example: I climbed to the top of some stairs and knocked on a door. It was opened by a woman in Tudor dress who beckoned me to enter. On a dais was the King. He was delighted to see me and hugged me. I presented him with a chair made by women from all over the world. We ate, then he said, ‘We’ll have a game of chess’.

An interpretation given to the dream is: Human self awareness is unique in nature. It comes about by a fragile balance of many factors. Your dream illustrates one of the factors important for personal balance – your relationship with your father, shown here as the king. In our childhood our father is often seen by our inner feelings as the great authority figure in our life. Difficulties with him develop into difficulties with authority in everyday life.

The woman is your mother, leaving the door open to be loved by father, and in the dream the relationship is good. But using the king as a symbol suggests some insecurity. You offer the many aspects of yourself, the chair, as a gift, a way of gaining love. The chess shows you challenging your dependence on your father for love and approval, to develop your self esteem and independence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What strategies are shown in the dream, and how might they apply to you?

Do I know how to play chess – do I know the rules of the game of life and what moves to make?

Who am I pitting myself against – male or female – does that apply in my life?

Try using Talking AsBeing the Person or ThingSecrets of Power Dreaming


Chest

Sometimes this points to a connection with your physical chest. But most often it shows what emotions, what memories and passions you are storing within you, literally in your chest. You may hide precious and loving feelings too, locked up, or shut away inside you.

This is often used in a way similar to a wooden chest – in other words a place to store emotions. So the chest signifies your emotions as a whole, but also how you are relating to them. Many dreams either include being shot in the chest or a weight on the chest holding the person down – maybe someone standing on the chest. Being shot indicates an emotional shock or hurt that, depending on the dream, can be very painful or needing attention.

The weight on the chest shows how feelings, emotions are so heavy they are holding you back from being easily active and outgoing.

Some dreams show things going into of being pulled out of the chest, and these indicate either influences enter your feelings and changing how you feel about things, or stuff that you have held within, old emotions perhaps, being drawn out.

The chest is a reasonably protected area because of the ribs, so in some dreams it indicates ones strength, defensiveness, or the ways you protect your ‘heart’ – your sensitive core of feelings. But it can also be used as an image of your pride or your positive and life giving feelings. The chest, with its inflow and outflow of air also shows your connection with others and the world through empathy, through your feeling links.

Man’s dream: Sense of social confidence and strength to meet the world – or lack of it, depending on how the dreamer feels in the dream.

If healthy: Positive sense of social recognition.

Woman’s dream: Ability to give of yourself; feelings about womanhood. See: breath.

Example: The heart pain – a pain right through my chest from front to back, or a general ache and pain in the chest – I have been suffering for some months now, I feel is tied up with this business of ‘opening up’ to my feelings.

Example: Feeling tired – exhausted – just lying drained of energy. I am conscious of people talking, saying I was ill. I thought I was just tired. Then asked what the matter was. I was told it was my heart, ‘dry and hard like a boiled egg’ they said. Found I couldn’t talk. Tried to write, wanted A. to know that I loved him, but the pen kept drying up. Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was haemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L

Often people go through a death and rebirth experience, as in the above dream. It is often a necessary thing as our old self, full of habits, emotions, thoughts and attitudes that were causing so much distress needed to be got rid of, so that a new self could emerge.

Idioms: Get it off my chest.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream indicating that I have been hurt – if so what has hurt my feelings recently?

Does the chest show me being proud and strong, or does it have signs of weakness – if so what are they?

Is this about the way I link with others – if so what am I realising?

Am I anxious about the health of my heart?

Am I showing some sort of defensiveness?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation and meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream

Chew chewed chewing

Often to savour or enjoy something, but also to think something over, to analyse or break it down in order to absorb it. To sample something, or take it into yourself as a feeling, an idea or experience.

We use our teeth sometimes to chew through something like a cord, and this suggests being involved with the action, in the sense that you can taste it and it is in your mouth so you experience it. It can also suggest desire to hurt.

Our mouth is a way we express desire and hunger. From the first we reach for our mother’s breast, and later we express hunger and longing in kissing. So there may be elements of this in what we take in and chew in our dream. See: Eating.

If you are chewing something and you try desperately to get out of your mouth, see entry under mouth.

Chewing gum: It could represent releasing tension in the mouth – or simply a habit from childhood and the having something sweet in the mouth.

Idioms: Bite off more than you can chew; bite your tongue; chew him/her out; chew the fat; chew the rag.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am chewing, and does this point to something I am taking into myself at the moment?

Is this pleasant or unpleasant, and what of these is evident in my life?

Am I hungering for something?

Try using Use the body to discover dream powerBeing the Person or Thing

Chicken

If being eaten suggests nourishment. Otherwise a female, or the female in a male; being ‘chicken’ or scared. See: Birds.

If you know chickens and have watched and reared them you will have other associations, such as motherhood, the wonderful fatherhood of the cockerel. Also the stillness and concentration of the broody hen. See Associations Working With

Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that’s a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.

When I explored the dream I realised that of course. I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I have been the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female.

This dream can lead to the thought that a cockerel with chickens can mean the eggs are fertile, which might mean for a woman that she is ready to have a baby.

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

Here the chicken obviously represents the dreamers own childhood feelings of desertion. The old lady is the mother.

Sometimes there may be associations with ‘chicken feed’ and so the question is, are you working for nothing?  Also is there any sign of this being a ‘hen party’? If so ask ourself if you are guilty of it.

Chicken run: A cage to control an farm what in nature are what used to be dinosaurs. So it may reflect your attempts to control and use your own freedom.

The cock: a male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence; fatherhood.

The hen: Mother; motherhood; being immersed in motherhood concerns and perhaps not having a life beyond that.

Chicks: This is a reference either to your own babyhood and feelings or events associated with it, or to external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.

 

Idioms: chicken feed; chickens come home to roost; chicken hearted; she’s no chicken; cock of the walk; don’t count your chicks/chickens before they are hatched.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I experienced having live chickens?

What do I feel about the chicken in mydream?

What was Idoing in relation to the chicken?

Try using Acting on your dreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Chicks

This is a reference either to your own babyhood. or feelings or events associated with it, or even to your external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

Here the chicken obviously represents the dreamers own childhood feelings of desertion. The old lady is the mother. The bus is a shared journey with others – we all have difficult feelings.

Chicks in a dream might also point to your own children, or even children you want to have or will have. See: Birds.

Coming out of the egg is a reference to birth, and the shell of the egg is the protection provided by being in the womb and early childhood. So coming out of the shell is the facing of independent life – literally ‘coming out of your shell’.

The life cycle of a bird has so many similarities with important human stages of growth we frequently use birds to represent parts of our own deeply felt experience, such as being totally dependent upon parents ‘in the nest’. The amazing experience of ‘leaving the nest’ and how well it has been managed. Learning to fly and so becoming independent. They are all so much a part of our own tings we meet in life. See Individuation

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening to the chick – what part of its life cycle was involved?

What feelings were experienced or indicated in the dream? (The example of the baby bird crying for instance.)

Can you get into the role of the chick and feel it? That will really give you insight into your dream.

Try using Stand in roleTalking As

Child

The message from my father, “You are a bright kid,” left open the freedom, creativity, and ener­getic resources of my Child Ego State. The Child is the most “real self” as well as the strong­est part of the personality. It is responsible for feelings, biological needs, motivation, and ex­pressiveness. It is the child at two, and at four and at ten, with all the daring and spontaneity of those early years.Quoted from All My Children by Jacqui Lee Schiff

The child in a dream can represent the innocence and wonder of childhood, the strange openness and ability to be  part of  the holiness of Life; the grandness if the heavens opening to them. But also the crucified child in agony through the terrible state of adults ignorance.

Unfortunately many of us do not get encouraging words or good information about life from father or mother, instead we get the most terrible put downs, or else wordlessly we are defeated and crushed. Usually links with your own feelings arising from your childhood. The Dream child can also depict feelings regarding your growth or vulnerability, such as dependence, or the emotional links you have with people. What is happening to the child in the dream will give a clue to what sort of feelings. If the dream child is one of your own children look up son or daughter. ; boy; girl; daughter; son

Sometimes a child can represent the marriage – what was created by their marriage.

Hitting a child: Sometimes an attempt to repress or control your own urges that you were trained to hold back, or were punished for during your own childhood. See: archetype of the child; hitting.

Children appear in so many roles in dreams, and mostly as already said, point to those facets of oneself that either were hurt in your own childhood, or have not grown beyond that stage. But a child can express playfulness, uninhibited enthusiasm, or feelings of pain or hurt. The lost child might indicate either feelings of responsibility and panic about something vulnerable, or that you need to ask yourself how you have suppressed your own inner child. See: Inner Baby and Childbaby in my dream.

The child in a woman’s dream might also have a connection with the deeply instinctive process of producing, caring for and rearing a child. So it might indicate what is happening within the dreamer in regard to this. The following dream illustrates this as Angie, the dreamer who is 18, struggles with the difference between her inner feelings and the attitudes of those around her. See A Woman’s Creative Power

Example: I dreamt I had a child and had to cancel a test because I had to take care of the baby. I was breast feeding the baby, because it is healthier to breast feed than to give formula from a bottle. The person that I had been seeing wanted to know what I thought I was doing. The question was in an accusatory manner, like I had no business breast feeding my own baby. Then I left the baby with my friends and left. When I came back, they were feeding the baby Tabasco sauce because they ran out of milk. This shocked me because I thought my friends were more responsible than that.

Carrying or looking after child: In a relationship sometimes we come up against the child in our partner. The child manifest in the adult as jealousy, dependence, anger or helplessness if left, unwarranted emotional outbursts, and other behaviour that is natural to young children but difficult in an adult. Sex may also be more of a ‘thumb suck’ if it hasn’t matured beyond the child stage, rather than two people caring and sharing. An example of this is given in the following dream.

Example: I was near a hospital where nurses were trained. A lot of young women were about and I hoped to become friends with at least one. Later I was with one and hoping to become intimate. We then went into a room where a woman was examining a queue of nurses. She asked each one questions as their turn came.

There were a lot of children, mostly girls, who had no parents and were trained for nursing from an early age. One of the girls came to me as I lay in a chair. She wanted a cuddle. I held her for a while. Then a boy came for a cuddle. I said to one of them, perhaps the boy, “There are plenty of mums about (meaning the nurses), but you want a daddy don’t you?” I held him with my strength. One of the children asked me if my nurse friend had got a man yet. I considered for a while, then said no, she hadn’t, as I realised I was not her “man”, only a friend.  Alec.

Alec was a married man with children. His wife had been a nurse. When Alec explored his dream he described what he experienced as follows.

It was clear early on that the nurses represented my wife, but the rest of the dream was still beyond me. But as I imagined myself as the young boy I knew this was me. I didn’t like seeing that part of me. I had kept it covered up with pride over the years, but it was there and I was at first ashamed to see this childlike, dependent, emotionally hurt part of myself. It was because I related to my wife in this dependent, childlike way that the dream showed me holding him. My father had never really been a man for me and the child me was desperately in need of knowing that strength. The boy’s question was a turning point for me. In fact my wife didn’t have a ‘man’ yet because I was still moving toward real manhood. But suddenly I felt what the little girl in the dream meant. I said to my wife, “You’re the little girl in the dream. Do you see? Every time I get back to my warm sexual feelings I’m a little boy again, because I haven’t really grown up sexually yet, and that scares you. Whenever my weak side shows, you feel really threatened so you attack that part of me. It’s because you need a strong daddy, and every time I show my weakness it triggers the little girl in you whose daddy was weak. He never grew up, so you never had a strong man for a father. That’s why you married me. Okay, I am strong enough now to be your strong daddy like I am in the dream.”

There was more to the problem though. Why did my wife’s little girl trigger my withdrawn little boy? I enter into into this. I remembered how, when we had separate beds, I had often wanted to masturbate but had stopped in case my wife heard. I realised how much I wanted to hide my masturbation from her. At the same time I realised how I easily stood before her naked and with an erection, so what was this problem over masturbation? Of course, it was mother again. My mother had given me hell over masturbation as the disapproving mother, and when my wife got into her “downing” role I saw her as the disapproving manhood killing mother again, and was deeply repulsed by her. I am not going to be killed again by/mother/wife, so I will cut off from her and will give my manhood to women who do not kill me.

Child dying or dead: One dreamer said, “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of ones child in a dream.

When a mother or sometimes a father sees their child leaving them it is like the death if one part of their life. A parent has been everything for their child for years, has told them what to do or even ordered them, and when a child begins to make its own decisions or leaves home to go to college it is the end of a long period and can be shown as the death or even murder of their child.

Another women describes it differently as follows:

‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F

Mrs F was dreaming about her young daughter leaving her, and she has to grieve it, almost like a death.

Example: A male reporter who was interviewing my wife and I about our work ended by asking us about the meaning of a nightmare he experienced the previous night. In it he was walking arm-in-arm with his wife across fields, followed by his four year old son. Looking back he saw his son fall into a small but deep hole. He ran to help, but the child had disappeared under water in the pit, and he was tormented by the decision of whether to jump in himself – he might be killed by the fall. Then his son was out of the hole, his heart faint but still beating.

The man was deeply anxious in case the dream had predicted the death of his child. This may seem ridiculous if one has not had such a dream, but the strength of emotions in nightmares tends to create anxiety in even the most rational minds. The original scene, however, depicts marital togetherness, which led us to tell him the dream was about a recent threat to his marriage rather than his child. Astonished he confirmed his marriage had hit a bad time, and he was fearful of the survival of the relationship. “But” he said, “why did I dream about my son?” The reason is probably because the son represents what has been created by their life together. There may also be the added association of the son being a factor which bonds the marriage, and a threat to the son would mean less mutual bonding.

Holy child: This miraculous child is a symbol of the Self that literally “depresses” the ordinary human being, even though it is the only thing that can redeem him. In many works of art the Christ child is depicted as, or with, the sphere of the world, a motif that clearly denotes the Self, for a child and a sphere are both universal symbols of totality. When a person tries to obey the unconscious, he will often, as we have seen, be unable to do just as he pleases. But equally he will often be unable to do what other people want him to do. It often happens, for instance, that he must separate from his group-from his family, his partner, or other personal connections-in order to find himself. That is why it is sometimes said that attending to the unconscious makes people antisocial and egocentric. As a rule this is not true, for there is a little-known factor that enters into this attitude: the collective (or, we could even say, social) aspect of the Self.  (A quote from Jung’s writing.)

The miraculous or holy child is a symbol of your whole self – your waking self and the parts of you that you never have  been aware of – Jung calls it the Self.  This Whole Self as always is both benevolent and malefic; like life it is both the light and the darkness, male and female, creative and destructive – but the Whole is the balance between the opposites and is often shown as the sun, or Christ – the cosmic man. But man in these cases refers always to mankind, both female and male.

The image is made up of all human life

Here is a modern image of the same huge being. It depicts the meeting of the one individual with what lies behind it – the cosmic mind. Again made up of the many, all human lives.

Useful questions: What is happening to this child in the dream, and what, as an allegory, does that suggest about my relationship with my own inner child? Is this about my relationship, showing how we are triggering each other’s childlike responses? If I imagine myself as the child what do I feel and how do I describe myself. (See Stand in Role under peer dream work for help with this ). See Stand in RoleSecrets of Power Dreaming Easy Dream Understanding

Childbirth

The emergence of a new part of yourself, perhaps difficult to give life to. Bringing to consciousness a new part of you that has been developing but remained previously unexpressed. This may also refer to the desire to have children, your own pregnancy, or the memories of your own birth. Sometimes, giving birth to a child means that one way of life is ending and another beginning. See: A Woman’s Creative PowerBirth.

So many girls or women dream of giving birth even though they are not pregnant of childbearing age. This is either because the basic way a woman creates is by dreaming of giving birth – which is an amazing act of her creative power; or else because she is practising her creativity. If it is a difficult birth it is worth using Secrets of Power Dreaming.

Such births need to be honoured even though there is no physical sign of a child. Remember that we are all the time growing and producing new sides of us, as happened in teenage when we started menstruation and a different view of life. So the new dreamt baby if a vulnerable part of you that needs care to grow and become a real part of your waking life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is it a dream birth or am I actually pregnant?

Was it an easy or difficult birth?

Is this the first time I have dreamt of having a baby?

See pregnancy and childbirth; the baby in your dream; meeting with an unborn child.

Children’s Dreams

See dreams of children

Chimney

Smoking an its dangers. Also it could indicate the the birth canal, and of course home and a sign of inner warmth. It can sometimes indicate an erect penis, or if falling down then the opposite. A way to vent the heat of passion or pain.

An interesting comment was made by the ‘talking cure’ as Breuer and his patient Anna O called it, this ‘chimney sweeping,’ acted cathartically to release the bottled-up emotional obstruction at the root of the problem. This was the approach already used by Mesmer, and in essence, later by many modern practitioners. I called it LifeStream.

Maybe you have associations with Santa Claus and chimneys, and perhaps also the magic of Mary Poppins. If so see Associations Working With. Also many paintings with old world and romantic suggestions show a cottage with smoke coming from a rural chimney.

Such dreams may also have associations with heavenly gifts or abilities, a link with heaven and perhaps communication. Because the womb life often gives a sense of being part of Life itself, going up a chimney may indicate an escape to heaven, or even germination of new ideas or insights.

Example: The ceiling has lots of windows too. I see two black funnel clouds in the sky and I say to her excitedly, “Tornadoes. I see tornadoes.” She isn’t interested and I keep pointing. They whirl around and around and then disappear back into the chimneys they came out of and then pop back out and roll around. They have sharp points on the heads; they kind of look like penises.

Example: I am in an enclosed space with only a very difficult way out – up the chimney – a tiny tunnel through which to crawl. The means of in and out seem quite natural although very awkward and cause no distress.

Belching black smoke: The grim mechanised side of our culture centred on production instead of humanity. The world of adults and not of children or of nature – except of course of volcanoes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings do I have about the scene? See Emotions and Mood in Dreams

What do I associate with the chimney?

Was I interacting with it in some way?

Try Acting on your dream Being the Person or Thing

Chimpanzee

In our dreams chimpanzees can give wonderful insights into our own basic nature. See animals

Example: I was in a room, or storeroom, full of chimpanzees. I had to leave them. Some of them opened the door. It was not locked, and I didn’t lock it, but I went back in and asked them not to open the door, as there was a busy road nearby, and they might get run over. As I spoke, one was standing near me who was now almost as tall as myself. The features had become almost human, female. She seemed very sad, perhaps because she was only half human. I felt deep links of sympathy.

The person whose dream this was explored their feelings connected with the dream and explained their conclusions as follows. “When I was in the room with the chimpanzees I was feeling that I was dealing with a part of me that was not as integrated with the modern world as ‘I’ am. I feel this part of me as very loving, but it has a different relationship with things, and it needs to be protected from certain things, as suggested by the warning about the road. So the chimpanzees are powers or abilities I have, but they are not yet integrated fully into my everyday life. But being in the room together means we are now being brought together, being integrated. The room is a gathering point, in a journey toward being made human. I mean by this that although people call themselves human, we are really only half formed. We have not yet integrated these older parts of ourselves and so are rather disintegrated and liable to breakdown. I guess this can be seen in modern society where so many people need medication or other aids to live a functioning life. I experience the female chimpanzee as a special feeling of love that flows into my life; something from beyond myself that transforms me and helps me to become whole. The dream shows how the world of today, the consumer society, the industrial world, is harmful to that natural and loving life in us. See mammal brain and Animal Children.

Even intelligent animals such as chimpanzees and foxes do not simply responded to their environment instinctively. They learn certain types of behaviour from their parents, from experience, and from their fellow animals. They, like us, are capable of learning. Our own relationship with parents, other human beings and animals during infancy, passes on to us an enormous amount of information through our ability to copy behaviour, through word of mouth, through our own experience, through body language and through reading or viewing. So many of us have awful images or sense of fear haunting us from being passed on.

Chimpanzees have a wide rage of behaviours, and some makes live like monks, apart from their fellows.

Example: I feel like a chimpanzee at the moment. It hasn’t got words yet but it wants to say something. There is the feeling of being a really physical animal. Being a physical animal is really strong. I can feel all the life in me. Not super strong, but just vibrant. Beautiful feeling. It is a feeling of knowing that I am capable. Capable of being quiet, capable of aggression if needed, capable of sexuality. I’ve got all these aspects to me – the wonderful creature that I am. I have all these instincts to work with. I roar and feel ready to fight and rend anything which might attack me. I am a powerful animal. But is that all I am? Am I just this powerful wonderful beast?

Example: Dreamt this morning that I was in some sort of farmyard or arena area. By arena I mean something like a stockyard such as cowboys use to ride un-broken horses or bulls. There were some huge Brahma bulls about and I felt exposed and in possible danger. I particularly noticed their huge horns. To get out of danger I climbed/ran up bales of straw in a large barn. This put me at about the height of a first floor. As I did this a smaller but magnificent bull with full horns was watching me and trying to get at me. This made me feel a bit anxious, but there was no immediate danger. I did feel though, that given time the bull would find a way to get to me. I therefore climbed higher. There were cages that I was able to hold to climb, and I reached a floor above the one I had been on – or at least a level above the previous one. I felt safer. This floor had other creatures on it. One was a chimpanzee. Both the bull and the chimpanzee were able to talk with me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you afraid or on good terms with the chimpanzee?

What was the chimpanzee doing in the dream.

Did you feel anything in the dream?

Try using Being the Person or ThingTalking AsConditioned Reflexes

Chin

This can be used in your dreams to show your strength of character and such things as determination and ability to face difficulties. But often such dreams are self assessments arising at the time. The example below for instance shows the dreamer taking an analytical look at himself and assessing his strengths and weaknesses.

The chin can be seen to indicate many things such as resolve, sternness, obstinacy, character. Your ability to take the blows of life on the chin. Also willpower, stubbornness, bullishness, bravado, determination, pride.

The chin and mouth are one of the ways we judge people from their expression. It might also figure in what we say. Chinning can mean chattering.

The male chin in white stock does not grow hair on the chin until approaching manhood. This is shown in the following dream.

Example: The boy appeared to be naked. I held him firmly in my arms. I felt strength in him and said, “I can feel the manhood growing in you.” I felt a noticeable increase of the strength in him. My hand touched his chin. There was a stubble of young beard there. I said how I was aware of his body growing into manhood. I was aware of us adults sharing the experience deeply.

Example: I look in the mirror and see I have a large face with weak chin. Then I see that my face is huge, with a huge neck, and in all, reflected great underlying strength, and this was the “image” people would see of me. This is my mission, to share that strength.

Example: Some part of me decided that I should learn something as well as have fun, and a mirror appeared before my face. I knew that I was looking at my self-image rather than a direct reflection. It revealed distortions, doubts about my self-worth, that I needed to clear up. These were pictured as dark splotches on my chin and cheeks, and a misshapen nose.

Idioms: a chin wag; lead with your chin; take it on the chin.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What weakness or strength is my dream showing, and how can I usefully use those insights?

Is this me feeling anxious, or is this a useful insight?

What can I do with the traits I see in myself?

See  The Adventure of the Dream World and carry the dream forward

China Chinese

For Westerners, in general China may represent irrational, secret knowledge, intuition, wisdom of life. It may be a fear of the irrational. That is, a fear of believing or being influenced by ideas that are not logically proven, or commonly understood or held by others. What you feel about China and the Chinese.

In a Westerner’s dream China may represent urges or experiences the dreamer does not identify with. For instance in each of us there are things we repress, or do not have opportunity to express, emotionally, sexually or with our ambitions. China may depict these aspects of the dreamer, or urges at odds with conscious fears and decisions.

Commonly this would reflect your feelings and responses to the Chinese people you have met. But for some people China would represent a threat. That is because often we feel threatened by anything we do not understand about us, especially if it is an urge or feeling we do not recognise.

In some dreams the Chinese person can represent intuitive wisdom of great insight. This is usually obvious and felt as such in the dream. So it can indicate contact with ones unconscious material.

Example: I was on a plane or a journey. On my right sat an American, very flabby, with a paunch. I was eating an apple, and my elbow sometimes touched his paunch. It felt lifeless, lacking vitality. I told him he ought to eat only apples for a while, and all the dead flesh would fall off him.

Then a young Chinese man came to me and pointed out a line marked on my apple, on the green, less developed side. He said every apple had it if one looked, and under the line was a hair. He said it was the “hair of discontent.” He said this was poisonous, and best not eaten. I slid my fingernail under the line, and pulled out a long hair. I thought this was wonderful, and that I had been given real wisdom of the East.

Example: Example: Dreamt I was on a bomb site. I found old shells from the war. I was interested in them and dug them up, but felt that they might explode. Throwing them to one-sided I crawled away sheltering from expected explosions. None came, only smoke. Then a friend offered a basement to Chinese restaurant owner. It was enormous, with great possibilities. I began to work in the basement. Brian.

As Brian explores his inner life through his dreams he comes across damage that occurred in his childhood and youth. The war was the personal inner conflicts he experienced. Meeting these was not as difficult as he had expected. Then, in doing this a whole new area of possibility opened up – the basement – an area of himself that had previously remained unconscious.

If you have travelled to China: What you felt or experienced in China.

Chinese writing: If you do not understand it, this is usually a way your inner self expresses things that you have not yet consciously recognised, admitted, or been able to put into words in your own language.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I put into words what I feel and think about China, what would I say?

What are the main feelings in this dream, and in what way does the connection with China comment on them?

What are the key words in this dream, and what do they suggest?

See: Key WordsTalking AsBeing the Person or Thing

Choke Choked Choking

This can suggest many things, and you need to look to the dream for confirmation. Choking can be about swallowing something that has got stuck, suggesting a experience you are ‘choking or gagging’ on. It can be about breathing in something that you are reacting to, suggesting being in an environment or ‘atmosphere’ that you have difficulty with.

Constrictions of the throat can cause choking, and in dreams this points to the possible holding back of powerful emotions. In other words you are choked up with feelings.

Example: In my dream,  which sometimes comes within three quarters of an hour of falling asleep, I  have swallowed something which is literally choking me or is going to poison  me. I wake up and rush down the stairs to the kitchen spitting and choking,  holding my throat and making all sorts of disturbing noises which frighten my wife. I have had this dream as many as five or six times a night. My doctor says it could be to do with the last war. Mr. K.T.

Mr. K.T. says that as a child he lived through the war and “.. my dad had to constantly wake me up to take us down to the shelter, sometimes as many as four times a night, and we were bombed out twice.” So there are probably strong feelings still trying to be expressed that were never felt during his childhood.

A difficult birth or the cord around the neck during birth, could lead to feeling you can’t breath and you are choking.

Choking can also be the result of a conflict between expressing and repressing something, and so indecision – as when we choke on our words, repress emotions.

There is an action in the dream process that attempts to bring to the surface of our awareness memories or experiences that were deeply buried or repressed. As the emergence takes place there is a swing between release and suppression, and this can result in choking. See Life’s Little Secrets

There may of course be a much more down to earth explanation as the following example shows.

I had an interesting learning process recently, a friend of mine was telling me that he’d had a terrible dream where a man was in his room, and lifted him up by the throat, up in the air above the bed, and was choking him and shaking him about. He said it was intensely real and scared the bejesus out of him. At first I was at a loss to explain it. Then another friend walked in on the conversation and said that she’d had sleep apnea for a while and had had similar dreams. The guy who had the dream then said that he was just getting over a cold and a bad chest which had been giving him trouble breathing, which instantly seemed to explain the dream.  Karen.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling as the choking takes place, and can I put it into words?

Is the choking about something going in to me or something coming out, and can I connect that with daily life?

Am I in an environment that leaves me with difficult feelings?

Have I been suffering breathing difficulties?

Try using Use the body to discover dream powerBeing the Person or Thing

Chopper

Male sex organ, expression of hate or destructiveness. See: Arms.

Christ

There can be several felt associations with Christ or Jesus. The first might be whatever you feel about organised religion. In this sense Christ could depict the forces in you that create moral pressure from the norm lived by society. So it would be the pressure to conform to the norm.

Christ is also an internal sense of how your life measures up to the universal life you constantly sense around you. This would be a feeling of what your highest potential is, and how well or badly you have manifested it. Sometimes this is experienced as a meeting with truth, the truth about yourself. To properly connect and realise what Christ is, it is necessary to be able to put one’s rational mind aside and able to enter a different dimension of ourselves, our mind.

But more important Christ might be seen as a collective identity arising in the consciousness of humanity. This relates to us individuals much as our identity relates to the cells of our body. It survives our death and change, integrates our experience, transcends our function, and has a personal relationship with us. See: archetype of Christ.

Although people generally think of Christ as an historical figure, Christ is never that – even though pictures and paintings depict Christ as a human being. That is because we have been taught that Jesus and Christ are the same person. But it clearly says that when Jesus was baptised something immense happened to him. “Now when all the people were baptised, it came to pass, that Jesus also was baptised – of John in Jordan – and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son: in thee I am well pleased.’ (Luke 3:21-22).”

It tells us that the heavens opened and something from the cosmos entered Jesus and transformed him into having Christ Consciousness. For Christ was an aspect of Godness and had always existed. It is easier to see it rather like our growth. When we were babies we grew and entered another level of awareness and ability called childhood. Later another huge change entered us and we became adolescents – again with a different mental and emotional state. Many people have attained the change of Christ consciousness. It is a further stage of human growth. As an example Siddartha became the Buddha when he experienced such a great change. In different languages this change has different names such as Krishna Consciousness. It might shock some people to see Christ linked with Buddha and Krishna – if so you have a lot of growing to do and if you do you too can enter Christ consciousness.

As a dream symbol he depicts powerful influences acting upon your personality. For a start, Christianity is a huge social and political force in the world. Many of us as children are educated to accept its beliefs or we meet its influence in one way or another. Therefore Christ in our dreams often depicts this enormous influence and how we relate to it.

Christ can also be a very potent compensatory symbol. Events can be either pleasurable or painful. As children, and often as adults, we are largely at the mercy of events as to whether our life is experienced as painful or pleasurable. If we are lonely or depressed for instance, we may read a book, go out with a friend or watch a film, stimulating feelings that displace or compensate for the loneliness or despair. In many dreams the figure of Christ is used to compensate for what may be felt as crushing or defeating life circumstances or inner despair. Such compensation may be used to deal with things missing from your life, such as a sexual partner or social achievement.

But the hidden and miraculous power that caused you to grow, that heals and supports if you open to it, is also often shown as Christ. But the highest of these is that Christ in our dreams can be the Highest in us. It is the potential you hold within you that has not been allowed to flower. It is the very best of what you are, not some distant possibility that you have to get from outside yourself. See Meetings with Christ.

“Such a myth, however, consists of symbols that have not been invented consciously. They have happened. It was not the man Jesus who created the myth of the god-man. It existed for many centuries before his birth. He himself was seized by this symbolic idea, which, as St. Mark tells us, lifted him out of the narrow life of the Nazarene carpenter.” Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung

The early Jewish Christian group known as the Ebionites taught that the Spirit had come as Adam and later reincarnated as Jesus. Other Jewish Christian groups such as the Elkasaites and Nazarites also believed this. The Clementine Homilies, an early Christian document, also taught many incarnations of Jesus.

My take on it is that just as many people can become Buddhas also many people can become Christs. That is because just as Jesus became the Christ, so can we by evolving to the level where we too touch a universal awareness, in which all human experience is synthesised and apparent.

Useful questions:

How do I relate to the image of Christ?

Am I in conflict with it because it represents organised religion?

Is Christ an image of all that is good in my potential?

 

Christen Christening

Traditionally the rite of christening represented the acceptance into the community of a new being. A name was given by the parents and recognised by the community. This may still be the meaning in some dreams – an acceptance by the community and the gaining of identity.

But it may also depict a change, a new beginning. The dream process especially uses the image of water to show how the conscious personality may willingly allow the unconscious process of life to wash through consciousness and transform it. It can also suggest the acknowledgement or acceptance of a part of you that is newly emerging. This may mean that you are recognising the quality or character of that new part and naming it.

But at a deeper level still is has a far more significant meaning. For not only  is it a  giving of a name and acceptance by the community but it is also a giving of a soul to the child. This is because without the attention, sharing of language and the giving or the strange gift of being an identity, we would never have gain self awareness.

See: Name; baptism; bible – dreams and symbols; spiritual life in dreams; archetype of Christ.


Christmas

To dream of Christmas can mean different things to different people. For some it is a time for presents and pleasure (mostly children); for some it is a time to overindulge and a time to play sexual games, or have time off work. For some it is a time of rejoicing in the birth in our lives of the spirit of Christ.

Dreams nearly always have an inner message for us and so are worth exploring. The message is usually about how our outer self is relating to our core self, and so dreams about Christmas are probably a comment about that. See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Example: Was in a shop I used to work in and met the sister of a guy I knew from working with him. I asked her how her brother was, and what he was doing, but her answers were evasive. She then asked me to visit their house at Christmas, where I took it, I could have an affair with her.

Here the theme of the dream is the hope for sex, although the dreamer was married. But it wasn’t particulary about sex but about love. His wife was not a very loving person.

Example: I see our Bishop. He is mopping the floor! He is very diligently at work, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Much to my surprise, he is dressed in blue denim cut-offs and a black, turtleneck sweater-uncharacteristic dress for a bishop, to say the least! As I walk up to him he stops his mopping and props an elbow on the mop handle, signalling that he is ready to give me all his attention. I sense a new warmth emanating from him. I have rolls of an IBM print-out that I am very eager for him to see. They contain lists of names and numbers. I draw his attention to a married woman who is working with a group of children in a corner of the room. She works frequently in parish-related activities. I remind the Bishop that she and others like her spend much of themselves in spreading the Gospel, that often they shame those of us who call ourselves “religious.” She is simply a wife and a mother, a thorough Christian, going about the work of witnessing to the spirit of Christ. He agrees with me and admits that there is much to be examined. He clasps my hand and a wonderful sense of unity with him on all levels at once is conveyed to me.

The Bishop was presented in the dream in a setting and role very different from that of his everyday reality. There is much mutual respect but our vision of the Church, especially the role of women in the Church, often differs. The warmth in the dream was what affected me the most. I believe it was my own femininity demanding its place in the Church.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel in the dream – indifference, wonder, criticism?

Am I relating to Christmas as someone who has no belief in themselves?

What was I doing in the dream?

See – Introduction to DreamsMeetings with ChristEasy Dream Understanding

Chrysalis

An outer inactivity, while you are inwardly going through great change. A new aspect of yourself getting ready to emerge, or sometimes a desire to retreat from the world. See: Butterfly.

Church Chapel Temple

This indicates your religious feelings or beliefs, including the moral code you live by, or your feelings, negative or positive, about organised religion. So the church can represent the attitudes and morals you hide behind in living your life. In other words you may hold back your own longings and need by using ideas of right or wrong, and imposed rules and concepts such as sin. On the other hand you may rebel against social norms in morality and so accept a way of life demonstrated by other rebels. Either way, this may not be who you are within yourself.

Example: Dreamt I was taking my dog Merlin for a walk. He was pulling like hell, and I was going to hit him to make him walk more calmly, but the lead broke. He ran off and played with an Alsatian dog belonging to the man who works at a nearby garage. We were all in the churchyard near my old school – St Marylebone.

Just then a woman “broke from cover”. She had been hiding by the church. She ran as if she had done something wrong, and the dogs chased and stopped her. I went to her. She explained something about me having drunk wine with her, and this had caused this reaction, as if she were on a hallucinogenic drug. We became very emotionally close then. Steve.

Steve says about this dream, “Merlin is my feelings of joyous energy and love trying to get away from the hold/leash I had always kept myself on through my moral restraints. The break is made. The man is myself working in a job beneath my capabilities as I am doing at the moment. The woman is my love, sexuality, which I felt so guilty about most of my life and hide under the cover of church/morality. This has been a life long struggle. The alcohol depicts the attitudes I use to hold back or deaden my love. But I have started releasing – and this has produced a rather confusing condition in my life after restraining myself for so many years.”

Each of us have a sense of our relationship with the forces of life within us and the world around us. A church may depict this sense and what we do with it. This is our awareness of what is holy or fundamental to all life, and therefore eternal, such as the urge to exist; the cycles of life and growth; reproduction and interdependence. So the church, or entering the church might indicate how you let this wider awareness and impulse flow into you, how you relate to it. Or it might show you opening to its influence.

The church may also represent what spiritual qualities or functions you have developed or built in your personality. By spiritual is meant those things that transcend the limitations of your body senses and identity. For instance when you care for another person you are going beyond your own personal needs and desires. This giving of yourself, or receiving from another, transcends your own limitations or boundaries. In this way the church can depict the indwelling wonder of life in each of us that we so often forget or work against.

The physical structure of the church particularly represents these inbuilt qualities.

Example: I was with several other people searching the rubble of what had been a great church. The building, recently ruined by some disaster such as an earthquake, or perhaps internal weakness, was now no more than a heap of stones. I and others searched amongst the rubble for anything that might be salvaged. Suddenly, among the stones that at one time made up a wall near the door, I found a most wonderful chalice. Its wonder was not because of any precious metal it was made of, or from artistry. It was because the stemmed cup shone with its own light, a light that never diminished. Just seeing it, being near it, produced an experience of awe and wonder.

As we took up the cup we understood that it was the emanation of this light around which the church had been built. Yet out of some fear, the chalice had been hidden in the wall of the church, and stranger yet, completely forgotten. With feelings moved by this tragedy we realised that for perhaps hundreds of years people had continued to attend the church, performing empty rituals, singing hymns, going through all the motions of worship without any direct relationship with the wonderful manifestation the divine cup gave. But now we could once more place the chalice in a place where anyone could stand in its light. For it shone on all without exception, and each of us, as we were permeated by that divine light, were transformed in some way by it.

This exceptional dream shows the dreamer looking at the ruin of organised religion that completely misses the point. Then he finds it, the light that never falters and is not caused by anything else – the eternal Spirit that we can bathe in.

See: archetype of the christ; Life’s Little Secrets; compensation theory; religion and dreams.

Walking past the church: Not entering into contact with the best in us – or our rejection of dogma or what religion means to you.

What was my actual response to the abbey, and what part does that response play in my life?

Example: It was like an English Church with several great spires. The whole building seemed to be built in a white and gold design. The gold parts shimmered in the sun. I gazed at this wonderful sight for some time and felt such a wonderful feeling of upliftment, my tiredness gone. Johan E.

Example: The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches. John P.

In the example John sees the dogmas of the church as an assault and degradation of human qualities of love and moral support. See: prayer

If you have negative feelings about religion, then your dream may be expressing something to do with these conflicts.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the feelings in this dream and where do I meet them in my daily life?

What is my relationship with the church in the dream, and what does that suggest about the way I feel about religion or life?

Did I experience any sense of holiness or the divine in the dream, and if so what has it left me with?

Try using Easy Dream UnderstandingBeing the Person or Thing

Cigar Cigarette

In some ways smoking a cigarette is like drinking alcohol. This is because it has a mind altering or consciousness altering influence. Like alcohol it changes the way we feel or respond to life, and inhibits anxiety while stimulating alertness. So it can depict our dependence upon the drug to deal with our anxiety or lack of confidence. See: alcohol.

Because of this dependent link, the cigarette is sometimes shown as a friend, a helper to meet stress.

Cigarettes also now link with taking into oneself something that is a danger to health. In a dream this might point to actual absorption of cigarette smoke, or of subtle but harmful atmospheres or attitudes in those around you. Of course it may associate with feelings or fears about cancer. If this is so it could be linked with a great deal of suppressed anxiety, as in the following dream. It has shown to lessen the chances of a woman becoming pregnant. See Infertility causes of.

Example: I am a regular smoker. I often wake 3 or 4 times a night dreaming I have dropped my cigarette. I wake and frantically search everywhere, turn the lights on and often cannot go back to sleep. I don’t realise it’s a dream at the time, so think I have really dropped one. How can I stop this?  ‘The Marlbro man!’

This dream is not simply about smoking, but about a life threatening situation.

Smoking with someone suggests a link, a connection, maybe conditioned by or made possible by mutual dependence on the drugged reduction of anxiety. It can therefore sometimes represent sexual relatedness. In this way the cigarette might depict penis or genital sex.

If you are now smoking an electronic cigarette, the n the health risk has gone, but the dependence might still be a factor.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise the cigarette as a dangerous means of deadening anxiety and difficult feelings – and could I find less dangerous ways of doing this?

Is there any sign of being in a clique or special group in the dream, and does this happen in my waking life?

Are there health fears shown in the dream, and if so what can I understand from them?

See Talking AsBeing the Person or Thing

Cinema

Films often portray on the screen elements of our own inner world, with its fantasies, fears, trauma and passions. Looking at the screen is like looking at a mirror in which you see portrayed your own inner life and drama. Therefore the cinema can depict any of these aspects of yourself. A dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear.

Example: I’m watching a film or video taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – it’s night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta

Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life.

Example: When I looked at the film it was a carnival going on in the street, people with gay clothing and crowds watching. Two girls were going to sit in an old model type car, but someone said it would be better if they sat on the back of the car as they could been seen in the parade. Then I was looking into the crowd to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd. H. K.

Here the main feature in the dream is the effort to ‘find me’. So the dreamer is watching the film in order to clarify their own self image, or find out who they are and how they relate to other people – the crowd. She was there, but at the back.

The cinema is sometimes a place of romance, of sexual contact, or fantasies about it.

Films enlarge the area of your experience, just as dreams do, so some dreams might use this image to suggest vicarious experience. Or else the horror films, and these feature in many dreams,having pu the idea of awful fears in people’s mind. But they are a good way to face ones own fears. See Facing Fear and Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

If we are lonely or depressed, we may read a book, go out with a friend or watch a film, stimulating feelings that displace the loneliness or despair. This ability to produce positive or different feelings is often seen in the dream process. By holding in mind an image connected with hope and love, feelings will be produced that will compensate in some measure for pain or depression we may be feeling. See Depression and Dreams

There are of course documentary films, and films that give you a new perspective on life and the world around young and the universe you live in. This type of film is a way your dream creator brings new experience and new perspectives to your awareness.

The cinema may also be a dream environment in which you can have an objective view of parts of your own personality – as if they were film characters. See: film.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the theme or the feelings in the film and how do they relate to me at the moment?

What is happening in the cinema, and can I find reference to that in my waking life?

Am I learning something from this film, and if so what?

See Plot of the DreamBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Circle Circles Circling Round

Yourself; personal identity; wholeness. It suggests a good harmony between all the aspects of your being – thus a feeling of pleasure, centeredness and openness, physical, mental and spiritual; may be used to depict the Self. It can also depict eternity; female sexuality; ‘the same dull round’ of routine suggested by Blake, in which one might be trapped if there is no alternative, depending on the content of the dream. If the circle is irregular, suggests imbalance or lack of harmony. See: ring.

Completeness, wholeness, all of the parts of our being, body, soul, spirit. It also represents the universe as a whole, harmony, symmetry. Sometimes symbolises an enclosure or restraining influence, or protection, and stands for the womb, or female sexual organs. May also represent emptiness, receptiveness, or a fertile condition. Or just yourself.

In dreams one often walks in a circle, or ploughs, or is moved in a circle. This means that one is enclosing, protecting or bringing the enclosed under the influence of the power that caused you to circle. Your circle of friends. But it can also mean searching for something or someone. Magic and teaching can occur in the circle in our dreams.

Example: To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

Example: I dreamt I was sitting in a circle of elders, it was cold and there was a fire. The mountains behind the oldest were purple and I could smell water. An elder to my right with very white hair in two long braids pulled out a pipe and I offered my cigarettes to him. I took one and sprinkled the tobacco in my palm and cupped my other hand underneath it. He turned from me and addressed the circle, speaking in a different language. I asked what language he was speaking and a voice in my head said “Tiwa” – it was a deep, masculine voice, and then I understood it.

“The magic circle of the fairies, the sun, the moon, a phonograph record with its diminishing grooves, a bedspring, or an ascending spiral, all may represent degrees of harmony and wholeness. A halo is an even more graphic illustration of a mandala, for it is automatically associated with saintliness. The triangle within the circle shows the same union with the divine self; for the triangle is representative of man in the earth and the circle symbolizes God. Combined, it shows wholeness of ideals and purposes.

The square indicates a balance in the material.” Quote from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

Idioms: Go round in circles; come full circle; vicious circle; circle of influence/friends.

See: shapes and symbols.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent a figure of speech, such as: go round in circles, come full circle, circle of influence or friends, family circle and so on?

Does this suggest an enclosure or protection of some kind?

Is the dream about wholeness, or completeness?

Does it have a more spiritual meaning having to do with universal harmony?

Is there anything frightening about the circle?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your DreamsKey Words

Circumcision

This may associate with feelings either of losing some sexual power, or of cleaning the penis. But of course it may also be associated with being Jewish, or having being parented by those like Moslems or in hot countries.

As circumcision often takes place at a very early age it can link in ones experience or unconscious with enormously complex fantasies. This is because it is a pre-verbal experience and so one tends to illustrate or view such experiences through fantasy or fairy stories – perhaps mythological themes, as Freud pointed out with the Oedipus complex.

Some times the lost part of the penis is shown as a missing petrol cap, or a ‘dead end’. It may be felt as a broken penis, or there may appear a desire to ‘steal’ someone else’s penis as ones own is broken. There can be shame or a sense of inadequacy around this.

Feelings of helplessness can invade a child around such issues, and also fix a determination not to ‘let anything in’. The results are often experienced as unsuccessful sexual growth, or the inability to find peace and fulfilment in sex. But often such issue are found to have many connections with other infant or childhood events and traumas. See

If you dream of circumcision and you are not circumcised then it has the general meaning as explained above, and of cutting off your sexual feelings and drives.

But in recent times I feel the reason circumcision was used in the past has been revealed, for in Africa it was made necessary to stop the passing on of AIDs. The foreskin is in  fact a natural harborer of bacteria.

Female circumcision is usually about feelings of guilt, shame, or suppression of healthy sexual urges.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I facing difficulties or struggles regarding sexual feelings or performance at the moment – and if so what are those struggles about?

Do I repress my sexual feelings, or feel shame about them?

Are there strange fantasies I have about sex and sexual organs – if so what is their underlying theme?

Try looking at Children’s Traumatic Fears – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsBackground

Circus

The arena or circle of consciousness in which we can watch the instinctive drives and see how well they are socialised or brought under control. All the instinctive, physical, passionate sides of one’s nature.

But there are so many aspects to the circus, and so it depends upon what your dream focuses. If it is the animals, then it may be showing you how you relate to your instinctive and natural impulses. The following example illustrates this.

For ages there was only quietness. Then slowly there arose a stifled feeling. I was struggling for breath. Not desperately, but almost a gentle struggle. So slightly it was almost unnoticeable. It was like a slow murder – and so little at a time it didn’t look like murder. Then up burst words and realisation. The body – the beast or animal – was like a circus animal (we had been to the circus last week). The poor beast/body will do anything you train it to do. Or at least it will try its hardest, like a willing beast, to do what we ask of it. I felt the loving willingness of my beast, trying to breathe slowly as I asked it to do. And the words and insights and feelings came that by training my beast in that way, a part of it was being suffocated very slowly. Part of it was being killed degree by degree. Why?

If it is about the acts, then it is often about your own skills, abilities or fears, and problems – such as fear of heights.

The circus can also be about experiencing alternatives to the way you live and see the world at the moment, and about the variety and perhaps exotic opportunities life offers. Circus people might depict these alternative ways of life, or of being street wise and widely experienced in the ways of life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am feeling or experiencing in connection with the circus, and how does that relate to me?

Am I dealing with the animals – my physical urges and hungers – or am I involved with the people – unusual ways of life?

Are there fears I am meeting in the dream, and if so in what way can I change the dream to meet them?

See: carry the dream forwardSecrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

City Town

One’s relationship and interaction with other people, society, and all the opportunities and diversions city life offers. Therefore the dream may show something of the many choices you make or can make about your direction, relationships or activities. It may also be about your sense of community, or the mental and emotional environment in which you live. For instance if it is a dark rainy city, then it suggests you are living within that sort of dismal inner life. If bright, sunny, with opportunities, then that is most likely how you feel about things. See Inner World; capital

A town may be a place you seek a partner or someone to have sex with.

Example: Then we each talk about our sexual fantasies – some of us, at least. How we are going to get them satisfied. I seem to be an observer while the girl orders up hers on a phone. “How do you like to have your sexual fantasies known/discussed in public?” I ask. She gives me a wry smile. There are bar girls tottering around on high heels and one of my friends gets into a fight with a native man who accosts his girl. I help him by helping to beat up this guy. Later I am in town where it is raining heavily and at least two of my glasses (spectacles) are destroyed or broken. A policewoman blames me for this – my carelessness..

The dreamer comments on this dream by saying, “I have no vision of the moral consequences of my actions or of the sadness I cause sexually speaking.”

Example: I dream Su, a woman I am in love with, is shown paddling a dingy to a local town, where I am going to meet her. But there were difficulties about getting there.

Su in this dream shows that I still haven’t ‘met’ or integrated the ability to love without grasping or wanting to posses. The difficulty in the dream suggests that I find it difficult to express this more open love.

Example: The city was very beautiful and busy, as I passed through an arch a woman circus act stared at me. I felt slightly embarrassed again, and then I passed another woman who also showed great interest. It made me feel good about myself I was still unsure yet I felt I was a man. KK

Here is another possibility shown in the dream – how we meet so many people in a town and so are exposed to view. In the case of KK he struggled with his feelings of being a man when in a relationship with women. So we may meet our own opinion of how we look to other people.

The city may be like a mandala, a circle with many extensions, a symbol of your inner state, the structure of your personality and what it is built upon. In this case the beauty or despair of the city will be saying a lot about your present inner condition. See: mandala.

Alone in a town: Feeling isolated and out of touch.

An ancient or historical city: It can indicate many things, such as an old or outmoded way of life you have left behind. It can sometimes represent a part of history you are fascinated by and so are about the way of life then and how it affects our present life. Rarely to can also show a past life and even relationships with others and the influence and relevance the past life has on the present one.

Home town or town of birth: The familiar way of life; the way you usually go about things. If it is a past home, then it shows your feelings or state of life at that time.

In a deserted town: Outmoded social attitudes or way of life.

In some dreams: Work and opportunity.

Seeing a whole city from a higher viewpoint: This shows you have expanded your awareness of yourself and the environment in which you live. these further reaches of consciousness certain qualities were necessary. A certain amount of confidence and fearlessness were needed to meet the further reaches of mind.  See Dimensions of Human Experience  – Exploring Inner Space

Strange town: The new; different attitudes or way of life, new choices or opportunities.

Idioms: Go to town; ghost town; man about town; paint the town.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the mood or atmosphere of the city, and does that reflect the inner state within myself I have created?

What am I doing in the town, and metaphorically what does that say about me? (i.e. if I am lost in the town am I lost in my life at the moment? If I am looking for love or business opportunity in the city is that true now in my life?)

What are my interactions with others in the dream suggesting about me?

See Introduction to DreamsAssociations Working WithBeing the Person or Thing

Clairvoyant

To dream that you are or are with a clairvoyant suggest that you are receiving information intuitively.

Example: I was meeting someone who I thought was a clairvoyant, so I went to see him so he could tell me about my future. There were 2 men in fact and at first I asked the wrong person who had no abilities; just after the person with special abilities looked into my eyes, and I saw my eye as a whole, a planet, a thing where there was everything. I saw it as a reflection in his eyes, but it could not tell me about my future.

Dreamt I was with a prostitute, who was a very powerful and influential woman. Somehow she was a turning point in my life. In a peculiar way I met my future self there. He was also visiting her. He was much heavier and materially successful looking than I am presently. I noticed he had a large chest and what I thought was an oversized waist, and I felt he had failed to care for himself. Then he explained that he had found the way at last, and did a form of scientific weight training. I saw that he was a very powerful and healthy man, and his waist was not outsize.

In later years the dreamer identified with the description given in the dream.

Edgar Cayce, America’s famous clairvoyant, wrote that nothing important ever happens to us without first being previewed in our dreams. We not only pre-view it, we pre-plan it as well!

But many people feel they are dreaming the future but when tested there are not many such dreams. There are many examples however of great dreamers. The following is by Robert Moss.

Example: When I followed my dreams, quite literally, to a home in Troy, N.Y. in 1990, a new character entered my dreaming: a stocky little black woman in period clothes, often wearing a mannish hat, who bobbed up from time to time on my mental screen, usually in the twilight zone between waking and sleep. I did not identify her until I had a big dream many years later in which I found myself teaching the history of the Underground railroad in schools across North America. Not having had an American education, I had to do some fast research. When I saw photos of Harriet Tubman, I recognized the woman I had glimpsed in the hypnagogic zone. I was fascinated to learn that she dreamed of flying to freedom, over landscapes she subsequently crossed on foot. Later she was guided by specific precognitive or clairvoyant dreams to safe houses, river crossings and friendly helpers she had never encountered in waking reality. In this way, she escorted 300 escaping slaves to freedom, without ever losing one of her “packages”. I discovered that in 1860, she had visited my home town of Troy, and led a riot that freed a fugitive slave.

The problem is that many dreams felt to be predictive never come true. Often dreamers want to believe they have precognitive dreams, perhaps to feel they will do not want to be surprised by, and thereby anxious about, the future. When the baby son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, and before it was known he was murdered, 1300 people sent ‘precognitive’ dreams concerning his fate in response to newspaper headlines. Only seven of these dreams included the three vital factors – that he was dead, naked and in a ditch.

Out of 8000 dreams in his Registry For Prophetic Dreams, Robert Nelson, who was sent the dreams prior to what was predicted, has found only 48 which bear detailed and recognisable connection with later events. See: prophetic dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I keep a record of all my dreams to see if they are psychological or about my future?

What did I gather from the dream about being or being with a clairvoyant?

Do I have such dreams frequently?

See ESP in DreamsUsing Your Intuition Techniques for Exploring your DreamsPrayer and Dream Interpretation

Clam

Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any signs that I am sometimes emotionally withdrawn?

Do I clam up sometimes if offended or scared?

Are you very sensitive and so try to protect your feelings?

See Easy Dream UnderstandingSettings in Dreams meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream

Classroom

The learning process; what we learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc. Also it can be habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts us with many new feelings, choices and drives.

People have told me that criticism aimed at them by a teacher had changed them right into adulthood. Someone told me a teacher told them they couldn’t sing, and they have never sung since. They were in their forties and were then helped to sing. Another person, Tom, was listened to while his classroom was singing. The headmaster went to each person and then stopped at Tom and was told he was ruining the whole class and couldn’t sing. Tom’s response was, “What the hell does he know. Of course I can sing!” He carried on singing and was told by a musical voice trainer that he was actually like a musician with his voice. See Avoid Being Victims

The classroom itself can indicate study; relationship with authority; whatever sense of oneself engendered by school. Maybe you need to ask yourself what you actually learned at school.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did what you learned at school have a negative or positive influence on you?

What do you feel overall about school?

Did you rebel or learn from authority figures.

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Clay

The body; material affairs. Or yourself, shaped by events and impressions. Physical life, materialistic attitudes. The parts of yourself that can be shaped, or have been shaped, and perhaps hardened. This can refer to many things, such as part of ones nature that have been shaped by other people or circumstances and have hardened. This could be a shape that is either quite without art, or an expression of great skill. See: Earth.

In some belief systems a being of clay can depict an elemental force. At its simplest level this represents the mineral forces active in your being. Sometimes such influences tend to deeply influence the personality, and may therefore be felt as invasive beings or forces. In essence this would mean ones response to life would be largely materialistic and incapable of sensing the subtler side of nature and people.

The clay for some people represents the possibility of artistic or self expression. But this probably links back again to how you express or shape yourself. But it could be an expression of some part of you or a gift you are making.

If it is a part of your body, or a body, it suggests life or responsiveness is lacking in that part or that person.

If it is simply clay earth, it depends what you associate with clay, or if you are a keen gardener and see clay as a poor soil to grow things in. The clay can also suggest difficult terrain.

Example: “I dreamed that a man was creating a clay model of me. When it was completed he placed it on the desert. I was surprised to see that the upper half of the torso was alive. It did not, however, resemble me at all. Rather it looked like an exotic, dark, foreign girl. To my complete consternation I observed that the figure from the waist down resembled a toilet bowl, moist, and earth colored!”

An interpretation of the dream was give as, “A warning to the girl that she was becoming a sex-pot.” This was symbolized by the toilet bowl, the use of which relates to the sexual organs. The newly molded sculpture indicated recent experiences. The foreign looking woman indicated that this was not her true self. The desert in which the man placed his creation symbolized the spiritual aridity to which this activity was reducing her.”

Idioms: feet of clay; modeling clay.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is clay in my dream? (Look this up in the rest of the dictionary.)

What have I shaped or been shaped by, and what is the quality of this?

Is this something I can be proud of or can change?

See – Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

See: Earth.

Clean Cleaning Cleansing

Dreams make a big thing of being clean of cleaning oneself as shown by the examples. To be clean in a dream means you are now in harmony with yourself. To be seen as needing cleaning is to show that some aspect of you is pointing out how you have got out of being whole. This will show as difficult feeling or viewpoint that make you feel depressed or not satisfied with yourself.

Cleaning yourself needs work, and this can be done by taking notice of your dreams and habits, but particularly you feelings about yourself. See Avoid Being VictimsLife’s Little SecretsIntroduction to Dreams

Here is someones description of his own experiences of being cleansed.

“I have seen that prior to my own inner explorations and meeting with childhood traumas, if illness led me to become delirious I would be totally lost in the whirl of emotions and imagery that arose. In later years however, after meeting many aspects of myself in a healing way, and again delirious, although the imagery arose as before, it was no longer threatening or overwhelming. If one has never experienced this meeting with one’s own childhood self, even if one has taken drugs or experienced hallucinations through other means, it is very difficult to understand the immensely powerful role such past experiences play in producing mood swings. In a certain sense, people who have never cleaned out the Aegean Stables of their own childhood or adult trauma are under a constant altered state of consciousness (ASC) caused by internal trauma. Such permanent ASC’s produce a view of the world related to the underlying traumas or habit patterns.

Example: a man dreamt he was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his own faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean the room, and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped by others who offered to help him, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself.

This dream was a turning point for the dreamer because it showed so clearly how he was making excuses for the attitudes of despair, of helplessness, of being disadvantaged, that he lived in all the time. Realising this he had a big internal clean-up of the feelings and thoughts he had accepted as true.

Example: I had been meditating a great deal without any apparent results. This led to the question of just how did God manifest if you opened your life to the spirit. One night I had woken because I needed to go to the toilet. Just as I was approaching my bed again I heard a voice speaking to me. It was very clear and seemed to come from everywhere in the room. It said, ‘You have asked how God touches a human life. Now watch closely.’

This was an extraordinary experience and nothing like it had happened to me before, so I was naturally fascinated to see what happened. I couldn’t sleep that night, expecting something else as dramatic to occur. Nothing did, but shortly afterwards I began to experience the release of painful emotions and memories from years back. It was like being cleansed. This went on for years and led to a full meeting with God. It was my first experience of LifeStream

Example: I had a blackhead on the side of my face, near the nose. It was as large as an orange! I squeezed it out, and it left a hole near my ear, so that people could see inside my head. I knew I should clean the hole with alcohol. My hair looked dirty.

The dreamer admitted she enjoyed hearing and learning about the failings of others and passing this on to others as gossip. The blackhead and the hole in her head represented the ugly thoughts she allowed in her head that she passed on to others. The dream shows how to cleanse this out of her so that she would no longer infect others. She also needed to clean her hair – thinking. See washing; bathing.

A cleaner janitor: Your ability to seriously clean up your life. Of course depending on the quality of the cleaner.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream what is shown as needing cleaning?

Can I recognise what I need to attend to in my life?

Do I recognise the process in my life that is the great healer/cleanser?

See People’s Experience of LifeStreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Clear

The word clear is used in many dreams, but in so many different ways – ‘not as clear cut as that’ – ‘without any clear conception of what it is I am looking for’ – ‘felt the clear impress of his thoughts in my own’ – ‘One was clear, and another had a rose pink opalescence’ – ‘the lines of bitterness and uncertainty, as clear as cunning or laughter in other faces’ – ‘had a clear image of their breasts’ – ‘never gave him a clear idea between right and wrong’ – ‘a very clear realisation came fully formed’ – ‘we could clear a way through’.

Therefore it is important to clarify the subject and plot or theme of the dream – See Plot of the Dream

If something is clear, then it is a sign of clarifying something or being able to see something clearly, or the work of clearing has been done, depending on the theme of the dream.

If it is not clear or cloudy then it is something you are still working on in your life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I clear about?

If I am clear about something, can I say what it is?

What was the clear thing?

Tr using Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power Dreaming

Clichés

There are an enormous number of cliches images used in books or films. Some of them are the man or woman all in black or in black leather; the scary music suggesting fear; blood running from eyes suggesting something unspeakable has happened; blood coming from nose; the hazy wall of energy or something, suggesting a great change of a different world or dimension, the devil or horns on a person, suggesting incredible evil; huge wave or tsunami.

When I have been in hospital, or when I worked as a nurse and saw people carried in with serious injuries, I can’t remember seeing blood coming from their eyes or nose, unless somebody punched them there. Another great cliches in American movies is that when anyone gets angry or hurt they have to destroy everything, throwing things around, smashing what they have been working on. Also I wonder about the American psyche because every American film today have the heroes or heroine repeat, “It’s not your fault. Don’t blame youreslf because it’s not your fault.” I wonder whether they suffer from huge  feelings if guilt. 

Of course another cliche repeated almost as often is, “Everything is going to be okay.” Often it isn’t, but the speakers have this unfallible abiltity to predict the future – often wrongly.

Oh yes, the great one, in America everyone walks around their home drinking beer out of a bottle — or else, to really impress people, whiskey. Or where the film producers paid enormous amounts to promote those thing?I wonder if it is a national thing. An enormous cliché is the woman stripped down to tight panties and brassiere, or the woman/actress showing as much of her boobs as allowed, and also their butts. The aim is to arouse the instinctive response in males – especially males who haven’t left their teenage years behind them – teenagers with an active sexual feeling are plagued with constant erections when looking at women. See http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/beware-of-love/

But I guess a lot of money passes hands to have most laptops in films showing the Appple symbol. It is almost 90% but I am thrilled to sometimes see Dell has a viewing.

A very funny one, mostly in American films, is couples going bananas with passionate sex, and the women still have their brassieres on as well as their panties – and the men all still have their underpants on – how do they do it?

Something you see also in American films, is someone badly injured and maybe dead. The person reaches out to feel their pulse by pushing their fingers in the person neck at the point of the jaw bone. I have yet to find any pulse at that point. The funny thing is that they do it for a second and find assurance – they are either alive or dead.

An amazing one is when a man is hit by a soccer ball low in the abdomen and the man collapses holding his apparently injure testicles. Maybe I’m formed differently but I do not wear them on the front of my body. Also when an actor kicks a man in this region in films they always go down in agony; but I remember as a young teenager when being measured for a suit being asked, “What side do you dress.” I didn’t have a clue until he asked what side does my genitals hand in my trousers. Well I hang to the left, and I think it would miss the tender parts if the kick was aimed in the middle. But It look easy to do because the men in the films stand with their kegs wide apart – but MAN SURVIVES “1100 POUNDs of PRESSURE” MAN KICK to THE GROIN!!! Was he neutered first!!!

See Avoid Being VictimsDreams are Like a Computer  Up

Client

You can have or be business clients, therapists clients, you can be a worker looking after someone else’s clients, so it is important to be clear about whet the client in the dream refers to.

To be able to understand your dream it is therefore important for you to explore the dream a little. So please use Being the Person or Thing; Characters and People in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Example: I have a Bowen client that is due to come at 3pm. I want to cancel and several times I look at my watch beforehand. But I don’t actually cancel. At 3pm she rings the bell and Grannie answers the door and calls for me. Grandpa is there too. I wave to indicate that I am not there but she doesn’t see and she is quite deaf so it isn’t possible to tell her. I go to the client in the treatment room. She says she wasn’t sure about coming. I assume she has had a reaction but the feeling is that she is reluctant to go through the experience.

Example: A young woman/girl comes up to me. She used to be a client and starts talking to me. I say to her, “I’m here for a rest and I really don’t want to hear you right now.” I feel guilty and caught all at the same time. I want alone time but it’s obvious she is going to talk to me. I give in. I then do some role-playing with her. I point out how she drops eye contact and turns her body away from me. She says, “Oh, that’s very interesting.”

Example: I’m working and it has been a good 6 hours I’ve done with 2 more to go. And my boss passes by and I tell her I’m sick of doing everything when your other 2 girls are just basically doing clients but nothing else substantial to help. And I ask if I can get cut early so that I can go relax I’m all balled up. She replies with a I know your doing all that but doesn’t let me leave. A lady from another Burger King restaurant arrives and so does the big boss who he is from another city arrives that day to do check ups.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I a client or handling a client?

Is it about business or therapy?

What do I feel in the dream?

See Practitioner Client DilemmaSettings in Dreams

Cliff

If on top of cliff, fear of, or possibility of, falling in the eyes of others or yourself. Fall from power or achievement. Fear of not being able to achieve.

Other meaning can be that you are faced with the feeling of being on edge; facing danger; making a difficult decision; taking a risk; encountering a barrier; or the unknown, depending on dream content.

On edge of change, danger, or a decision. It can also indicate taking a risk or a barrier, and so being confronted by fear and how you deal with your fears.

Example: I am falling down a cliff. In the dream, I know if I hit the bottom I will die. (I’ve been told by dream ‘experts’ that this is so.) I hit the bottom – my body is splattered on the ground, but ‘I’ am floating through the air thinking ‘How strange! I’m supposed to be dead! But I’m alive and free.’ Ingmar Bergman. See SummaryQ1

In many cases if you are at the top of the cliff it shows great space beyond where you stand. Some dreamers find this threatening, and for others it is an opportunity to fly or in some way relate to the vastness of the universe – their inner life. In this sense it represents the unknown, the possibilities of your life and how you relate to them. So it shows how you respond to or relate to the hugeness of your unconscious inner life.

The example shows the cliff as a wider view of life, an overview, one which includes death. It is shown as the uphill struggle in life, looking back or down from which one has wisdom. It is also the test of self trust, and the facing of ones fear.

Example: ‘I was standing on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. By my side was a man. He had short cropped silver hair, gleaming, and piercing blue eyes. He seemed old, but was broad, muscular and gave me the impression of having lived many lifetimes, or being very wise. He indicated the sea and I understood I should plunge into it. I did so, leaving my body behind, and became a part of the ocean. At the same time it seemed I could at any time stand beside the man on the cliff again.’ Debbie.

In Debbie’s dream the cliff is also the edge between life and death; between fear of death and exuberance of life; between being trapped in the concept of oneself as simply a physical form, and the freedom of realising oneself as naked consciousness.

 Being at foot of cliff: If trying to climb it – the immense difficulties we face in growing and facing all the fears and traumas in the way of our progress. Between sea and cliff, it suggests that you are becoming aware of the enormous consciousness your personality is only a small part of, and the cliff is the also enormous heritage of the past you have. See The Unconscious

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the cliff and what does that suggest?

If I am high up and can see expanses of land or sea, what am I understanding?

Am I meeting the challenge of the cliff, or am I trapped by fear or feelings of impassable barriers?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsMethods of Awakening

Climb Climbed Climbing

Trying to, or rising above, difficulties. Trying to achieve a new viewpoint, or to learn or develop a new understanding.

Sometimes we climb in a dream to avoid something; to get away; to climb out of some mess we are in. We also climb to reach something, and in doing so make take a risk.

Climbing has risks, whether you are climbing a tree or trying to climb the social ladder. Attaining new heights in work or relationship we reach the new and face anxiety, so may have a fear of failing/falling. In such dreams it is necessary to have the right support or foundation to climb from. So if the thing you are climbing over are insecure, it might be pointing to earlier phases of your life not helping you to develop confidence and a secure sense of yourself. See Secrets of Power DreamingFacing Fear

We climb: Often this is to avoid something,  to get away, to climb out of some mess or difficulty we are in – in which case it expresses effort on our part.

If we climb to get something or somewhere, to reach it, this can express ambition or motivation.

Climbing may also depict the first half of life, and going downhill middle or old age. If you are approaching middle age, climbing a hill can represent the first half of your life, and going downhill middle or old age.

Example: I recently reached my fortieth birthday and dreamt I was walking uphill. It was quite tough going. When I got to the top I saw the road on the other side was very steep. I felt frightened of going down it. I looked around and saw that the top of the hill stretched away on each side, so there was plenty of space, like a plateau. I realised that I could walk around and there is no hurry to go down the hill.

The next example illustrates a common use of climb – to see what is there, beyond, above, out of sight. This aspect of climbing also often includes the process of personal growth or positive change. The higher viewpoint is also one that includes a vaster or more inclusive understanding of life. In the dream the child is exploring growth in this way, to see what maturity and death have in store.

Example: ‘We climbed this tree, the baby as well, to see what was at the top. The baby fell out of the tree. We climbed down and took the baby to a room and lay it on a bed. It seemed to be asleep and didn’t wake up. Later we went back to the room to see the baby but it had gone. In its place was a bluebird. As we looked the bluebird flew away.’ Dream of a nine year old girl.

Idioms: Climb down; climb the walls; social climber. See: hill; mountain.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why am I climbing – is it to escape something or to get somewhere or something – and what does this point to in my life?

What do I see, achieve or understand when I have climbed?

If it is difficult to climb, what is stopping me or acting as a barrier?

Try using Being the Person or ThingDreams are Like a Computer GameAvoid Being Victims

Cloak

This links with the feeling of either hiding, covering yourself for protection, or actively expressing feelings such as pride, superiority, humility or any other attitude we cloak ourselves with.

Clock

This may refer to your sense of connection with other people, duties, or the restrictions or disciplines you place upon yourself. The clock can sometimes represent your span of life, and the ticking, your heart – how much time have you left? What time of your life is it?

Clock or watch: The boundaries or restrictions we create for ourselves through our awareness of time. It can also relate to a sense of duty and timing, a realisation of urgency or having ‘lots of time’.

The clock is also an indication of duration, of how much experience you have passed through, and of course your passing life. The watch or clock also connect powerfully with arriving, meeting and leaving; with departing work, or the pressure of being on time.

Ticking clock: Might be the heart; life ticking away.

Big clock: One’s life – how much time has passed or one has left.

Clock watching: Tension, a desire to be somewhere else or with someone else. Wanting to escape from either a situation or from the demands of time and responsibility. Being bored or lacking satisfaction. Feelings about ageing.

Clock with hands still: The end of something, timelessness, or a death.

Expensive watch: Quality; boastfulness; accuracy; wealth.

With hands racing: Time running out or a frenetic stressful feelings of events pressurising you. Sense of urgency.

Alarm clock ringing: Message to wake up to something happening in your life, or to remember something you had set yourself to do. Sometimes a warning. See: time – of day.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the dream situation about – parting, waiting, rightness, impatience – whatever it is how does it relate to me?

Is this about timing, and if so in regard to what?

What time of my life is it?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Clone

A dream clone may very well be a sign of you creating a copy of yourself because of troubles with the self you usually know.

The clone may very well develop a different view than the you that you know. this could result in a split in yourself, or even a take over by the clone. This because the dream clone, animal or person all exist in the one mind, so any conflict is a conflict in you. See Wild Side

Close Closed Closing

To shut out, divide, not wish to know, feel or experience. Fear of being entered, fear of sex. But also protection and privacy, or even decision making if you close a door against someone or something.

You can close a business deal, close your heart to someone, close your mind to any suggestions or anything new, or you can have someone or something close to your heart.

Closing ones eyes will probably have much the same meanings, though it might also be to switch attention from outward experience to inward and the infinite possibilities of memory and imagination and beyond.

Example: But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.

To close a door etc.: To be closed emotionally, or to end or shut something out. Often this requires a decision or strong feeling. Or it might be a response to protect oneself or someone/something else. It can mean you want privacy or you do not want someone in your life and are trying to find ‘space’ for oneself. It can mean a dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact or it can be repressing memories or feelings and decisively ending something.

For close as in near: Intimacy; being made aware of or having a fuller awareness of something or someone; what one feels connected with or has ties with; near to, in the sense of making a decision – near to leaving home; close to, as ‘close to finding the solution’; a situation that is near at hand or being confronted or realised now. Idioms: At close quarters; close fisted; close on; close to home; that was close.

Idioms: a close call; bring to a close; a close shave; close a deal/sale; close to the vest; close to my heart.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this closed on me or am I closing something – and what is that in my life?

Am I opening to or shutting out something – ending or beginning?

What is it, a person, situation or thing that is involved in the closing?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your DreamsActing on your dreamAssociations Working With

Closet

See: Wardrobe.

Clothes

clothes – The first part of this entry is a general description of the meaning of clothes. Then there is the Clothes situations. For separate items like shirt, dress, socks etc please click on: Clothes Items

Clothes can mean many things depending upon dream context, their colour, style, what period of time they depict, and their condition – i.e. clean or dirty, ragged or smart, etc.

They can depict the stance or attitudes we use to meet other people or special situations such as work or danger; protection, such as might be given by our feelings of reserve, shyness, anxiety or aggressiveness in fending off sexual or other advances. They can also indicate a period or phase of ones life when you wore those clothes, and so associate with the activities, problems, or things you were experiencing at that time. But also the triumphs and realisations you have achieved. See Associations Working With

Clothes depict self respect and how we see ourselves in society – the difference between what we want and what we feel others want of us. Our clothes, especially when we consider their colour, can also express our emotional condition and moods, or even our health. Constance Newland in her book Myself and I, gives the example of dressing in violet symbolising being inviolate sexually.  As colours may be a vital clue to understanding our dream clothes, it is always helpful to look at the possible meaning of the colour. See: colours.

Clothes, clean or dirty, can also show the habits or habitual attitudes we are involved in and express through day after day.

In the following example the clothes are feelings of pleasure and confidence, and also discomfort and lack of confidence.

Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.

Clothes can mean many things depending upon dream context, their colour, style, what period of time they depict, and their condition – i.e. clean or dirty, ragged or smart, etc.

They can depict the stance or attitudes we use to meet other people or special situations such as work or danger; protection, such as might be given by our feelings of reserve, shyness, anxiety or aggressiveness in fending off sexual or other advances. They can also indicate a period or phase of ones life when you wore those clothes, and so associate with the activities, problems, or things you were experiencing at that time. See Associations Working With

Clothes depict self respect and how we see ourselves in society – the difference between what we want and what we feel others want of us. Our clothes, especially when we consider their colour, can also express our emotional condition and moods, or even our health. Constance Newland in her book Myself and I, gives the example of dressing in violet symbolising being inviolate sexually.  As colours may be a vital clue to understanding our dream clothes, it is always helpful to look at the possible meaning of the colour. See: colours.

Clothes, clean or dirty, can also show the habits or habitual attitudes we are involved in and express through day after day. See: example under washing machine.

In the following example the clothes are feelings of pleasure and confidence, and also discomfort and lack of confidence.

Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.

Idioms: Dressed to kill; dress up; dressed to the nines; overdressed; dressing down; dress rehearsal; a stitch of clothes; dress clothes; Sunday best clothes; a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Clothes types and situations:

Buying clothes: This requires choice, either your own or someone else’s, and is about considering how you want to or do appear to other people – what public image you want to have; who and what you feel comfortable as. But it is often more than just public image, it is also about the choices you make in life, the way you choose to be, how you relate or respond to others, or what you believe yourself to be. Dreams suggest we can be almost anything, but usually we ‘clothe’ ourselves in particular feelings, beliefs or roles often identify with them so thoroughly we can’t see beyond them.

For instance many people cannot choose their  own clothes without other people’s opionion of how they look. This may be a carry over from childhood.

So dreams about clothes and appearance are important in helping you to move beyond or grow beyond what you have ‘clothed’ yourself in.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I choosing  – or what is being chosen – in this dream, and what does that suggest about the direction I am taking?

Am I making changes here in the way I present myself – if so what are they?

Do I totally identify with the choices I am making, or can I see them as ‘clothing’?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Changing clothes: This can be about altering your mode of behaviour, your role or mood, or even seeking a different self image. We are all capable of changing who we are, and changing clothes suggests changing the way you present yourself to other people, or how you feel about yourself. Also you change clothes as you move from one role, or one social environment to another – work to being with friends, or school to home, etc. So the dream might be indicating the shifts you make in the attitudes or ways you feel about yourself in different environments.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What clothes are you changing from and to, and what does that suggest?

Is this a change of role or a change in appearance?

Am I changing because I want to or because circumstances or environment demand it?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Children’s or teenage clothes in adult’s dream: Youthful or immature attitudes or behaviour. Sometimes particular clothes carry memories and the clothes might hold information from your past.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do these clothes remind me of past people or events?

What am I feeling in connection with these clothes, and what message is there in that?

Is this telling me I am behaving as if I were a youngster?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Clothing inappropriate to dream surroundings: Attitudes or behaviour inappropriate to one’s

situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way are the clothes wrong for the situation?

Am I acting inappropriately in my life in some way?

Do I need to change my clothes or my surroundings?

Clothes for a particular role – policeman, judge, etc: An issue regarding, or shift toward, influence from what the role suggests. See different subjects under roles.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What role do the clothes suggest, and what memories or associations have I got with that role?

Do I feel easy or awkward in the role?

What is being done in the clothes, and what can I see about this that applies to myself?

Dirty or untidy clothes – if the dreamer’s: Difficult or grubby feelings; one’s inner condition, such as an untidy mind, or grubby feeling values. Or simply that you do not care about what people think of you.

If underclothes: usually refers to difficult feelings about sex or ones own personal self. See: dirtyexample under beggar archetype.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are these my clothes or someone else’s – if someone else’s do I have difficult feelings about them or do they represent an aspect of myself?

What clothes are dirty, and what part of my life or myself do they link with?

If there is need can I imagine cleaning or changing these clothes. (For help with this see carry the dream forward.)

Discarded clothes: Things you have left behind, or purposely tried to remove from your life. Sometimes this is a way of life, or a period of your life that your ‘wore’ in the past. But occasionally it refers to things from the long past, prior to this present birth, that you are coming across that are relevant to your present.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am aware of at the moment that I left behind, discarded or forgot at some time?

Am I experiencing influences or situations that do not appear to be from this lifetime – if so can I define what they are?

If this refers to something from my past, is it still something I want to discard?

Eating clothes: Trying to digest feeling about your social image – how you appear to others, or how you feel you appear to others. There is a big difference between the two. It might also suggest having a hard time enjoying your life situation or even your own self-image. It mightrelate to the saying, “I’ll eat my hat”.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel about the clothes being eaten, and where do those feelings appear in my waking life?

What clothes are these – or whose clothes are these – and does this give any clues to what I am trying to digest or integrate?

What do the other parts of the dream suggest in context with the eating?

Helped to get or buy clothes: This suggests you need or are getting the support from someone else to feel confident and socially acceptable, or to change your image. It can also mean you feel impoverished in some way; or that you are unsure of yourself, who you are or what direction to take in life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the help supportive or appreciated, or is there unwillingness – and where do these feelings appear in my life?

Am I looking to someone else to help me in choices or directions?

What clothes are being chosen, and what does this suggest?

Layers of clothes: This refers to wearing something like jeans over a more formal or different type of clothing, and suggests that the top layer is how you present yourself to others, but underneath you feel quite differently about yourself, or are hiding qualities or failings.

If you discover the layer underneath and realise you were not aware of it before, it shows you just realising what was hidden about yourself.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the difference between the top and bottom layer, and what different qualities do they suggest?

Am I aware of hiding something about myself, or presenting myself as different to what I really feel?

Am I discovering qualities that I kept covered up?

Man in woman’s clothes: It might point to not accepting the male role, with its connection with bread winning, aggression, being cannon fodder in war, etc.

Sometimes a man takes on the female role without realising it in certain situations – perhaps to care for children, or in nursing – and so the dream might show this. Being a full male in relationship with a woman’s full flow of feminine needs is not something some biological males manage. See: Am I a man or a woman?

There are many other reasons for this type of dream. Males may try to deflect the aggression of other males by posing as a woman. They may wish to attract another male – their father – if there has been a difficult and unfulfilled relationship with their father, thus living as a homosexual. An identification with ones mother may have been extreme, and so this might prompt the desire to take the female role. See: Archetype of the anima; Archetype of the animus.

It could also be that you are accepting you female half.

Helpful Questions and Hints:

What am I experiencing or feeling about this, and can I relate those feelings to the way I live my life or hide myself?

Does this remind me of any particular female?

Am I a latent homosexual?

What is gained for me by the female role?

New clothes: This may come about because of the need for a new life, a new direction, such as occurs after losing a loved partner. It can also show a change in attitudes, new feeling about yourself, or even a change such as in work or relationship.

Example: My parents told us we were running out of money, and that we had to cut our expenses down to the minimum. So we sold everything we had, and started all over. I got some new clothes.

In this dream the change in lifestyle is made more real by the new clothes. New clothes may also link with pleasure and allowing oneself to play or be relaxed, getting what you want.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are these mine – and if so what is the need or feeling leading to getting them?

If these are someone else’s’ what are the surrounding circumstances and does that link with my present situation?

Have I lost someone, or in need of a change – if so what is that change?

Old clothes: This can depict feelings that you are old, tired, or that something is outworn – such as a relationship or attitudes that do not suit your present life situation or events. It can also link with feelings about your life situation being shabby or worn out, as the example dream of a middle aged woman.

Example: I am getting married but I am at a dentist’s office first and it is getting late. A woman who is ahead of me passes out. Then the dentist takes several inmates in ahead of me. When he gets to me it is 4 p.m. and we decided on a 7 p.m. wedding. (The male dentist is also the minister). I decide to go with a minister whom I had already asked. I call my mother and my daughter to get my dress and to buy me one white carnation. Then I decide to use my artificial bouquet. Then I decide I am too tired and cancel the wedding. The dress is old and yellowed. I didn’t get the dental work finished either.

But old can also relate to tradition, such as a family wedding dress, or period clothes. As such it can indicate past ways of feeling or relating to things and people.

If the clothes are made out of old clothes, then it shows an adapting of old attitudes, or other peoples attitudes or lifestyle to something usable or practical today.

If the clothes are from a past period of time they indicate what you believe it felt like to live in those times, or the attitudes or way of life you associate with them. It might be the period represented sexual repression or struggle for you. If so then it shows you meeting those feelings or that life situation in some way. See: Associations Working With; historic; roles.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If the clothes are something I am not feeling good about, what are the difficult feelings involved?

If I feel fine with these clothes, what attitudes or feelings bring this pleasure?

What role or situation do these clothes suggest?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Old but comfortable clothes: This indicates attitudes regarding the way you relate to others or yourself that you may not express in public, but depict who you are when relaxed. See: historic; roles.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it about these clothes that enables me to feel comfortable?

Do the clothes link with a way of life – if so what is that way of life?

Are these clothes I own – if so when do I wear them, or when did I last wear them?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Other people’s clothes worn by dreamer: The social attitudes, responses and perhaps way of life we have adopted from others. They might indicate that you are either being influenced by that person, or you admire who they are and are changing.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Whose clothes are being worn, and how would I describe that person to understand what it is that is being ‘put on’? See: people for help defining characters.

What is felt about these clothes, and what does this indicate about my relationship with them?

Am I feeling at ease about the clothes or at odds – if at odds what is it that is irritating or not liked?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Overdressed or unable to get clothes off: Too cautious in relationships, and in some dreams avoidance of sex. It can also show a difficulty in changing your attitudes or self image.  Clothes can be protectiveness, so inability to take them off could suggest avoidance of showing your vulnerabilities. Also avoiding intimacy, or being stuck in old patterns of behaviour or self image.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do the clothes I am stuck in suggest particular attitudes or a way of life – if so how does that apply to me?

If I am overdressed what in waking life am I doing that suggests this?

Do I avoid intimacy or being vulnerable in a relationship? 

Packing clothes: This may suggest that you are wanting to go away for a while, or leave home or have a break from your everyday life, even wanting to move. If you think about it you will most likely recognise which one it is.

Ragged or inappropriate clothes: This might indicate feelings of inadequacy, depression, or even  rebellion against authority or society. It can show you feeling marginalised in some way, or made to feel inferior or of no account.

A ragged wedding dress for instance could show feelings of anxiety about your ability to go through with the relationship, or uncertainty about the wedding or yourself.

Ragged or torn clothes can also show you having survived a difficult or powerful experience of some kind – as would be the case if you had survived a plane crash, travelled across difficult terrain or been in a war.

Other people dressed raggedly probably suggest suspicion on your part about relating to them – i.e. difficult feelings about something or someone you are dealing with at the moment. Or it could show you feel they have lived or are living a difficult life and may even be injured or in danger.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the overall situation of the dream suggest – ease, threat, danger, suspicion – and can I see that in my life?

What situation do the ragged or torn clothes appear in, and does that relate to what I am meeting?

Am I feeling inadequate, anxious or as if I have come through a difficult situation?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

School clothes: Attitudes or moral rules learned at school. What we learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc.; habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts us with many new feelings, choices and drives.

Someone else’s clothes: See: other people’s clothes.

Stealing clothes: This might suggest that you do not feel that you have what it takes to succeed in life, or that you have the right or personal quality to be admired or seen as a worthy member of society – so it could point to a loss of self respect.

If your clothes are stolen – it might be you are feeling undermined or cheated in some way, or that you feel you have lost confidence, or the feelings that usually support you in a situation such as work or public relations.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you are stealing, what is it you are wanting or seeking in taking the clothes, and how does that relate to your life at the moment?

What clothes are taken, and what does that link with? (See entries on particular garments.)

If your clothes are stolen what are you feeling and is that a feeling you recognise in waking life?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Taking off clothes: Removing the attitudes or ‘front’ you use to deal with people and social life; becoming more relaxed or intimate if undressing with someone; exposing your real self or moving toward sexual intimacy.

It can also mean you are getting rid of the layers of social behaviour you have been hiding behind, or the attitudes you have defended yourself with – even the parts of your personality that arose from past trauma or difficult life situations.

In some dreams you take off clothes to get at something underneath. This is either to see/understand something that your everyday attitudes or situation keep hidden, or to deal with something, maybe depicted as an injury, lice, or creatures crawling on you. See: naked: wound: insects.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what situation are the clothes being removed, and what aspect of my life does this point to?

What clothes are being removed – suggesting what attitudes or feelings I am dealing with?

Am I with someone, suggesting intimacy, or alone suggesting isolation?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Tight clothes: Being too restricted in attitude or being tight emotionally. It can also suggest you feel restrained or held back in some way; or else you want to show your body curves..

If it refers to tight female clothes it can mean a desire to reveal your body in a sexually attractive way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am feeling restrained by, or what am I restraining?

Am I trying to be sexually attractive with someone?

Are there attitudes or decisions I am living by that are too tight and controlling?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Undressing: See: Taking off clothes.

Woman in male clothes: Not accepting female role, motherhood, or being a housewife. Possibly lesbian tendencies, or a desire for father figure. See: Am I a man or a woman?

It could also be that you are accepting you male half. See soul mate

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why is this happening in the dream – i.e. what motivation or pressure?

What is being done and what does this point to – i.e. am I seeking a woman, working at something, exploring being a male?

What are my feelings about this in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Worn out or old clothes: Attitudes that you are ready to leave behind, or old habits no longer useful.

It could also point to you feeling worn out, old or tired. See: Old clothes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do the clothes link with or typify a period of my life – if so what was my way of thinking and living at that time?

What am I doing with these clothes, and what does that tell me about what I am doing with old attitudes or lifestyle?

Do my present feelings echo the clothes, in that I am feeling old or worn out?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Clothes Items

 

Apron – Armour

Bathing CostumeBelt / Belt on car /ClothingSeat Belt / Man’s Belt / If you have been punished with a BeltParticular Types of Belt / Conveyor BeltBikiniBlouseBrassiere

Coat Jacket / Giving Coat or Jacket / Someone Else’s / Overcoat – Taking or Stealing from Coat – Corset

Dress / If You are Dressing /Male Dream / Wedding Dress

Gloves

Hat / Someone Else’s Hat / Taking off Hat – Hospital Gown

Jacket – Jeans – Jersey

Knickers Panties

Negligee – Nightgown

Pants PantyhosePetticoatPulloverPyjamas

Raincoat – Roles in Clothes

School Uniform – Shoes / Barefooted /Boots / Clogs / High Heels /Gym Shoes /In Female Dream / Jogging Shoes / Large Shoes / Losing Shoes / Low Heels / New Shoes / Odd Shoes / Old Shoes / Sandals / Shoes from Different RolesShoes Not Fitting / Shoes With No One in Them / Slippers / Sole of Shoe / SomeElsesShoes / Taking off or Discading Shoes / Tight shoes – Shorts – Skirt – Socks – Spacesuit – StockingsStraight JacketSuitArmy Air Force Navy suit / Business suit /Jump suit / Nurse / Police / swimsuit or bikiniSweater Swimsuit Bikini

Taking off clothesTie – Tights pantyhose – Trousers pantsT-Shirt – Tuxedo

Underwear underclothes knickers panties – UniformUndressing

Wedding Dress – Work Clothes

Clothing Inappropriate

Clothing inappropriate to dream surroundings: Attitudes or behaviour inappropriate to one’s

situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way are the clothes wrong for the situation?

Am I acting inappropriately in my life in some way?

Do I need to change my clothes or my surroundings?

Cloud Clouds

Clouds are in dreams often happen where feelings of upliftment or religious feelings occur. If the clouds are dull, then it suggests worry or depression of some kind that is obscuring your best feelings.

Sometimes clouds are about obscuring something, or blocking a possible view or realisation of something, especially if they are dark clouds.

Clouds are also the crystal ball of the mind, and in their many shapes and shades depict the intuitions, hopes, fears and wonders of our inner self. So we may ‘see’ things in our dream clouds that are visionary, intuitive or expressive of what we hold within. The clouds may represent or in some way illustrate these inner intuitions and motivations.

Because clouds are so high and often obscure or give a sense of depth to what is even higher, we sometimes use them in dreams to suggest dimensions of experience that are presently either beyond us or only vaguely glimpsed. In such dimensions of our mind we may see beings who live at that level of existence. In a practical way these beings are potentials we have that are not yet manifest in our daily physical life. If advice or communication emerges from such clouds it usually arises from our best intuitions, our highest perceptions. This is why in the past the clouds were seen as the home of the gods. It can also be the place of the ancestors. See Dimensions of Human Experience

Clouds move as they are stirred by the forces of nature, expressing cosmic forces such as the sun’s heat. This movement in our dreams sometimes depicts the force of spontaneous life as it influences us or as we respond to it. Clouds also bring life giving rain, and so can indicate a life giving influence in your life. Sometimes an influence from beyond the clouds appears in dreams, occasionally as beings. This is usually a sign that you are receiving communications from either your ancestors, those who are evolutionarily higher than us, or even the gods.

Example: Next I/we came to a town, high up on the mountain, near the peak. I was very impressed by how interesting, gay, and full of character the town was, quite opposite to the town at the foot of the mountain. I saw the peak of the mountain above the town, and decided to climb on. I went on with my companion and a boy child. It was cloudy at first, and there was no view from such a tremendous height, but the clouds cleared, and wonderful vistas were revealed. I believe I was singing in the dream – singing loud and strong and wonderfully clear and. Then we reached the top, and stood there together, looking out upon the clouds and the world.

The dream obviously shows the dreamer reaching beyond his usual awareness into a wider life.

Example: In both dreams it was shown that a powerful influence was flowing from above the clouds into my life. In the first dream I was marrying Dakota, and in the second a column of something was flowing from the sky above the clouds from these sky beings. So I wonder what that depicts – what that influence is about.

I begin to feel as if I am opening to something of immense power. I have an image of myself seated and almost glowing with this power, and oriental people are backing away from me. They are not doing this with fear, but with something of the attitude or feeling one might have when you stand near to a big fire and it is too hot to be close to.

The dream is an example of reaching beyond the known world into immense forces that can enter ones life.

Clouds clearing to reveal sun: The clearing of feelings and beliefs, or pains, that have clouded your awareness of your innate being and the wisdom innate in your existence.

Clouds obscuring the sun: Attitudes, fears and inner conflicts that obscure your real self, your source of energy and creativity. Imagine yourself as the clouds to feel what these blockages to your core self are. For help doing this see Stand in Role.

Coloured clouds: See: colours.

Flying in the clouds: This can either be about a sense of yourself free from the usual limitations of body, of concepts learned in a materialistic culture – or losing touch with your everyday life and escaping into imagination and longings. If it is the first it usually involves recognising that your essential self is not the body or the thoughts and emotions.

Formed clouds – square, round, etc: An unseen influence is shaping the way you see things and react. It is important to note what feelings you have about such clouds, as this gives a clue to what you are understanding of their message. Clouds usually constantly shift, so something important is entering your life and thoughts.

If bright: Usually feelings of upliftment or religious feelings. They can also indicate the way you have kept a higher ideal or purpose amidst difficult circumstances.

If dull or dark: Depression, feeling overshadowed by something. Such dark clouds are sometimes a warning about things we plan or are undertaking. They show we are not feeling good or confident about it, perhaps even an indication of things emerging. But often suggest things, pains or trauma you haven’t dealt with that are blocking your creativity or well-being.

Storm clouds: Strong emotions; the build up of anger or some sort of energy. See: tornado.

Swirling clouds: These can either depict being lost in a whirl of feelings and thoughts without a clear direction, or the brewing of a strong change or emotions.

Idioms: clouds on the horizon; every cloud has a silver lining; get your head out of the clouds; head in the clouds; on cloud nine

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feeling arises in me from my dream clouds, and what does that suggest to me?

If I imagine myself as the clouds what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role.

Was there any message from the clouds – if so can I clarify what it was?

If I climbed above the clouds on a mountain or flying, what sense of myself and the world did I arrive at?

Try  using Acting on your dreamAssociations Working WithBeing the Person or Thing

Clown

This can suggest anything from feelings of foolishness and playfulness, to feeling stupid or idiotic, perhaps even treated as inadequate. The clown tends to take the most ridiculous or tragic course of actions, so at times can remind us of our own misdirected path.

Sometimes the clowns face or clothes are a disguise for pain or sadness, or that you feel you have been made a fool of, or paraded in front of others in a way to be ridiculed. Sometimes this relates to childhood memories.

Sometimes the clown is a person with great wisdom to share – wisdom gathered through very full and varied life experience. See: archetype of the fool-clown-trickster.

The clown may also appear in dreams of men and women who are meeting and working with their unredeemed self, their animal that needs transforming. In this form the clown ridicules our pretensions, ridiculous pride, and reveals the ways we delude ourselves, so leading the way to becoming a whole person. See: ape-man.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the essential message or feeling in this dream – sad, foolish, wise?

If I am the clown what am I communicating by my actions or words?

Is the clown pointing out something to me – if so what is it?

See Characters and People in DreamsBeing the Person or Thing

Clutter

Any signs if clutter suggests you are in need of clearing up or tidying up your thinking, your mind or your life.

Example: In the dream I was in a kitchen with a smooth white work surface. The work surface was a bit cluttered with kitchen items, but there was clear space too. I was anxious because I was aware there were small mice in the kitchen and I didn’t want them to get into the food. Sure enough one darted across the work surface and I caught it by placing a clear glass cover over it so it couldn’t escape. (I was aware this was cruel and didn’t want to hurt it and knew it must be terrified too, but I had to make sure it didn’t get into the food. ) Then another mouse darted across the work surface and somebody else caught it by placing an empty plastic margarine tub over it. I was concerned because the plastic tub wasn’t heavy enough that the mouse wouldn’t escape out from underneath. I was upset because mice are unhygienic but I didn’t know how to keep them out. I was trying to stop somebody from lifting one of the covers off the mouse but they lifted it anyway and the mouse ran out. I turned and moved away quickly so the mouse wouldn’t run up my arm. I turned my back on it and crouched down, hunching my shoulders up. But the mouse ran up the back of my clothing, under several layers, and got trapped at the back of my neck. In the dream the scenario was horrific for me as this little mouse was wriggling around inside my clothes desperate to escape and I wanted it out asap but didn’t want to hurt it. I was annoyed that it had run up MY back. It could have run up anybody’s back so why did it have to run up mine? In fact why did it have to run up anyone’s back – why didn’t it just run away? That’s all I can remember of the dream.

This dream, alough it appears to be about mice, is actauly about the mental clutter of the dreamer. She has a great horror of being unhygienic and at the same time doesn’t want to hurt or kill naything so livesi n constant conflict. Also there is indication of tension trying to be released at the neck.

Example: we went into the house (Mum was showing me around). I don’t remember much about the rest of the house, except the top floor. This room was a dining room and almost all the space in it was taken up with a big long table and lots of chairs. They were old-fashioned, bulky pieces of wooden furniture which looked well-worn. I counted the chairs in the dream – there were around twelve or thirteen. I wondered why Mum had agreed to move in with all of somebody else’s clutter filling the house. My desire was to get rid of all the old stuff, the clutter belonging to someone else, empty the rooms and start afresh. There was another disappointment – althought the views had promised to be spectacular (and from this room should have been the best since it was at the top of the house), the windows were high up. To see out of them you had to stand on tip-toe, and even then there wasn’t a clear view as the window was made up of small panes and the view was broken up and spoiled by this. Mum said she thought the previous owner had served cream teas to visitors in this room.

The dreamer comments on her own dream and say: “This dream seems to reflect what is happening in my life at the moment. More than ever I feel that I have outgrown my old life, and my entire focus is on finding the real me wherever ‘I’ am hidden. I am looking at everything about my life and reassessing it. Mostly when I dream about Mum or a mother it relates to the Church, and I think this is so in this dream. What promised to have a wonderful outlook on the sea (God, the Eternal), turns out to be full of old, worn, bulky clutter; what’s more the outlook is not even very good!

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where is the cluttere shown in the dream?

Am I aware of the clutter in my life?

What can I do about it?

See Life’s Little SecretsSecrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

Coach

As an athletic or life coach it is usually about a helping or supportive part of your mind or person. It can also be a ‘life teacher’ – a part of you that give you good guidance you’re your unconscious. But if it is a critical coach, it can represent an authority figure you trust and injecting negative attitudes in you. Or rather the self criticism you are holding on to.

But as we are dealing with human nature, a male coach can be a sexual come on in your dream. Or a female coach can also be the same.

On the way there, I meet the coach, a woman (Dr. Henshaw? – and complain to her about the way I was treated by the announcer, i.e., America’s passion for statistics had overshadowed the fact that for a high school kid, I had really run one hell of a race and that furthermore, I had run it against myself which is harder than running against others and that my best previous time was 4:23.

She is busy, unsympathetic – only commenting that 4:02 is not the world’s record anymore, that it is more like 4:005. I try once again to get her sympathy, to talk with her, but she turns (with a trophy in her hand) to talk with someone else and I, disgusted, walk into the locker room where I slam the door.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever been coached by anyone – if so how did I feel about it?

What was subject was being coached?

What feelings did I havein the dream?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Coach Transport

See bus coach

Coal

Money, good luck, energy. Ancient unconscious knowledge you have brought to the surface. Such wisdom needs to be unfolded from the symbol by exploring the feelings and ideas connected with the image. It can also indicate warmth, or the possibility of warmth or fire.

Coal can also depict parts of yourself – memories or experiences – that were deeply buried but are being, or have been brought to the surface, perhaps to be burnt out and therefore cleansed. There is usually great wisdom in such coal and it needs to be unfolded from the symbol by exploring the feelings and ideas connected with the image. If the coal is burnt and small stones are left in the ashes, this signifies the parts of your deepest self that are beyond time and change. They are influences from your long past that are great lessons and influences from past life experiences.

The coal and coal mining are therefore an analogy for a deep delving into oneself, or an emerging from being deeply lost in darkness. Mark Block in describing his slow return to consciousness after a terrible car accident, writes:

My journey to consciousness was like that of a coal miner’s journey from deep within the mine, getting closer and closer to the surface. As I climbed closer to consciousness, I was able to sense the fresh air, like that of a refreshing summer breeze on the coal miner’s face when he reached the surface and gathered in the warm sunshine of the day.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I digging this coal – and if so what in my life reflects this inner uncovering and discovery of the long past?

Does this dream coal in any way link with warmth or the promise of warmth – if so what am I needing or giving in regard to love and warmth?

If the coal is burn are there any stones left in the ashes – if so imagine yourself as the stones and describe what you feel and experience in your body and feelings? For help doing this see Stand in Role.

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

What we Need to Remember About Us

Coat Jacket

The coat often depicts the ‘self’ we use in public. For instance we might be shy in public but very warm with a single friend. A coat or jacket, if it has pockets, can also represent what we carry inside us – memories, skills, the poser and social facilities our wallet or money gives. But at its basic level the coat is a means of protection – against cold or things getting to your body such as dirt or creatures. The coat can show you the feelings with which you clothe yourself. This is particularly connected with the degree of formality you present yourself with. See: Clothes. It the coat is not new it can represent the past, or what you are carrying with you from the past. Take time to think about what memories link with this jacket and when you have worn it. Of course outer clothing like this is also a means of keeping warm or appearing respectable or otherwise, depending on the condition of the jacket. The colour of the coat may be important too, so see colours.

Example: Found a coat/jacket washed up on the beach. It looked very bedraggled. Then I looked inside  and it was in better condition. With astonishment and pleasure I saw that the inside pocket was full of personal, interesting things. First to see was a pair of gloves.

This is a comment on the dreamer and what he carries with him from the past. At first he judges his appearance as unattractive, but when he looks inside himself he finds a different view.

 Example: I then felt someone’s hand going into my right jacket pocket. Turning I saw it was a woman sitting behind me to my right. She was dark haired, about 40, and had put a piece of paper in my pocket. She now explained, and I inwardly knew, why she had done this. She had received an inner revelation concerning me, and had been told by God to tell me. Being modest and not wishing to show off her insight, she had written in down. She then said, “Keep going. Take care of your youngest son. Press on until you move.”  I was deeply moved by what she said. For mention of my son by name especially made me feel she knew all about me. It was as if I had contacted a highly developed member. Love and tears poured from me and I held the woman very close. She had pierced me.

This time the dream seems to be about something that has been given that has deeply moved and impressed, and is a direct message about his son.

Giving coat to someone else or wrapping them in it: An act or love or protection, in that you are wrapping your own warmth or care about them.

Someone else’s coat: This represents the person whose coat it is. It might depict your feelings about them or your relationship with them.

Taking or stealing from someone else’s coat or jacket: In some way taking advantage of intimacy with someone. Not having enough strength or confidence to deal with your own life situation alone.

Overcoat: Usually protectiveness, or a way of covering up and allowing little of you to be seen or exposed. So to get under someone’s overcoat or getting hands under it shows greater intimacy with the person. But the overcoat is a way of dealing with harsh weather, difficult circumstances. The overcoat may mean you are not giving any secrets away, not showing intimacy or vulnerability.  Sometimes it depicts your belief system, political or religious, you use to meet the world. Such systems may be a way of allaying anxiety about decisions and self responsibility, and without them we may feel vulnerable and exposed. So the coat is used to represent them because it is protective and depicts attitudes or feelings. In a few dreams the overcoat represents the person’s body.

Idioms: Dragged by one’s coat tails; up one’s sleeve; coat of many colours.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings or actions regarding the coat and what do they suggest?

What colour is the coat?

What type of coat is it – fashionable, ragged, working, nursing, etc – and what does this link with for me?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power Dreaming – Processing DreamsSettings in Dreams 

Cobra

See: Snake.

Cobwebs

Many dreams of cobwebs stress age, death, of old palces where nobody has lived or been in for ages. So it might relate to either being lost in past memories in which there is little life and movement; or that you need to or are I clearing out the dust and cobwebs in your mind?

Example: It seemed a terrifying thing to be dead and descends into a crypt, lifeless and without motivation. Here I felt or experienced a very strong sense almost like a dead body, if it had awareness, might feel in a crypt. This is quite difficult to describe. I suppose what I was experiencing was a sort of ready made or social image of death. The sort of fears we have about it. It had in it the sense of dust, decay and cobwebs – the quiet dead silence of the tomb. But here, right in the midst of death, I had the sense of eternal life, of resurrection.

Example:  was trying to rearrange the furniture in a bedroom. I was sweeping behind some long curtains that had been hanging for a long time and I knew there was a big spider that could come out at me at anytime. I felt afraid but still kept sweeping the cobwebs away. See Web

Cockerel

Warning, aggressiveness, masculinity, male sex organ. See: Birds.

A male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence. This can signify feelings of being a strutting proud male. It is often used in dreams to indicate maleness, as opposed to the hen as the female. Cockerels fighting can point to feelings about two men fighting, or family conflicts. Hen and cockerel fighting is about a male and female fight, or power struggle.

Observation or cockerels in their natural surroundings show them to be very protective of the hens and the chicks.

Example: I am in a big crowd of people when I see a large cockerel and a bright yellow canary, but the canary is the same size as the cockerel. The birds start to fight but almost immediately the cockerel overpowers the canary by forcing his head into the canary’s and tries to rip his tongue out. The canary is suffocating and helpless. I become hysterical and start shouting ‘It’s humiliating, somebody stop it.’ My panic becomes worse because nobody else seems at all concerned by what is going on. At this point I always wake.

The dreamer is in the passive role. She feels humiliated and helpless and wishes for somebody else to change the conflict she is experiencing. In this dream there are many options open to her. She could imagine herself stepping forward and parting the birds. She could imagine the canary fighting back. She could imagine the contest stopping, the canary being equal to the cockerel, and seeing the birds mate. She could have a cat come in and kill them -both. But the question is – what would most satisfy her? See – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.

When I explored the dream I realised that of course I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I am the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female. Brian’s series of dreams and his work on them graphically depict what has already been said, that sex is not simply an isolated part of our being.

Sex is intimately connected in the dreamers life, with his self image whether he is a hen or a cockerel; with his relationships, with his mother and father and with his philosophy of life, in which he needs to see sex not as a goal in itself but as a basic pleasure enjoyed for its own sake.

Example: Lying in the road in front of me was a dead chicken, eaten to its bones by maggots and ants. There were sinews and some feathers left. I noticed that as I moved, the head of the dead chicken appeared to look in the direction of my movement. At this point I had the impression the chicken was now gradually taking on flesh again – coming alive once more. Andrew – Southampton

Useful Questions and Hints:

What attitude is the cockerel expressing?

What is the cockerel doing that relate to me?

What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?

See Being the Person or ThingTalking AsReptilian Brain


Cockroaches

Some people are so upset by seeing cockroaches they have to run away. If that applies to you it indicates fear and probably feelings about some dirtiness you find disgusting. They can alse mean furtive feeling, and because they are amazing survivers the ability to hide in order to survive.

If you associated cockroaches with food, especially its decay and rotting it might suggest that there is either need to check your food supplies, or that sometimes rot can mean an aspect of you is passing away in order for the new to arise. The dirt we often associate with cockroaches can mean psychological dirt, attitudes you neeed to clean up. See Insects.

“A man who hated cockroaches and was terribly irritated by them dreamed he saw his wife slowly shake them out of a white blanket. He had had an especially troublesome business day and had been highly irritated. Thus, the dream was telling him that he should exercise patience so that he could have peace and comfort.” Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

Example:  I was at a summer resort. As I was going down the stairs into the beach, I saw on one part of this beach, huge cockroaches. I hurriedly ran past them and safely went into the water.

Example: At home I have two baby tigers in a cage – another one is too small and is kept away from the others. Also I have a lot of cockroaches in another cage and I watch how they cleverly try to twist the top of their cage to get it off (by walking around in circles on the underside of the top).

Insects have a genius in solving problems as ants do.

Example: With horror I see is a cockroach. I flick it out with my spoon onto the kitchen floor, where it clatters on the tiles. I feel nauseous and then notice there are now two cockroaches. They are copulating, and I begin to vomit.

With those cockroaches copulating, it is difficult not to recognise it as a nightmare about sex. It is fairly obvious too, that the woman is ‘sick’ of sex.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel about cockroaches and show it show in the dream?

What were the cockroaches doing in the dream?

Did I feel any sense of dirtiness?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Coconut

Nuts can represent humanity: the kernel, or spirit, is encased by the shell, or flesh and bone. Nuts are also goodness hidden in a hard shell, so represent truths or realisations that were worthwhile working at.

A nut to crack means a problem to solve, or in a nutshell suggests wisdom or information put in a compact form.

Smashing the coconut is symbolic of annihilating the ego and humbling oneself before Life.

This ritual indicates that the actual “doer” is Life and humans are merely instruments in his hands. Coconuts are also broken before the deities in temples during normal worship. Again, the philosophy is the same – complete submission to God.

 The smooth outer skin of the coconut represents man’s Gross Body. Within the Gross body is the subtle body of mind, this is represented by the matted coir of the coconut, indicating the desires and attachments of man with the outer world. The hard shell represents the Causal Body and the white inside the Kernel represents the Self.

Coconut is a fruit, the end result of some action. Similarly as an end result of our actions we also obtain some fruit (a particular status in the material world and state of mind) PLUS a new set of desires from this achieved platform. Basically the end result of working on one set of desires is another set of desires. When you offer the coconut fruit to Life, the significance that you are required to keep in mind is that you are giving up the fruit, i.e. the new set of desires relating to the materialistic world.

Coconut Palm Tree is called the ‘Tree of Life’, ‘The tree from heaven which gives all that you desire’ by those living in coastal areas is As a thanksgiving to God and a symbolic gesture, for the path to Self Realization which you tend to forget in the midst of the stress and strain of day to day living.

Coffee

Many drinks represent a stimulus similar to alcohol, with its property of changing the way you feel and how you act. They release energy, emotions, change feelings, and can thus be associated with spirit. An invisible power, or the power behind human growth, that changes our experience of things. Coffee may also represent sociability, friendship, the giving of affection. See: Alcohol.

Mostly it represents feelings about social ritual, about informal sharing and being stimulated. Coffee is a energizing drug, something that literally changes the brain activity, so alters the way you feel. In this way it is similar to alcohol, though with a different action – an upper instead of a downer. So sometimes it is used in dreams to show an influence that changes the way you feel or relate to life or stimulates you. 

Some people refer to coffee as their ‘friend’. As a symbol in a dream, it might therefore be depicting you achieving a feeling of ease, and the ability to better meet what is in front of you.

Other feelings people associate with coffee is illustrated when they  call it ‘juice’. This is a word used in the US for electricity, and suggests personal energy and the power to do things they might not do as easily without coffee.

Coffee, however much you are used to it, interferes with your depth of sleep. It isn’t that you don’t sleep, but the depth is not the same. So you are more restless and wake needing the next cup of coffee to get you going. So some dreams may be pointing to coffee in a way to tell you what it is doing to your health or well being. See the following dream:

Example: I walk into my dining room  (this shows that the area of concern is food intake). In the middle of the floor is a chicken brooder shaped like a very large coffee pot. On top of the pot is a smoking cigarette. All of the baby chicks die. I feel sad about the dying chicks.

That cup of Joe that gets us up in the morning to perform our secular duties, it says a lot considering what many of us are forced or coerced to do for a living.

While many attribute coffee’s vice-like hold on their physiology to its caffeine content, there is much more going on than a fixation on a stimulant. Its been known for over a quarter of a century that coffee contains a compound with powerful opiate-like properties and which is found within both caffeinated and decaffeinated forms. The average cup of coffee contains five times the amount needed for what is known as the half maximal effective concentration (ED50), which is a measure of a drug’s potency indicating a response halfway between the baseline and maximum. The ‘narcotic’ properties of coffee are no doubt due to a complex interplay between a wide range of compounds, but at least one compound has been identified that is responsible for increasing the release of our own opioids within the body: namely, cafestrol, a diterprene found within the oil of coffee, known to have potent pain-killing properties.

Coffee is also a ‘brain-booster’ and contains a compound called trigonelline which both stimulates the release of dopamine (not unlike cocaine), and stimulates neurite outgrowth, which involves the extension of dendrites and axons in neurons and which may compensate and rescue damaged neuronal networks in the aging brain. One of the greatest nutrition philosophers of all time, Rudolf Hauschka, described coffee’s affect on our body-mind as follows:

Coffee makes us more aware of our bodily structure. And since this structure is so wise and logical, our thoughts become logical in their awareness of it. Coffee thus helps thinking to find a firm foundation. The connection between bodily being and thinking, keeps calling itself to our attention. Coffee has the same effect on digestion that thought has on our upper man, i.e., a properly ordered metabolism goes hand in hand with orderly thinking. Both are founded on a properly ordered physical structure.”  Rudolf Hauschka, Nutrition: A Holistic Approach

Coffee is also one of the only sources of “bitters” remaining in the sweet-fixated Western diet, which sadly comes with a certificate of guarantee that the bearer will likely develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease or cancer at some point in their life. Could the extreme bitterness of coffee be the reason why it has been repeatedly shown to reduce type 2 diabetes risk, as it is one of the only ways we can balance out the highly inappropriate excesses of carbohydrate in our modern dietary configuration? We don’t normally think of grains as sweet, but they are on the glycemic index. Puffed rice, for instance, can make the blood sweeter than white sugar which is why carbs are known as “crouching diabetes, hidden sugar.” Coffee contains a wide range of blood-glucose and insulin sensitizing compounds, making it an ideal complement to a carbohydrate-deranged diet.

40 million Americans are estimated to be chronically ill with sleep disorders. Few people recognise their condition and its cause however. Signs of it are chronic tiredness; needing constant stimulants to keep going during the day; constant falling asleep during work, talks, driving, inability to wake easily in the morning. As sleep plays an equally important part in healthy long life as nutrition and exercise, it is important to assure its quality. If our pattern and quality of sleep is disturbed, we may fail to notice the influence of such drinks as coffee, tea, chocolate and alcohol, all of which disturb sleep.

Coffee grounds: Waste product, something left over from what you have been doing or your way of life and relationship. Sometimes this refers to stuff your body sees as waste to discharge or clear. But it may link directly with what you do to yourself to gain artificial stimulation .

Coffee tipped on you: Could mean someone is  “dumping” on you.

Coffee shop: Meeting of minds and feelings or a time of rest and perhaps review. Being open with someone. Something is being offered – what is it – what feelings or involvement does it ask or give? In some dreams it reflects the satisfaction of a desire and a time of pleasure – coffee and doughnuts.

Drinking coffee: This depends very much on the surrounding atmosphere and events of the dream. It is usually about being sociable and maybe communicative  – but sometimes it shows an attempt to wake up or become alert.

Offering, being offered or sharing coffee: Friendship, intimacy, what you thirst for or desire.

Idioms: coffee talk; wake up and smell the coffee.

Useful Questions and Hints:

The dream of the coffee pot brooder links coffee with the illness of the chicks – what does my dream link coffee with?

What am I feeling in the dream about the coffee?

What are the surrounding feelings and atmosphere?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of Habits

Coffin

This is nearly always a reminder of one’s own mortality. So it often points to  your thoughts and feelings about death, as these are often in the background of our mind, and dreaming of a coffin suggests you may be exploring how you relate to death. (i.e. are you at ease with it, do you understand it as an integral part of life, or are you still feeling fear or a belief it is the final end of everything?) The coffin might also be showing you the death of a part of yourself – a hope, feelings about a relationship, things lost and buried in your earlier years. See Dreaming of Death.

Seeing your own coffin in a dream has several possible meaning. The first is obviously to do with feelings and thoughts about death as described above. The second is to do with a reminder that there is an end to your life, so live fully and daringly now. Do and be now with those you love what is in you to do. This sometimes means that you have buried your real self and need to really come alive. The third is that you have a presentiment of your own death and the dream is preparing you. Soemtimes people want to see what their funeral will be like.

If you are in the coffin, apart from what has been said above, it might also show you feeling trapped in a life situation, feeling you have no future and life is like a death. At such times you need to let old parts of you, old attitudes and fears really die, as such dreams suggest a great change and a resurrection into a new way of life – almost a return to the womb.

If the coffin is linked with someone you know, Sometimes it may show a hidden desire to get them out of your life, or perhaps worries about the health of the person, or fear of losing them. This includes the death of a relationship and the feelings of loss, or one’s feelings about the death of someone such as husband. If it is the coffin of someone dead, it can also be a link with their influence in your life now they are dead, or if it is a parent, it can stand for the influence of family traditions in your present life.

Example: My father died when I was 3 – 1973. I recently dreamt I was carrying my fathers coffin at his funeral. On the way to the church I dropped the coffin and the lid fell off exposing his face at the advanced stage of decomposition. I replaced the lid so as not to grieve my mother further. But I followed my father’s spirit into the gaps of the coffin.  Rosina.

What Rosina’s dream shows is that because we all need a relationship with a male figure f to fully mature from childhood, and Rosina missed this, she is  figuratively carrying his dead body around with her to deal with what she missed in life. The dream shows how she is ready to actually progress in the relationship and marks a turning point in the way you will relate to males. The lid  is coming off because those old feelings that are not healthy any more are being exposed. The dream says she is trying not to disturb her mother, so may be ‘putting the lid’ on those feelings again.

Example: I am sitting in a large comfortable room when my husband comes in and starts to take off his overcoat. The garden outside is full of flowers so it seems to be summer. As I turn to greet him I see his dead body lying in an open coffin between us. My husband starts talking of our plans for the following day. Pointing to the coffin, I say, “Yes, but we must do something about this first. We can’t leave it here much longer.” My husband goes close to the coffin, takes a long look at the body, his own, says, “Yes, we must. It is beginning to smell.” There the dream ends. I wake up feeling very sad and haunted. I can’t forget it. My husband died over eight years ago. Mrs P.M.

The dream is clearly pointing to the negative feelings of loss that Mrs PM is still carrying around inside her that she needs to deal with. The garden – her potential for growth – is full of colour and possibilities, so she can actually move on.

In some dreams, death, caves, underground, tombs or coffins often appear together. The living process in us – life itself – is fully acquainted with life and death, birth and resurrection. They are all fundamental processes of life in its fullness. We pass through them all while still living in the body at certain times. Such times are usually when great inner or outer change is occurring, perhaps when we have lost something or someone important to us, or have left behind a way of life or work, or a period of ones life such as parenthood. Thus the coffin can also depict these processes of death and rebirth.

Putting a coffin in the ground is in some ways like planting a seed. Within ourselves the fruit of that person’s life, or of our own past, can now emerge in a new way, shorn of its old forms. See: burial; funeral; tomb.

Example: When I was 17 I met a guy and quickly became involved. I met his grandfather only a couple of times during our relationship before he passed. He had raised my boyfriend, he had only sons and grandsons.. Never had there been born a girl in their bloodline. About six months after we started dating, his grandfather died. I went to the funeral with my boyfriend. Shortly after I had a very vivid dream of the funeral. As I walked to the casket to view the body, the grandfather raised up looked me right in the eyes and said, ” You take care of my baby girl.” The next week we found out we were pregnant. I did give the first girl born to that bloodline!

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I feeling about the coffin, and what does this suggest about my relationship with death or the person in the coffin?

Is this connecting me with something of myself that died recently or in the past?

Is there a suggestion here of my connection with the long past, my ancestors – their bones – and how it influences my present life?

See Near Death ExperiencesTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cog

The aim of the Dream Dictionary is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. This is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions with which life confronts you.

Your Guru the Dream

Your Guru Your Body

Dreams are one of nature’s miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the process of life, our core self and our conscious personality. Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millions of years of Life experience.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life – such as breathing, digestion and the thousands of other life sustaining activities and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, Our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See  – Brain Levels and Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To meet this ancient self try using Opening to Life

That suggests that dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying traumatic and disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

I know how much you might like to skip the Introduction to Dream Dictionary, and if you are tempted to do so, I wholeheartedly ask you to read Summing Up. Without understanding the things given there you are likely to completely miss the point of understanding your dreams. The best technique to enter you dream world – Peer Dream Work

You can start using the Dream Dictionary by entering the word you wish to research into the Search Box on the top right of most pages and clicking the search symbol – or you can read some fuller information below about the dictionary and how best to use it.

But the quickest way is to put your word in the search box. 

It is important in reading the definitions of dream images to realise that not every possible meaning can be covered in this dictionary. So please see if you get the idea of what is being said and allow your own imagination/feelings to fill in the meaning.

There are several ways you can understand the meanings held in your dreams, and there are several levels.

The first is an easily understood level, followed by greater depths:

For instance, speaking as an object or dream person, one needs to take time with it. Learn how to actually describe what you are as that dream object or person. If I dream of a dog, don’t simply describe what you think a dog feels like, but actually take time to tune into the dream image and describe the dog dreamt about. Is it an old or young dog? What is it doing in the dream? Listen to your feelings and describe what it/you feel. Remember that each image is a creation of your own mind and unconscious, so you are really describing yourself. Say whatever comes and consider its value afterwards. Below is a quote from Tiziana Stupia’s book Meeting Shiva 

So below are listed several ways to gain insight and information from your dreams. Take your time with each approach until you get the feel for it, and then experiment with other approaches.

You can enter a key word in the search box. The Dream Dictionary contains interpretations on almost any type of dream subject. So, if you dreamt of a flying saucer landing in a field, and aliens getting out and taking a baby, a snake, and a pregnant dog back into the saucer, you could search separately for each of these subjects in the Dream Dictionary. Find the entry for flying saucer; then the entry for dog, babysnake, pregnant, and so on. For each entry, find further related entries by looking under ‘Similar Articles’ on the right-hand side of the page. Then see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams.

Each entry gives the general meaning of the dream subject, just as an encyclopedia or dictionary does for a word. Several possible meanings are given. This is because as with our speech the position of the word – the context – gives it special meanings. So, a hot dog would be quite different to a black dog, dog-end or dead dog. Therefore, when you read an entry which has several different meanings, sometimes with a ‘;’ between, it simply means any one of them could apply, which means you need to think about the feelings in your dream, the context, the other imagery used. Please do not fall into the trap that one reviewer made of saying that the whole dictionary is about sex. Of course, sex is one meaning among many others. So, use your own sense of your dream as well as any definitions given.

To really explore the meaning, it is useful to use the Dream Dictionary as it is designed, rather than arrive at a ‘thought out’ interpretation. To see a working example of this see Dream Interpretation Example One

Forest-A

I no longer offer a personal dream interpretation service, but only occasionally if you manage to send  an interesting dream I will respond – the reason is I am getting past my sell by date being 84.

Note: comments that have any adverts or links to other sites will be deleted.

In the meantime, here is a way to work out your own dream – Getting at Your Dream’s Meaning.

Please note: this a not-for-profit site and it offers real dream interpretations, not dream dictionary features that are not real interpretations. We ask no payment for these interpretations, but it would be a great if you wish to donate anything. I do not ask a fee for what I do, but if you wish to donate you can click on this Paypal Donation  

I have been interested in the health of mind and body since my early teens. I began writing about these subjects in 1956. My fascination for what lay under the surface of the mind led me personally to explore the unconscious using dreams and other mental and physical disciplines. From 1972 – 94 I worked as a psychotherapist using an eclectic, Humanistic Psychology approach which included dream work and releasing the secrets the body holds. My books include Do You DreamMind and MovementThe Instant Dream Book; Dream DictionaryLife’s Little Secrets –Liberating The Body  – and many more. See My Books.

Throughout more than five decades I have been involved in a personal search for the secrets of mind and spirit. In those years I have also taught thousands of people techniques of deep relaxation, meditation, and methods of self exploration using dreams. Wanting to dig deep I explored the use of dreams and taught individuals and groups of people how to use these visions of the night to discover and heal the deepest issues in themselves, and to touch the high ground of their spiritual awareness. I worked for twenty years as a psychotherapist using several approaches, one of which was a way of honouring the body as a doorway to the unconscious mind, the emotions and spiritual experience. See Self-Regulation –  Recognition – Life’s Little Secrets – The LifeStream and Opening to Life

During the sixty years of seeking the wild wondrous beasts of the mind and spirit I dared my own inner adventure. But I also travelled with other people as an ordinary person, not a therapist, sharing their experience of fear and wonder as they unveiled and set loose their fountain of perception. I have travelled countless dream pathways, traversed the timeless with those using awareness enhancing drugs, and wrestled with the vitality of the body as people mimed and shouted their deepest intuitions through movement, dance and voice. See Tony’s Biography

My aim has always to share my findings – actually what I was shown or given from within – was given freely; I never had any teacher or attended a course, of course I read an enormous amount, so I cannot ask for money. If you wish to donate anything to the running of the site you can do so by clicking on https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JYTWAMC4LQLQ4&source=url 

My teacher has been from exploring dreams and occasionally touching the wonder we were born as – not from words written in books about that but by meeting it. See Enlightenment  

Forest-A

Profundización de la comprensión de un sueñoIntroducción

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

So how can we get into this magical world of our dreams and start to harvest the possibilities held there? The following pages of this book are designed to help, guide and inform on how to do this. The book is also a counsellor on what you may find in your dream adventure.

The information about dreams presented in this book has been gathered during fifty years of working with and studying dreams and the dream process. It synthesises the experience of personally helping hundreds of individuals explore their dreams. The examples used have been taken from a collection of over 8000 dreams put onto a computer filing system. The filing system was also used to define general associations with commonly used dream images.

The major input for definition however has arisen from the actual exploration of dreams undertaken by individuals. These are either people I have worked with personally who have deeply felt the emotions and issues behind their dreams, not simply talked them over and come to an intellectual interpretation but a deep insight, or are people who have written up their findings arising from similar work. Added to this is the commonly held associations we have through our language and the way we use imagery within speech. Of course your personal dream imagery may not be using the commonly held associations, or those used by other people, and so you must read the definitions with care and consider if these fit what is implied or dramatised in your dream.

In the entries in the Dictionary are explanations of the many different types of dreams and dream images. Despite some people’s attempt to explain dreams in one simple formula, dreams cover a huge range of phenomena and human experience. Amongst subjects covered in the book are thousands of entries on the researched meaning of the things, people, creatures and places we dream about. There are also many entries on special subjects such as symbols and dreaming; interpreting dreamsrecurring dreamsnightmaressex while asleepteenage girls love dreamsprecognitive dreamstalking in ones sleepthe dream as an adventure; Occultism and Dreamsscience sleep and dreams; and many more.

There are a compete list of these Features and the  Archetypes covered.

Therefore, if you have dreamt of such things as your teeth falling out; being chased; or your marriage partner dying, you will find an explanation of your dream in the following pages.

The aim of the book is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. The book is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions life confronts you with.

But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary – or better still read Meaning of Your Dream

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. It is as if all your deepest feelings, hopes, fear and wonder are projected outward onto a multidimensional screen. It is a world of virtual reality that you feel is real. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us.

But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiments of our fears; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

Our Core self is that amazing part of us existing beyond time and space, and was within us from the start of our universe.

I suggest you only try one method at a time and use it until you are capable or it or it doesn’t work for you, then move on to other methods taking time with them until you find what works best for you.

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

Dream Processing – The following dream needs no deep techniques of processing. The word ‘processing’ is used throughout the book instead of analysis. Analysis has the connotation of giving our own thoughts or opinions to the dream. Processing is used to suggest extraction of information which leads to insight. With this particular dream, all it needs is a few facts brought to it to make clear what information it holds. The dream is that of a young woman, Mrs C. L.

It is a bright sunny day. I am walking across a large concrete car park. It is empty except for a huge trailer from a truck. It has BOOTS written on the side, and stands high off the ground. Being 4’ 9’ tall myself I decide to walk underneath. As I am half way the trailer starts to be lowered on top of me. I try to shout but cannot. I get onto my hands and knees and the trailer still kept coming down. I am now lying on my stomach, convinced it is going to crush me. Then it suddenly stops a couple of inches from my head. I wake feeling terrible.

The dream is interesting, although the information it holds may at first not be obvious. But with a minimum of processing the dream information will become clear. The first technique of processing the dream is to recognise some of the key statements within it. These are I AM WALKING – I TRY TO SHOUT – CONVINCED IT IS GOING TO CRUSH ME.

The reason these are key statements is because the dreamer is saying ‘I am walking’ – ‘I try to shout’ – ‘I …am convinced’. The word ‘I’ is important.

This form of processing has not added anything to the dream. It has simply drawn attention to the information already there in the dreamer’s description of her experience – this is why it is useful to write the dream out fully. If we add a little more information which the dreamer herself connects with the dream, then it becomes even clearer. Mrs C. L. says, ‘I work for BOOTS the chemist. The employees at the shop I work in were told at the beginning of the year that Boots are selling our shop. When that happens I will be made redundant. We were supposed to finish on May 26th. It is now the end of July. The deal fell through so we are now just left hanging indefinitely until a new buyer comes along. I feel very unsettled as I can’t make any plans for the future.’

Having read these comments, it would be difficult not to see the dream as relating to the woman’s work situation, and to her strong anxiety connected with it. She herself says – through her dream – she is ‘convinced it – the situation – is going to crush’ her. She also feels her strong emotions about this – expressed in her attempt to shout – are not being expressed or ‘heard’. From just this one dream, we can be forgiven if we assume that dreams may express in dramatic form our feeling reaction to the circumstances of our everyday life. Taking this dream as information, Mrs. C. L. could see she is feeling crushed by the situation, yet not stating her feelings loudly enough to be heard. She might therefore speak to the manager to clarify the situation for herself.

Here is an even shorter and less complex dream. It has been left just as it was written so its information is immediately apparent. The key words here might be TRYING TO CONTACT HIM and NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY HE LEFT ME. The dream is from Mrs C. J.

Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him, not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

On speculating about the dream from what is immediately apparent, we might say that although it is irrational to continually  try to contact her husband when there has never be any success, nevertheless, her desire to be with him continues year after year. This same part of her cannot understand why he died. We might put such feelings into words as, ‘But what had he done to die so young? Why should it happen to me twice?’ We can also assume that her desire to understand these questions, which is what contacting her husband represents, is expressed in the dream as the telephone.

The dream process has dramatised her situation and inner feelings – given them form and made them experiential. Looking at this dream helps us see how an image, such as the telephone, performs exactly the same sort of function as a spoken word, although in a different way. Namely, it represents feelings and thoughts. That the woman’s questions remain, that her problem is unsolved, is apparent from the fact she does NOT make contact on the telephone, and does not find peace. Understanding her dream shows her the importance of the questions she continually asks herself, and the need to release the emotions behind them. With this she could be free of the dream. If she cannot manage this by herself, taking advantage of the professional help of a therapist might help.

To make it clear how everything is a dream holds personal information, to give an example, I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

For fuller Dream Processing – Below are described simple techniques that make it possible to quickly gain information from your dreams. They have been put as a series of questions. If you take time to consider and answer the question you will find your way into a new experience of dream understanding.

Read it in: Processing Your Dream  

Acting on your Dreams – Extracting more from your dream by letting your body and feelings express it can provide a remarkable release of insight. There are several ways of doing this.

Do see the instructions see: Acting on Your Dreams

The Peer Dream Group – This method is the most powerful and deepest method. It includes some of the other techniques mentioned.

The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams and into oneself if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream  and themselves but only when we break through to what is usually unconscious mental states, and when treated as such, and supported in their investigation of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.

To use it see: The Peer Dream Group and What I Have Seen In Dreams

For the Dictionary put the word you want to look up in the search box at the top right of all pages 

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Coin

Sometimes a coin has similar symbolism to circle –  your wholeness. This may represent something you value, so can have a very wide significance. For instance two gold coins, in one person’s dream represented his twin sons, who were of great value to him.

Anything to do with money may suggest worries about finance, or an intuition of good fortune.

If the money is dirty, it may be a suggestion that you are living beneath your best motives, earning money in a grubby way. Because we call loose money change in English, sometimes the coins might represent change in your life – small changes.

But money is also energy. We get it usually by working, and so it stands in the place of work energy sometimes. So holding on to coins shows you holding yourself back, holding on to what you could let flow in your life. See: money.

Coins have two sides: Occasionally this is the point made in the dream, showing how the dual nature of life – the inner the outer, life and death – are actually only one thing without duality. See You Are Dual

Coins as jewellery: Coins have often been strung together to form a necklace or bangle, and in many cultures personal wealth was worn in this way. To find or dig up such a necklace of coins suggest the uncovering within yourself or your life things of great value, of abilities or talents, often from the long past. Such influence often comes in the form of new abilities arising, or as intuitive awareness of how to respond to certain situations or relationships in your life. So they can be links with what is usually the hidden side of life.

As simple jewellery that is not ancient,  they suggest richness of character that is obvious to others and expressed in the way you live.

Example: I was the top of a hill on my knees digging in the earth with my right hand. It was fairly easy. I pulled up what felt like coins, and found they were all joined together, forming something one could wear. This was in the form of a necklace from which ran a long loop from one edge to the other, perhaps reaching fairly well below the breasts. There were coins set a little way apart all around this loop. Then in between there were two connections from coins going down in a V to a single line that connected with the bottom of the loop. From this single line, and the coins on it, there were connections to the coins on the loop, reaching low on the trunk.

The coins, or really, medallions, were shining silver, depicting Christian or ancient saints and martyrs. It was, I knew in the dream, like a rosary, which one could use in prayer. But instead of just the Ave Maria’s, and the Our Father’s, all the other saints were included. Thus it was a very comprehensive guide to prayer. Some of the silvered chains between the coins were missing, but these had been mended with something else. The shape of it suggests the sign of the cross people make on their body. But it shows the right way to do this is first touching the brow, then to two breasts, then down to the genitals – the real sources of power. Richard.

Digging up coins: Can suggest uncovering something of value in yourself, perhaps a talent or ability you were led to bury, or ignore, in the past. Sometimes such coins point to abilities of things of value that are emerging in your present life from the long past. Occasionally such coins need to be cleaned, suggesting you have issues to deal with, karma to work out, before the talents or value from the past can be really used in the present.

Money suggests energy too, so the buried coins may point to energy or personal potential that may have been buried or repressed at some time.

Dropping coins into water: Is an ancient way of giving a sacrifice – a wishing well effect. We give to the unseen powers of life in order to either say thank you, or ask a blessing/wish.

Finding coins: Has in it not only a sense of finding things potentially valuable, and therefore allowing you more possibilities in life, but also at times confronts you with possessiveness, ownership, or sharing.

Foreign coins: Are showing things that are valuable but not at the moment transferable into the potential energy they represent. So you need to ask yourself how you can extract their value.

If the money is dirty: It may be a suggestion that you are living beneath your best motives, earning money in a grubby way that your inner feelings suggest you avoid.

Making coins: Might indicate that you are creating something of value out of basic materials.

Putting coins in a vending machine: Is a little bit like throwing a coin in a wishing well. But here we are giving something to get something – or hoping to get something. So the emphasis is on giving to get – hopes and expectations.

Tarnished coin; Depicts something valuable or interesting that has long been forgotten or not recognised in yourself or in your life events.

Idioms: To coin a phrase; serious coin.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I have just found the coin or coins, what am I aware of recently entering my life that is of value?

What am I doing with the coin(s), and what does this suggest about the way I use my energy or talents?

If I am spending the coin, what is it I am seeking by this transaction or sacrifice?

Try using Spiritual Life In DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Old valuable coins: These could depict deeply important memories held within yourself about inherited wisdom from your family, maybe even past lives. See: Bank; Money.

Cold Coldness

Often used in a dream to show how we or someone holds back any warmth or acknowledgment. Therefore it often indicates held back emotions, feeling abandoned, without love or hope and having no emotional warmth, or experiencing fear. This can link with an inward, lethargic, introspective attitude.

In some dreams it suggests feeling neglected or ‘left out in the cold’, and occasionally appears in dreams connected with feelings about death.

Cold flesh is about the lack of sexual or emotional warmth and the living flow of feelings and ease with oneself or others.

Cold spell: This is a term when from warm weather the temperature suddenly drops, and in a dream suggests that the warm feelings you had about someone or life have suddenly ‘chilled’ – or that you are in an environment in which people are cold to you. The following dream illustrates this shift of temperature and also the conflict and death (of love or feelings) that can be associated with coldness.

Example: There’s solid ice and snow all around. Everything is solid white. I’m blinded by the white ice and snow, I feel cold, I’m shivering and I think I’m close to death. Then all of a sudden a huge hand reaches out and grabs me. I recognize the hand. I stare at it for a few minutes. Then I grab the hand. I recognize the hand as the man I have just started to date. What does this dream mean? I’m confused about my relationship with this man, confused about my feelings…

Feeling cold: Suddenly feeling cold, or shivering with cold can be an expression of conflict or avoidance, even fear. When we pull back from something emotionally, or are frightened of our own inner feelings, we often experience a temperature drop, and possible sudden tiredness. It often happens when we are opening to the action life within us, but are in conflict about allowing it. See Life’s Little Secrets

Idioms: catch a cold; cold comfort; cold shoulder; cold storage; cold turkey; cold feet; in cold blood; cold call; cold refreshing; cold murderous rage; cold sweat; left out in the cold; out cold; throw cold water on it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I see any sign of coldness in my waking life – and if so what is it about?

Am I cold, or is someone else cold in the dream?

If the surroundings are cold, can I see there is not much warmth in my environment at the moment?

Try using – Easy Dream UnderstandingBeing the Person or ThingTalking As

Collect Collecting

We can dream of collecting evidence, or for research, collecting money, facts, dreams or almost anything – collection of memories. But whatever it is you are collecting it points to something that has special relevance to you or your innermost feelings. So look it up in the dictionary, and also see what the Plot of the Dream adds to your understanding.

Collecting has to do with the things, ideas, beliefs, we carry about with us, or the way we collect things in a psychological way. For instance one might ‘carry’ a grudge or a feeling of inferiority for years, and it is just as much of a burden as carrying a loaded shopping bag. We might also collect or carry information or ideas. It also shows how it is common to associate other things with the idea of collecting or holding onto things that are valuable.  Or even a  morbid collection of memories, emotions, energies, that are not harmonising or adding to your life in general.

Something like rust or dirt that has collected around, or overlaid whatever the symbol represents, would suggest the age or misuse or lack of  use of the thing.

Example: I start looking in the cupboards and find lots of large bags and boxes full of seeds. I start to think that these seeds are very important – that these seeds were what the angels had used, and perhaps if the people here grew these seeds, ate the food they produced, perhaps this had something to do with the evolution of the people into angels. Perhaps the food was what gave the people the angels powers, their wisdom, and helped them grow their wings. I try to tell the teacher and the class, but although they show a mild interest. I collect up the seeds and go to the cliff. I see one angel there, he is sad and lonely, the sole remaining guardian. I ask what I should do with the seeds. He says no words aloud, but the knowledge is placed in my head that I should trust my instincts – that I am right about the seeds, and that I will know what to do when the time is right. He points, and I travel across the cliffs in that direction and out onto a plain. I can see forests in the distance. I am careful to throw the seeds in such a way that I throw the hunters food to the hunters and throw the preys’ food in another direction, as once they eat the seeds their true appetites will be stimulated and this understanding that they have between them will be over and the true, natural order will be restored.

Here is the dreamer’s insights into her dream: “For most people their awareness is only of the earth — the body — that they live within. They base their sense of themselves on what they are aware of through the physical senses.” This for me correlated with how, in the dream, the angels never set foot on the earth; they ‘live in the sea and in the air’. I suddenly understood more fully what that meant, and that in turn gave me a bit more insight into what the angels are.  Since reading Tony’s notes and going through the dream again this morning everything is falling into place – everything I have been reading about and discovering and talking about over the past – lifetime (!) suddenly makes sense as a whole. It’s like all the jigsaw pieces have arranged themselves into a big picture.

When I read the tale of the 2 dimensional goose, and Tony said – imagine losing an arm, then legs, body and head – I remembered that I have experienced this before, many years ago I felt my whole body vibrating (not shaking or shuddering, vibrating) – every cell, every molecule of my being was vibrating. All of life looked to me like a giant, glistening, shining web, and I lived at the centre of that web, and everyone else lived at the centre of their own web, and all of the webs were interlinked. Like a spider I could feel every tremor in the web; everything that happened in the world, every footfall, every mind waking up and going to sleep… I felt it and knew of it all…  I lived outside of time. The past, present and future were all one, and I always knew what was coming next. I saw how all of our yesterdays and tomorrows affected our now’s and next year’s… I lived in the pure present, and yet my consciousness spanned across all of time.

Example: As I do this, Ernie laughs and says, “He even managed to talk about ‘A Horse Sex’ from a Christian point of view.” That was the name of a book the man was talking about. I see a book about Robinson Caruso or someone like that and comment that the woman gave it to me. I have one just like it in my collection of books from my childhood. It was an old favorite of mine.

Example: On my left, I have a box full of credit cards that I collected over the years. They are still in their envelopes. I notice that I have some of Merle’s that had been sent to my address and I never forwarded them on. The typewriter crumbles a card and I have some trouble but finally make it work and admire the look of the type. I decide to keep the old, outdated cards so I can refer to their various layout designs.

Example: All I can remember though is someone, perhaps a woman in a mackintosh, coming in with a tray full of people’s arm cut off at the shoulder. Just as some people collect stamps, she collected famous people’s arms. One might have been David Niven’s. They all looked very colourful, the skin tones were not at all lifeless, and there were drops of  blood here and there. My own thoughts were that if I were dead I wasn’t sure whether I would want an arm missing.


Idioms: collect my thoughts; collecting dust.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was it that was being collected?

Does what was collected or being collected associate with anthing?

What was the themer or plot of the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

College

The aim of the Dream Dictionary is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. This is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions with which life confronts you.

Your Guru the Dream

Your Guru Your Body

Dreams are one of nature’s miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the process of life, our core self and our conscious personality. Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millions of years of Life experience.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life – such as breathing, digestion and the thousands of other life sustaining activities and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, Our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See  – Brain Levels and Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To meet this ancient self try using Opening to Life

That suggests that dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying traumatic and disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

I know how much you might like to skip the Introduction to Dream Dictionary, and if you are tempted to do so, I wholeheartedly ask you to read Summing Up. Without understanding the things given there you are likely to completely miss the point of understanding your dreams. The best technique to enter you dream world – Peer Dream Work

You can start using the Dream Dictionary by entering the word you wish to research into the Search Box on the top right of most pages and clicking the search symbol – or you can read some fuller information below about the dictionary and how best to use it.

But the quickest way is to put your word in the search box. 

It is important in reading the definitions of dream images to realise that not every possible meaning can be covered in this dictionary. So please see if you get the idea of what is being said and allow your own imagination/feelings to fill in the meaning.

There are several ways you can understand the meanings held in your dreams, and there are several levels.

The first is an easily understood level, followed by greater depths:

For instance, speaking as an object or dream person, one needs to take time with it. Learn how to actually describe what you are as that dream object or person. If I dream of a dog, don’t simply describe what you think a dog feels like, but actually take time to tune into the dream image and describe the dog dreamt about. Is it an old or young dog? What is it doing in the dream? Listen to your feelings and describe what it/you feel. Remember that each image is a creation of your own mind and unconscious, so you are really describing yourself. Say whatever comes and consider its value afterwards. Below is a quote from Tiziana Stupia’s book Meeting Shiva 

So below are listed several ways to gain insight and information from your dreams. Take your time with each approach until you get the feel for it, and then experiment with other approaches.

You can enter a key word in the search box. The Dream Dictionary contains interpretations on almost any type of dream subject. So, if you dreamt of a flying saucer landing in a field, and aliens getting out and taking a baby, a snake, and a pregnant dog back into the saucer, you could search separately for each of these subjects in the Dream Dictionary. Find the entry for flying saucer; then the entry for dog, babysnake, pregnant, and so on. For each entry, find further related entries by looking under ‘Similar Articles’ on the right-hand side of the page. Then see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams.

Each entry gives the general meaning of the dream subject, just as an encyclopedia or dictionary does for a word. Several possible meanings are given. This is because as with our speech the position of the word – the context – gives it special meanings. So, a hot dog would be quite different to a black dog, dog-end or dead dog. Therefore, when you read an entry which has several different meanings, sometimes with a ‘;’ between, it simply means any one of them could apply, which means you need to think about the feelings in your dream, the context, the other imagery used. Please do not fall into the trap that one reviewer made of saying that the whole dictionary is about sex. Of course, sex is one meaning among many others. So, use your own sense of your dream as well as any definitions given.

To really explore the meaning, it is useful to use the Dream Dictionary as it is designed, rather than arrive at a ‘thought out’ interpretation. To see a working example of this see Dream Interpretation Example One

Forest-A

I no longer offer a personal dream interpretation service, but only occasionally if you manage to send  an interesting dream I will respond – the reason is I am getting past my sell by date being 84.

Note: comments that have any adverts or links to other sites will be deleted.

In the meantime, here is a way to work out your own dream – Getting at Your Dream’s Meaning.

Please note: this a not-for-profit site and it offers real dream interpretations, not dream dictionary features that are not real interpretations. We ask no payment for these interpretations, but it would be a great if you wish to donate anything. I do not ask a fee for what I do, but if you wish to donate you can click on this Paypal Donation  

I have been interested in the health of mind and body since my early teens. I began writing about these subjects in 1956. My fascination for what lay under the surface of the mind led me personally to explore the unconscious using dreams and other mental and physical disciplines. From 1972 – 94 I worked as a psychotherapist using an eclectic, Humanistic Psychology approach which included dream work and releasing the secrets the body holds. My books include Do You DreamMind and MovementThe Instant Dream Book; Dream DictionaryLife’s Little Secrets –Liberating The Body  – and many more. See My Books.

Throughout more than five decades I have been involved in a personal search for the secrets of mind and spirit. In those years I have also taught thousands of people techniques of deep relaxation, meditation, and methods of self exploration using dreams. Wanting to dig deep I explored the use of dreams and taught individuals and groups of people how to use these visions of the night to discover and heal the deepest issues in themselves, and to touch the high ground of their spiritual awareness. I worked for twenty years as a psychotherapist using several approaches, one of which was a way of honouring the body as a doorway to the unconscious mind, the emotions and spiritual experience. See Self-Regulation –  Recognition – Life’s Little Secrets – The LifeStream and Opening to Life

During the sixty years of seeking the wild wondrous beasts of the mind and spirit I dared my own inner adventure. But I also travelled with other people as an ordinary person, not a therapist, sharing their experience of fear and wonder as they unveiled and set loose their fountain of perception. I have travelled countless dream pathways, traversed the timeless with those using awareness enhancing drugs, and wrestled with the vitality of the body as people mimed and shouted their deepest intuitions through movement, dance and voice. See Tony’s Biography

My aim has always to share my findings – actually what I was shown or given from within – was given freely; I never had any teacher or attended a course, of course I read an enormous amount, so I cannot ask for money. If you wish to donate anything to the running of the site you can do so by clicking on https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JYTWAMC4LQLQ4&source=url 

My teacher has been from exploring dreams and occasionally touching the wonder we were born as – not from words written in books about that but by meeting it. See Enlightenment  

Forest-A

Profundización de la comprensión de un sueñoIntroducción

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

So how can we get into this magical world of our dreams and start to harvest the possibilities held there? The following pages of this book are designed to help, guide and inform on how to do this. The book is also a counsellor on what you may find in your dream adventure.

The information about dreams presented in this book has been gathered during fifty years of working with and studying dreams and the dream process. It synthesises the experience of personally helping hundreds of individuals explore their dreams. The examples used have been taken from a collection of over 8000 dreams put onto a computer filing system. The filing system was also used to define general associations with commonly used dream images.

The major input for definition however has arisen from the actual exploration of dreams undertaken by individuals. These are either people I have worked with personally who have deeply felt the emotions and issues behind their dreams, not simply talked them over and come to an intellectual interpretation but a deep insight, or are people who have written up their findings arising from similar work. Added to this is the commonly held associations we have through our language and the way we use imagery within speech. Of course your personal dream imagery may not be using the commonly held associations, or those used by other people, and so you must read the definitions with care and consider if these fit what is implied or dramatised in your dream.

In the entries in the Dictionary are explanations of the many different types of dreams and dream images. Despite some people’s attempt to explain dreams in one simple formula, dreams cover a huge range of phenomena and human experience. Amongst subjects covered in the book are thousands of entries on the researched meaning of the things, people, creatures and places we dream about. There are also many entries on special subjects such as symbols and dreaming; interpreting dreamsrecurring dreamsnightmaressex while asleepteenage girls love dreamsprecognitive dreamstalking in ones sleepthe dream as an adventure; Occultism and Dreamsscience sleep and dreams; and many more.

There are a compete list of these Features and the  Archetypes covered.

Therefore, if you have dreamt of such things as your teeth falling out; being chased; or your marriage partner dying, you will find an explanation of your dream in the following pages.

The aim of the book is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. The book is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions life confronts you with.

But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary – or better still read Meaning of Your Dream

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. It is as if all your deepest feelings, hopes, fear and wonder are projected outward onto a multidimensional screen. It is a world of virtual reality that you feel is real. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us.

But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiments of our fears; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

Our Core self is that amazing part of us existing beyond time and space, and was within us from the start of our universe.

I suggest you only try one method at a time and use it until you are capable or it or it doesn’t work for you, then move on to other methods taking time with them until you find what works best for you.

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

Dream Processing – The following dream needs no deep techniques of processing. The word ‘processing’ is used throughout the book instead of analysis. Analysis has the connotation of giving our own thoughts or opinions to the dream. Processing is used to suggest extraction of information which leads to insight. With this particular dream, all it needs is a few facts brought to it to make clear what information it holds. The dream is that of a young woman, Mrs C. L.

It is a bright sunny day. I am walking across a large concrete car park. It is empty except for a huge trailer from a truck. It has BOOTS written on the side, and stands high off the ground. Being 4’ 9’ tall myself I decide to walk underneath. As I am half way the trailer starts to be lowered on top of me. I try to shout but cannot. I get onto my hands and knees and the trailer still kept coming down. I am now lying on my stomach, convinced it is going to crush me. Then it suddenly stops a couple of inches from my head. I wake feeling terrible.

The dream is interesting, although the information it holds may at first not be obvious. But with a minimum of processing the dream information will become clear. The first technique of processing the dream is to recognise some of the key statements within it. These are I AM WALKING – I TRY TO SHOUT – CONVINCED IT IS GOING TO CRUSH ME.

The reason these are key statements is because the dreamer is saying ‘I am walking’ – ‘I try to shout’ – ‘I …am convinced’. The word ‘I’ is important.

This form of processing has not added anything to the dream. It has simply drawn attention to the information already there in the dreamer’s description of her experience – this is why it is useful to write the dream out fully. If we add a little more information which the dreamer herself connects with the dream, then it becomes even clearer. Mrs C. L. says, ‘I work for BOOTS the chemist. The employees at the shop I work in were told at the beginning of the year that Boots are selling our shop. When that happens I will be made redundant. We were supposed to finish on May 26th. It is now the end of July. The deal fell through so we are now just left hanging indefinitely until a new buyer comes along. I feel very unsettled as I can’t make any plans for the future.’

Having read these comments, it would be difficult not to see the dream as relating to the woman’s work situation, and to her strong anxiety connected with it. She herself says – through her dream – she is ‘convinced it – the situation – is going to crush’ her. She also feels her strong emotions about this – expressed in her attempt to shout – are not being expressed or ‘heard’. From just this one dream, we can be forgiven if we assume that dreams may express in dramatic form our feeling reaction to the circumstances of our everyday life. Taking this dream as information, Mrs. C. L. could see she is feeling crushed by the situation, yet not stating her feelings loudly enough to be heard. She might therefore speak to the manager to clarify the situation for herself.

Here is an even shorter and less complex dream. It has been left just as it was written so its information is immediately apparent. The key words here might be TRYING TO CONTACT HIM and NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY HE LEFT ME. The dream is from Mrs C. J.

Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him, not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

On speculating about the dream from what is immediately apparent, we might say that although it is irrational to continually  try to contact her husband when there has never be any success, nevertheless, her desire to be with him continues year after year. This same part of her cannot understand why he died. We might put such feelings into words as, ‘But what had he done to die so young? Why should it happen to me twice?’ We can also assume that her desire to understand these questions, which is what contacting her husband represents, is expressed in the dream as the telephone.

The dream process has dramatised her situation and inner feelings – given them form and made them experiential. Looking at this dream helps us see how an image, such as the telephone, performs exactly the same sort of function as a spoken word, although in a different way. Namely, it represents feelings and thoughts. That the woman’s questions remain, that her problem is unsolved, is apparent from the fact she does NOT make contact on the telephone, and does not find peace. Understanding her dream shows her the importance of the questions she continually asks herself, and the need to release the emotions behind them. With this she could be free of the dream. If she cannot manage this by herself, taking advantage of the professional help of a therapist might help.

To make it clear how everything is a dream holds personal information, to give an example, I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

For fuller Dream Processing – Below are described simple techniques that make it possible to quickly gain information from your dreams. They have been put as a series of questions. If you take time to consider and answer the question you will find your way into a new experience of dream understanding.

Read it in: Processing Your Dream  

Acting on your Dreams – Extracting more from your dream by letting your body and feelings express it can provide a remarkable release of insight. There are several ways of doing this.

Do see the instructions see: Acting on Your Dreams

The Peer Dream Group – This method is the most powerful and deepest method. It includes some of the other techniques mentioned.

The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams and into oneself if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream  and themselves but only when we break through to what is usually unconscious mental states, and when treated as such, and supported in their investigation of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.

To use it see: The Peer Dream Group and What I Have Seen In Dreams

For the Dictionary put the word you want to look up in the search box at the top right of all pages 

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Collision

This may be telling you that a conflict of opinions, direction or feelings with another person, or that careless behaviour leading to problems in relationship is happening. See car

In some cases collisions are purposeful. It might be the only way to meet or make contact with someone, or it might be a test to see how you will react.

The collision may also be between parts of your own nature, such as your feelings and your intellect – your body and your way of life – your unconscious and your conscious self – your masculine and feminine principles. There are usually hints in the dream as to what it is you are in conflict or on a collision course with. The collision can express an internal conflict arising form a traumatic incident some time in your life – a conflict between loving and avoiding love for instance – avoiding because it was so painful in the past.

Many ‘collisions’ occur between the generations. Adolescent’s often run smack bang into as they make a break for independence and identity.

If this is a dream showing your collision with a car or other vehicle, it is probably depicting your driving or a collision with another person, such as a break in the relationship. But it is worth thinking it might be a warning and so see the following example:

Example: I dreamed my godson had been killed in an automobile accident involving other teenagers. I told him about it and exacted his promise that he would pray for protection every time he got into a car, no matter who was driving.

A month later he and his girl friend were passengers in a car driven by a friend. They were involved in a minor accident on the Hollywood freeway. While the owner of the car was fetching flares out of the trunk, my godson had a sense of immediate danger. Seiz­ing his date by the hand, he ran with her to safety. About two seconds later, a speeding car crashed into the other boy and smashed his car. An eleven-car pileup resulted, sending five people to the hospital. His friend lost his leg, but my godson escaped injury. Quoteds from Dreams Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist.

See: Car

Therefore in any dreams that appear as predictions ask for help in prayer.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this collision show any signs of a power struggle, or a struggle for domination?

Is it a male or female I collide with, and is this reflected in my life I any way?

What attitudes are involved in the collision, what outcome, and what can I learn from this?

See Secrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Colours – Colors

To quickly find the description of the colour click on it below.

In many dreams where colour predominates there is usually strong feelings as in the example. This suggests colours depict our emotions and feeling tones. Where a dreamer is largely intellectual or out of touch with their feelings, the colour would stand in the place of the emotion, instead of alongside it as with S.C.

White is the most frequently mentioned colour in the collection of dreams used for this book. Black is next, then blue.

Example: ‘I was standing in a very beautifully carved chapel or religious place. There seemed to be shadowy nun or monk like figures around. But it was the exquisite colouring of the place which filled me with a sort of ecstasy. Everything was in the most delicate shell pink.’ S. C.

red Even where red appears quite casually in a dream, as with the hat in the example, there is frequently fear, screaming, horror or a sense of danger in the same dream. Red also represents ones basic emotions, earthy nature, and sexuality. In this sense it depicts your strength or vitality and your down to earth health and power. But because of the modern association with traffic lights and warnings such as brake lights on cars, it may sometimes be used as a warning, or a way of saying ‘stop’ or ‘no’.

Example: These men were throwing a big red rubber ball into a field, and if we didn’t catch it, we would get shot.

Example: ‘An old woman with a very pink, lined face, and wearing a clashing red hat, knelt close to my face. The woman leaned forward to poke my hand, and I recoiled, screaming myself awake.’ Joy S.

From findings concerning early humans we know that the colour red, and substances such as red ochre, played a large and important part in their life. In Africa red ochre was, and still is, called the ‘blood of the earth’ and is used in rituals to do with death and renewal. Because red is connected with blood and blood’s obvious link with health, being alive, and the process of childbirth in women, ochre and the colour red were and still are, often used in healing practices. Red wine is also seen as blood in the magical rituals of the church and other groups. See: blood under body; blood under archetypes; wine.

A recent research team of U.S. and German scientists found that the colour red influences the way people function. It reduces the ability to perform well at whatever task they are doing. University of Rochester and University of Munich researchers reported that even if people being tested were aware of even a hint of red, their performance would be reduced in quality to a significant degree. University of Rochester psychology Professor Andrew Elliot, head of the research, said people associate the colour red with mistakes and failures.

Less frequently: Red can link with blood; menstruation; the biological life force; conception; reproduction; death. The sun. Also war and sacrifice. It is often seen in red clothes and lips as a sign of great sensual attraction. Red wine as a symbol of blood and it holiness – holy because it represents a symbol of the human spirit. This is most likely due to its method of production. The separate ‘lives’ of thousands of grapes were squashed so their life blood would pour into a common vat. This then underwent a magical transformation by yeast which turned it into alcohol. The connection here is that people who have a direct experience of God or of the spirit, experience it as a unification of all that has lived and is living. The experience of countless human lives has been linked and transformed into a vast sea of wisdom and heightened awareness. It is this we ‘drink’ when we touch our own union with the ocean of awareness that is our spirit.

Pale pink: Baby feelings; gentle love; weakness.

Red and grey often appear together: Emotions connected with depression or lack of motivation and pleasure.

Red brick building: Homeliness; warmth.

Red clothes or motif: Sexuality; passion; strong emotions.

Red earth: Fertility; richness; the healing power of the body; the collective memory of past human struggles and discoveries which we now inherit as personal or social skills, or ease of performance of things that would have been difficult or impossible for our ancestors.

Red eyes: This usually suggests feelings or fears about sickness or being irrational or deeply emotional.

Red face: Anger; high emotion; illness .

Red hair: Passionate thoughts, angry ideas, great energy like a fire. See: hair.

Red flowers: Love; passion; dangers of passion.

Red furniture or decor; Plush: richness; comfort.

Rose pink: Love, as one might give to a child.

Idioms: paint the town red; redneck; see red; in the red; red carpet; red letter day; red light district; red faced; red handed; red tape; run a red light.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there signs of powerful emotions in the rest of the dream – if so what am I feeling passionate or emotional about?

Is there a warning of danger here, or a message to stop – if so what does that apply to in my life?

Do I feel in any way connected to the earth, to the spirit of nature or life in this dream – if so what does that tell me?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Meetings with Christ

burgundy  The colour burgundy is like red earth, but richer and deeper. It feels to me like the wonder of discovering the deeps within you. It is a mood of deep receptivity and quiet.

orange Blending or balance of emotions and intellect. Orange is a blend of red and yellow, and as such much refines the basic instinctual energy or red with the life giving yellow. So it is often used to indicate refined or transformed sexuality or urges, and perhaps greater wisdom. Its link with fruits such as oranges and apricots also might link it with fruitfulness. It therefore suggests health and energy along with a calm mind. Also with warmth and easy feelings

Orange can also indicate heat or warmth, and so can mean you feel energised, or a warning of getting overheated or burnt depending on the dream.

Some people call some shades of red orange, so occasionally there might be a difference in terminology.

Because some people and cats have orange hair, the colour might at times refer to a particular person or feelings about an animal. In my database of dreams orange cats are referred to again and again, and probably depict the female energy or a vivacious personal trait.

Sometimes: Warmth; religious feelings or insight. In some reams when it is an object coloured orange it suggest something flashy, outrageous or quirky.

Brownish orange: This suggests health problems or a lowering of energy and clarity.

Orange hair: Warm or life giving thoughts or ideas – or reminder of a particular person you know with that colouring. See: hair.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling in the dream about the colour, and where do I find those feelings in waking life?

What past associations and memories do I have with orange, and do they throw light on the dream?

Where does the orange appear – clothing, objects or body? In whatever context, look up how it relates to the clothing or body part, etc.

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Introduction to Dreams

yellow Depending on the context in the dream, yellow can link with lightness of feeling; intuition; hopefulness for the future; a clear intellect or extroversion. Because it is a colour associated with shining, it may indicate your innermost wisdom shining out – especially if you are dressed in bright yellow.

On the negative side it can suggest cowardice, jealousy, caution or quarantine. So in some dreams it is linked with sickness or some form of inner illness, or a warning that something is not right.

Yellow roses are used to depict friendship without sexual love, or a love that is not leading to partnership.

Because the action of light tends to fade colours, you find the word yellowing or yellowed used to describe an ageing process, or something that is old. So in some dreams it would indicate a sense of something being old, worn or perhaps fragile. In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald used yellow to represent moral decay decadence and death.

Corn and sun dried landscapes are yellow, and so in a dream can indicate feelings of content, fruitfulness and richness of spirit. As the sun is thought of as yellow the colour also depicts life giving and warming influences or attitudes, of the expression of your own life flow.

Yellow also links with gold, its ability to remain untarnished and its precious quality. So if yellow in your dream has any of these associations it would link with what is of great value and abilities in you.

In some forms of meditation yellow also signifies a shift in awareness, or a change in the way you sense things.

Cream Gentle relaxed feelings. Cream softens the impact of yellow, so suggests, as with cream clothes or furnishings, an easy, quiet feeling, friendship and relaxation rather than sexual excitement and youthful exuberance.

Yellow-green is sometimes associated with lies or deceit, or even sickness.

Muddy Yellow: This might indicate toxins in your body, and therefore lowered energy and poor health. But it can also suggest lack of clarity in your thoughts and feelings, and therefore depressed thoughts and confusion.

Yellow Orange: Energetic and clear feelings and thoughts. This might also lead to feelings of warmth in connection with others.

Idioms: yellow belly; a yellow streak

Useful Questions and Hints:

What of the many associations with yellow does my dream suggest?

Is this a radiant dream, suggesting the expression of my own inner life in a positive way?

Is there any link with age or decay in the dream, pointing to something in me that is outworn?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsPrayer and Dream Interpretation

green Most of the plant kingdom is green, and so many dreams use it to depict something in that you is connected with growth, potential for growth, or capability of fruition and regeneration. A green living thing might emerge from apparently lifeless earth, suggesting a new living direction or feeling is emerging in your life.

These positive associations are linked in some dreams with healing or positive change, and green is often found mentioned in dreams about heaven.

The negative associations are with envy or jealousy. Also when things go mouldy they often go green, and slime or infected mucous is green, so at times green may mean something is bad or likely to undermine your health or positive feelings.

Many growing things are green before they ripen or flower, so green might also suggest not yet being ripe or lacking experience.

Because traffic lights use green as a ’go’ sign, in some dreams it can suggest a positive yes to decisions or directions you are taking.

There is an obscure but sometimes relevant connection for people who are working to unfold their inner qualities. The green leaves of plants are instrumental in allowing light to become the energy in transforming the mineral forces of the earth into living tissue. So in some dreams the green is used to show how your own process of opening to the forces of Light and Life are transforming your lower or less conscious levels of self into greater consciousness and expression. In all it is about transformation.

Sometimes a dream snake is green, and this shows the possibility of great inner growth, healing and change, depending upon your relationship with the snake. See: snake.

Example: In my dream I was watching a fern grow. It was small but opened very rapidly. As I watched I became aware that the fern was an image representing a process occurring within myself, one I grew increasingly aware of as I watched. Then I was fully lucid in my dream and realised that my dream, perhaps any dream, was an expression in images of actual events occurring unconsciously in myself. I felt enormous excitement, as if I were witnessing something of great importance. Francis P.

Breaking through the imagery in this way to the processes and possibilities underlying dreams is a royal road to discovering your own innate talents. You can transform negative memories and habits, and use your creativity to deal with real life events. Jon describes such a transforming experience.

Example: I met a man who seemed to be something of an adept or master; a source of Caucasian white guru type. At first I understood his name to be Faser Dan Li. Then gradually it became Father Li. This I understood to represent fatherly and the name of Faser Dan Li to mean faster than light. Anyway, this guru figure took me into very large greenhouses. Stretching away into the distance tiny seedlings were growing, most of them about four inches in height. As I watched some youths drove in on cross-country motorbikes and roared around the place. Faser Dan Li did nothing to prevent them. But when they had gone he looked at me and said, “Those are your emotions. They are wild and out of control. As such they could damage the tender growth of souls represented here by these little plants. Until your emotions are much more fully calmed and under control you cannot be given the keys of insight into other peoples being.”

Blue green: This indicates healing or change coming from within or from a spiritual dimension.

Dark yellow/greens: Evil intentions; growth of negative attitudes; sickness; envy; jealousy.

Greenish grey: Pessimism and lack of enthusiasm or ‘colour’ or satisfying growth in your life.

 

Idioms: Green fingers; green with envy or jealousy; green eyed monster; green light; green – naive.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I sense the feeling quality of green in the dream – is so what is it?

Am I meeting changes and personal growth or healing at this time, and in what way?

If there are negative feelings in connection with the green, what of such feelings can I note in my waking life?

See Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

blue

Dark blues: In many women’s dreams threatening men appear dressed in dark blue or navy blue overalls. This suggests the woman is meeting her own male/animus side with anxiety. So there is a need to work with this and find a way to express your power and energy in the world. See Archetype of the Animus.

Dark blue can also suggest mature personal insights into life, or if it is a muddy or murky blue, it indicates depression, negative thoughts or intuitions, and being gloomy.

Light blues: Your sense of intuition, or achieving a wide awareness of life. Blue also links with religious feelings and experience of the holy – i.e. an awareness of those things that are universal – such as birth, caring relationship, parenthood – and so recognised as transcending ones own small life.

Light blue can also indicate coolness of nature. Often seen in visions of the womb as a blue grotto or woman with halo of blue, so connects with prenatal and infant relationship with mother.

Blue-gray: Religious feelings produced by depression, fear or gloominess.

Blue skin: Because we go blue when suffocating or having breathing difficulties, it can be used to show what a struggle we are having with life, how bruised we are with experience, or how cold we feel. But as with Krishna and his blue skin, it might show how you are being pervaded by a sense of the universal, of a wider and beautiful life.

Blue-green: Healing or the ability to heal arising form attunement to the forces transcending your own limited awareness.

Blue-violet: Great attunement with insights and powers transcending normal human ability.

Idioms: the air was blue; baby blues; blue film; blue funk; blue in the face; blue moon; bolt from the blue; once in a blue moon; blue pencil; blue stocking; feel blue; out of the blue; vanish into the blue; blue-blood; true-blue.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel when I hold this colour in mind, and where is that feeling or association fitting into my life at the moment?

Am I feeling tuned into a wider view of things at the moment, and if so what am I realising?

Am I feeling blue – or do I feel like blue skies are here?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Introduction to Dreams

Violet: This colour mostly appears in dreams where the dreamer has a deep sense of one’s awareness of the cycles of Life and the life that includes but stretches beyond the body. It may also include intuitive awareness or universal love. A wisdom arising from an extended awareness. See Wider awareness

You are probably sensitive, appreciative, and well-rounded person. You have high qualities and are devoted and rich in inner understanding. Often a spiritual leader of some kind in a quiet unobtrusive way.

The flower violet suggests shyness, quiet beauty, perhaps a passive quietness, as suggested by the idiom, a shrinking violet.

Useful questions:

What are my immediate feelings and associations with this colour?

What feelings were linked with this colour in the dream, and what do I gather from those feelings?

Have I been thinking on or feeling things to do with the spiritual dimension of life – if so what?

Indigo – violet: This depends a great deal on what you associate with these colours. But suggests the deep peace that comes from being at ease with the spirit of all life.

Indigo: indicates the deep peace of the night.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my immediate feelings and associations with this colour?

What feelings were linked with this colour in the dream, and what do I gather from those feelings?

Have I been thinking on or feeling things to do with the spiritual dimension of life – if so what?

See Spiritual Life In DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsInner World

black This is the colour of the night, and so because it links with absence of light, opens us to what we can’t see or deal with in the dark – in what is ‘in the dark’, unconscious – within or around us. It is the experience, like sleep, in which the ego diminishes or melts back into unconsciousness, the Core Self.

This also relates to all those things you repress or avoid feeling or being aware of in yourself and life. So the dream will probably include threats of some sort, or what is unknown, hidden or avoided. So this relates to your hidden fears or past hurts that have been buried and remain unconscious. In African traditions black is the colour of night, death, excrement, and illness.

Black can depict what we feel is evil – in other words the unaccepted side of yourself, the parts of your nature you don’t want others to see, and you don’t want to admit even to yourself. It also may indicate depression, what is negative within you or from an outside influence. This includes feelings of secrecy, fear or things we fear, and anxious feelings about death. See It is vitally importantThe Con About EvilUnconscious

Things like a black animal or black vehicle usually indicate that you are dealing with feelings or fears that you have previously kept buried or repressed. Their appearance in your dream shows you are ready to meet such feelings by allowing them to be experienced and acknowledged.

Example: I dreamt last night that a black Spanish fighting bull charged me. I climbed a high wire mesh fence, like that surrounding tennis courts. There I was safe, as the Bull charged again. It charged people. I came down from the fence trying to help divert the bull’s destructiveness.

Here the dreamer is meeting sexual feelings that he had always avoided in the past and still feels threatened by. As the dream shows, he tries to avoid facing these feelings, but in the end has to deal with them. The forgetfulness or repression of parts of ones experience is very clearly shown in the next dream. See – Resistances

I felt very close to the girl. She said, “Do you remember when they made you black all over?”  I said I couldn’t, and she reminded me of being a film extra, when, to cover up my bad skin, I was covered in black make-up to look like a slave. I then said, “You know, there are parts of my life I can’t remember.”

The connection in some dreams between feelings about death and the colour black are shown in the next dream.

Example: Mike is dying. He is taking care of the old folks to gain merit because he knows he may soon be joining them wherever they are. He wants to be sure that they remember him kindly. The black road (death road=death row) has been incorporated into President Bush’s speech and is declaimed as death road or death highway in some of his speeches – as in ‘we want to protect you from death road or highway’. Of course, no one believes him as everyone knows that it is impossible to save oneself from death’s road. We all have to travel it eventually.

Black also sometimes indicate what is earthy, the source of life and growth. What is hidden in the unconscious or body can be powerfully transformative. Like compost, it is full of potentially life enhancing energy. Such black or hidden things often take time to clarify. They have remained in a condition of never having been felt or known fully, and so are unclear and pre-verbal. Knowing them means gradually understanding through experiencing them, and being able to describe and integrate them. There is often a complication here in ones progress, in that consciously you may have hidden or repressed feelings or experiences, or been unwilling to accept things, anything that was not judged good or positive. In this way the so called ‘bad’ is repressed and you become one sided and lacking wholeness. Therefore meeting the ‘black’ is important. Out of this fundamental earthiness the new person – you – can become can emerge. See –The Con About Evil

Black and white: The opposites appearing together. In ourselves the good and bad coexist, and one balances the other. So this would suggest such coexistence and balancing.

Black clothes or under garments: This usually points to hidden or unconscious feelings or sexuality. Black is also associated with a priest or the clergy, so might depict a religious or moral influence in some dreams.

A person dressed in black: This may represent your shadow, or less accepted characteristics. See: shadow.

Black people: If this is a true black person, see black people.

Shiny black: Rather like a crystal ball, this suggests looking into your intuitive perception of what lies usually unconscious within you, looking into the depths of yourself, perhaps beyond the boundaries of your personality.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am on the edge of being aware of, or have been unaware of previously?

Are there anxieties o feelings I usually do not allow myself to feel fully – perhaps using defences such as smoking or alcohol to help push away?

Is there something emerging out of the blackness that offers new growth – if so what do I notice in waking that is new and living in me?

See Dreams are a reflection of your inner worldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsInner World

brown As a mood this can depict gloominess, dullness or even depression. But it depends what is brown in the dream so it can refer to the earth or earthiness and processes of the body. A muddy brown can suggest unclear or selfish emotions and thoughts.

Brown is in some ways black that has become more light, and so might refer to things that you are bringing to awareness, or facets of yourself you have enabled to grow and express after being unconscious and unexpressed. So in some dreams brown transforms into other radiant colours, perhaps in a way a plant draws something from brown soil and transforms it into the colour of its flowers.

Excrement is brown and in some dreams the feelings show this depicting things that need to be left behind, recognised as not needed, or like manure something that is rich and needed for or holding in it the potential for growth.

Brown in regard to objects can show them as being old or worn, as leaves are that have served their purpose and are now ending their life. But brown can also relate to parts of you from the long past, or containing much experience – but also perhaps to do with feelings about ageing.

Example: The striking part of the dream is this rough looking dog, for when I look into its deep dark brown eyes I can see and feel such love and devotion and am so warmed. As I take the road away from the house, the dog stays close at my heels and I know I have a devoted friend who will never leave me and I feel much happier.

Example: I noticed for the first time a small brown mark on my left hand. True I have been out in the sun, but I never grow freckles. This is one of those marks old people have on their hands.

Brown animal: Your natural urges that you are probably comfortable with.

Brown clothes: Middle of the road and perhaps feelings that are a bit dull or conformist, but are easy to live with.

Brown eyes: Perhaps relates to feelings you have for someone you know with brown eyes.

Brown skin: Feelings about health and perhaps attractiveness. However, brown marks on the skin suggest either feelings about ageing, or that there is something wrong, or something has hurt your skin. See: hand.

Idioms: Brown study; browned off.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I experiencing or moving from feelings lacking colour, vibrancy or life?

Do I seek a comfortable situation that allows me to relax and avoid the energetic processes of life?

Does my dream relate to feelings of ageing?

Is this an old thing – and if so what do I feel it contains in terms of past experience or information?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsInner WorldLife’s Little Secrets

grey/gray This sometimes indicate feelings of living an unhappy or colourless dull existence, a daily round without excitement or stimulus, or morbid or serious thoughts. Sometimes it suggests officiousness or officialdom.

Artemidorus wrote that, “.. a sky that is gray, gloomy or full of clouds, signifies failures and afflictions. In fact grey or gray is often used in language to indicate such feelings, as in the following sentence, taken from Castle’s Dreaming Mind. “If a dreamer needs to be sensitised to how gray, confining, or confusing his or her outlook is toward life, dreams may be cast in sombre,  prison-gray  tones  or the dreamer may wander around in a fog.” These states of mind can lead to ill health or at least a lowering of excitation and energy in life. An extreme example of how grey indicates difficult feelings is seen in the following dream.

Example: I have had a series of dreams which feature grey people standing beside my bed, and each time I have woken myself up by screaming, with my heart pounding, my being unable to move. JS

Grey is the mid point between black and white, so in that sense depicts balance or calmness, but it can also indicate lack of clarity, indecision or blurring of distinctions. Like fog, it suggests not being able to see clearly.

With grey hair it has several possibilities depending on the tone of the dream. It can link with maturity, wisdom or gathered experience. But it can also point to ageing, the loss of faculties with increasing years, and the path to death along the avenue of diminished interest or sparkle in life.

Grey clothes suggest neutrality or lack of ‘colour’, or in some dreams officialdom. But as with the grey colours worn by puritans, it can also suggest a moral stance, an avoidance of extremes or vivid passion. Such a stance might be one of avoiding full relationship or involvement in life. It might also suggest lacking anything more than a ‘bread and milk’ diet sort of life.

But some dreams describe grey in a powerful and exciting or enjoyable way. One dream includes a ‘beautiful, grey, old time car’. Another has a grey carpet that reminds the dreamer of home and comfort. Silver grey is sometimes felt to have these positive and life giving qualities.

Idioms: A grey world; a grey area; grey matter (brain); grey power.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream environment I am in a grey one, and if so what aspect of my life does it reflect?

Does my life lack colour at the moment, and if so in what way?

Is this grey in the dream depicting my own feelings, or is it how I see the environment I exist in?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Pink This indicates softness, femininity, a baby girl, or babyhood in general, or perhaps tender love rather than passionate love, the sort one might have for a child. It can also suggest happiness, or having a joyful optimistic view of life. See: red above.

Pink is the colour of healthy flesh, and suggests glowing feelings or warmth, something alive and with emotions. Because the inside of the mouth and vagina are pink occasionally the colour is linked with deeply sensual sexual feelings. Pinks are also part of sunrise and sunset, and in some dreams suggest a new dawning of something, a resurrection and so a new life – or the glorious ending. It sometimes appears in dreams of ecstasy or religious wonder.

Example: I was standing in a very beautifully carved chapel or religious place. There seemed to be shadowy nun or monk like figures around. But it was the exquisite colouring of the  place which filled me with a sort of ecstasy. Everything was in the most delicate shell pink.  JAS.

Example: Jesus was looking at me. There was a light all around him, beautiful colours of cream, pink and gold. I could hear the most wonderful music and singing. I said to a young couple standing near, “Look at the Heavenly Choir, Oh! just listen to them”. Tears streamed down my face as I watched and listened. Doris.

Pink and white: Suggests cleanliness and warmth.

Pink and red: Sometimes this includes in the dream, feelings about love and passion, love or pain, or love and real hurt.

Idioms: In the pink; tickled pink; rose coloured glasses.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there clues in the rest of the dream as to what feelings this depicts?

Am I feeling gentle love for someone, or is this about just feeling good?

Are there any signs of spiritual wonder in my dream, if so what is it I am experiencing?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

purple This has always been associated with royalty, with spirituality and the law. In terms of the personality it is seen as relating to the ability to deal with practical matters and with spiritual power. But it can suggest an overbearing attitude. It might also relate to the body, suggesting poor circulation, heart problems, palpitations or indigestion.

Example: When I looked into his liquid brown eyes I just saw directly through his soul and it went way out into some deep purple void which I knew to be the ultimate universe. PL

In the example the deep purple suggests an as yet unexplored or known dimension of experience. This links in some dreams with serenity and peace.

Purple is also the colour of a bruise, and in some dreams can either indicate hurts you feel, or sexual passion.

Idioms: Born to the purple (royalty); purple with rage; purple language; purple rank.

Useful Questions and Hi nts:

What are my major feelings in this dream, and where do they appear in my waking life?

Does my dream link the colour with deep wonder or cosmic powers?

Is there any feeling or imagery to do with sickness – if so what does it suggest about me?

See See Emotions and Mood in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

white This colour has an enormous number of different associations. Most commonly it depicts being aware with a clearness of mind. But as with wedding gowns, it indicates purity, virginity, cleanness or light feelings. A brilliant white light usually shows a real and experienced inner realisation or enlightenment. It suggests something from your core self shining through to your waking self.

In certain dreams white is very threatening. Perhaps we have connections with hospitals in these dreams, and depict the anxieties and fear we have about illness or death. Maggots, mould, dead or sick people and shrouds can also be white, so white can depict the same sort of feelings. In some Eastern cultures white is associated with mourning and death.

Example: ‘There was a huge white kitchen. I was scared when I entered it and there was a door leading out of it into a white corridor with a turquoise carpet which scared me even more.’ H. H.

White can also be used to denote attraction, something noticeable or plain to see.

Example: I was looking at my right forearm which was bare. It was very brown from the sun, and at the top of the forearm near the elbow was a white slash. This surprised me and I ran my finger across it, and it felt something like a scar because the skin was slightly raised. The main thing about the slash was its intense white. It was so white it is difficult to know whether it was shining like light, or was simply incredibly white. Miche

In this dream Miche felt the whiteness was a very noticeable part of him, representing hurts (the scar) that had been transformed by hard work and skills (the right arm) and were now apparent to other people.

Black and white: The opposites appearing together. In ourselves the good and bad coexist, and one balances the other. So this would suggest such coexistence and balancing.

Shining white: The emergence of powerful life energy in a pure form. This is often connected with new insights amounting to enlightenment – i.e. the realisation of a much wider understanding.

White animals: Urges and sexuality that have been accepted or integrated with conscious activities. This means urges that at one time your were in conflict with or anxious about, and have been transformed in urges and feelings that are acceptable parts of your present life. They become available and creative energy.

White clothes: A sense of wholeness; purity or marriage. Attitudes that express or allow a lot of your core energy.

White face: Often a sign of feelings to do with sickness or sick attitudes. Sometimes it indicates fear.

White flowers: Love that has grown beyond the physical needs and dependencies.

White hair: Sometimes this is about feelings or fears regarding ageing, but it often indicates you accessing greater insight or wisdom about life and yourself.

White horse: As with any white animals, it shows sexuality and basic instinctive urges or energy that have become transformed into greater and acceptable release, It is the difference between holding back on your feelings and creativity because of doubts or conflicts, and then finding a great flow and ease with self expression.

White powder: Often suggests thoughts or feelings about drugs and your relationship with them, or poison. The dream might be indicating that you are doing something, or have taken in something that is detrimental.

White rabbit: Because of the almost universal connection of this with either a pet or with the rabbit Alice followed into the rabbit hole, it depicts feelings about vulnerability or dependence, as with a pet. If it is linked with a pet, it can also connect with feelings of caring and warmth – even love – felt for the pet. Being white suggests good clear feelings and inspiration. The Alice type of white rabbit links with an entrance into your inner world – a descent into your feelings and the world lying under the surface of your everyday life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the feelings in the dream connected with the white, and what do I gain from them in my waking life?

Is there any fear in this dream, if so can I define what the basis of the fear is?

Am I finding something new here, a new release of innate creativity or realisation perhaps?

See See Emotions and Mood in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingEasy Dream Understanding

 

Coma

If you are in a coma it could suggest that events or hurts in your life have caused you to withdraw or be largely incapable of interacting with other people and events. It can also portray a situation in which you have become unconscious or unaware of what is going on around you and have turned inwards.

But in most cases this is probably depicting a part of you hurt at some time and it closed down. For instance if you have been deeply hurt emotionally in a relationship, you may still go on being capable of relating at a certain level, but the part of you that enters deeply into sexual and emotional relationships may have closed down, as in a coma.

Dreaming about this usually means you have become more aware of the situation and there is an opportunity to heal and awaken that facet of yourself.

If somebody else is in a coma, this might still be about what is described above, but it can also show you relating to the person in a non-verbal, heart to heart manner. Sometimes this is shown in dreams where you feel out of contact with someone you love or care for. In such cases the dream is showing that it is only the surface level of communication that is missing.

See Signs of consciousness in People who are Considered Vegetative

 

Comb

Something you are doing or thinking about doing, a technique you are using,  to tidy up your thoughts or self presentation. The self presentation means that you are trying to change the way you present yourself to others, or change how they see you. See: Hair.

Example: I’ve been recently dreaming that as I combed my hair a woman came and combed it for me. As she combed she finds head lice and gives them to me. I wish to know what this means as I have been recently separated from my husband.  Z. B. R.

In the dream it is fairly obvious that the lice are the thoughts in her head are doing her no good. They are perhaps unhappy or even angry thoughts that the dream is suggesting she recognise and get rid of.  The other woman is most likely an attitude or another woman helping her see that these are ideas to comb out.

To comb also means to search, to seek something, so the dream and its contents might be showing you searching and perhaps finding what you are looking for. The comb by itself though, links with the method, technique or way you go about your search or self transformation. See: hair.

Idioms: Fine tooth comb; combed the whole area.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I been doing lately in connection with straightening out my thoughts and attitudes?

Have I been combing/searching for ideas, direction or a change?

See Associations Working WithSecrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Combine Combination

We combine things all the time by taking them into us as we do with food and information or experience. As such it is important to digest it and make it a living part of you. We also combine our efforts, our learning and skills with others. As one woman wrote to me about her dead mother, “My appreciation and transcendence turned into a much more strongly heightened spiritual awareness since her death, and is my way of keeping and harnessing her spirit and combining it with mine, but that’s another subject.” See digest; absorb

A combination for a safe lock: is usually an attitude or understanding that you have or have failed to achieve.

It gives you entrance to things you would not otherwise have access to. It allows you to open or understand things that would otherwise remain closed to you. This confidence things is what has produced a new sort of sureness about the inner life and the outer life. It can be experienced as linking with so many things. For instance some beliefs would prevent one from building a house in the dream world. This because the belief might be that this is a lot of “bloody nonsense.” So that would lock out whole areas of experience, speculation and creativity.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being combined with what in my dream?

Can I see or feel any similarities with my everyday life?

Am I good at being open to new things or people that I can take in?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsBackground Life’s Little Secrets

Comet

Sign of coming changes or personal changes. These changes might be very positive, or like problems, depending on the other indicators in the dream. It can also indicate new influences arising from within you, or influences entering your life from an unusual source. So it can mean the birth of a new facet of yourself, a great expansion of who you are.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel gladness and pleasure in the dream, or a feeling of anxiety?

Are there signs in my life of a great change – do I feel I am the verge of something new?

Am I aware of unusual influences entering my life?

See Indications of ChangeEvery 7 Years You ChangeTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Comic

Sometimes this points out the funny or maybe inconsequential things in your life that although funny, might hold important information. It also could be saying ‘this is to be taken lightly, not serious’. The ‘comic’ events portrayed can also be illustrating something that is very true but usually not recognised. Like caricatures, they are sometimes more true to life than life itself. This can draw out truths that might otherwise have remained hidden.

The comic can depict social situations, ways you relate, in a way that brings attention to them.

The comic can be a diversion – you try to deal with situations or difficult feelings such as loneliness by diversions such as entertainment, etc.

Occasionally the attempt at laughter hides serious feelings or even painful memories.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What life situation or personal situation does the comic portray?

What part does the comic play in the dream, and how does that link with events in my life?

Am I using light entertainment as a diversion – if from what?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsRole

Company Corporation

How we relate to a massive company or corporation in a dream may show how we deal with our feelings of being a small part of the billions of life forms on this planet. It might also be about your relationship with work, and your place in the scheme of things. How you relate to the company illustrates how you relate to society and social pressures. It is also sometimes about becoming an adult – how you have or have failed to attain that.

A company or organisation is like a giant organism. As such it has a life of its own, feeds, excretes and needs people as ‘cells’ working in its ‘body’. So your dream may be showing you how you relate to that and how, perhaps to better deal with it.

Being in company with others or with one person shows you being involved with or influenced by particular attitudes, feelings or opportunities. The word ‘entertaining’ often used in regard to having friends visit, holds in it the idea of considering, or giving attention to something or somebody. We ‘entertain’ a project, relationship or possibility.

Running a company shows you pulling things together. either inwardly by organising and integrating what were before perhaps fragmented feelings or ideas; or outwardly in new plans or projects.

Example: I had a very powerful sense of knowing I was never wholly an individual. I felt the enormity of the forces and influences that brought me into being. Like a huge organisation that one can resist, but never win, because of its enormity. So one can uselessly fight, or join. I felt this to be like a massive Corporation or company – perhaps like Fords. But it was a company that was behind everything everywhere in the world. So there was no way to avoid it by joining another company. It represented life itself and whether we are going to work with it will try to avoid it.

I had an image of a merry-go-round with different places on the outside, like the different horses. Each might think it is making its personal movements, because as one goes up, and another goes down. But they are all moved by the same machinery. So we too like to believe we are individuals, but underneath we are all moved by the overall organisation – or company. This was so scary at first I wanted to resist it, even though resistance is pointless. But then I decided to join. I saw myself as a tube, a brain cell, fitting in, taking my place amidst other cells. It felt good.

I also had the image in regard to this fantasy of entering the company and asking what I needed to do. A manager came to me and said that what I was doing in life was fine. I could do whatever I liked. The Company did it all. All it asked of me was to wear a little gadget like a mobile phone. It represented intuition. I was told that if there was a big move within the Company I would be told what it was, and if I wished to I could co-operate.


Useful Questions and Hints:

If my dream is about a company, what is my involvement and what does that suggest?

What feelings or atmosphere do I sense about the company I am in, and am I involved in those feelings?

Is there something or someone I am considering or entertaining?

See Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims


Compass

Your attempt to find a direction or activity you feel confident about. Or your attempt to decide what is the best direction to take. It might even express feelings of being lost, and trying to get your bearing or know where you are in life. The ability to continue in the face of confusing outer events. So it can express your instincts or intuition.

A compass can also be about orientation in another way. By being clear about the character and nature of those around you, or the nature of what you are involved in, and also being clear about what your own stance, qualities and weaknesses are, you can better deal with whatever you face. So the dream compass may be clarifying those sort of issues.

The circular nature of the compass, and the fourfold points it indicates are also an archetypal symbol of wholeness. It includes the light and the dark, the cold and the hot, the lower and the higher in what it indicates about our own nature. Such circles existed in most ancient cultures. This meaning is held in the word ‘encompass’. See: north, east, south and west; mandala.

From this wholeness we all have an inbuilt sense of direction in regard to our innate qualities and motivating passions, but this may have been corrupted by education, parents and authority figures criticising or giving counter directions. So the compass may depict this, as in the example below.

Example: I dreamt my watch was a compass. The second hand was the pointer. I (it) wavered and constantly flickered but held true to 12 and I walked in the direction it pointed. Two other people with compasses walked on my left but we all walked in the same direction.  Frank P.

Frank comments on his dream by saying: Part of the tragedy is that it is only back in our real self that we have any connection with the world, with nature, with our innate sense of self and direction. That part of us is like an inbuilt compass, orienting us to the world and to other people. That orientation connects us to the sun, the moon, the tides of life around us. If we are walking around as a pseudo person we haven’t got a bloody clue what that compass is telling us. Our evaluations of who we are and where we stand in life are all shot to pieces.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Where am I heading in life, and what does my dream add to what I know about my direction?

Is there anything I can understand from the direction the compass is suggesting?

What am I doing with the compass, and what does this suggest about the way I am relating to my intuition or instincts?

See Avoid Being VictimsSettings in Dreams What is the main action in the dream?

Compete Competition

We can compete for attention, compete in a sport, game or competition. Also we can feel we are competing with our siblings and peers. The meaning depends on the feelings and plot of and in the dream.

Attempting to repeat or compete with the virtues of a parent is a misapprehension of the true nature of our own personality.

Example: “I am at a wedding at which we are being served a celebratory Chicken Lunch. Whilst my back is turned for a moment one of the other guests on the table who is female but whom I do not know removes my plate and substitutes it with a plate of food which doesn’t contain chicken. When I challenge this, I am told that there is no more. At this I rather petulantly decide to leave the wedding.” Brian Y.

Brian uses a plate of food to represent the good things he feels are rightfully his in life; but his negative emotions in a relationship with a female rob him of this. The dream shows what is available to him but he may have to compete for or share – in work, relationship, life.

In his book The Dreaming Mind, Robert van de Castle describes research he did on the subject of menstruation and dreams, with the help of nursing students in Miami. He found that the dreams changed their character with the different phases of the menstrual cycle. Prior to ovulation the dreams showed more male characters appearing. The dreamer showed interest in these males and found them appealing. Women appearing in the dreams of this phase tended to be pushed into the background of the dream events, and were often shown as competing with the dreamer. Following ovulation the dreams tended to depict men as less attractive, and the dreamers feeling some hostility toward them. The women in the dreams were people the dreamer tended to develop working relationships with.

Competition is a feature of life. A rare minority of the mutations of humans have, by chance, some feature which makes them better able to compete with other creatures in the constant quest for food and other essentials and will thus tend to survive and reproduce their own variations, while the majority of mutations come with a disadvantage of some kind and therefore tend to be eliminated. The laws of the jungle still apply here. The most daring, sexual, reproductive, intelligent of the species will grasp the leading roles in this emerging drama. The rewards will be that standing in this enormous and augmented energy flow will bring tremendous influence and possibilities of reproduction and financial reward. See Gods Walk amongst Us

That view gave rise to thoughts such as these, quoted from Landscapes of the Night by Christopher Evans. “Now the whole pattern becomes clear. The variations in the biological systems are all to do with successful competitions in a terrifying planetary game of life and death, where danger is omnipresent and only the most vigorous, adaptable and ruthless survive”.

Fortunately there have been a great deal of development from the idea of the most physically fit would be the survivors. It has now been seen that none of us survive unless we are an intrinsic and balanced part of our total environment. This points to a form of symbiosis.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel you are in competition, and with who or what?

What sort of competion does the dream show you are involed in?

Are you an active go getter or a passive person?

See Active PassivePlot of the DreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Competition

This is often about winning or losing, and frequently involves a love interest as in the example below. Depending on the dream, it can also be about a test of your skill, uncertainty about your abilities, or even a stimulus to achievement. There may also be an element of self grading, a way you measure yourself against others and what you feel you will achieve or be able to claim.

Example: I am in a high school classroom. There is a boy I like a lot sitting on the other side of the room. He notices me and comes over to talk about something I’ve written. I sense that I’m very smart and he’s attracted to me. There are other girls who want him but they are no competition. He wants to be with me. We chat for a while. I sense that our conversation had something to do with him deciding if we should go out together. He doesn’t come to a decision but I’m happy because I know he will ask me out.

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Complexion

Feelings connected with how you appear to others. Perhaps worries about how you believe you look to other people. How you feel you appear to others. It can also be an indicator of your health, or feelings. A very poor complexion might suggest a health check, or that you are troubled by feelings that disturb your confidence in meetings others.

Our complexion also reflects our inner psychological condition, so can point to emotional disturbances or painful memories.

The complexion we see on other people is a summary of what we feel about them, or how we judge them. This piece from a dream illustrates this – He is very tough in appearance and has a swarthy complexion. See: face; skin; under body.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What character, state of health or qualities does the complexion suggest to me?

Am I feeling any inner disturbances about the way I might appear to people?

If I look in the mirror, what response to my own image to I have?

See Dreams are a reflection of your inner worldDreams are Virtual RealitiesDreams are Like a Computer Game

Compost Poop

Compost is food for the Earth. Remember, everything eats.

It can signify the irritating useless, outgrown parts of yourself, the energies of which can be re-used once the habitual methods of expressing them have broken down. The extraction of fertile ideas and insight from digesting old experience.

The compost heap in our dreams can be made up of all sorts of things – animals, clothes, people – and these depict a variety of things such as attitudes/clothes, old ways of being or thinking/people, and the other parts of self and activities that make up our life.

Compost in the ground points to past experience that has been integrated and is now adding to your possibility of personal growth, creativity and achieving fruition in your life.

If there are things in the compost that you feel guilty about or responsible for – a dead body perhaps – they show there are things buried deep in your memory that are still causing some distress.

Dreams often represent learning or personal growth as an organic process. Ideas and experience are taken in, digested, then form part of an organic whole in an integrated way. This is sometimes depicted much as a tree absorbs through its roots. What is absorbed becomes a living part of the organism. But that does not mean taking it in whole; it is broken down and only the parts that are usable are integrated into the life of the organism, the rest is discharged as waste matter and is later used as compost. This is why garbage, or compost, must be thought of as material capable of being used in a new form.

The soil which is the basis of all life, for plants are fundamental to the feed chain, comes from death and decay. We all  need to compost what is dying or dead, and even our human waste, for in dreams as in life, nothing is wasted but is transformed into fertiliser for new growth.

Example: I had built very tall sides to my compost heap, making it about 12 feet high. It was full up, and I had piled some person on top to level it off and weigh it down. I stood on top and trod it down, and it reminded me of treading grapes.

 

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any clue in this dream as to what you have let go of that is being composted?

Is the compost a source of trouble or of richness and possible growth – can you define what it is?

What am I discovering in the compost, and what does that link with in my life?

See Toilet – Excrement – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsTalking AsConditioned Reflexes

Computer & Games

The computer is so much a part of many people’s lives now, even if they do not own one, and because it is so many things to different people it is difficult to sum it up. Some of the meanings are as follows.

In a number of dreams it has a definite link with work, or working. So this, in the language of dreams could point to something in yourself, a project, or self change you are working on. Of course it could easily be depicting a situation at work that needs defining or realising.

Lots of people feel very cautious about the computer, perhaps even scared of doing something to break it or make it malfunction. So if you feel that way your dream is probably using it to show you the anxiety you feel about doing something wrong in your general activities, or even anxieties about your health or mind. 

Computer Games: Are the main purpose of many people’s use of their computer. Most games are challenges of one sort or another, and so a dream will probably be a way of assessing your skill in life or relationships. The game or the computer might also depict a tool, a doorway, an initiation into deeper levels of yourself, or greater achievement.

Remember that dreams are just like computer games in which you get very involved and face monsters and kill or be killed and nothing has actually happened – you are still alive and unhurt. But that is exactly what this wonderfully alive virtual reality of your dreams is, for we are all playing the game of life – the game we play in which we face or run away from the things that scare us; in which we explore the depths of our existence, develop the speed of our reactions or learn how to love – or simply meet a reflection of our own weakness, terror and of course the wonder of your inner genius. For that is all it is – a magic mirror in which we see ourselves naked of pretence. So before you go ahead please read Martial Art of the Mind

The computer also memorises enormous amounts of information. And added to that it can link you with millions of minds and bits of information through the Internet. So it is an amazing symbol of the incredible memory and resources you have that are usually unconscious. See: ESP.

Computer/laptop battery: This connects more directly with accessing your talents, your memory, your links with others, and maybe your work more than a general battery. So it is important to define what part the battery is playing in the dream.

The computer is a learning tool, and its many interactive programs include everything from typing, to learning a new language. So it might use your dreams as a gymnasium for your mind and emotions, a way of introducing you to new skills, a mystery tour taking you to new places of your body, mind and spirit.

Example: My mother assisted dream doctors in operating on my left eye: “This will help you remember your dreams,” she said. She showed me a fantastic computer and told me that I’d been hired to teach people how to use it. The keyboard had symbols instead of letters, and by pressing certain keys, you could explore different times and possibilities.  The wall-sized monitor projected living scenes.   It was a computer that was alive and intelligent; it could even dream.

So the software or programs: show you the resources, skills, facets of yourself. The difficulties or ease with which you load, use or work with the programs shows how you are relating to that part of yourself. The program might also depict a problem you are trying to gain insight into or resolve. The example told the dreamer that she, like most of us, have the most marvellous of computers, our own fantastic mind. Why not use it?

Example: I was deeply involved in one of those night long dreams, images, in which I was working intensely at what felt like a computer program, but was my life. The feeling level was intense also. I was putting different parts of the program in – ‘in’ meaning that I would now live this piece. But the work wasn’t finished. I went on and on trying to get something that was satisfying or more complete. In the end I copied the whole program – all its parts – and put it ‘in’. This meant I could access all the parts at once without having to go out of one segment into another. This still didn’t feel exactly what I wanted, but it felt better, an improvement. My wife said that during the night I was very hot, like I was in a fever. That is how it felt – like I was working in such an intense way, I was electrified and buzzing.

Internet: A lot of what happens in a computer is out of sight, and with the Internet even in different dimensions and places. So it is sometimes used in a dream to illustrate and help you be aware of the mysterious, even miraculous processes of life in you. One such dream shows the dreamer interacting with a talking computer, learning how to get it to perform and manifest wishes. This was a direct exploration of how to interact with the wonderful processes of mind and body – with Life. This internal process is not just about circulation and digestion. Our life process is intelligent in a way beyond rational thought. It is always taking in more information – masses of it daily – and computing best ways of surviving, or growing, or unfolding innate potential, of becoming free from restrictions and limitations.

Networking: If the dream includes networking it suggests your connection with other people and how you are interacting, how well or badly the relationship is going.

Mouse: The computer mouse suggest your means of finding your way through the immensity of your own life experience, your own memories, and getting things to work. It is a connection point between your decisions, your desires, and the hidden depths of yourself. It might also indicate any technique you use to access your own resources.

Stolen computer: People who have had their computer stolen without their having saved all the information of it elsewhere feel a terrible loss. Sometimes years of work have gone and cannot be regained. So the loss of the computer could suggest a loss, killing out of, or forgetting, masses of your life experience, or the losing in some other way of something very valuable. This could refer to a work situation, contact with others, creativity, or your valuable skills.

Hard disk: The hard-disk particularly indicates memory and its efficiency. Problems with it might indicate you have repressed or lost awareness of parts of your life. In a sense the hard disk is the beating heart of the computer, so might link with health. But also it links with resources you have, work done or creativity expressed. The hard disk may at times also allude to the memory life itself has of your existence – the Big Hard Disk in the Sky thing.

Mistakes: One of the things you learn very quickly from a computer is that what you put in is what you get out. A tiny mistake, easily adapted in speech or writing, on the computer leads it either to not perform the task you wanted, or to not budge at all. This is an analogy for the way the events of life or your own being respond to what you do. The input into a relationship, social, community and world life, has to be just right to get an output you want. But of course, the computer and life are full of surprises. Sometimes you think you have clicked one thing and another thing entirely fills the screen of your life.

Monitor: The monitor is the window, not only into the otherwise hidden, coded, and mysterious places of the computer – and therefore your mind and spirit – but also to the world and lives of others. In this way it can indicate your seeing into the vast depths of your internal universe.

The icons on the screen are also very important. Icons are pictures like dream images, they appear to mean something but they are lifeless inless you ‘click’ on them. Clicking on them means you have to take and action to get them to work – so see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Computer virus: Being got at by another person; something surreptitious that you feel might or is attacking or undermine your work. A destroyer of calm and pleasure. Energy that may be disruptive, but is like bundles of automatic functioning of some sort, depending on the dream. So the virus could also suggest unconscious responses in yourself that are destructive or undermine your conscious life.

See: Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking; email; internet; modem; record – cassette – cd – computer disc.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the dream computer, and what does that indicate about me?

Am I gaining any information from the computer, if so what am I learning about myself?

Is the computer responding to me – if not what changes need to be made?

See – Secrets of Power DreamingBusiness and dreamsAssociations Working With

Comrade

See: Friend.

Conception

Many women dream of having conceived, and sometimes this is an intuitive sense of what has actually happened. But otherwise it might be dealing with your feelings or insights into your relationship with conception.

However, conception extends far wider than that which leads to the development of a child. The female principle, whether of the earth or in us humans, is extraordinarily creative.

Sex equals living your optimum. Living the greatest good – sex is about acknowledging that life or relationship is a creative act. It might not be creative in the sense of a child developing. It might not be creative in the sense of conception. But it is a creative act between two people. And as a part of the creative act it is about acknowledging what part we each play in it – and what part life itself plays in the creative act. It is about recognising that every conception, whether towards a physical baby, or towards a relationship, towards love, towards developing an idea – needs to be nourished and cared for. It needs an environment that will respect it and help it to develop.

It is innate in women to dream of being creative and giving birth in their dreams. So I believe that such a baby is a very real part of you – though an inner and not always an outer part. But it is a creation of a part of you that is only now becoming real in your life. In other words a dream baby is a new birth of part of you that needs to be cared for. The point for a woman is that she is only incidentally part of the creative act of childbirth. The processes of creation are far deeper than her personality.

If you are a woman, this is your potential. You developed in this way because you are a creature of evolution. If you deny that part of you – the urge to procreate – you deny yourself. Do not cut yourself off from your roots otherwise you will die.To become free of it, it is not necessary to repress that part of you. In fact that basic, primeval drive is your source of power. It is a great river of energy. Out of that your power arises. You do not have to become childbearing to have that creativity. You do not even need to have a functioning womb, because at your core you are the power of creation.

So the dreamt conception, even in a man’s dream, can be about a new part of your potential emerging, a new way of life being made real at a fundamental level, a start to the budding forces of life in you moving toward expression. Whatever it is it is vulnerable and needs your loving care and nourishment. See: immaculate conception.

Example: The dream carried on and I saw that I was carrying a child in pregnancy. This started off very mixed up feelings and images, wondering how I could give birth without female organs. For a long period I felt that given time my body could transform, but in fact I never reached that point, even though the organs had begun to transform. Instead I suddenly realised in my sleep state that this was the child of the dream of the tree and the spirit of the tree, where she took me fully into her to form a child, a synthesis of her, me, my whole life experience. And I realised what an idiot I had been trying to transform my body, struggling with the inbuilt idea of a male body. I saw how ridiculous and lost I had been, remembering that I had previously given birth to a child as a man.

Useful questions are:

What feelings do I have about this conception, and what can I gather from that about what is growing in me?

Do I feel this is the conception of a baby in me – if this proves wrong, what am I going to give birth to?

Can I care for and nurture this new life in me?

See QuestionsBackgroundProcessing Dreams

Concert

You can be ‘in concert’ or ‘at a concert’. The first suggests you are in agreement or in harmony. The second is about attending an event.

Dreams often use a concert to indicate a pleasurable experience or a change from everyday life, or even a special event in ones experience. It can sometimes also indicate an uplifting toward a new dimension of experience.

In some dreams people want to be a concert pianist, or are playing an instrument in the hall. This suggests either their flow of pleasure and creativity, or personal feelings, as shown by the example.

Example: Dreamt I was in a village. A headmistress, who seemed to the near the town hall, was organising the school children into a concert. I had a feeling the musical concert was about the nativity. The children were in the village streets in groups, standing playing musical instruments. They had got to the part where the baby is born. I arrived with a flute and went to the headmistress at the town hall and started to join in the music. The headmistress kindly told me to stop as I had not been there when the children had practised, and therefore I didn’t know. I stopped playing my flute (I was a child yet also grown-up) and watched what was happening.

Then I began to think of how the headmistress and I had related. She was kindly and thoughtful, yet because she had all the children to consider, and had to plan everything and took care of it is running, she did not get to know any one child – me – to any depth. I felt she really didn’t know me.

Here is the dreamer’s experience of exploring the dream: “Intense emotion was felt, but was short lived, and I wept in Elaine’s arms. I wondered if perhaps most of the emotion had emptied out. Then I saw how the headmistress was my mother. The nativity was my own birth. My mother worked since I was a baby, and never really got to know me because she was always working and being efficient. The chest pain was a hole, like a hollow in a big tree because the flow of life did not run smoothly, and a young boy was trapped in the hollow darkness.

The flute was an intense feeling of joyful pleasure flowing out through me. It felt like a baby had and had a flow of joy. Then I became the baby. Movements of babyhood pleasure began. At first they were purely physical expressions of love and joy flying out to mother. Then they centred around the mouth – a mouth open longing and pleasurably asking for love. This developed into sounds – the baby’s gurgles and calls, then – “I love you – I love you. I want you.” This came out with the lovely deep joyful voice and laughter found in past sessions. It seemed to vaguely include Elaine but not be directed to her. It felt like the pleasure and love had flowed right from my basic baby self, right through into adulthood.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What were the surrounding events in the dream?

Did I have any feeling about the concert?

Wht memories of concerts contribute to the dream?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMagical Dream Machine


Concrete

Concrete in dreams represents how  you can mold yourself in different ways, for concrete can be a floor, a wall, the strength holding things together, a statue, barrier or a viewpoint that becomes a concrete reality.

Another way of seeing concrete in dreams was “it felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So, the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were. This led me to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother. Then I realised that I was linked with Ros, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Ros – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the Star Beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything.”

Concrete floor: This suggest you feel secure and supported by the floor, it points to your basic attitudes, principles and confidence; what supports you and you may take for granted, such as health, good will of others, the house you live in.

Potholes in concrete: The suggestion is that your present life is hitting some difficulties that are to do with a lack of basic support in your life. See Floor

Condensation

“The notion that dreams provide an avenue for the expression of normally repressed desires while simultaneously disguising and censoring our real urges was systematically formulated by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. In Freud’s view, the purpose of dreams is to allow us to satisfy in fantasies the instinctual urges that society judges to be unacceptable in some way, such as the urge to seduce or to kill. If, however, we were to dream about an actual seduction or an actual assault, the emotions evoked by the dream would awaken us. So that our sleep is not continually disturbed by such dreams, the mind modifies and disguises their content so that strong emotions are not evoked. Freud referred to the process of censoring and transforming dream contents into less disturbing images as the dream and explicitly identified five processes through which dreams are censored:  Visualisation displacement, condensation, symbolisation, projection, and secondary revision.

Condensation, as the word implies, is a process that disguises a particular thought, urge, or emotion by contracting it into a brief dream event or image, the -deeper meaning of which is not readily evident. Condensation also refers to the tendency of the dreamwork to bring together two or more different experiences or concerns into a single dream narrative or image. In Freud’s words,

From every element in a dream’s content associative threads branch out in two or more directions; every situation in a dream seems to be put together out of two or more impressions or experiences. (pp. 4l-2)

The overlap of two or more distinct sets of associations in one dream situation effectively disguises the true meaning of the dream”.

Quoted from THE  DREAM  ENCYCLOPAEDIA by James R. Lewis

Condom

See: Contraceptive.

Conductor

As a man, similar to admiral. . As electrical conductor, receptive side of self directing energy. Nervous system. See: Admiral

Conference

This points to an exchanging of ideas and information, perhaps even a searching for something. It can also suggest a meeting with people with similar ideas, a meeting of minds, or a discuccion and thrashing out of important issues in your life, depending on the dream.

Sometimes it might point to a desire to meet a sexual partner. See Crowd.

Confess Confessing Confession

Sometimes a confession in a dream comes from a very deep place. It may have a great deal of truth or passionate feelings involved. So it is worth while trying to make contact with the feelings and insights involved. This sort of confession can bring real change, and where necessary needs to be made real in waking life.

Sometimes a dream confession reveals things that have been kept deeply unconscious previously. Such things as murder, where a part of you has been killed at some time, are often difficult and have to be understood as to exactly what you have killed. (For help doing this see Stand in Role. In this case ‘be’ the murdered person.) The release of such confessions can be difficult or emotional, and can remove blockages that have prevented the flow of life within.

Confession can be about love though, and this too can be difficult if you haven’t learned to express your feelings and care for someone.

However, some dreams show a confession as a sort of immaturity, a youthful ‘having to tell mother/father what you have done. This suggests that you perhaps lack the strength to deal with your feelings by yourself, and need to unload them no matter what this does to the person hearing the ‘confession.

Where the confession is the Catholic rite, then it will probably link with beliefs connected with Catholicism. But in either case what you confess to may be the result of your self-judgement, or of a measurement according to other people’s or society’s standards. If so remember, “Judge not and be not judged.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am revealing or being told, and where does that connect with my waking experiences?

Am I holding back on love or other feelings – and if so how can I express them in a meaningful way?

Is this something that I am barely aware of and needing to allow to be felt and heard?

See – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsInner WorldSecrets of Power Dreaming

Conflicts

Conflicts we feel or meet in our dreams are nearly always conflicts with ourself. This is not usually recognised, and so I quote a rather long example to show how it is obviously the man’s conflict within him.

Example: In a dream I had been talking with, or in some way communicating with a man who I seemed to respect, perhaps as one would respect a teacher. He had asked me to go up into what I felt was an attic to retrieve something. The attic, I seemed to know, was quite high above me. Unlike the attic in many houses there was not a passage or room underneath it to make access easy.

I realised I needed a torch because the attic would be dark, and I had in my left hand one of those cylindrical, rubber coated torches. I was just about to begin the ascent to the attic, when a man on my left, a rather more heavily built, shorter, and rougher looking man, grabbed at the torch. I realised that he wanted it to go into the attic. I felt completely in opposition to this, and grabbed his hand with my right hand, levering it off the torch. This woke me because I was in fact struggling with my own left-hand. I had hold of my left little finger, and was bending it backward viciously. This amused me because it was so obviously a personal conflict – a struggle between my left and right hands, between my more refined and less refined self.

I explored the dream and the following is verbatim record of it.

I wish to explore the less defined man in the dream where I struggle for the torch.

The man: I’m not a man who easily puts things into words. I find this difficult. I’m someone who lives through my body more than my thoughts. But I feel as if I had enough of being overlooked, of not being taken notice of. I am angry. No one is asking me to go and look in the attic, so the only way I can express myself is to try to grab the torch. This is a direct sort of way of saying what I want.

I want to be given the chance. I want to be seen. I’ve being holding myself back and I don’t want to do that any more. I’m going to reach out for the things that I want. It’s not everyday that I have such a strong urge. Mostly I will just get on with the things that need doing even though nobody notices me or gives me any praise. But I don’t want to be like that any more. I want to stand equal with others, even though I am different. I’m not like Tony who lives a lot of his life in his thoughts.

(I am now asking this dream character – myself – who he is. I want to be able to recognise him in myself.)

The man: As I said, I am not very good with words. I don’t have any words to say who I am. My guess is that for most of my life I have just accepted that I do what I am asked to do. I get on with what is in front of me, and I suppose this is because I’ve never thought there was anything different to that. I never felt that I had any right to be any different.

(So I am now asking this character what it is he begins to feel himself to be.)

The man: I feel myself to be a strong man. Perhaps I’m a man with rather strong feelings that are not very subtle. But I exist. I want to have as much recognition, as much right to choices as other people. I feel ready to fight for what I want. Maybe that’s the only way I know of getting things.

I think my talents are that I can do as I am asked. I can work and work, on and on, without question. I have worked like that all my life. I haven’t questioned that need, that drive.

I’m not questioning it now, I just wanted to be allowed more fully into was happening.

As myself I feel this is a part of me that has enabled me to work year after year without any bitterness or difficulty. It is a talent in me that enables me to stick at a task year after year. The thinking, planning part of me sets the task, and then this patient and working part of me just gets on with it. I am therefore curious as to what the task before us is in connection with the attic. I have no problem about sharing that, but I will fight if somebody tries to take control without agreement.


Conform Conforming Conformity

One of the most powerful, and largely unconscious urges we have, is to conform to the way of life, beliefs, clothing and styles lived by the people around us. Even if we are an non-conformist there are still huge areas of our mind, beliefs and view of the world that conform to well established patterns. So if there are elements of your dream in which you do not conform, or you are aware of yourself conforming, it marks great change. This is because you are becoming aware of your conformity, and might thus change it if you wished. See Archetype of the Paradigm

Conformity has influence way beyond clothing or the way you speak. Abraham was told by God to kill his son. In the end this was not required, but this theme of conformity to authority was obviously a factor in people’s lives throughout the millennia.  The following statement by Arthur explains something of this.

In my twenties I found that quite irrationally I was beating my son and feeling at odds with him. This so disturbed me that I started seeking the cause of it and undertook radical psychotherapy. Gradually I uncovered deeper layers of myself that I had been totally unaware of. I came to understand that I had been raised in a punitive society. At school we were punished even as infants with heavy caning. Although it was never explained to us, the lesson I learned was that unless you did as authority told you to you would be severely punished. My mother had also lived this out in the way she had treated me.

These life lessons go in deep, and because they were never properly conscious, cannot be re-evaluated. But through the therapy I gradually brought these things to light. I saw that I had been brought up at the tail end of a period of history during which people who did not obey were shot down, imprisoned, or worse. So having learned this I was unwittingly training my eldest son to learn this terrible lesson – obey or be punished. In doing so I was crushing his emerging sexuality and rebellious spirit, all in the name of conformity.

The turning point of this in Arthur’s life can be seen in the following dream.

I was attending an adult class with about 20/30 people, mostly men, in it. The teacher came in. He said something and a man asked a question, or spoke back. The teacher got really angry and hit him with a walking stick. Someone else in the class remarked on the beating and was attacked also. A man sitting next to me on my left said that if the teacher hit him he wouldn’t sit and take it. But as the second man was being hit my companion said something like – Bloody hell. The teacher landed two mighty blows on his arse, but he didn’t move. I said in horror, “Good God,” whereupon the teacher moved to hit me. I stood up and said, “If you hit me with that thing I will whack you in the fucking ear.” I felt fired up ready to fight. He backed off and threatened to get the headmaster in. I told him to try it. He said if I could do better, do it. So I took over the class and it went really well.

Then I seemed to be witnessing a young man making love to a girl in a room. A teacher burst into the room and got angry with the couple. The young man was not at all cowed. He said, “You burst into a private room without knocking. We happen to be young adults. I want an apology.”

The teacher was silent for a time then apologised. The young man then said, “Thank you Sir. I am proud to acknowledge you as my teacher.”

Arthur was himself hit with sticks the thickness of walking sticks, and witnessed it happening to other boys. The dream shows him changing his relationship with this, from cowed acceptance to standing up for himself and his human sexual feelings.

The pressure to conform is evident in most cultures. It is seen in police action, governmental oppression and religious intolerance.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is my dream showing me bowing to authority?

In what ways do I conform with peers or other pressures?

In my dream what am I learning about conformity?

See – Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Congress

See: parliament.

Conjurer

Depending on dream, might be the ability to easily change our moods or attitudes, that is a commonplace yet at the same time magical ability humans have – in this way we might pull out of a deep depression and suddenly become creative; or perhaps the youthful side of self that forever wants magical or idealistic answers to life situations and relationships; trickery.

This may be referring to self-deceptions, or deception of others. But it might also point to the magical abilities your unconscious has. The mind too can shift and change amazingly. It can create apparent realities out of thin air, as it does in imagination or dreams. See: RolesThe Conjuring Trick

.

Consciouness

See Levels of Awareness; – Levels of the Brain –  Life’s Little Secrets

Constipation

Inner tension, withholding of feelings or flow of life and creativity. So this could be depicting a lack of self-expression or self-esteem.

There may also be a link with the need to learn how to let go of control in certain areas of your life, or even a change of diet from lifeless foods to whole foods with natural roughage.

In some dreams it is connected with  being tense sexually and not really having feelings/emotions while love making.

But more than anything else it is about the ‘shitty’ feelings and past experiences we have not released, as in the following dream.

Example: I am having a bowel movement, after being constipated for a while. I squat over a hibachi thing next to the toilet and push. A hard piece comes out. It falls and gets on the carpet. Some more follow and now I have to pick them up and put them in the toilet. C…. comes by, eating a roll, and she thinks this will be fun and picks up some of the round balls of shit to help me. I say, “Oh no! put that down. Don’t touch the roll now. Go wash your hands and don’t put them in your mouth.” I get up to walk her to a place she can wash her hands when the toilet starts acting strange like it’s going to overflow. We back away. It disgorges lots of shit and water noisily like an agitated washing machine gone mad. BS.

BS’s constipation is psychological. She is holding on to emotions too long, and the washing machine in the dream suggests the need for a clean up that is not being handled well. See: toilet.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is I am holding on to – in other words what am I feeling in the dream, or what events portray it?

Is there an attitude I am nursing in myself that I don’t want to let go of?

If I imagine letting go of control, what fears or feelings arise?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams –  Life’s Little SecretsArm Circling Meditation

Construction

See build building

Contents & Acknowledgements

In the whole book – each entry is bookmarked. So, instead of looking for each entry you type a word such as animals in the Bookmark section and see the whole list or click on the one you want to read.

This edition is a major step forward in publishing, made possible by the new technology. It is a mixture of a printed version, an eBook and an online text using the Internet. I hesitated in publishing the book because its size would have meant no publisher would have handled it, but as a great deal of its contents are online and easily linked via the internet I decided to finish this amazing and ambitious project.

This book has literally evolved through many lives. It started with the publication of my first dream book Do You Dream which appeared in 1972. That was my first attempt at a dream dictionary, and that went through another life in the book Dream Dictionary published by Optima in 1990. This was a massive enlargement and was the result of considerable experience and research. The enlargement was due to the thousands of dreams shared with me by countless people. So, many of the insights in that book would not have been possible. The dreams came from several different sources.

The first major influx came from readers of The Daily Mail. Readers of She Magazine contributed some interesting dreams. The many people I have spoken to on LBC radio station in London have significantly helped, because I was able to talk over the dream with them. Then came an influx from viewers of Teletext on Channel Four. The ‘Dream On’ feature has helped me particularly regarding the dreams of teenagers, especially girls, whose dreams I had hardly any experience of previously.

But I must stress that it was not simply from the many dreams sent to me, but the countless dreams I and other people explored – not interpreted. Exploration of dreams will be explained later. These enormous number of dreams are what I use in referece for what I write; and I use the wonderful search program dtSearch. I can search a whole library in a few seconds with it. But the constant stream of dreams has given me so much information about how our mind works – in fact how we work.

The next big step came slowly as I added to an unpublished dream dictionary which later became the basis for the Hudson Dream Dictionary on cell phone’s – and then the iPhone version of the same. But a great learning experience came from the thousands of emails sent to me via DreamHawk.Com. And it is from those posts that I am now ready to enlarge my work further in this present edition.

My work at Atsitsa the holistic holiday community, on the Greek island of Skyros, where I taught groups of people how to explore their dreams, enabled me to experiment with a format which enables a peer group to support each other in dream-work. The outline on peer dream work describes this approach. Dina Glouberman, through her use of ‘Visualisation And Life Choices’ showed a way of using questions to stimulate response from the unconscious, which I incorporated in the peer dream technique. It was a wonderful introduction to a further step in dream exploration – not interpretation, dream interpretation lacks the personal experience of actually experiencing one’s dreams.

My friendship and work with John Hodgson and all those involved in the ‘seed groups’ Hyone and I led helped me define the approach described under using symbols to change habitual life problems, which is a new entry.

My thanks to Marcia Karp – psychodramatist extraordinary – who pointed out to me the way basic information in some entries was lost amongst the examples. I have remedied this. Thanks to Sarah Davison for suggesting I clarify the need to look for some entries under group headings. I have listed all such headings now in the addenda. Also, to Dakota who has given so much inspiration and support.

People like Jacqueline Shenton, Chris Campbell, Ros Lynes, Dina Glouberman, Brenda Blake, and Anna are the salt that gave flavour to my life, and I give loving thanks to all those whose names I have not mentioned who have been willing to be with me as I explored my own and their dreams. Ros worked on several entries.

I want to thank my son Neal, who through sharing so much of his inner life with me while I am working on a revised Dream Dictionary, reminded me of some fundamental truths. His courage in experiencing the emotional impact and revelation of his dreams, in being willing to share what he met, tells me again that within each of us lies a radiance that enriches us if we can meet it; that this radiance constantly tries to show us how to become whole; that becoming whole may take strength, surrender and trust. See the example in Relationship and Dreams.

I am thankful to all of you who have purchased or used the book. I appreciate your support. My love and thanks to you all for helping me to create a life so full of interest, so full of your dreams and so rich in meetings with Life itself.

 

Contest

See Competition.

Contortion Contortionist

Mental and emotional fluidity, wide compass. If the dream has some darker feelings in it however, the contortionist might be saying that you are twisting yourself in knots to solve a problem. Are you succeeding?

Contraceptive Condom Rubber

There could be a number of possible associated feelings with this. In recent times the condom has been seen as a means of preventing AIDs, so if the contraceptive is a condom it could reflect worries about sexual contacts. It might also represent feelings or attitudes regarding responsibility. Certainly it connects in some way with sexual decisions and feelings. With the pill, there might be a connection with decisions about motherhood.

Control Controlled Not Controlling

There is a huge area of ones conscious skills given over to various sorts of control. This starts from a very young age when we gradually learn not to mess our pants, and later to ride a bike and drive a car. Being out of control can open us to a great deal of fear, or even terror. Yet being able to let go of control is also tremendously important. Many of the things we meet in life we are unable to control – even our own heartbeat and life processes; for many their own emotions that make them victims to great pain. But many external things such as a relationship, sex, opportunity, losses, accidents and other people’s decisions confront us with areas that we cannot control.

Therefore it is important to define what your dream is describing if questions of control or lack of control are portrayed. See if you can discover what you are meeting, and what a wise stance to it might be.

Example: I was swimming in the sea and a huge breaker swept me up and started bowling me over and over and to start with I tried to keep myself upright and fight my way to the surface for breath, but then I just relaxed into the wave and let myself be thrown all over the place, waiting for it to pass and trusting that I could hold my breath for that long. Susan.

This dream illustrates both the attempt to stay in control, and then the letting go and being out of control.

Control and letting go of control also relate very fully to what we know about ourselves. This is because with too tight a control on what we allow ourselves to feel or experience we build a barrier against the re-experiencing and healing of old painful events, and also for the arising of new aspects of our potential to emerge. See: prison; Life’s Little Secrets

However, as a child we have so little control over people and the world around us that we sometimes become overwhelmed and feel helpless. In response our only control might be either to shut down our feelings so nothing can touch us; a flight into mysticism and magical thinking; or the defence of anger and violence, or the extreme of self destruction. If these feelings are powerful it is difficult to trust or love people you can’t control.

An example of a child’s reaction who had been left alone for too long, “‘I don’t want anybody near me. I’m dangerous. Keep away. ‘I’m three. I’m only little. But I’m dangerous. I will KILL YOU if you get near me. I’ll bite you or something.”

Controlling our urges is a necessary part of growing up, but if we do not also have times where we drop the control, we can become unhealthy.

There is a philosophy being promoted that you are fully in control of your life, and can get anything you set your heart on. While there is some truth in that, but it is also as unbalanced as saying that to have full control is the way to be. Letting go of control is equally necessary. There is a middle way. We certainly cannot control the Universe, but we can learn to work in greater harmony with the forces of nature and intelligences we are interwoven with. For example you have no control of your digestive process, the process that pushes you through the ageing process as you pass through childhood, adolescence, and into mature years and on to old age.

Carl Jung says that, “An ability to control one’s emotions that may be very desirable from one point of view would be a questionable accomplishment from another, for it would deprive social intercourse of variety, colour, and warmth.”

Example: I witnessed a conversation between a man and a woman, and the man says, “Religion; that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

 

And the woman he is accusing of this inability to face reality says, “You poor person! Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest religion is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure. Have you never understood that? Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? It can also be something far more even than that. It is can be an active loving relationship. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life. Is that something you are afraid of?”

Controlling objects: A dam is an obvious symbol of control, as are handcuffs, chains or a rope. A prison, authority figure, police person, steering wheel, and lock or key. These are just a few things to give you an idea of what to look for.

Emotional control: In many dreams, and in life, we are often so connected with another person emotionally, so deep in dependence or fears, that in a real way many of our responses are controlled by the person we are dependent upon. See Ages of Love

Threats of violence are another way we might attempt to control of be controlled.

Example: With M, sleeping on a construction site near a sidewalk, like street people. She wakes me up in the middle of the night chanting some voodoo curses. It is very frightening to me. I think she plans to kill me. As I am  trying to get control of her – trying to reason with her – she tells me all the bad things I have done to her in the past, to women. PGW.

Personal Control: While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Edgar Cayce and the Cosmic MindESP in Dreams.

So, we have another powerful will that moves us. This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive or we are restricted by being tied down.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.

Vehicle control: Many dreams about control involve driving or being in a car or public transport. In general the control or lack of it are about being able to stop or navigate easily. They indicate you life skills in dealing with people, social situations and opportunities; or more importantly beingin control of your own urges such as anger or sex. Being in control of your life does not mean being uptight and scared of letting go, it means you can express in any way that is suitable – control/letting go of control.

Some such dreams are also about sexual relationships and how much control you have. This statement from a dream illustrates this perfectly. “I’m out of control and I can only hope that as I merge into oncoming traffic, I don’t hit anybody. I do manage by luck, not skill, to merge successfully. BS” See: car.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am trying to control or is out of control, and what can I gather from that?

Am I controlled or controlling in this dream, ad can I see evidence of that in my life?

How do I, or can I, deal with this, and is there any suggestion in my dream?

See Opening to Life – Arm Circling MeditationLife’s Little SecretsDream Yoga

Convent

This might suggest introspection, or some measure of retirement or withdrawal from external activities. It is important to see if such withdrawal arises from anxiety or decisiveness. The convent may of course relate to your past experience and feelings connected with it, or your religious beliefs. But convents link with the feminine principle in you, especially the receptive female principle opened to the highest in you.

The convent can depict a particular state of mind, an empty or virginal receptive condition in which a wider life than that of your own personality can express or be known. See: virgin birth; Church.

So in this sense the convent can be an area in which you explore or define your relationship with your wider possibilities or potential.

Entering a convent can suggest either that you seek deeper acquaintance with the wider life mentioned above, or that you want respite from everyday life and its demands. For a man entering a convent it suggests he is gaining a fuller awareness of his female receptivity as it is opening to the wider possibilities within – or that he seeks non-sexual relationships.

If you were educated in a convent it could have very different meanings. You may have been trained to impose restrictions on yourself that put you at odds with your natural feelings and intuitions. A woman brought up in a convent describes this influence as follows.

Example:  It complicates things because it means that I have had to seek outside indicators to guide my choices in life instead of being guided by what feels right to me. As a child I got the message that what made me feel good was bad, and what I felt excited about tended to be forbidden. The confusion comes from being brought up in a convent.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a sense of discovering something deeper or fuller, or  a sense of restriction and confusion in the dream?

Am I seeking to discover the wider awareness and opening to Life?

Am I looking for quietness and time to be myself at the moment?

See Religion and DreamsIdentity and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Convict

This may be depicting anti-social urges, or feelings of being trapped, perhaps by your own undirected emotions and reactions to events. It may also show how you are holding back some of your own feelings and urges. See: Prison prisoner.

Being an observer in a prison is probably about being aware of parts of your nature that have been repressed or constrained in some way. But there is also the element of social judgement here, perhaps suggesting that your own or other people’s judgements have led to the controlling or denial of things you would otherwise feel free to express. This situation might include strong desire to be free, or resentment about what has ‘imprisoned’ you.

The things that imprison us in life might be old behaviours unconsciously learned from parents or imprinted by events. These might be things like a rigid moral code; terrible feelings of inadequacy or lack of confidence; guilt or feelings of worthlessness or pointlessness. Seek in your dreams for ways of being free from such restraints.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I feel I have restrained, or is being held back?

Dows my dream suggest what it is in terms of my needs or feelings that has been controlled?

Is the dream suggesting any way freedom can be arrived at?

See Life’s Little SecretsDream YogaTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

See: Prison.

Cook Cooking

The cook might be illustrating practical life skills to make your life experience palatable, such as the means of dealing with life. Or caring for yourself, in the sense of adjusting life situations. This might also link with motherhood or responsibility – of feeding ones family. It can also portray reproduction.

The active and practical side of our nature that can transform inedible aspects of a relationship or situation into something that satisfies us; the sense of responsibility that ‘feeds the family’; female reproductive ability – puts one thing in the oven – sperm and ovum – and out comes something else – baby; need for, or ability to nourish oneself and provide for physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.#

Cooking: As in the example, ways we transform ‘inedible’ or ‘unpalatable’ aspects of our life. This also might suggest you are working with ideas, possibilities, to create something, a project perhaps, that will satisfy you in some way.

Cooking is also about nourishing oneself by your own efforts. It links with satisfying a hunger, creativity, your ability to make something new out of the varied opportunities or experiences you have.

If you are cooking for others it shows you giving of yourself, but particularly giving something that you have put together, created, realised or learned to manifest in your life.

If you are being cooked for, then it shows you absorbing and being nourished by what someone else is providing you, or giving you in a relationship.

In some dreams cooking reflects how you feel about yourself in a relationship or in life. Do you do well or is it a burnt mess? Such dreams might reflect how people important to you criticise you, leaving you with a sense of failure.

Example: My eldest son looks at the sweet – a soufflé  which has wine in and is really special. He says he is not eating that – in such a tone of disgust and goes away. I burst into tears and look at it all, such a failure. I wake crying so much it’s quite a while before I can stop. MCM.

If your cooking is good but not appreciated it suggests you give the best of yourself but do not feel appreciated.

Example: ‘I saw piles of French loaves. On picking one up I saw that although the crust was crisp, the inside was runny wet dough. I wondered if cooking would make them usable.’ Derek L.

If you are cooking for someone: This may show you giving some form of nourishment or yourself to someone. See: Oven.

Pots and pans: What enables you to prepare and change food to something that is attractive and edible – your cooking skill or otherwise.

Idioms: chief cook and bottle washer; Cook the books; cook someone’s goose; cook up; what’s cooking; too many cooks spoil the broth; cook your goose; cooking up new ideas.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am taking and transforming that will provide my needs or nourish me?

Am I here in a caring and giving role with others, or am I being provided for by someone – if so who?

Am I appreciated or appreciating in the dream?

See: food; kitchen under house and buildings; pot or pan; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cookie

Pleasure, perhaps connected with childhood. If you are making the cookies, it might suggest caring for your own needs or those of other people.

If cooking: Nourishing yourself; satisfying a hunger; creativity. It may also be your ability to make something new out of the varied opportunities or experiences you have. Depending on the dream, it may also indicate giving of yourself. See: Cook.

Cop

See police

Copper

Warmth or firmness with warmth. Copper is something durable yet soft and impressionable. It is a great heat and electrical conductor, and is sometimes linked with love through its astrological connection with Venus. Because it is so often used as an alternative aid with arthritis as a bracelet, there may be some link with this.

Copper pipes are used to carry water, and so if it is a water pipe in your dream this is in some way showing how you direct your emotions or energy.

Copper is not considered a precious metal, so in some dreams it is used to suggest something of low value, as with some currencies that use it for low value coins.

In some countries ‘copper’ is also linked with the police. In the past the word was used to describe a large pot made of copper for heating and washing clothes in, a ‘copper’ that was suspended above a fire. Copper plates were etched to print with as well. Such associations might be used in a dream to suggest old fashioned, or past ways of doing things.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream about value, if so where am I placing my sense of value or lack of it?

Does the dream have a feeling of the past about it, and if so what do I associate with that, or with that period?

What are my feelings about the copper, and where do I find those feelings in waking life?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsPlot of the DreamBecause Factor

Coral

Beautiful inner experience, ideas, inspirations, or intuitions. Something that develops naturally out of sight, or in the unconscious.

Cord

May be similar to chain or rope – restriction or connection, but also support. It often depicts the feeling bonds and connections we have with another person or situation, so it can indicate the umbilical in the sense of dependency that hold us. This is then like the umbilical cord that gave us life, but needed to be severed when we were ready to be independent. See: navel; umbilical cord. Again the support aspect is involved here, as without the support of the umbilical cord we would not have lived.

For some people, a cord around the neck linked with their difficult birth, in which their umbilical cord was wrapped around their neck.

There is another cord of great significance to us, and that is the spinal cord, so if the dream relates to the body it might have that significance. See spine

Cord might also have the associations of holding things together, or making secure, or limiting, as when one is tied with a cord. But because of the connections and holding things together that cords can perform, it can sometimes be used to show people working together, or some form of cooperation. The maypole is a symbol of this universal connection between all things. In this sense cord can relate to electric wire and its possibility of linking with a source of power – healing, energy, wisdom, power of life and death. The word chord can be seen as having a similar meaning to this – harmony. This aspect of cord is show in some ancient initiations and myths in which a cord guides the person through darkness or a labyrinth.

Cords also extend or connect with things, either in a way of control, limitation or influence, as when a thin cord holds a dog in control, or in the sense of enabling us to do something at a distance. See: rope; chain.

Breaking the cord: Becoming independent of parents or authority figures – often anger or resentment is directed at the person we are dependent upon. The independence we gain might be from our own fears and hesitations, and also at the expense of what supported us at the time.

Idioms: might be a play on words as in ‘struck a cord’; in accord; vocal chords; communication cord.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way am I relating to the cord – connection; control; dependency or support?

Am I relating to other people in my dream, if so in what way?

If the cord restrains me, what does it feel like if I remove the restraints?

If the cord connects me, what am I gaining or losing through the connection?

See meeting things I fear or dislike in my dreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power Dreaming


Core

The most important part of anything; a person, a machine, an organisation, a fruit, is the core of it. An apple is an example: the core carries the seeds, that are the most important thing as far as life is concerned. The same goes for the person who may believe their body, the external them, is the most important, but it is their core being that is the most important and carries their essential self. Basically your core is the deepest and most real part of you. Unlike your personality or everyday self which constantly shifts and changes, your core can never be dissected.

During the months of uterine life you went through the whole process of evolution in a condensed form.  From a single celled creature you developed into a multi-celled being, then on from that into a fish like creature with gills, then a creature that could move and have focused feelings and responses to experience, a mammal form.  Recently (2003) scientific proof, through the ultrasound scan, has shown that the unborn baby responds to sound, smiles, and shows all the features that are evident after birth. That mysterious and wonderful process of life that brought you to birth occurred quite without any logical thinking, any conscious effort or participation on you part except perhaps being careful what you ate, drink and what you  are at your core.

You share that journey from conception to birth in kinship with all the other life forms that exist with you on this earth.  But unlike most of the other creatures you developed self-awareness and can look back on your origins.

A single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

Finding this very ancient self, hidden as it is by all your personal thinking and opinions, you find you are free from all the painful emotions, suicidal urges and personal hurts. To explore and find your core see Opening to Life

For each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future.

So at night when you sleep, we return to our core self, and that brings healing and restoration. As we withdraw from awareness of our dense physical and we enter the transcendent experience of our core, the worn out cells, the tiredness we feel, which is the result of experiencing our body and the world, is healed. So sleep and the return to our core, and the action of the core on our waking consciousness through dreams, is vital.

Example: I remember that I was rather lonely and sad for no particular reason and I was going on a date with myself to the planetarium.  In the dark planetarium, the stellar night sky covered the dome like a real night sky.  There was a grand zooming out process.  Starting with a person in a house to his city, to his country, continent, the earth, the solar system, our Milky Way galaxy, and to Local Group (the cluster 10), to supercluster and at last to the observable universe.  Watching the earth and our galaxy disappearing into a point as the zoom gets larger into the cosmos, I was overcome with a surging emotion in my chest.  Instead of deepening my despair, a grand sense of relief overwhelmed me, a sense of gratitude, a sense of the Holy.  It is hard to describe or explain.  Opening the knots in my heart, tears surged up because…  it was so beautiful.  I was infinitely alone yet infinitely not.  Coming out to the streets of NYC, everything and everyone was a wonder.  We are utterly insignificant in the scheme of things.  And I was elevated.  The Earth is so beautiful and our lives are so precious in its fragility. Quoted from Grace Park, Honors Seminar Spring 2003 – Modern Physics and Myth – A Dream within a Dream

As human beings we have investigated and probed the core process to the point where we understand some of the ways in which it works, and some of the ways in which we can co-operate with it or interfere with it.  Nevertheless that Core still remains largely a mystery.  In fact with the development of the new investigations of physics, such as quantum mechanics, the mystery deepens. See Quantum Physics

Core Experience is an everyday part of your life. Without it your heart would not beat, your food would not digest, your immune system would collapse, and the miraculous interplay of transactions and processes that take part within your body and consciousness would cease. Nearly all of us take this for granted. It is fundamental to our existence. But mostly we remain unconscious of any real meeting with our core. Many of us have no sense of the wonder and transformation this experience can bring. Also there are many things about our Core that are often not understood or are misunderstood, that at our core we are male and female, and also we are not fundamentally our body. Sometimes these factors are simply overlooked, or not recognised as being deeply important. See Water Wonderland

In religious beliefs this was called the spirit.

Example: Observed from the original all-encompassing self, the normal adult personality or self is a complicated, unpleasant contraption, loaded with superfluous gears and pulleys behaving in countless perverse ways which lead people to depression, anxiety and confusion. “Why all this complication?” asks the primitive mind. The split into self and non-self, with all the evolved gradations in between, betrays that original wholeness and delivers the mind to anxiety. Small wonder then the enchantment of mysticism, when the burden of self has vanished and all things rejoice in unity. How many ravishing accounts of transcendental experience owe their peculiar charm to this primitive condition? All is one, feels the child. All is one, says the mystic. Both child and mystic are at once very close to the center of their own psychic nature, and as far as they can get from objective truth. When a person looks into a mirror and sees his father, when the mystic feels at one with the universe, or when a couple in the ecstasy of orgasm feel their souls mingle—we may call it fusion, and refer thereby to the expansion of the walls of identity from the conscious ego to the subconscious self. “Subconscious self,” however, does not mean any magical universal entity, but simply the sum of mental content which, although it is a hundred, perhaps a thousand times greater than the conscious ego, is still within the consciousness of the subject.

Freud said that the process of dreams was trying to release sexual feelings, but the conscious self was often resisting the action through guilt or shame. That is an example of two wills working against each other.  In other words the Conscious will opposes the Core will or Life Will.  This is an important point so I will reiterate it.  You have two levels of will.  You have a conscious will and you have a will arising from your Core. So at times your core will may be opposed by what you as a person wish for, fear, feel or decide to do. See Waking Lucid Dreaming; The Life Will; Touching Your Core Self; Centre; We are ParalyzedArchetype of the Animus and Archetype of the Anima

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. See Opening to Life

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Edgar Cayce and the Cosmic MindESP in Dreams.

For simplicity I have called this experience, of what is actually waking lucid dreaming, ‘LifeStream’. It would take us too far out of looking at dreams to explore it, but it can be studied within these features: LifeStreamPeople’s Experience of LifeStream – Life’s Little Secrets – Arm Circling Meditation – Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death

This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive or we are restricted by being tied down.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals. Meeting your core self – the Life Will – in dreams such as seeing an alligator or crocodile, a whale or being in or seeing lava pouring up, are signs of meeting your real core. Often people feel frightened and try to escape it. This is because our personality is a very small and vulnerable thing and breaks down in depression, emotional pain and many other ways, and as it meets its inner vastness it often becomes scared. Opening to the CoreThe Unconscious; Reaction to the unconscious

But in the end none of that is the core. Our identity as it is shown in many dreams is not a formed thing like our body. In its essence it is not even male or female, but both. Summarising such dreams, it is the sense of bodilessness, aloneness, loss of power and loss of our sense of identity, which bring so much fear in our dreams.

There are antipodes of human experience. At the tip of one is focused, self determining self awareness. At the tip of the other is unfocused void without focused identity which occurs in sleep. Strangely enough we experience both each day in some degree. The first while awake – the second when we sleep. Yet to face the second with consciousness feels like all the horrors of death and loss.

But facing it is important, especially in the second half of life. Although the unconscious carries the dark images we have of death, it also provides what feels like certainty about an existence which transcends death to those who experience it. This is presented as an awareness of existing eternally as part of the very fabric of life. In one form or another this is what those who dare to confront the dark images of death find beyond them.

Example: To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel as if I have experienced my core?

What does my dream indicate about the core?

What can I extract from it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming –  Life’s Little Secrets

Cork

Usually associated with keeping afloat, therefore to do with you ability to keep positive in perhaps difficult circumstances. But it also is usually part of the experience of opening a bottle. This might refer to being uncorked – in other words being allowed to be active after a quiescent period; the release from pressure from being ‘bottled up’; or even celebration of some kind.

Cork is also used for insulation, soundproofing, and also as a pin board for notices. So if these themes are in your dream, ask yourself how they apply to you.

Cork is the natural bark of a tree, so your dream might be using this association with you having a protective layer around you.

If floating: Confidence, perseverance, high spiritedness, the ability to rise above circumstances, or win through troubles.

If in bottle: Feeling compressed, or perhaps in a bottle neck situation where your progress is impeded. Keeping something preserved or unavailable.

Example: Now I’m walking to take the form to the office and I’m walking on a “carpet” of sticks and twigs and hollow cork bark and pussy willows which have been sorted carefully so each kind of thing is all in a row. I pick up a cork bark still in the shape of a branch and admire its beauty. I admire the work that went into laying all the pussy willows out together in a row.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is the cork appearing in my dream, and how does that link with my present life and feelings?

Is this about keeping afloat – and if so in what way am I experiencing that at the moment?

Am I keeping something bottled up – if so what is it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being VictimsLife’s Little Secrets

Cormorant

Intellectual ideas that have the power to dig deep and bring up unconscious wisdom. Because the cormorant is used to dive and catch fish, it suggests you are practising some form of introspection or self examination.

Corn Wheat

Whether this is corn on the cob or wheat, it probably links with a harvest, a reward from work done. It also suggests fertility, nourishment and a sense of fullness. In some dreams it may represent sustenance or strength in times of need or trial. Occasionally wordplay for corny.

The seeds of corn also have the power of life and growth in them unless they have been processed, as happens with white rice and white flour, which has thus rendered them ‘dead’. They can thus indicate your potential for personal growth, but this usually links with a power within yourself, the power of Life itself, that has the ability to move you and unfold your potential. This inner activity links your independent life with the whole.

Because maize/corn was eaten at nearly every meal, and because it was therefore life sustaining even in difficult times, it  was seen as holy – a sustainer, giving fertility and therefore a link with the giver of All Life.

This is often about your own growth toward becoming a woman or man, for wheat is such a universally eaten food, and so is often used in dreams to represent the harvest of our life experience, our power of personal growth or its lack and also what we manifest with our life or growth.

Example: But a force caught me and turned the process from regression to growth. Now I was growing into a baby, a child. I was a seed of wheat opening with the power of growth pushing my being to expand and change. My penis was like a tree. When it was large enough others could shelter under it while they grew. The power of the ‘Thing’ into which I had fallen then spoke to me. It said that if I came to it each day in the same way – i.e. surrendering my ego – then it would grow me. The creative power would then realise itself in me through my growth.

The maize cob sometimes has a similar meaning – the many connected with the One – because of the way the kernels crowd on the cob. It also depicts fertility and plenty, and in some dreams the penis ready to impregnate. According to one version, the Mayan gods mixed their own blood with maize flour in order to create the first people, and to consume maize was literally to consume divine flesh, as Christianity sees bread as the flesh of Christ..

This is the same story told by Christian beliefs when we get to the basics of them – i.e. God created everything, so eating any living food is eating God.

Not eating the corn, or walking through the area in which corn grows, can suggest that you are not yet able to, or ready to, harvest or integrate, the potential and inner riches that are there for you.

Corn husk suggests either that you have got the richness from the corn already, or that there is nothing left for you, so emptiness.

Grinding corn shows you getting at the essence of what you have harvested of experience over the years of this life and others.

In some ancient rituals spiritual death and rebirth were linked with corn. This because in planting it for a new harvest it was buried and died to its old form. In dying in this way, the initiate was able to experience the power of Life or God, out of which their life had originally sprung. Planting corn might therefore either indicate your potential being released, or the conception of a baby or new phase of your life.

Example: During a major operation I dreamt I saw my little daughter – dead for many years – standing in a corn field. When she was actually buried the cemetery was skirted by a corn field, and later in life, coming to terms with this early death of a child, I imagined my daughter walking into the corn field. In the dream I walked into the corn field. My daughter was waiting for me with her arms held up. I put my arms to her and we greeted each other smiling. At that point I felt it wasn’t time to die yet, turned and walked out of the corn field. Ken Sprague.

Ken recovered from a serious illness and lived for several more years.

But a few people have an allergic reaction to wheat, and your dreams may reflect this. “People with a wheat allergy have an abnormal immune system response to at least one of the proteins that exist in wheat. Exposure to wheat can lead to breathing difficulties, nausea, hives, bloated stomach, and an inability to focus. In some people, anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic response, can occur.” Quote from Medical News Today. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any indication in my dream of harvesting or gathering – if so what am I gaining the benefits of at the moment, or what is coming into my life from past efforts?

Am I aware of an influence in my life that is like an inner growth from my core?

Do I feel as if I am facing or experiencing a spiritual death as an old self dies?

See Life’s Little Secrets – Meditation with SeedTechniques for Exploring your DreamsUse Body

Corner

If in a corner of a room or building, it can show you feeling trapped or restricted – or as in the second example, a hidden or little admitted aspect of oneself. Occasionally such boundaries or restrictions might produce a sense of snugness or security. A dark corner suggests an attempt to become unaware, or lack of awareness or insight.

A corner is also a turning point or perhaps a meeting place.

Example 1: ‘I was afraid the thugs would corner and attack me.’ Pauline B.

Example 2: ‘I went into an obscure corner of the cloakroom and hung up the coat – then I went through the pockets.’ Mrs R. E.

Corners are sometimes used in dreams to depict things that have been cast aside or forgotten, perhaps even things hidden or previously unconscious. If not that, then to do with things that are side issues, not central in your life or awareness. Occasionally it shows you doing things without great care or skill, as with the phrase ‘cutting corners’.

There is a type of corner that appears in several dreams. Something threatening, terrifying, or haunting/ghostly appears in the corner of a ceiling, as in the example. The suggestion in the dream imagery is that the fear is in the mind of the dreamer or those around him/her. Concepts or beliefs we hold – such as the devil – and give energy to become actual living presences within us, especially in our imagination and dreams. See Inner World

Example: I walked past  the photo stat. room. Two girls came out into passageway, TERRIBLY distressed  and spoke of Satan. I went into room and saw Satan in the upper corner leering  down and mocking head and shoulders. I calmed the girls and everything became  okay.  Mr. A. A.

When a street or projected room corner: Approaching the unexpected or unseen. Therefore the possibility of meeting new experiences. This also might indicate taking care.

Because you have the possibility of several directions here, it might involve indecision or making a decision. If you are standing on the corner then you are exposed to public gaze and unplanned events.

Someone going around a corner: This suggests there are things they do that you do not know about, or they are acting independently of you. Obviously this is often as aspect of yourself. If someone or something appears from around a corner it shows someone or something coming to your attention, or into your life.

Beyond or around the corner: The unknown or unexpected. Things you are not aware of or you hide from yourself.

Idioms: Cutting corners; drive somebody into a corner; in a tight corner; knock the corners off someone; turn the corner; hole in the corner affair.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I trying to stay out of the limelight at the moment by hiding in a corner?

How am I relating to the corner – is it turning a corner (new direction in life); waiting on a corner (hoping for contact and friendship); or cornered (feeling trapped)?

What are the main feelings in the dream, and what part are they playing in my life?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming


Corpse

Feelings or actions you have denied. For instance you might kill your love for someone if they hurt you. This could be shown as a dead body in your dreams. Some feeling, such as sympathy, forgiveness, that we have deadened. We may say, Why should I forgive them, they don’t deserve it, and this attitude can prevent parts of our inner feelings living or expressing consciously. Fear of death; desire to see someone dead, or out of the way.

Usually in these dream you, the dreamer, have killed or murdered the corpse you see in the dream. Often it is a part we do not want to know about because of traumatic pain associated with it, or because it is because of the pain we felt about that part of us. See murder

In a few dreams the corpse represents feelings about disease, human vulnerability and mortality.

Example: It was something like a semi detached and sited on a slope. I was outdoors and I think felt or knew that we had just taken over this house. But I felt uneasy as if something from the past was linked with it.

Then I was at the back of the house, on the part sloping down from the back wall of the house. I noticed things covering what turned out to be a big hole dug against the back wall, deep into the soil. This was where I felt most ill at ease about the place.  The hole had been covered with bits of board and other odd pieces of junk. I lifted these at the left of the hole and looked in. Sticking out from the side of the hole, about three feet down was the dead body of a young man. I could see the back of his skull had been smashed in. But although he had obviously been under the soil for some time, and had now been uncovered, the body was still in good condition, being slightly dried out or mummified.

I felt really guilty and connected with the body, as if I had been part of his murder, and was wondering frantically what I could do to hide or get rid of the body. Part of the problem was that pulling it out risked being seen with it.

In ‘being’ the body in the dream the man said, “But it wasn’t until I got into the role of the dead body that any depth of feelings emerged.  Almost as soon as I was in the role of the dead body I began to think about and feel things connected with the way I had killed my sexuality as a teenager.  Gradually these feelings deepened and I was describing my feeling hatred in regard to sexuality and how the masses were pulled along by their genitals into some sort of conformity and performance.  I felt anger and loathing for what I felt at the time were the cattle human beings were. At the time I despised and hated them.  I also felt repugnance at the way people talked about sex or appeared to enjoy it.  It has to be understood that in that period in history in the UK, most of sex was depicted in terms of smut, dirt, animal desire, hidden pornography, or loveless fucking.   I wept deeply, at times hardly able to breathe, with the pain of seeing what I had done to myself.  I said sorry over and over.  I saw that I need not have killed my love and sexuality, but could have expressed it in a tender and loving way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I killed this body – if so what am I killing or denying in myself?

If I imagine myself as this body what do I feel or connect with in myself?

Do I know the person who is dead – if so what is my relationship with them – have I removed them from my love?

See: Being the Person or Thing – deathTechniques for Exploring your DreamsDead Body

Corridor

No man’s land; limbo; in between state; the process of going from one thing to another. The corridor, because of its shape directs ones progress along it. So it is both limiting and yet gives opportunity to traverse a building quickly. So if it has this feel in your dream it links more with the expression of your potential or energy. As such it is a channel for the energy of potential to flow through you, into the many departments or ‘rooms’ of you.

The example may refer to the experience of birth – the birth canal. Such a corridor can also depict a sense of not being able to get out of a dissatisfactory situation. It may refer to a direction in life produced by circumstances, or even the female genitals. See: white. Many corridors in a building might suggest the complications and barriers that stand in the way of simple effective action or expression.

In some dreams a corridor has many doors leading off it. These doors are the many facets that you have but maybe have not been explored. So it is worthwhile imagining yourself entering them. See carry the dream forward and last example..

Example: ‘I’m trapped in a long passageway or corridor. I can’t get out. I’m feeling my way along the wall – there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t get to it. I’m very frightened. I wake up before I get to the end. Then I feel afraid to go back to sleep.’ Margaret.

The above is an example of a typical birth dream, or of someone feeling really trapped. The following is about the dreamers neurosis caused by his mixture of religious fervour and restrained sexual feelings.

Example: There were many closed doors behind which, I knew, were women living as enclosed nuns in the life of prayer. But I felt there was much mental illness contained in what they were experiencing. This recalls another previously unremembered dream in which I wandered a corridor where there were cells of nuns living an enclosed prayer life.

Example: A man dreamt he was in the dim entrance passageway of a house. It was not a welcoming place. When he let himself experience the feelings involved in the dream, he realised the corridor described how he had unconsciously felt about himself. He had held back from sharing himself with other people because he felt dull and uninteresting – like the passage. The positive side of the dream was that although he had not developed a fascinating exterior life, he/the corridor had great depth. This encouraged him to take the risk of allowing more people into his life. The passageway, leading as it did from the front door to the house interior, was an excellent symbol of the part of his own character which connected his own inner feelings and qualities with the people he met.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relation with the corridor?

What do I feel about the corridor in the dream?

Is it a known or unknown situation.

Try Talking AsProcessing Dreams or Easy Dream Interpretation


Corruption

Many things that we do or fail to do are not an expression of our best. We may not stand up for something we believe in deeply, or because we are hiding something, we become involved with people who abuse or manipulate us. This leads to a sense of something rotten and corrupting within us.

For instance you may not have the strength to say no to someone who is manipulating you through your sexual desires or fears. This means you also become involved in that person’s deviousness and corruption too. A basic reason for this might be that there is something about yourself you do not have the courage or strength to admit. This passive lie opens you to being influenced in ways you later regret, or leaves you open to responses to others that disturb you. For instance you may feel inadequate as a man or woman for some reason. Hiding such an inadequacy leaves you weak and open to corruption or manipulation. Dreams often illustrate this situation by something rotten or down at heel. See: dirty

However, the corrupt sometimes holds treasures. It is when things break down and rot that new growth can come. Great energies are released as things break down. The precious is sometimes found in the most low – or revealed by it. Corruption is, after all, a necessary part of our healthy body. Corruption in our bodies is part of digestion. By breaking down through rotting it releases the nutrients and then what is not wanted is passed out.

In fact we need the corrupting influence to continue living. In every moment of our life we face the possibility of death. In fact we only live because we are constantly dying. Our body is all the time dying as thousands of cells die, and in doing so the new and living body can continue. “Our bodies renew themselves every day: stomach cells renew every five days; our skin cells are replaced every month; the skeleton is replaced every three months; the raw material of DNA is replaced every 6 weeks; our brain cells are completely new every year. The whole body is replaced every two years. Every cell in your body listens to your self-talk and out-pictures the results”. Quote from The Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is corrupt in your dream, and what does that indicate in your life?

Are there unredeemed parts of your personality – angers, malice, desire to hurt or control?

Does the dream show you in relationship with someone, if so what is suggested?

Do I see anything shining through this – if so what do I get from that?

See  Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsDigest MaggotThe Beggar


Corset

Self inflicted restrictions, holding yourself back in some way. Or even presenting yourself as you think others want to see you, perhaps by using an external alteration instead of an internal change. The restriction may be connected with your sensual or sexual feelings. See: armour.

Corsets and girdles in a male dream is often linked with a particular type of sexuality, as described in this following piece.

Example: Image after image of women flashed through consciousness. Pictures of women in black brassieres and black corset straps. Women with fags in their mouth with unfeeling hard faces. Women having a period. It was the cultural images I had been handed of women.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What restrictions am I putting on myself?

Am I trying to fit into someone else’s idea of what I should look like?

Are sexual feeling appearing in this dream at all – if so what do they suggest?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Cosmetic

Desire to attract attention and our urge to show our public traits. It can also be a  cover up; an attempt to improve oneself. A mask you might wear to hide your lack of confidence or to hide your true feelings, thoughts or defects. An attempt to avoid seeing yourself as you are.

Example: I was getting ready to go out with a group of friends, some of them new. I looked in the mirror to make up and saw a hole in my nose. It was deep and I could see the bone showing through. I put some foundation makeup in the hole and covered it up and it didn’t look too bad. I went out to meet my friends. In talking this over it seemed as simple as having a hole in ones nose, and how people would stare, and how one would have a sense of having a personal defect.  Marilyn.

But perhaps in many dreams, it indicates the feminine magic of transforming your appearance to attract attention, or to change your image. In some cases the struggle against ageing or the body form you have.

For a woman, putting on makeup is one of those daily habits like shaving is for most men. So the dream might use it to show something about your way of life, things left undone, or carelessness if forgotten.

There are so many cosmetics on the market now that it is important to understand the relevance of a particular cosmetic if it appears in your dream. What lies behind your use of it, and why is that relevant now?

Not having makeup on: Suggests feeling not at your best, or less likely to create a good impression or being unprepared. Or even a way of showing your natural beauty.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What part is the makeup playing in my dream and in my life?

What do I feel about the makeup, and how does that relate to my present situation?

Am I trying to hide or cover up something – if so what?

See Identity and DreamsInner WorldAssociations Working With

Cot Deaths

I dreamt that an enormous amount of my energy was in-turned into seeking states of mind – seeking my own womb condition. I came across an interesting piece of research in the dream, the possibility that cot death babies die when they dream about being in the womb. The reason being that the body follows the dream and in the womb there is no need to breath, so they stop. This reminds me of my own experiences of finding a ‘mystical’ state when my breath stops, and how in yoga practice there is a need to slow and stop the breath to reach altered states of consciousness.

Cough Coughing

In many cases this links with emotions that have got trapped and are trying to be expressed. The cough can be quite subtle, a nervous response to something your are allergic to or anxious about, such as hiding and trying not to cough to give yourself away. So this suggests difficult or ‘give away’ responses to a situation your are in.

The cough can be a warning about health or addiction. The dream usually defines what the difficulty is.

A cough can be a signal of some sort, or even a cover up for an embarrassing moment.

Sometimes, if you are coughing up lumps of something, then it is probably linked with past experience, and the feelings attached to it, that are irritating you and seeking release. Talk the dream and the feelings over with a sympathetic friend to see if you can touch what those feelings are more fully. See Life’s Little Secrets

Occasionally the word is used as a suggestion of coffin. This would be indicated by the tone of the dream. See: coffin; sneeze.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I see the cough in the dream is expressing?

Is this an expression of an infection of health problem?

What feelings are behind the cough, and how do they apply to me?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsResistances

Country

See: Abroad; Countryside.

Countryside

Your feelings of relaxation, and what you are without trying. Therefore your natural or spontaneous state. It can also depict natural forces of life active in you.

It depicts how you feel when you are in the country. Often this is about your natural spontaneous feelings, or feeling relaxed. It might also refer to the forces of ‘nature’ in you, your instincts or your moods – a rainy countryside would be a more introverted mood than a lively sunny scene. If the countryside is wild and rugged, or stormy, it could suggest you are meeting a difficult time in your life or growth.

In some dreams the countryside depicts a feeling of safety or the absence of stress. Or it might link with the past – i.e. a past way of living. Many people have a ‘retreat’ in the country, so it could suggest a way of getting away from the everyday demands of your life. This getting away from the demands of life, the countryside, might be shown to be unrefined or more coarse or down to earth than your usual life.

Example: I used to have a recurring dream in which I had to choose between a modern house made almost entirely of glass situated in open country on a hilltop, and a small cosy cottage  by the sea against which the waves beat fiercely in stormy weather. This helped me uncover a conflict between the choice of a ‘public’ career – the glass house – in which I could rise in the academic world – the hilltop; and a cosy home life of domesticity close to the emotional, primitive roots of being – the sea. The stimulus was obviously the fact that at the time my husband was threatening to leave me unless I gave up my career to devote myself to the family. Ann Faraday from her book Dream Power.

If the countryside doesn’t have roads or paths it often means you are in a phase of your life where you are exploring a new or unknown direction. This frequently show you entering more deeply into your own ‘nature’ and discovering more of yourself. It could of course simply say you are very uncertain of your direction at the moment.

Country lanes: Meeting what is natural in us – this may disturb the dreamer, perhaps being in the form of a wolf or animal. Sometimes it is shown as an escape route from something or someone. See: lane; landscapes; farmer; settings.

Driving in the country: This might suggest either that the going is slower or the way harder, or that you are more relaxed. The atmosphere of the dream should clarify which.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of countryside is it, and what does that suggest as a mood, feeling or attitude?

Is this countryside I know, and if so what are my memories and associations with it?

What am I doing here – searching, relaxing, making love – and what does this suggest about my natural or relaxed feelings and inner self?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Couple

Depending on the context of the couple in the dream, they can represent the dreamers parents and the family situation and environment at the age of the couple portrayed; if the dreamer has been married, can depict the dreamer’s marriage situation at the age of the couple; hopes for a relationship; possible outcomes of a relationship; friendship; partnership; some sort of relationship. See – Characters and People in Dreams

Dead people: The influence those people still have in your life – i.e. you are still influenced by them, or your relationship with them, even though they are dead. Feelings about death.

Group of people: A group of people, as in Ivor’s dream below, can depict how one meets the pressure of social norms; public opinion. See: Dead Husband or Ex; crowd.

Large crowds: Enormous involvement of self in issue; ones relationship or feelings about the social environment one lives in. In groups we often have a feeling of being looked at or on view – how we relate to that may be depicted by what we are doing in the dream group. See: – Settings in Dreams; party; roles.

Old person: See old age

People from our past: Considering that the major part of our learning and experience occur in relationship to other people, such learning and experience can be represented by characters from the past. For instance a first boyfriend in a dream would depict all the emotions and struggles we met in that relationship, and what we learned from it or took away from it in terms of fears. Therefore dreaming often of people we knew in the past would suggest the past experiences or lessons are very active at the moment, or we are reviewing those areas of our life. A woman who had emigrated to Britain from a very different cultural background frequently dreamt, even twenty years afterwards, of people she knew in her native country. This shows her still very much in contact with her own cultural values and experiences.

Several people in a dream suggest: Not feeling lonely; involvement of many aspects of oneself in what is being dreamt about; social ability.

As social relationship is one of the most important factors outside of personal survival – and survival depends upon it – such dreams help us to clarify our individual contact with society. Human beings have an unconscious but highly developed sense of the psychological social environment. Ivor’s dream shows something we are all involved in – how we are relating to humans collectively. Are we in conflict with group behaviour and direction; do we conform, but perhaps have conflict with our individual drives; do we find a way between the opposites? Much of our response is laid down in childhood and remains unconscious unless we review it.

Example: ‘Walking alone through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment.’ Ivor S.

In some dreams, a group of people represent what is meant by the word God. This may sound unlikely, but the unconscious, because it is highly capable of synthesis, often looks at humanity as a whole. Collectively humanity has vast creative and destructive powers that intimately affect us as individuals. Collectively it has performed miracles that looked at as an individual, appear impossible. How could a little human being build the great pyramid, or a space shuttle? The Bible echoes this concept in such phrases as ‘Whatever you do to the least of one of these, you do to me.’

Example: ‘I was outdoors with a group of people acting as leader. We were in the middle of a war situation with bullets playing around us. Maybe aeroplanes were also attacking. I was leading the group from cover to cover, avoiding the bullets. Paul W.

Despite feeling attacked, either by external events, or from inner conflicts, Paul is using leadership skills to deal with his own fears and tendencies. If a friend told us he had just had an argument with his wife and was going to leave her, we might sit down and counsel them by listening and helping them to sort out the hurt feelings from their long term wishes. We might point out they had felt this way before but it passed – in other words give feedback they had missed. In a similar way, our various emotions and drives often need this sort of skill employed by ourselves. This unifies us, leading to coping skills as in Paul’s dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a couple I know?

What are they doing in the dream? See Dream Action

What is the background to your dream – the backdrop? See Background

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSimple Truths


Cousin

Probably represents your opinions or feelings about that person. See Characters and People in Dreams

Cousins are often an easy way to try out sex or love with, as in the examples. This is because we have often shared a lot of time with them, they are family and we feel easy with them.

Example: It came to me how badly I had wanted my cousin Sylvia sexually when I was a teenager. Yet I could not but feel guilty about my desire, for being a cousin. But the guilt was easily relinquished, and I saw myself as I had so badly wanted, going in that little patch of hair. I got a lot of sexual pleasure out of the experience , and it passed. Something interesting I learned from it, was that the taboos in regard to the family are built into us, even to the point of me not even allowing a fantasy for all those years.

Example: Down a steep hill. In a house. I had to give man (cousin Abner or Nate) a shot. A two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage. He yelled in mock anger. He grabbed me. We tumbled to the floor. He started to make love, wildly, lovingly. Later at the table, an ugly woman with horrible eyes, glazed, hazy, and blue, came in. Said to him, “So there’s the louse.” I gave her a straight look. I said, “Just leave him alone!” Anger. She steadily looked at me. Another woman, possibly my mother watched the tense scene.

Of course it could go the other way of feeling hatred, not love.

Example: I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin’s hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenceless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Charles Kingsley – from Alton Locke, 1850.

Being with or following a cousin can mean you identify with the way they are and are copying or learning their style. We all are actually all the time learning from or absorbing things form other people or even animals – that is how we learn and grow.

Dreaming of a dead cousin can be an actual communication with them. In which case see Dreaming of Death. But it can be a way of showing an aspect of you, symbolised by your cousin. As already mentioned see Characters and People in Dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my last interaction with my cousin, and what feelings or attitudes do I have about that?

Do I have sexual feelings about this cousin, and if so how do I handle them?

What is the character, strengths and weaknesses of this cousin, and how do they apply to me?

See The Dream as a CodeEmotions and Mood in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Cover

This has many possibilities, but the most frequent are to do with protection, concealment or inclusiveness – i.e. including something, as when two people cover themselves with a sheet, suggesting togetherness. It can also mean keeping something secret – ‘a cover-up’.

It might also be used to mean a creation of an atmosphere as in the example below.

Example: I was in a small sailing boat, about twelve foot long. It was covered with some sort of canopy, which made me feel I was in my home – as if I were living on the boat. A.T.C.

Another possibility is that it means some sort of situation, when someone is covered by flies or mice, suggesting an impressive and perhaps unnerving situation. In such cases what you feel in the dream is the clue to its meaning.

Idioms: Cover your arse; blow my cover; can’t tell a book by its cover; cover for me; cover up.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is something being hidden or protected – and if so what are you hiding or protecting?

What quality or function does the cover have, and how can I understand that to apply to my situation?

Am I wrapped up in something – if so what in life am I deeply involved in?

See The Dream as a CodeTechniques for Exploring your DreamsRole

Cow

Similar to the bull, but representing the female side of one’s nature, especially the easy self-giving of oneself and one’s body to others, or to ones baby. The cow might also link with one’s mother, motherliness or the mother role. It also often stands for a woman; the forces of nature or life in oneself, especially as they relate to receptiveness or nurturing and the feminine which can lead or direct the masculine positive energy in oneself. Occasionally the cow suggests being taken advantage of.

In ancient cultures the cow represented fecundity of the earth, and therefore the universal mother earth the provider and nourisher. In India it is treated as sacred because it provides so much nourishment for them.

Cow being milked: Giving of oneself; taking support or nourishment from someone else; taking, or being taken, advantage of.

Example: The sexual drive cannot be dragged, it will be led, and it must be treated as intelligent, as a living creature or process. In the dream the bull, depicting my sexual drive, is following, is willing to be led. And it is being led by the woman. This means that the cow, the woman, the earth, always leads the sexual drive in the male animal. All things are born by the great cow, the earth. The earth holds all the seeds in it. I am kneeling and honouring the Great Cow. The woman was leading me because she represents this power. In youth I, the bull, fed at the teats of the cow. Even now I suck the teats of the Great Cow, mother earth, as I eat the grass. The mother can also destroy. Anthony.

Example: I saw myself & my daughter riding on top of the cow and I were sitting in front steering. At one point the cow stopped & we had to get off. The cow was calm, gentle & beautiful.


Idioms: Sacred cow; milch cow; till the cows come home; silly old cow; being milked – meaning being taken advantage of; to be cowed – meaning beaten or conquered.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do the feelings in the dream link in any way to how I feel about my mother?

Is there any link here with motherhood or giving of myself or being nourished by others?

What is the action here and how does it relate to me? (i.e. is there conflict, abuse, good feelings, fear?)

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsWhat Economic Secrets of Power Dreaming


Coyote

In general similar to dog or fox. It is sometimes used to represent the ‘trickster’ or tricky and unexpected unplanned for element of life, as is the fox. The coyote is one of the few large animals that has increased its numbers in areas colonised by humans. The fox in the UK has done the same, suggesting their adaptability and survival instincts and their street wise nature.

Coyote is usually seen as a trickster and delights in all sorts of pranks, mischief and jokes. James Lewis, in his book The Dream Encyclopaedia, says that Trickster/Coyote is not by nature evil, even though the results of his activities are often unpleasant. These activities centre around bringing attention to our own often hidden stupidity or shams or lies. He is also the unexpected spontaneous ‘idiot’ aspect of life which for no reason at all emerges into our carefully arranged life to upset it. Trickster is a shape shifter and so has the possibility of transformation. The undeveloped, idiot, side of this symbol may have a type of clear-sightedness due to lacking the complications and contradictions of thinking and values. It also may be creative in a serendipitous sort of way. Because it doesn’t seriously hold onto a purpose or idea, this side of our nature may lead us to something new, a change of direction. In some dreams the fool is a figure who is sacrificed.

One writer describes coyote as, “The wily, tricky, sneaky, pesky, cheaty God of the Wild West. He’s the ubiquitous Trickster God and Cultural Hero of Native American mythology, the original Marx Brother..” And Encyclopedia Mythica online says, “Coyote is a ubiquitous being and can be categorized in many types. In creation myths, Coyote appears as the Creator himself; but he may at the same time be the messenger, the culture hero, the trickster, the fool. He has also the ability of the transformer: in some stories he is a handsome young man; in others he is an animal; yet others present him as just a power, a sacred one.” See: archetype of the trickster.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sense do you arrive at of your dream coyote – is he/she sneaky, divine, wise or a messenger? Whatever it is can you sum up what you get from coyote in the dream?

What do you experience if you imagine yourself and talk as your dream coyote?

What are the key words used in describing the interaction between yourself and coyote? See: key words for help with this.

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe Dream as a CodeInner World

Crab

This is about either a shell you have to protect your vulnerability, or that you have lost your protective shell and so are very vulnerable. Crabs can also sometimes indicate fear or strong emotion causing tension within, especially abdominally. This may be due to fear or guilt of sensual pleasure. It may also represent outer hardness or cynicism covering inner softness; or outer hardness and graspingness in life. If the crab is threatening someone it points to a desire to cause pain to others.

The shell of brittle emotions we guard ourselves with grasping or hurtful attitudes. Fear or strong emotion causing tension within, especially abdominally. Or a desire to cause pain to others; or a tendency to hold onto things, especially too long or in a manner that is painful to one’s self or others.

Claws are tenacious and clinging, which can indicate something about the relationships the dreamer is in, especially with the opposite sex.

Hadfield (1954) in his book Dreams and Nightmares suggests that crab, spider and vampire images represent the visceral objectifications of the bodily feelings associated with orgasm. The crab portrays the changes in visceral and abdominal muscles which produce a gripping sensation; the relaxed feelings following orgasm are represented by the sprawling legs and soft underbelly of the spider image; the washed-out feeling of fatigue, as though the blood had been sucked dry, is externalized by a vampire figure.

Lacking shell: Our naked vulnerability.

Being nipped by crab: Physical or psychosomatic pain or even illness caused by being too tight or self protective. See: shell fish under fish.

Example: I say to her, I don’t want fireworks. She continues to express with enthusiasm how wonderful fireworks are. I say if you want this, you buy it. I then ask her if she wants to hold the crab as it is trying to snip me. She says no thanks. I carry it looking for a place to get rid of it or put it down.

Example: I went upstairs, felt the need to undress completely, and stood looking at myself in the mirror for a minute or so. I looked as if I had been working hard – which I had in my sexual life of late, with such a lot of release. Looking at my arms I saw what huge appendages they are. I was reminded of the fiddler crab with its great claw. My right arm reminded me of a great powerful piece of equipment or tool I carried about. It looked pretty heavy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream about the crab describing? See – Dream Action

Am I aware of feeling either vulnerable or of protecting myself against hurt?

What is the crab doing or being in my dream?

See Learning to Allow Yourself Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working With


Crack Cracking

The word and image are used to depict so many things, as can be seen in the idioms. It can refer to a flaw in one’s thinking, a weakness in the attitudes, protections or defences we use in meeting life. This might be shown as a crack in a wall, or even in the body or face. Such cracks need to be dealt with as they can widen, as in the following description.

Example: I had felt something of a past incident arising, and had phoned my wife saying to her that I felt something strange going on and deeply needed to know when she might be coming back. She said she would let me know. So I waited for a telephone call, a letter, some indication, having pleaded with her for this support. Nothing came. No call. No letter. No support. Then the crack widened and all hell broke loose from within me. CP.

Occasionally we dream of trying to use the crack to break something up, or get through something. Then it indicates that you are finding your way to a breakthrough, to emerging from something or breaking through something such as a problem, an obstacle, or a personal difficulty. Sometimes the crack can be widened to allow you to get through, and so it is the suggestion of something beyond. A crack in the ground is similar to this, revealing what lies in your far past, a sort of unearthing of things.

Less frequently it shows a personal  condition that allows the unexpected to emerge in your life. As such it might be the irrational breaking through into consciousness.

The vagina is often shown as a crack, as in this dream.

Example: “All three of us became close physically and started to get involved sexually. The woman put my hand on her vagina. It was shaved and I could feel the crack.”

A cracked windscreen on a car could suggest either that you need to stop because you are not clearly understanding what is ahead of you, or that what usually protects you from stress is beginning to weaken.

Sometimes we look through a crack to see something or someone, and this is a form of concealment or secrecy to try to learn what someone is doing; or that you are only partially understanding a situation. Or we can hear a crack, and this might either be a signal, an awareness of something, or a sign of weakness.

Cracks appear in old things, so if this is the sort of cracks in your dream, it shows something that is either old and valuable because it carries the experience of age, and brings something to you from the long past, or it shows weakness and ageing.


Idioms: All its cracked up to be; at the crack of dawn; first crack at; fall between the cracks, living between the cracks; crack this case; crack a joke; crack of doom; crack down on; crack me up; crack shot/salesman etc; crack under the strain; paper over the cracks; crack in the ice; cracks in his defence; crackpot.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is this crack appearing in and what does that represent? (Look it up).

Is the crack to do with weakness, age or opportunity?

Is this a sign of something breaking, and what does that refer to in me?

See – Secrets of Power DreamingEmotions and Mood in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Cradle Cradling

A cradle is something you have prepared to hold a baby – your baby perhaps. The mood of the dream tells you whether it is done with love or fears.

Cradling shows you giving care to whatever is cradled, supporting it – or conversely dropping it and offering nor care or support.

Example: I had a dream that I was at my parents home (my mom just passed away last year and her favorite place in the house was the kitchen). There was an infant baby on the counter in the kitchen that everyone just left. I found it and brought it into the living room where I placed it on by chest and cradled it. I told my family that this was the way I had cradled my oldest daughter when she was an infant. Then I woke up.

The dream tells me that when your mom passed she left something behind her that is very special. You found it because of your love and your feelings for your mother. And the baby wasn’t your mother, but something that was born out of everything that your mother left you. It isn’t a static gift but something that will respond to the love you give it, and will grow and thrive. You will gradually see it in things that appear in the way you see and respond to everyday life – the kitchen.

Example: Dreamt that a snake – a huge python—had raised me. I had the sense that it had cradled me in its coils when I was a baby, and that it had taught me without words how to survive. This was a sort of jungle/life wisdom.

Example: A pram and cradle are in the middle of a room. Then a strange woman runs in and says ‘She’s got a baby in here with all these creatures’. I see beetles, snakes and lizards crawling around, and a massive spider in a web. Then I’m a butterfly and the woman is a caterpillar. I fly to the web to destroy it, but am on the floor as myself again.  Melanie 14

An interpretation given to Melanies dream – I think you need to cultivate a feeling of wonder and beauty about what is happening to your body as a teenager, rather than accepting attitudes that there is something creepy crawly about periods. I say this because the pram and cradle show what is happening in the ‘middle’ of you to get ready to have a baby. This is what the butterfly and caterpillar refer to also, the transformation going on. Your hopeful and pleasurable feelings, represented by the butterfly, might get caught up in negative attitudes about womanhood presented to you, perhaps by your family, or others. Being aware of these can help avoid them.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the cradle a central part of the dream?

What are you cradling – or is it you being cradled?

What feelings are involved in the dream?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working WithThe Dream as a Code

Crane

bird crane: Inner feelings about wholeness; good luck, the soul. The ability to deal harmoniously with the libido or energy within.

Example: Then I get a bit worried and fear that this may be a swarm of bugs, like locusts, but before that thought goes too far, the flock has come closer and  the birds have changed to beautiful, large white cranes flying in boldly geometric patterns flipping one way then another like a giant card section at a football game. They look like giant pure white orgami sculptures making amazing synchronized patterns upon the backdrop of rich blue sky. It is simply breath taking.

Mechanical crane: You might be undergoing powerful changes, or making major decisions. The crane usually appears in dreams in which past structures are being torn down, or new ones built, so suggests much inner change and movement toward new attitudes or viewpoints.

The other use is ‘craning’ one head or neck to view something, suggesting looking at something not easily seen, or realising something your usual view of life doesn’t include.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is breaking up in my life, what relationship or way of life is changing?

Am I driving the crane – if so what decisions am I making, or actions taking to make changes?

What am I now building/creating in my life and environment?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsBeing the Person or Thing

Crap

Sometimes refers to the rubbish that some people speak – what comes out of their mouth. See: Faeces.

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crash Crashed Crashing

Depending upon how badly you are hurt in the crash, it shows the ending of something. This might be a direction you were taking, a business venture or a relationship – depending on who is with you in the car and what else is in the dream.

Often a crash involves another or other people. If this is in your dream it shows a difficult relationship with another person, one that might damage your own sense of well-being or confidence. It can mean a difficulty in a sexual relationship too if the person is of the opposite sex. But even if not that, certainly it is about a confrontation or conflict in regard to decisions, directions or opinions.

The car crash can sometimes show a self desired failure – perhaps to avoid stress of responsibility and change. The crash also suggests fear of failure or loss of control. This might be failure in relationship or an argument – you may be on collision course with boss or partner for instance. See: wrecked car; fear in connection with car.

Occasionally it points to psychological or physical breakdown looming. If the vehicle crash has a sense of death in it, then the dream may be exploring the anxieties or feelings around death. This is not usually a prediction of death, but a meeting with whatever values and fears one has about it. It may however be warning you about activities having a negative effect on your life or health. If you feel it is a warning see help; Dreaming of Death

If you die in the crash, what you feel and learn is very important. This is because it can depict a radical change in your life, or an experience of meeting death.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What led up to this crash, and can I see any signs of those feelings or activities in what I am doing?

Is someone else involved, and in what way – if so what does that person represent or mean to me?

What can I learn from this?

If I died in the dream, what do I carry into waking from the experience?

See Dreams are Like a Computer GameProcessing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crater

Memory and result of an old hurt, old emotion or pain, or frightening situation. If it is volcanic, a crack in the outer self through which inner repressed emotions or passions might pour out. You usually dream of a crater at times of personal upheaval, or when dealing with difficult emotions and influences.

If it is a bomb crater it show an explosive and painful experience that has left its marks in you and your behaviour.

A crater filled with water indicates that you are in touch with deep intuitions or your inner life – or you can be if you interact with the water in some way. This is because a past hurt has opened the way not just to old pains, but to intuitions or wisdom arising from the unconscious.

Animals or prehistoric creatures emerging from the crater or pit show that you are beginning to meet really basic instinctive drives you had previously kept buried. This is a positive thing if you do not run in fear from them.

A meteor crater might be indicating very ancient influences that you are in some way aware of at the moment.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do events and feelings in my life show any sense of old traumas – if so can I identify them?

What feelings were experienced in the dream, and what part do those feelings play in my waking life?

Is anything emerging from the crater – and if so how do I relate to it and what does it represent?

See Stand in RoleTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe Dream as a Code

Crazy

See: Crazy As a Jaybird – Sane Reasons for Some Crazy Behaviour; Idiot.

Cream

If cream from milk, it suggests the best of life, luxury, special treatment, affection, or even feelings of indulgence. It is sometimes used in a dream to suggest allowing oneself pleasure, and that might be in a relationship, in sex.

Example: A woman throws herself over the cliff to where the beasties are. One breaks her neck, the other lives. She’s a floozy and she wants the beasties, who are also gay men, to make her. One guy is chosen to do it as “punishment,” to cream her pussy. He has white makeup on and is very French and gay. Meanwhile, a man comes through the window and sits with us. He wants Tyler. to teach for him. Tyler introduces me and says I’m an excellent teacher as well. He looks me over. He might be interested.

Cream may be linked with dieting, and depict the conflict between sensory and passing pleasure such as ice cream or cream, and your desire to move toward greater health or weight loss.

Ice cream, especially for young people, often has the association of being with friends, sociability and sharing relaxed pleasure, maybe family time. Ice cream can depict childlike desires for sweet things. Young girls especially seem to crave such things, and as adults sometimes we still return to those feelings.

Ice-cream can occasionally be word play meaning ‘I scream’. Because ice cream is frozen but sensually pleasurable, it very occasionally points to feelings that were frozen, perhaps repressed, that are now being released or melted.

If cream you use for your skin, this depends on whether it is an antiseptic or medicine, or beauty preparation. So a beauty cream would be about your feelings or worries regarding your appearance, age, etc; an antiseptic cream would connect with concerns you have about that part of your body, your self image, or health. It might suggest a healing process for instance.

Cream as a colour See: cream under colours.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this dream showing pleasure, and if so is it about pleasure with one person or several?

Am I showing signs of conflict about the cream or ice cream, and does this tell me anything about my waking feelings?

Am I expressing very young feelings in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in DreamsLife’s Little Secrets


Create Creative Creativity

In your dreams you create a world and experiences which is new every night. To bring forth the new is a sign of great creative genius – and that is you. But perhaps you have not taken time to consider the wonder of your creative process in dreams. Every night you create a new drama. You conjure out of your own being the people, the creatures, the surroundings of your dream. Then you give life to what you create not only life but purpose and drama. You are a supreme dramatist, playwright, actor and actress. You are the great Creator in your dreams. Considering this, have you ever wondered why that enormous creativity does not flow into your waking life? You can see that some people have that creativity and are enriched by it personally and financially. Why not you?

Well, the answer is simple – we hold ourselves back. We do not allow that passion, that ability to feel all the wonder of all the characters we hold within us, and dream about, to enter our conscious life. Most of us have inbuilt mechanisms which prevent this spontaneous creative activity. Think about it – do you like meeting the new, the force of wonderful change in your life; can you face your own passionate emotions, your fears and wonder? If not then you are holding back the force of Life in you. Life is a passionate, living, moving, evolutionary thing, and dreams are a product of Life. I remember watching a young lovely woman who had just had a cast taken off her broken arm, who was talking noisily to a group of her friends, suddenly she slipped on the wet floor and banged her arm. She lay on the floor crying with the pain, and immediately all her friends scattered and left her lying alone. Why were tears or pain so awful?

Another memory strikes me as an example of such avoidance. I and a friend were sitting on a slope of a park outside of the children’s enclosure of a zoo. It was a lovely summer day and many family groups were also sitting and enjoying the view. Many animals were wandering about mixing with the children in the zoo. Suddenly a male donkey mounted a female donkey. An explosion of people happened as parent picked up their children and literally ran away. It struck me that people are frightened of LIFE.

For myself I am at heart a very simple man. I grew up amongst country people and animals. I lived as country people have lived for so long. We weren’t afraid of life or death because we could see it going on around us. It was out of that we developed our religion; our holy beliefs if you like. We didn’t do that on account of any high-falluting arguments. We could see it. We could see the man and the woman coming together, the bull and the cow, the buck and the doe rabbit – we could see that. We could see what came of it — Life. We learned to let life express as us, in tears, anger, in joy and in feeling the wonder of living. From that I learned to create. See Life’s Little Secrets

But creativity links with something vast. Here is a quote from an internet site.

“Once computers achieve a level of intelligence comparable to that of humans, they will necessarily soar past it. For example, if I learn French, I can’t readily download that learning to you. The reason is that for us, learning involves successions of stunningly complex patterns of interconnections among brain cells (neurons) and among the concentrations of biochemicals, known as neurotransmitters, that enable impulses to travel from neuron to neuron. We have no way of quickly downloading these patterns. But quick downloading will allow our non-biological creations to share immediately what they learn with billions of other machines. Ultimately, non-biological entities will master not only the sum total of their own knowledge but all of ours as well.”

That view is of course a statement resting on the current scientific theories. But there are examples of people who speak a different language they have never learned and were able to talk with a native of that language. Edgar Cayce for one was able to do this. Edgar showed that if we go beyond the edge of our own mind, if we open to what is bigger and older than our personal mind, it is possible to know what is happening deep inside another person’s body; to see or know what is happening at a distance; speak languages you have not learnt; know the ancient events in which this present life has its roots; have an experience of being part of a vast life and awareness. In fact he spoke Italian to a man seeking his help, though Edger had never learnt it, and the same to another person in another unlearned language.

To me that is a creative act, but it can occur not just with languages, for in that larger part of us is a whole universe of knowledge and ability. And again, what was said in the beginning about holding ourself back is true here. See Using Your Intuition; Touching Your Core Self; Prayer and Dream Interpretation

Try dropping your thoughts about what is possible and try reaching beyond yourself into the creative person your dreams show you to be.


Creatures

Sometimes we dream about creatures which are not like any animal we know – perhaps ancient, or mixtures of plants and animals. These can represent our fear of things like bacteria, or illness due to micro-organisms. Occasionally they may even represent what such an illness is doing in the body. But frequently the point to the wonderful cellular activity and processes in your body, or the unconscious activities of mind.

Example: As I looked around I found a small creature on a rock. It looked like cellophane as I could see right through it. It was about three inches across, shaped slightly like a starfish, and was mobile. I found other creatures also, bigger and looking more solid, maybe nine inches across, also mobile, with a texture like thick seaweed, and with many ‘legs’ from a central body or nucleus. I hadn’t seen creatures like this before.

Suddenly I felt one of the larger creatures moving up my leg, inside my trousers. It climbed to my left shoulder, and I was aware of others also on my body, about three or four. I was not frightened, but a little tense, wondering what to do. I realised I should have tucked my trousers in my socks so they would not have been able to crawl up my legs. I thought of taking my clothes off to remove the creatures, but thought others would then be able to jump on me easily. At this point the dream ended or I woke. T.

Some creatures appearing in dreams are big and perhaps scary, but not always. Dreams create these because the creatures you know already do not have the right associations to exactly portray what is being presented. The creature may be a lovable cartoon type, prehistoric, or even a creature of darkness. What you feel about it is a clue to what it depicts, but you need to see this as something you are feeling or facing in your life. For help doing this see Standing in Roles.

Example: A small animal was clinging to my chest. It gave me the strong feeling of its animal nature, and was like a small bulging eyed monkey or lemur. As it clung it had one of my hands held firmly in its mouth using it as a teat. Its teeth were slightly painful. I knew it did this account of being frightened, and I, with others, was taking its back to the zoo from where it had escaped.

The above dream shows very clearly what this creature depicts – the animal anxiety we all face when out of our usual surroundings and environment, or when our instinctive flight or fight pattern gets stimulated. As humans we are naturally gregarious creatures needing to be recognised and part of a community. This is so often not what we face in life that stress results from. Our dreams not only portray this, but the process behind dreams seeks a solution in its reservoir of resources. See: collective unconscious.

Martin dreamt of seeing ancient creatures arise from the muddy water that had gathered where foundations had been dug for new buildings. A prehistoric creature emerges from the swampy ground and followed him. He is frightened and runs away, but the creature talks to him. In entering his dream and allowing his feelings to respond he experienced the following.

I understood in a flash the meaning of the creatures in the swamp dream. I am life – ancient, prehistoric life, meeting the demands of today’s world, today’s social scene, today’s conscious decisions. It is the ancient self my inner exploring has uncovered in its dealings, yet I have been running away. That is because my feeling self has been so hurt and in pain. Yes, I understood, the beast in me has a healthy fear of much that goes on in today’s world. Fear is a guardian that protected ancient beast from uncountable dangers for millions of years. Yes, there were so many real dangers that fear gave as the strength to run from. The healthy beast still feels fear as it looks out of its eyes as modern man. It must not be crushed or repressed. Gradually it will grow and fear less. Give it time, let it grow slowly beyond its fear.

The creature in our dream often depicts some aspect of these primal and fundamental processes or instinctive urges and drives in us. As in Martin’s dream, the way you relate to it is usually shown in the dream action, and with some openness you can usually get in touch with the forces or feelings within you and around you that it portrays.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the creature doing in my dream and how am I responding to it?

If I am frightened what am I feeling anxious about in waking life?

If I imagine touching the creature what do I feel?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsMammal BrainInner World

Credit Card

This links with the feelings you have about money; the opportunities power and pleasures it brings, or the stress and uncertainty involved with it. The card can indicate the ability to get what you want, or to feel secure. Or if you have problems dealing with cards, then the difficult feelings and situations it involves.

Having or getting a credit card: A sense of gaining greater ease and opportunity with money; finding an easier feeling about relating to the world and having the power to move around in it.

Loss or destruction of credit card: Uncertainty about your financial future; feeling of stress or struggle to get your needs in life; loss of power. See: money.

Stolen card: This might also suggest someone has got hold of your desires and spending power, as might some advertising or fashions. In some ways this could suggest stolen identity.

Giving or given a credit card: This involves trust and generosity in some way, perhaps even love.

Example: I had a young puppy dog. It was full of life and exuberance. I came in and found it had got hold of my wallet and chewed it so badly there was only a shred of my wallet and American Express card left. I was so angry I punched the dog hard several times, but couldn’t feel satisfied. Cliff.

Cliff explored his feelings and associations regarding the dream and realised that because he was hoping to semi-retire on income from investments, and the investments had dropped in value because of a falling market, his enthusiasm, the dog, had taken a beating. In fact he had begun to feel he must struggle on to survive financially again. See: Money.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there feelings of pleasure or distress in the dream – and where am I meeting those feelings?

What issue is being met in the dream – i.e. relationship, travel, pleasure – and where does that arise in my life and how is it connected with money?

What am I feeling about money or security at the moment and what is the dream commenting on that?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims Secrets of Power Dreaming


Creeper

This could indicate doubts, insinuations, stagnancy, vegetating, or something inhibiting your growth, depending upon the feelings in the dream. But if it is positive feelings, it could indicate processes of growth and movement. In either case it is something that is growing. The question is whether the growth is overwhelming or encroaching on other things, or whether it enhances something.

The word or image might also sometimes represent someone who is a ‘creeper’ – A person who does weird things, like stares at you while you sleep, or looks at you for hours through a window. It is also a part of a computer game – a hostile mob.

Occasionally the vine or creeper represents the spine and the flow of life up the body. If there are flowers on it, then it shows the opening of potentials. So cutting back a creeper or vine can suggest controlling or stopping urges and emotions that have been growing, perhaps even overwhelming you, such as happens sometimes in love.

In some dreams a vine or creeper links the earth with heaven or the sky. This suggests the rising spinal energy that lights up areas of the brain that are usually dormant, thus arousing altered states of consciousness. See ASC

Creepers and vines are also resilient and can cover areas, so may link with something hidden or tough. See: vine.

If it is a small creeper, then you are looking at the beginnings of something growing, a new expression of your potential for good or ill. Is it a directed activity, or a leaking of energy?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream creeper an expression of growth or encroachment and what part is either of those playing in my present situation?

Do I connect this with my spine in any way, and is so what is emerging in my life that is a new perception or experience?

Are emotions or worries encroaching on my good feelings and smothering my ability to function well?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsIndividuationYou are More than You Realise

Crescent

Femininity; the vagina; the process of feminine creativity.

The the changing pattern of dreaming during the menstrual cycle by either women or men is important. Just as the moon goes through phases when it appears to be full and bright but gradually diminishes to a narrow crescent shape only to return again to its state of illuminated wholeness, so too does a woman manifest a waxing and waning of her personality during her lunar-cycle dreams. The crescent shape in dreams sometimes depicts a woman’s sexuality and openness to mating, so receptiveness.

Jo Jean Boushahla in the book Dream Dictionary says ‘A new moon or a crescent moon show a time of feeling at one with our internal spiritual self. It is a time for deep inner reflection’.

Crescent moon: The beginning or ending of something to do with ones feelings or inner life.

Example: One morning I was allowed to go with my mother to the baker’s shop and there I received a crescent roll from the baker’s wife. I did not eat the roll but carried it proudly in my hand. Only my mother and the baker’s wife were present, so I was the only man.”  Such crescents are popularly called “moon-teeth,” and this symbolic allusion to the moon underlines the dominating power of the feminine-a power to which the little boy may have felt exposed and which, as the “only man,” he was proud of being able to confront. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.

Idioms: Go round in circles; come full circle; vicious circle; circle of influence/friends.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were my feelings in the dream with the crescent?

What associations do I have with a crescent shape?

As I think about the dreamt of crescent what images or thoughts occur?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions Life’s Little Secrets

Cricket

See: Games

Cried Cry Crying

The release of sorrow, grief, guilt, misery, loss, memories that have been held back, knowingly or unknowingly, during the day or even over years. It may be the release of any type of emotion, from enormous pain to wonderful joy – they all produce tears. The way we struggle to grow or attain, the effort we put into life and perhaps feel we get no reward, the love we have for someone, are all springs from which tears can flow.

Sometimes we cry out of an intuitive knowledge of another person leaving, or dying, or sorrow over something we have done. Or else they might be crocodile tears in an attempt to convince yourself that you feel badly over an attitude, desire or action, or in order to manipulate someone.

Example: “I dreamed that I was awakened by the sound of a horse’s hooves in the street. I saw a white horse, with no rider, stopping at midnight in front of our house. I knew it came for my younger sister. I went to the door and opened it to call her, when suddenly I saw her coming down the stairs, all dressed in white. She did not say a word to me, but walked with stately steps down the stairs, through the hall, and out of the door. She mounted the horse and rode away. I woke up crying.” The woman’s sister died a month later.

Tears can sometimes express things we have no words to describe or know. They communicate without speaking. If this is so in a dream it is worthwhile seeing if there is a clue in the people, things or events in the dream as to what the emotions are emerging from. You may be crying out for something, or your body weeping for something you need.

Example: I dream my past boyfriend of five years has come to tell me he is going to marry his ex-girlfriend. I am so distraught that I jump out the window, and break my neck. The paramedics come to gather me up and place a football helmet on my head. Then I am on my death bed in the hospital where I am crying and grieving for the hopelessness of the lost relationship. My old boyfriend holds my hand and very coldly says, “You are going to make a radiant corpse.” I wake feeling I had been given a message from my deeper ‘self’. I had grieved for the last year without feeling I was able to move on. Two days later I went to the doctor – I was having palpitations and dizzy spells. He told me I had a leaky valve in my heart. I felt this dream was my wake-up call! Since then I seem to have moved on in my life. I believe my broken heart manifested itself physically and my subconscious warned me of the damage.

In some dreams we cry can depict a cleansing of yourself and a change of heart or forgiveness where old feelings are washed away. You may need to cry or release and ‘wash out’ long held emotions.  Another sort of change we can cry about is when we enter womanhood or manhood, as in the following example.

The girl is with her boyfriend. She had been ‘initiated’ into sexual activity. Sex with her boyfriend has changed her image of herself.

Example: ‘A ritual began whereby a large knife was drawn and a few deep cuts were made to both our faces. I put my hands to my face and saw them covered with blood, crying and crying.’ O. S.

Sometimes we cry as a baby in our dreams, and that is important and should not be stopped until it is understood.

Example: I was crying like a new born baby and I knew someone loved me. I knew they understood what pain was and were not afraid of it or of death. This pierced me right through. It was my grandmother, but to me it felt like some higher being who had reached out of the unknown to help me. The bonding cry was a signal to say “I recognise you! I recognise you! I’m bonding to you. I’m bonding to you! Someone recognises me. I can cry now because I am in the presence of love.”

To feel rejected as a child and to need acceptance can cause a lot of inner pain and crying, and may not be understood by others or even oneself. The following example isfrom a man who was put in an orphanage by his mother. Max was his lover and partner.

Example: My first image was to take her face in my hands and say Mum I want you to acknowledge me. I want to tell you that I love you very much. You have asked me to be your Man, Son, Lover to know and accept you. Well Max /Mum I do know you and I see your fear and I can tell you now that it is all right but do you not realise that because I love at child level I have to know everything about you for my survival, yet at the same time because of my inner work I can see and understand from an adult point of view. So you can see that I know everything about you, and it is all fear. I have died for both of us Max because of this Love and so it is OK to let go. If you can see this pain that I have suffered for us and just tell the truth then my Love can become unconditional and can only love and support you. We can then let go and go out into the world to look for what we want collectively or as individuals, but that Love is still there from Mum to son or vice versa. As I am saying all this I am very emotional and crying, and then I asked her to bless me to ACCEPT ME. To validate me in the world. There it was still looking for ACCEPTANCE.

Baby crying: Your fundamental needs are not being, or were not in the past, met. These include basic things like feeling happy and relaxed in your environment, feeling wanted and loved, having a sense of connection with other people, and being nourished. There may be something distressing you are feeling/needing at the ‘baby’ level that you are not acknowledging. It could also be a new project or aspect of you needing more care.

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

Example: I cry like a baby. The question burns in me – Why is life like this? I cry again. Then I realise that at first when I was born I was too small and undeveloped even to be able to cry properly, so I couldn’t let out my misery. It is such a relief to cry now and be understood, to have known what I felt at that terrible time.  I am aware of my connection with my stream of life having been broken – the umbilical cord.

Idioms: It’s all over but the crying; cry in your beer; cry the blues; a far cry; cry her heart out; cry me a river; cry over spilt milk; cry your eyes out; a crying shame; for crying out loud; hue and cry.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I crying about in the dream, and does that connect with waking feelings?

What feelings do I hold back in daily life, and how can I release them?

Is there a deeply felt need I am not allowing?

What hurts are my tears expressing?

See Associations Working WithEmotions and Mood in DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Criminal

I had read somewhere that the only difference between a criminal and a successful person was their habits. Two of the great forces that push at the human soul or psyche are, firstly, social pressure, such as the moral norm; and secondly, biological pressures such as the sex drive. Individuals may fight a lifelong battle with one or the other of these. The social criminal typifies battle with social authority pressures and rules; the ascetic and the bulimic battle with biological drives. 

The battle of these two immense forces is not really won until there is the marriage or unity between the two. The following dream and its exploration illustrate this dynamically.

Example: I was in the basement of the house where I lived in London. I had taken some floorboards up because they were rotten. Underneath I saw a large white serpent or worm, somehow connected with a dead evil woman like a force of destruction and evil. I seemed to understand the evil could corrupt all of London, that it lived in a great underground lake that existed under all of London. I poked at the serpent with a piece of wood and it came to life and plunged into the earth. There seemed to be an air filled hole that I poked into and the wood I was using was wrenched away from my hands.

My family thought I was crazy because I was trying to tell them about this and sent for a doctor. I was very pleased to see him because he was very unbiased though, not believing – nor disbelieving. I explained my experience and feelings. With him there I dared to poke at the floor with a long scaffold pole. The pole was ripped from my grasp by some force below. Then we tied the pole to a beam and it ripped part of the beam off. I felt there was enough power to tear down my house if I had used it as an anchor. Then I saw Christ standing on my right, and the terrifying woman on my left, and they came together and the evil was neutralised – but so was the power of Christ. Mathew

Mathew saw the Christ figure as the moral norm in the society he was raised; a morality he had struggled with all his life. The woman he experienced as the urges such as his sexual needs and repressed urges, with which he had also struggled. When Christ and the woman merged he felt enormous peace and creativity.

But criminal behaviour can have many other causes, one  of which is the physical condition of the person. a remarkable pilot project, known as SCASO (South Cumbria Alternative Sentencing Options) young offenders were required, as part of their sentence, to undergo ‘nutritional rehabilitation’. The participants underwent a series of tests for vitamin and mineral levels, toxic minerals, blood sugar balance, as well as dietary assessment. “The most common problems were glucose intolerance and zinc deficiency.

Every single person we tested had abnormal glucose tolerance on a five hour glucose tolerance test.” says Gesch. The importance of glucose control in relation to behaviour is a consistent finding in the criminal population. In Finland Virkkunen investigated 69 habitual offenders for glucose balance. Every single one had reactive hypoglycaemia. A later study confirmed higher insulin activity during glucose tolerance tests among habitually violent offenders.

In the US Professor Stephen Schoenthaler, head of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at California State University, has reported a 21% reduction in anti-social behaviour, a 25% reduction in assaults, a 75% reduction in the use of restraints, and a 100% reduction in suicides when 3,000 inmates were placed on an experimental diet which reduced refined and sugary foods. These results were confirmed in a double-blind study involving 1,382 detained juvenile offenders placed on a reduced sugar diet. There was a 44% reduction in antisocial behaviour with most significant reductions among the serious offenders.

The rebound ‘low’, known as reactive hypoglycaemia, after a rapid increase in blood sugar levels, induced by sugar, sweets or stimulants, known as reactive hypoglycaemia, and is associated with extreme tiredness, depression, aggression and attempted suicide. According to Gesch “Of the 40 to 50 people we worked with on SCASO we could create an effect within a week or two.”

The criminal can be seen in dreams as a shadowy or thug type dream character, and is usually a part of oneself not recognised or in balance with the dreamer. It is soemtimes the functions or instincts in us that date from prehistory, when present day social and sexual restraints did not have survival value, and now make up a large part of the shadow or criminal self. See Avoid Being Victims

 Example: It was a devastating feeling to have nowhere and no one to be connected to. Growing in her was an awareness that she could, out of the aloneness, commit acts of desperation, criminal acts to the degree she had never considered before. Connection and family had unknowingly given her a barricade against an internal riot that would hit out at others. With the barricade down, even though so recently, the internal mob were shouting angrily. Bess didn’t understand the fine points of this, she simply felt like something was crushing her from the inside, and she trembled, not from the cold. Quoted from The Steel .

So YOU depend and need all the levels of you to function as you do. Unfortunately, the YOU that has come about is very vulnerable – look around you at all the people on drugs to keep them sane, free of depression and criminal tendencies –  and to protect this vulnerable you it forgets or blocks out knowledge of who and what it is.

Cripple

Difficulty in fulfilling ones potential. The parts of your body usually represent the psychological functions they play. So a leg would represent your ability to stand up for yourself, to be independent, etc. Therefore being crippled suggests psychological hurt to whatever limb or part of body is crippled. See: Body; Legs; Right; Left.

 The children one hears about who are maltreated by their family or by war, might well mature with a crippled capacity to trust other people, or the stunted growth of their love. All of us have some of our potential hurt or crippled, and the above dream is graphically portraying this.  This less developed part of John has needs, but also something to offer. This less dominant side of his personality only ‘comes out’ when he relaxes, and will have talents he can use if he gets to know it.

There is a world beyond suffering and even the very sick can be a helper.

“Not a lost soul is helped because those who look upward give themselves up for lost.

In the small open space of the temple burnt a flickering oil lamp at the feet of a tall man who sat there with imperturbable serenity in the dirty room. He, too, was sunk deep in meditation. His broad chest was still, no motion of the breath disturbed it. But the hands that hay in his lap were crippled humps of flesh, and the skin of his well—built body was as though covered with shining lacquer —- the skin of a leper. Around him- and deep in the shadows sat other dark, silent figures, their eyes raised to the empty sockets of the holy man, whose features were composed in an expression of infinite joy.

An oppressive silence lay over the scene.

In the dirty corners lay human bundles, sleeping. By them and between them squatted men with staring eyes as though lost in a dream. Those who were close to the Holy Man seemed to be listening intently, and the nearer they were to his feet the more serene and enlightened seemed their worn features. He himself seemed to be the radiant centre of some invisible light He was a cripple, as they all were. He was a leper, as they all were. A beggar, as they all were. But in him their nameless misery seemed to find its culmination and its divine transfiguration. Inwardly I was buffeted here and there by my impressions. Around me was time lowest depth of human suffering, and yet that was not so. In one creature I sensed the highest degree of bliss amid wish less inner peace. Should I be compassionate or envious?

The features of the leprous Holy Man expressed that felicity whose unapproachable sublimity enforces veneration. Had he forgotten his sufferings? Is that which we feel as suffering really no suffering at all? Is that which seems more dreadful to us than death just a part of the world for which we are struggling; we who are blinder than that beggar with the empty eye-sockets? Is our compassion here merely arrogance? In fact is it we perhaps who deserve the compassion of those on the other side?” See Quoted from Beggar Among the Dead – Mountain of Love

Human beings has evolved through huge periods of time to have self awareness, a truly amazing thing, but for many it is a state of constant pain and suffering leading many to commit suicide. But Dr. Maurice Bucke, who himself lived in constant physical pain tells of how him and many others were able to evolve to a new state in which their suicidal pains no longer were active in them. He called it Cosmic Consciousness, but it has been known for ages under different names such as Enlightenment and Liberation. Those who evolved to this level of awareness often say, “That we could all be experiencing this, if only we could stop being typical suffering humans. Regardless of what hell one might fall into an enlightened one is an ordinary person who acts like a true adult.” All the major faiths recognise this and so have left records of how to reach this evolution of self.

Here are some – Ox Herding Pictures  – The Many Ways To A New Life – Psychological Vomiting – Communicating With Your Inner Guide

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part of me or another person is shown as crippled, and what does that suggest about my own condition? Look up body parts to define this.

If I imagine myself as the crippled person, or as myself with this disability what do I feel or observe. For help doing this see – Stand in Role.

In what way do I hold myself back, or fail to express love or creativity, and how does this dream relate to that?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLearning to Love

 

Criticism

If you take it in criticism can be very destructive. It destroys your real ability to express, to be creative and to live your life fully. See Martial Art of the Mind – Avoid Being Victims

 

Crocodile

See: Alligator or crocodile.

Cross

Difficulties or tribulations we carry, perhaps unnecessarily. It can also indicate human life and its whole spectrum of physical experience, sexual, mental emotional, cosmic – painful and delightful. The body, upon which consciousness is nailed or fixed during life.

The cross can also point to meeting death as an initiation into a new awareness and a spiritual life – the death being a psychological one, followed by rebirth or resurrection. See Ronnie Laing – archetype of rebirth.

In Christianity the cross also has many meanings. It represents the religion as a whole; Christ’s willing suffering; man’s suffering in the name of his religious beliefs; the strength of his beliefs; a sign of spiritual goodness and power to ward off evil. It also means the agony and wonder faced in surrendering individual will to the will of the community/communion, in exposing oneself, the sacred heart, to all emotion, pain, pleasure to transform it. See archetype of crucifixion

Lastly, it can symbolise perfect union, balance, equality and atonement of the the different parts of your being. Dreaming about the cross can be a sign of a personal destiny led by the best in us, Christ or a sense of the Divine. So a turning point in ones life. See Archetype of the Christ

A cross can also indicate wrongness as with tick being correct, cross being wrong or forbidden, or completion as when crossed off list.

If cross upright as + : Being upright; correct; self assertion; balanced.

If cross as X : The four extremities; reaching out; crossing out. Like the square, it can also represent wholeness, solidity, especially if the arms are equal length. See: crossing.

Idioms: cross my heart and hope to die; cross over Jordan; cross over to the other side; cross paths; cross someone; cross that bridge when I come to it; cross your fingers; paths will cross.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream cross have any religious significance/feelings for me?

Have I met great change or even depression that I am passing through?

What feelings are evident in the dream?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Crossing

As with a road or river. This usually depicts change, but sometimes with difficulties, depending on the dream. For instance if the river or bridge is difficult to cross, then it suggest you have fears or other problems to contend with in the change.

Sometimes the change is a major one, such as leaving childhood and entering adolescence, or the entering into old age. Marriage or parenthood could be such a change. Obviously, death also is frequently depicted as the crossing of a river or a threshold. See archetype of death

What you are crossing points to an obstacle you are meeting, often of a feeling nature to overcome. Maybe fear or uncertainty causes you to be unable to make the change, so you dream of a bridge giving way. Such changes often are to do with major life junctures, such as from youth to adulthood; pre-puberty to adolescent; single to married; young to middle age.

Crossing also suggests meeting the things that you do in everyday life. A busy road would indicate this, the traffic representing the many factors in life, other people’s decisions and activities, that could impact with you in one way or another. Making such crossings sometimes brings strength, or develops strength.

Something like a cable or tree trunk crossing something like a river or chasm depicts connection of some sort, something that has risk involved or needs courage to make the change.

Crossing oneself-making the sign of the cross on ones body: Most people have little understanding of this, doing it with clumsy movement high up on their chest. The cross signifies the human body which is the temple of the soul and is seen as holy by the Bible. So the sign should have a long bottom and a wide cross on one’s body. Also it should be done with some sense of its meaning and of the holy places of ones body.

Example: The coins, or really, medallions, were shining silver, depicting Christian or ancient saints and martyrs. It was, I knew in the dream, like a rosary, which one could use in prayer. But instead of just the Ave Maria’s, and the Our Father’s, all the other saints were included. Thus it was a very comprehensive guide to prayer. Some of the silvered chains between the coins were missing, but these had been mended with something else. The shape of it suggests the sign of the cross people make on their body. But it shows the right way to do this is first touching the brow then down to the genitals then to the two breasts,  – the real sources of power. Richard.

Sometimes: A trial or test such as initiation.

Crossing a river or chasm: Often depicts feelings about death. See: bridge; river; road; individuation.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am crossing, and what challenges or dangers are involved?

Am I making changes in my life at the moment, crossing from one situation to another?

If I manage to cross, what is on the other side that I wanted to reach?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsEvery 7 Years You Change

Crossroad

You may be confronting a time of decision in your life. This may be caused by a convergence of events, different desires or interests, and the need to choose a direction. The crossroads often appears in dreams when there is a turning point in life, a time of change, taking another direction in life. Or it may represent a sense of indecision, a fear of not doing the right thing. Cross-roads often have a certain amount of anxiety or vulnerability involved, as with crossing; Decision; North; East; South; West.

In the past people were sometimes buried at crossroads and in some dreams there may still be this link with death in some way. And in folklore the crossroad was a place where this world linked with the unseen world, so a doorway to the unconscious.

Example: ‘I keep in touch with an old boyfriend who I have not seen since I was eighteen, which is fourteen years ago. In my dream I was on holiday on a coach which stopped at a cross-roads. I met my old boy friend who had come from the other direction and we walked together. I felt enormous pleasure being in his company again. A hearse passed us slowly with a child’s coffin.’ Mrs R.

In trying to decide what direction to take, Mrs R. still finds emotions tie her to the past, but the dead child shows she really knows the relationship has ended.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you facing at the moment that is causing indecision or questioning?

If you can’t decide which way to go, ask for a further dream to help clarify what is involved.

Imagine walking in each of the possible directions and see how each direction feels. When you find one that feels right, ask what that direction in your waking life.

See: carry the dream forwardTechniques for Exploring your DreamsWhat we need to remember about us

Crow Raven

Being carrion birds, and so often seen near corpses or roadside kill, so they are often linked with death or feelings about death; bad news; fear; unconscious feelings. Some people see them as associated with personal death, mostly because that is how they are used in films. But more often they are simply your own dark thoughts, probably about your own future, that you are doomed and on the slippery slope. So for goodness sake, realise that thoughts are creative, and you are creating an awful feeling and so you can escape from it. See Being the Person or Thing

It can at times depict the negative aspect of father. The dark intelligence in underhanded people or animals; forces in life that seem to have intelligent direction yet are not outwardly visible. Sometimes seen as a messenger between heaven and earth, an omen of death, and a seer of the hidden truth in the unconscious.

Crows also make their sound in flight, and then it is about telling their fellows where they are; a sort of positioning. Crows are a group bird and are supportive of their fellows. See Birds

Crows can sometimes mean that they are messengers from the dark or unconscious side of you. In such a role they can act as a protector – maybe even a male protector. But also they are seen in some dreams as showing anxiety and darkness in a persons life.

Example: In some ways, it felt like a death of whatever phase connected me with those who were holding me back through falsehood and imposing their ego-driven will upon me. In others, I felt the message was still to continue my work and ethic, regardless, and let these people carry on to their own kingdoms. I felt the dream in some ways reasserted this role I played in life.

Example: The other woman was also left where we slept and I saw again the same thing under her on my left. Two dead and drenched crows, either side of me as I still laid there. It also seemed/felt as if whilst both crows were under the women more than under me, the beaks of these crows had been touching, only just, my arms while I slept. I wasn’t entirely indifferent in the dream itself to this sight… the contrast, of elevated sisterly bonding before we slept, to the sight of this suffocated/drowned crows when we woke obviously created meaning..

A day that has death in it, for to go further in the road you are travelling you need to meet and experience death – psychologically – and that is part of life. I get the impression that to some extent you were partly suffocated by the love and care you received – as shown by the dead birds. That is not a bad thing, but it is now that it will leave you to develop independence. Independence is strange thing, because it is a lifelong journey, and yet we are never actually independent. But that is what the death is about and it is like an initiation into a new chapter of your life. Remember to keep the faith in our divine prosperity, and that we shall all secure it.

Idioms: as the crow flies; eat crow; Something to crow about; crow’s feet; old crow.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did the bird impress me with any feeling reaction?

What was the background of the dream suggesting?

If I imagine myself back in the dream what feelings arise?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSimple TruthsInner World

Crowd

In many dreams being in the crowd shows your response to socialising. The crowd may indicate social pressure or what you feel is the common direction or response – as when we say ‘follow the crowd’. Feeling crowded out, pushed out by competition or pressure from others. A crowd can also indicate public opinion, what you feel others are feeling about you or doing to you. You might also feel anonymous in a crowd, camouflaged or lost.

A crowd in a dream may mean it is an important dream. This is because it involves many aspects of your nature, many parts of yourself. This is especially so when the crowd is in an arena, a theatre or a public event.

Lost in a crowd: Feeling without personal direction; confusion on meeting many opinions; desire not to stand out, or swayed by general opinions.

Attacked by crowd: Fear of public opinion or response to you; feeling your own anger or irrational urges as threatening.

Talking to, leading, or part of crowd at a central event: An impulse or idea which unifies many parts of your nature – as the many aspects of our own being, such as visual impressions; sensuality; thoughts; musical sense; religious feelings; sexual drive; intuition; fear; ambition; hunger; our desire for acclaim; the sadist in us and so on, constitute a crowd.

How we relate to the crowd: Suggests our relationship with our own inner community and the external public. Being unable to tolerate parts of oneself leads to intolerance toward external people with those traits. See: Group under people.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I happily part of the crowd or am I ill at ease – and what do my feelings indicate?

What is my relationship with the crowd, and does that reflect in any way on the way I feel about socialising?

Am I a follower or leader in this dream?

See Characters and People in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLifeStream

Crown

This usually denotes importance, power or authority – either as you feel it in yourself or in someone else. It can also depict rulership – what rules you or controls you – or what you have dominion over and responsibility for, but also what demands respect because of its power.

In some dreams it points to success, either desired or achieved, or realisation of expanded awareness. In the latter case it suggests self mastership in some degree, and an opening of the higher possibilities in you or the person you see it on. In Western symbolism it is the equivalent to what in the East is called the Crown Chakra – the symbol of realised personal potential, the redirected fundamental instinctive drives, leading to the opening of higher brain functions. See: Spiritual Life In Dreams.

It may also refer to your father if on the head of a man, or your mother if on the head of a woman.

Relinquishing the crown would suggest giving up power or domination, perhaps out of love or surrender.

Being crowned suggests the receiving of a new state of being, entering into a new relationship with life and others. It is also the recognition of your quality or qualities or enlightenment.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my ruling passions or fears at the moment and how do I  relate to them?

What feelings were experienced in this dream, and what do they relate to in my life?

In the dream, what is connected with the crown, and how does that apply to me?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsWhat is the main action in the dream?Enlightenment

Crucible

The centre of our turmoil, tension or spiritual life. In it our nature is changed.

Crucifixion

Depending on the context in the dream, this can indicate either that you are facing a life situation in which you feel nailed to the physical needs of life, perhaps torn apart by desires, fears or conflicts. Or it can show you are surrendering or sacrificing your physical and ego needs to what you sense as the essential or spiritual you.

The symbolism in the New Testament shows the crucifixion taking place on a hill, and this represents the top of the head and the sexual, emotional, mental nature being opened to a wider and less object and self centred life. Due to the fact the Self dies to its divine realm during crucifixion, and is nailed to matter – the body, suffering the loss of awareness of existence in the divine, life after life, that our soul may achieve eternal life, it has a Christ like love, patience and gentleness. Here too, in passing through the experience of crucifixion, we meet those great beings of all nations, religions and times who have trod the path before us. If we remain conscious at this stage, the wisdom and experience of these saints and masters, comes to us as fully as we can receive it.

Crucifixion also suggest self sacrifice, the giving of self in service or surrender to the community or family. But it can also mean a sort of masochism where you kill out your own needs in a foolish way. This killing of ones own love, ones own sexual and tender feelings, ones own living self, is shown as crucifixion because it kills the wonderful Life in oneself, the living, loving, growing and creative core of oneself.

Example: Crucifixion is allowing oneself to be buffeted, torn by all the fears, angers, hates, prejudices human beings are heir to. There’s no creator we are told by our pundits. We are only physical maggots who live mate and die. There is no life after death. Crucifixion is the meeting of the fears and darkness this leads to. It is to meet the death that all ones inner life cries out for.

As I went through this it really did feel as if I had at last understood the meaning of that cry for father from the cross, and the taunts of the mob. The mob are all our own inbuilt doubts, fears, angst, cynicism that lash out at our life process. Our fears have to hit us to test the strength and validity of our belief. Also they need to not just believe that experience, they have to really meet it. So they shout, “Crucify him. Crucify him!” They need an actual experience of testing death to discover what the truth is; what lies beyond. And the cry from the cross is meeting the reality of the human condition. We meet our conviction that we are not divine; that there is no father to help us. We are alone. Death confronts us. We reach rock bottom. We fully accept our humanity. We have lost any awareness of a separate God and stand alone in Life – we are it. Then comes death.

Occasionally crucifixion can link with guilt or feelings of being a scapegoat. People undergoing depth psychotherapy often experience crucifixion as connected with their pains of being born.

Parts of us may have been ‘killed’ through pain or difficult life situations, and if they are coming alive again – being felt once more – the pain of their emergence is sometimes shown as crucifixion. See: Religion and Dreams; archetype of crucifixion; Cross.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel wrongly crucified like a martyr – if so why am I in that role at the moment?

What is being sacrificed or surrendered in my life?

Am I killing or sacrificing myself in some way?

See Meetings with ChristTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMethods of Awakeninginner path of christ

Crush Crushed

We can be crushed by difficult events, by an accident, by criticism or even by our own moods. Sometimes we allow parts of us such as love, creativity or sex slide into non-use or are crushed. See Avoid Being Victims

Many dreams of lovers are a painful and often desperate affair where the dreamer longs for the attention and ‘love’ of someone she or he has a crush on. These are often a natural part of growth where in dreams we wrestle with powerful emotions until we emerge with more mature responses. See Beware of Love.

Losing someone is often described as crushing one, but that is usually because we have a mistaken idea of what death it. The example describes this.

Example: I lost a very good friend. Two weeks before her death I told her loved her like I loved my Grandmother. When she died, I was crushed…..I had to get totally to my self to cry. I cried my eyes out….She came to me and told me to stop crying, she was happy and fine. I asked her” What does it feel like to be dead.” She said to me ” Don’t be afraid of death, it’s like a DREAM. Don’t worry about me…..I am happy.” I have never worried about her again….and I don’t worry about dying either.

Often it is our own inbuilt attitudes, probably from our culture or parents, that do the damage. The following is from a young woman who believes that if she has a baby outside of marriage it will be taken from her. This strikes right at the heart of a young woman’s emerging womanhood. Having a baby is the epitome of femininity and being female. The fact that your babies are taken by force is an awful demonstration of crushing you as a woman, and also making you feel powerless. The fact she was naked and felt like an animal giving birth strengthens the theme of her facing the most primitive feelings of motherhood. And I do not mean primitive in a negative sense.

Example: My friend and I have been having these dreams where we are both pregnant. In mine, my babies are always taken away from me. (They are twins.) I don’t want to let them go but they are forcefully taken and sometimes I am forced to get an abortion. Sometimes I feel helpless and like an animal giving birth I have no clothes on and I’m constantly being watched. Afterwards the twins are immediately taken. I fight and scream for them but I am always overpowered by something. I’m fourteen and a virgin.

A crush on a person – can also crush your feelings and sensitivities.

 Example: I’ve had a crush on this guy for 6 or 7 years, and we’ve been best friends (fell through for a year but got right back on track). The dream ‘occurred’ about two/three weeks after him and his girlfriend (quite… well she’s not exactly the faithful looking/sounding/acting/etc. type) break up (dream was about a week ago, currently they are still together). I don’t quite know what all happened, but I wake up in my own bed, opposite side of where I am ALWAYS on, laying across him. He’s shirtless, has his arm around me resting kind of on my shoulder.

But there is a factor that is possibly the major one in what attracts us to a partner. It is that for millions of years prior to our emergence as humans we existed as mammals, and fact a part of our brain is named the mammalian brain.

Example: I dreamt of being with a woman who was desperately seeking a man. I was also with my own female companion. I believe the woman had been suddenly dropped by her man, and I and my partner were close and with her.

Still in the semi-awake state I tried ‘being’ the woman, and had a very clear response. I experienced being her, but was also me with experience of seeing into myself in some degree. I saw that the woman, like most of us, was a female creature whose instinctive drive was to find a mate. But she was not aware of this as an instinctive drive but as a personal feeling. As such she had become, like many women and men, lost in a huge web of personal ideas about whether they were attractive, sexy, with many complications about love, gender mixed with childhood unconscious traumas and the heartbreak all that brings.

As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991). Each new level, as it developed, elaborated on and extended the function of the preceding levels. So, from the spinal cord the hindbrain and midbrain developed. The first level of brain that developed beyond the spinal cord has been called the Reptilian Brain. This is because what we carry within our human brain is still found in reptiles. This ‘brain’ often encompasses several parts of the physical brain. The second level is called mammalian brain.

The neurologist Paul MacLean gave a definition of these physiological and psychological facts of our brain in 1990. He said that these levels of the brain work like “three interconnected biological computers, [each] with its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own memory”. See Levels of the Brain and Dreams

So we are still largely influenced by both the reptilian and mammal brain, especially in the basic life urges – to survive, to eat and to mate. We think that our attraction for a partner is our personal loving feelings, but it is our urge to find a partner coloured by enormous fantasies. The fantasies are to lead us to believe we have found ‘The One’, so we fantasy our way into such feelings and mistake them as ‘OURS’ – as, ‘My Love’ – ‘My Emotions’.

What follows is that we return to using all the instincts of our mammalian background, added to the tactics we used as a child in our attempts to get the love and attention we so desperately needed – anger and placation are two fundamental ways. Buy flowers, cook great meals, be caring, or feel frustration and rage. We cry, withdraw, try a new approach, experience depression and even try being alone to see if it helps. Then a feeling of failure or inadequacy overcomes us. Maybe we or no-good as a person. Perhaps it is that we are un-lovable and we feel guilt and shame. If that doesn’t satisfy we turn to blaming. It is all our partners fault. However, if you fail to understand this situation, if you do not have the tools, this struggle can go on, and on, and on, with partner after partner. BUT if you understand the mechanics of your crush, then you are ready to start a decent relationship.

Many people can recover from crushing life experiences or inner despair by knowing that we all have a process that can bring relief. Such compensation may also be used to deal with things missing from ones life, such as a sexual partner or social achievement. See Life’s Little Secrets; Dead Husband or Ex

Depending upon the culture we were raised in, we can unconsciously put an image to the power of change and transformation that we experience. People in all ages, all cultures and all social circumstances have experienced what is often felt to be a divine influence touching them in some way.

I believe through observation that such long held and powerful traditional beliefs are based on something functional. The description of compensation is an example of this. To be able to survive crushing life experience is a real achievement, not an imagined one, and is therefore functional. Using an image to evoke hope and motivation doesn’t make it less of an achievement. But the idea of a saviour or holy figure links with patterns of love and strength actually lived by others. They are then patterns remaining in the collective experience of us and can be accessed. When we touch these powerful racial memories we may clothe them in the image of our cultural hero or saviour.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does you dream show you a way out of the crushing experience?

If not see Incubating a Dream.

Are you aware of what led to the feeling?

Is it shown as someone else being crushed?

See You are the ProjectorResistancesTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crutch

This might say you are feeling incapable or weak in some way, or needing support at the moment. It might be something you are using for support because your real strength is not functioning – for instance alcohol or medical drugs may be a crutch substituting the skills to meet anxiety and responsibility. But the crutch can also be a support while you are healing or strengthening.

A discarded crutch suggests healing or that you have become independent of others, or moved beyond crippling fears or dependency.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Who or what am I relying on – leaning on – at the moment?

Do I feel incapable or crippled in some way at the moment?

Which way would I fall without support?

See HabitsQuestionsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crypt

This often depicts your unconscious memories or feelings. But it may indicate repressed parts of you, or family influences from the long past. It may also show feelings emerging from the unconscious, or fear of death. Such feelings are not necessarily reflecting truth, but a reflection of cultural anxieties or ideas about death. See Face Fear; CaveBasement.

This meeting with feelings about death is sometimes like a test or initiation. It is almost as if the most beautiful may exist in a crypt, and you can only get to it by some form of psychological dying. This keeps a lot of people out, because they feel they are meeting something bad. They only pass into the beautiful if they dare to meet their fears of death.

In some dreams the crypt indicates feelings about or contact with dead relatives or people. This connection the crypt has with death is occasionally expressed in dreams as a shrine – a shrine in which the memories and love of a dead parent, child or partner is revered. If not that, then ones ancestors.

Example: I was in some kind of cave or crypt. My father told me and my family of his coming death. He was calm and caring but my mother, sister and myself were grief stricken and for some reason went to buy him gifts.  Mrs. C.M.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do I relate to the crypt, and what does that indicate about my relationship with the unconscious or death?

What is it I am discovering or feeling in the crypt, and what does that suggest?

Am I in contact with someone who is dead, or am I discovering things about death in this dream?

See Do Dreams Explain DeathNear Death ExperiencesTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crystal

The human sense of the eternal, so a symbol of your core self. But a crystal can also depict rigid views or emotions, crystallised opinions, thus habits.

A crystalline form is often a symbol of the Self. In other words, you are only conscious of a small part of yourself. Most of your body functions, and memories are unconscious. Also, your links with others and life itself at a deep level may remain unknown. The word Self is used to mean your whole being, known and unknown. If the crystal is felt to be of great beauty or valuable, then it is certainly linked with what is of greatest value in yourself – your pure consciousness beyond physical sensations and thoughts.

The thing about dreams is that they show everything that is inside you as an outside image. So the crystal can actually represent the force that gives you bones and other inner activities. Crystal of whatever sort always form the same crystalline structure, so often are images of forces in us that are always constant, so can represent a part of us that is always true – our core Self. See Touching Your Core Self

The shape of the crystal, in its beautiful structure, arises through the workings of some inner force or power, invisible, but evident in its symmetry. So it can represent the hidden inner power active within you that shapes who you are. Dr Marie-Louise von Franz writes in Jung’s book Man and His Symbols, writes, “The mathematically precise arrangement of a crystal evokes in us the intuitive feeling that even in so-called ‘dead’ matter there is a spiritual ordering principle at work. Thus the crystal often symbolically stands for the union of extreme opposites – of matter and spirit.” This inner power may in some dreams be seen to shine out or to focus what are your innate talents or potential.

A crystal may also depict realisation, i.e. “It became crystal clear”. See: jewels.

Cut crystal glasses or chandeliers suggest refinement or quality, and the chandeliers might also link with what has already been said above about crystal. Glasses can also link with alcohol though, and be showing its influence on you.

Clear Crystal: This is about clearing the mind of thoughts and emotion and enabling you to look into the immensity of your inner being. It represents a space of infinite wonder, a situation or state of mind not limited by form or smallness so it allows you to seek what you want in the infinity. Although it has no image or formit has the potential of all things – a magical state.

Crystal ball: The crystal ball usually stands for insight, prophecy, the future, your hopes and plans, fate, intuition, gazing into yourself. It can, because of its shape, denote the Self, or completeness, indicating your ability to be aware of intuitive impressions and creative imagery. It can also indicate the world of your inner feelings, passions, love and dreams – your soul, and your ability to look deeply into it. The following dream illustrates this.

Example: My beautiful friend looks into the crystal. It is not a thing made of glass, but a great dimension of mind which appears to open in the room, hanging in the centre of it, about eight feet across. She tells me I am already touching something that is beginning to happen in the world. My life will become involved in it. I will play my part – by no means a key role or leader, but one which I will gain great satisfaction and love from.

But remember that delving within like this can uncover the dark shadows cast by past fears, traumas and the memory of acts and emotions we usually choose to keep in the darkness of unconsciousness. It can also show you what you know in your heart, as in the following dream. See Using Your IntuitionThe Inner World

I was with a gypsy looking at a crystal ball. She told me that my present relationship – a woman with children I am living with – will last and flower. I began to cry. Then there were other people there as well. A man put his hand on me and said it was okay to cry, and I felt they supported me in this.  Don S.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If my dream crystal is of great beauty and value, what can I understand or feel from it about my own deepest self?

If I have dreamt of a crystal ball, what has been seen in it about who I am and my direction in life?

What can I gather about what is valuable or beautiful in myself from this dream?

See Life’s Little Secrets Life’s Little SecretsMethods of Awakening

Cube

Matter, physical existence. It is symbolic of the number 4, and thus stands for stability, strength, material expression, the body. The square or cube is an enclosure in three dimensions, like our body, that in its centre hides a fourth dimension, the soul. Can also represent orthodoxy, the establishment. See: Numbers.

Cuckoo

Sexual promiscuity, the egg laid in another nest or woman.

Wanting to, or feeling your partner is, having sex outside your relationship; pregnant with child from another man than ones partner. Cuckoo can also mean crazy – as with the film ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’

A cuckoo clock can suggest slightly irrational thoughts that keep repeating, or thoughts about being unfaithful.

Example: My head is a cuckoo clock with a fabric tube coming out of my chin and hanging down. The cuckoo clock is full of wasps which are buzzing – when I shake my head I can hear them. They fly out the tube in my chin. I am scared of wasps, but cannot run away as they are inside my head. HELP!

A cuckoo is a creature of nature, and it lays its eggs in a nest for other creature to rear. We may say that is unnatural, yet it is a part of natural behaviour. As humans we have all manner of behaviours, and so it is natural for men to lay their eggs in a woman’s womb and then leave her to rear the offspring.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream showing signs of being used by a ‘cuckoo’?

Or is it so do with crazy behaviour – or like the example a fear?

Is there something happening in my dream that is a clue to its meaning?

See BackgroundTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLifeStream

Cuddle

Unity, sharing of feelings.

Cuddle Cuddling

In most dreams where cuddling occurs it is usually a woman cuddling with love and care a baby, probably new born. This represents the flowering of or expression of a caring love that is without and sexual overtones. But because it may be a dream about a new born baby I suggest reading A Woman’s Creative Power

Cuddling can also be a stage of mature love in a relationship and is about comforting and loving a partner without being sexual as in the example. This is often the pure sensual and pleasurable contact between people of any sex, as in the second example.

Example: I laugh and reassure him it’s not going to hurt. I ask him if he could be my friend. He laughs and says, “We’re sleeping together and you want to know if we can be friends?” I laugh. By now we’ve agreed he and I are sleeping together alone, but just as plutonic friends. We cuddle and giggle like teens. I feel something wet on my nightgown and realize it is semen emission, either leakage or he had an orgasm. We both start giggling uncontrollably like teens in a library. It’s so ironic that we’ve agreed to be friends, and sleep together and then he has an emission.

Example: Paulina is upset. I want to hold her. She resists and I say, “I want to hold you because I need it.” She says impatiently, “OK, but let me turn around,” and so turns her back on me to be able to cuddle spoon-like. I put my arms around her, being careful not to touch her breasts. I accidentally brush them. I hug her and rock her to soothe her. I like our position because I’m not face to face with her emotion. I see her/my face reflected in a window.

Then there is a form of cuddling that emerges from our unmet baby needs.

Example: When I was about four years old I was looked after by an elderly woman while my mother went to work. One day I was in the house and the woman’s’ daughter came in. I stood watching her as she was in the dining room. Then I saw something that has remained in me forever. The daughter had a split up the side of her blouse, and through the split I could see her firm bare breast. Seeing it I felt an enormous hunger that filled my stomach, chest and mouth. I wanted to go to that breast and cuddle and suckle it.

Example: “I went across the road to where my mother’s sister lived. I wanted to cuddle her and touch her bare breasts, but we never seemed to manage this. There were always interruptions or blocks.” Sid L.

At these deep levels of fantasy and desire, one has to recognise that the first sexual experience is – hopefully – at mothers breast. This can be transformed into later fantasies / dreams / desires of penis in the mouth; or penis in vagina; or penis as breast, mouth as vagina. At a certain stage of development the emotional bond and cuddling is more important.

Cuddling and being held in the way a mother holds her baby is such a primal thing it often has a sense of holiness or uplift in it as in the next example.

Example: The shepherd’s has a staff. He takes the staff and reaches out beyond the periphery of the cave to the pew in the church where I am kneeling and crooks the staff around my neck, pulling me inside the cave. At first I am frightened and pull away from him. I tug at the staff but it is no use and I am drawn inside the cave. Once there I am a different person… everything inside me seems to be connected and I feel very sure of my actions. I reach down into the cradle of straw and cuddle the Baby in my arms. His Mother smiles her approval but as she does so her smile changes into that of the Hermit and then into the cherubic face of the small Baby God … they are all one… I am deeply moved and wake up crying.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I the one being cuddled or am I the cuddler?

What do you feel was behind or leading to the cuddle?

What sort of love was being given or received?

See Ages of LoveLearning to LoveTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cuddly Toy

You might be desiring the sort of non-threatening relationship you had with parents, or just plain seeking a relaxed feeling and love. Also the pleasure of holding someone or feeling warmth. See: teddy bear; toys.

Did you attack the toy in any way? See doll


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you still have a cuddly toy?

What did you feel in the dream about the toy?

Was it my toy or someone else’s?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLearning to LoveAssociations Working With

Cul-de-sac

The cul-de-sac means you feel or fear there is no way ahead in your present direction, or no way out of a present situation or relationship; or at least, no way to develop it further. Don’t forget this only reflects a feeling, and not a situation cast in stone. Shift the way you feel, look at it from a different standpoint, and the thing can change. See: Secrets of Power Dreaming.

This has definite sexual implications, usually representing the inside of a woman’s legs. A door at the far end is the vagina. If there is a sexual element in your dream, then it may also indicate guilt, or a sexual experience that has no future. There is another aspect of cul-de-sac expressed in this next dream – the materialistic view of life.

Since being a young child I have dreamt I was in a cul-de sac, with a Punch and Judy show at its entrance. A skull lives in the P&J show and if anyone tries to leave the cul-de-sac the skull goes into the house to prevent them leaving. What does this mean?  Fiona.

In this dream a cul-de-sac is way of saying a ‘dead’ end. Death is the subject of this dream, as shown by the skull hiding in the show – of life. This is a view of life many of us are given as  children, and do not shake off – that life is a dead end, leading to nowhere but the grave.  This attitude may cause us to avoid full participation in life because life offers only a conflict in which every one is eventually killed. The crocodile gets us all.  In nature nothing exists that does not carry forward what existed in the past, even at a physical level.

Another example of cul-de-sac is given in this dream. It was dreamt by a man who having read Freud’s idea that we want to sleep with our parent thought it was totally ridiculous.

Dreamt I run away from police into a cul-de-sac. It is night and I cannot see a thing. I feel my way to a door, and knock. An old woman of about 60 comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and embrace her sexually. Then she is naked and I feel her cold flesh against mine and I have intercourse with her. As I do so, she moans in apprehension and pleasure. I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good. When she’s back upstairs, she notices the window is open, and a strong wind blows the curtains apart. This terrifies her into feelings of guilt and shame, and she makes me hide behind the bed while she tries to close the window. She leans out of the window to push her neighbour’s curtains back also, and falls to her death. I then wander in gardens outside.

This is a description of the whole Oedipus complex as stated by Freud. The older woman represent the mother.

Useful questions:

What dead end in life am I moving in and perhaps not recognising?

What leads me or directs me into the dream cul-de-sac and what can I understand from that?

What does the dream drama say about this – i.e. is there a way out, and what am I learning?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Cup

This is usually linked in some way with satisfying ones thirst. In other words the cup suggests either the fullness or absence of satisfaction and felt needs, or the circumstances the cup reminds you of. For instance a cup from home or family can associate with good or difficult times, or with a past or present relationship, and people we shared time with in a social way. Who you are with in the dream also suggests what feelings of satisfaction or need you are dealing with.

The cup can represent a receptive attitude or femininity and the womb, or receptivity and pouring oneself out as in prayer. In the saying “My cup overflows” – or cup of suffering, it suggests your inner condition. In this sense the cup is a receptacle, and can depict what you hold in yourself, or how you measure or taste or experience things.

The cup can depict feelings you are experiencing or giving, as in sharing  yourself or receiving something from someone else, as when a drink is given by someone or you give it.

A dream cup might be representing what is in it – tea, coffee, milk etc. Some dreams are about health and how your body responds to what you take in, so if there is a sign of this in the dream take notice.

Example: We start going. I grab at a Styrofoam cup with coffee, cigs, ashtray, etc. and put them in my lap. I am sitting on a car seat that is sideways to the rest of the seats. Hot wax (pink) spills on my pant leg.

This dream seems to show a very casual and hurried relationship with the cup.

Sometimes the imagery of the cup is used to represent the body and what we hold within ourselves – showing the quality, richness or emptiness of who we are or feel ourselves to be. It is important to remember that dreams depict what we feel or fear about ourselves as well as what we are beyond those fears or self judgements. As in the New Testament where Jesus asks that the cup be taken from him, the cup can show what we face in life and in our feelings at this time. Do we drink something bitter or enlivening?

Example: Through its I have grown out of the chaser of rainbow ends and mirages to one who can accept an imperfect world, my own imperfection, and take cups of water from shaking hands. I take my place as a man among mankind – not the saints. “When those Saints go marching in, I am not to be among their number.”

A broken cup suggests either you do not have a good inner feeling about giving or yourself to others, or about receiving. There is a problem involved somewhere in giving or receiving. Do you feel you have nothing to give or are unworthy of receiving?

Golden or precious cup: The core essence of you. This cup indicates that part of your nature that does not corrupt or ‘rust’ like your body and the things you might see as valuable in worldly goods. So it might therefore be shown in your dream being dug up, pulled out of the earth, or buried in ruins or ancient places. This shows the influence in you from the long past.

Carrying cups to others shows you serving or looking after the needs of others.

Measuring cup can link with care you are taking to be precise or ‘measured. Or it might say you are preparing something carefully or you don’t want to overdo something.

Overflowing cup can either mean you life is full and you have more than you need, or that you are wasting precious resources. What is being lost or poured out?

In another sense this represents your life energy and how it is being expressed. So it links with sexual expression, with emotions and how you express yourself outwardly.

Round Bottomed: Once filled you cannot put cup down until you have drunk all the contents. Drinking it may mean taking on something you like or do not want to face, so take care.

The quality of the cup shows how you like to present yourself to others or how they present themselves to you.

Two cups indicate sharing with another person in some way.

Idioms: cup of tea; cup runneth over; there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Essentially what am I giving or receiving with the cup?

What does the cup hold, and is that indicating what I am facing in my life?

Who am I involved with in this dream, and what is being given or received in the relationship?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsResistancesActive Passive

Currency

currency See: money.

Current

This word is used to indicate both what is present – a current experience – and also a flow or influence.

In both senses it shows something having an impact on you. What the impact is depends on the other dream events and characters. But it suggests the influence of other people and events to push you into certain decisions, directions or feelings. It can also be the inner pressure of your desires, the direction of the your life, or influence of inner tendencies.

The current in some dreams, whether a river, the sea or electrical, also might relate to the flow of life-biological energy moving through you. Air, water and food constantly flow through you, giving rise to the energy you express as movement, feelings, sex, speech, thinking and awareness. Dreams often show this current of energy as interactive, as in the following dream.

Example: I was in a big stream with my two sons, M. and N. It was a fairly strong current and the boys were getting hurt. I told them that whatever you do reacts with the current. It was like karma. Everything done influenced the current, and so one must be very aware of every action, or else it rebounds and causes injury.

The dream shows life energy as capable of being creative or destructive. Expressed as anger, despair, self loathing, it can destroy health of mind and body. Expressed as creativity, love and curiosity it can change your life and the world. It vivifies whatever it flows into, enhancing negative or positive tendencies. See: river; snake.

A current can also indicate the outer flow of circumstances or events as they act upon us and influence or pull us along. The inner pressure of desires, the direction of the inner life, or influence of inner tendencies.

Electrical current: See: electricity.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What influence or effect is the current having – i.e. am I struggling against it; am I going with it; is it influencing someone else – and how does that apply to my life?

Is the current carrying me anywhere and if so where or to what?

Does this current link with my personal energy, and in what way?

Does the current represent influence of others, or events pushing me into certain decisions?

What inner pressure of desires or tendencies does this represent?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsKarmaEnergy Sex and Dreams


Curse Cursed Cursing

Autosuggestion. That is, inner results of fears entertained. Also symbolises the inheritance of past actions, past lives, or hereditary traits or taints. It sometimes refers to the power of material values to influence decisions and life, the power of hate.

When you actually believe something, it is taken as real by the part of your mind that controls all your body processes and your decisions making. So if you believed you were seriously ill you would not only feel bad, but you would order your activities around your believed sickness. An example of this is when on entering a room of our house we see a strange man; the our heart beats faster, and we get ready to run or fight. But when we see it is just an arrangement of a hanging coat the emergency feelings disappear.

A curse is like that, something taken in and believed that can create great harm. It might also symbolises the inheritance of past actions, past lives, or hereditary traits or taints.

But dreaming about giving or receiving a curse is also often about deeply felt hurts or the desire to undermine or even destroy someone’s well-being. Meditation or prayer are ways to heal such feelings or hurts. See Black Magic

Sometimes dreams represent tangled emotions and urges brought about by past hurts as a curse placed upon you. In such cases it is helpful to see if you can trace what the dream presents back to its origins in your experience.

I believe that the enormous amount of anxiety people suffer is the real curse – anxiety about animals attacking them in their dream; anxieties about being possessed, or by being cursed – and all of these awful images can be seen as simply our fears, pains and anxieties taking on form in our dreams. And int he end dreams are virtual realities that we create in our sleep. Even the wonderful dreams of God and angels are an external virtual reality, and mirror of our own inner immensity and our enormous variety. Unfortunately people either accept them as externally real, or as fantasy. But they are reflections of your potential, that cannot be seen in your daily life that is so dominated by your physical senses and hungers and fears.

So the images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of deny any fear or repressing anything that threatens you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the curse, and what does it suggest or carry – and can I see signs of such negative emotions in my lie?

If I am the one cursing, what am I feeling so strongly about?

Do I have a strong belief in something negative, such as sickness or bad luck?

Does this imply tainted hereditary traits? (Go back into the dream and make changes. Beliefs can be modified.)

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims

Curtain Curtains

The ability to reveal or hide something, such as we do with our feelings or thoughts, perhaps even memories. Curtains can also be part of decorations to beautify, or to separate one area from another. So they can depict privacy, home-making, luxury or poverty depending upon the dream.

Curtains can be used to obscure something and keep privacy. Curtains link with feelings about the end – death. Curtains can be a sign of hiding from your own shortcoming.

Curtains that rise as in a theatre are about revealing things that had been hidden until then, a new start. Such curtains hide the workings of stage life, and when risen usually only reveal a stage set. So they can be a re veiling symbol in dreams.

They might also represent the ability to shut the world out, or to remain withdrawn in sleep, and sometimes the veil between life and death, or sensory impressions and extra sensory impressions. Curtains can also be a hiding place or the means of keeping something hidden.

Example: I crept about obviously and the audience loved it. The piano guy isn’t too happy as he is getting blown up. I realize the play is reaching its finale and I was disappointed that I’d have to take my curtain call in the unflattering guise of a spy and villain instead of the lovely bride.

Example: I was in a room with my aunt and uncle. It was dark outside and there was some kind of air raid going on with glowing missiles flying through the sky. I was terrified and tried to draw the red curtain across the window to block them out. The window was a right angle shaped one in the corner of the room. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cover the whole window. As fast as I pulled the curtain across, the other end would be exposed, showing the missiles. I was becoming more and more frantic and my aunt and uncle just sat at the table playing cards, completely unperturbed and indifferent to my fear. D. K.

This dream from a girl in her teens clearly shows how she is dealing with her fears concerning the world. Her distress is even more intense because the fears of external threats which appear very real to her are totally ignored by her family. The curtains depict how much she tries to shut these feelings out of her mind, and how unsuccessful this is. The dream is probably dealing with her difficulties in facing life as an adult, and the demands it may place upon her.

Curtains can also be the slight thing that is the separation between the living and the dead. And sometimes it pulls aside or one reaches through it to find a wonderful contact.

Example: I am happily walking down an interminable straight road of small terraced houses. On approaching one in the middle of a terrace, the net curtain is drawn back and a hand continually beckons. It is that of my GRANDMOTHER, dead fifty years ago!

Example: Then I felt a lot about the curtain and realised that it wasn’t a great barrier between life and death, but a very fine  veil which we can even feel each other through – as my mother’s hand was so real and palpable to me. Then I began to really feel my mother’s presence and wept at the strength of it.

I was still holding my mother’s hand and gradually a felt change occurring. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of love and the being of Christ there with me and holding me. He said “I held your hand a long time ago when I made you mine. But I have never let go of you.”

Example: I experienced a powerful subjective imagery of standing before large heavy curtains. It was like dreaming while awake. I moved to the curtains and pulled them apart. This revealed the immensity of a clear night sky, filled with brilliant stars. As I looked at this natural splendour, a star fell to earth, leaving me with a sense that something wonderful had happened that I must go in search of. As occurs in dreams, there was a sudden shift, and I was a herder of flocks, a shepherd, looking for the star that had come to earth. Others were searching too, and when we found what we were looking for, I was astonished to discover it was a baby.

Profoundly felt imagery and feelings flooded my awareness. I realised I was experiencing the New Testament story of the birth. But this did not seem to interfere with the flow of what poured into my feelings. My whole body felt the wonder of the baby and I fell to my knees before it. I knew as if intuitively, that all the cosmos had somehow come alive as this helpless vulnerable child. I was so overwhelmed, all I could say over and over, between sobbing cries was, ‘A baby’ – ‘A baby.

Drawn curtains can represent night, privacy or blindness to something. While drawing a curtain can, as in the theatre, suggest the end of something, privacy or drawing a veil of secrecy or forgetfulness over something.

Opening a curtain suggest realising or ‘seeing’ something previously hidden, secret or unrealised. It can also mean removing barriers or limiting factors in yourself.

Black curtains can signify an attempt to completely hide what is going on to enemies, as in the British ‘black out’, or it might relate to death.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I hiding or revealing something in this dream – and what am I hiding or revealing or realising in life?

If the curtains are open what is being revealed and what am I realising?

If the curtains are barriers to realisation, what am I refusing, or hesitating to see or understand?

See Talking with DeadTechniques for Exploring your DreamsArchetype of the Paradigm


Cushion

See: pillow.

Cut Cutting

If something is cut it can depict severing connections, separation, to become independent, to cut off sympathy or affections. If an object is cut or torn it points to possible regret at the damage, or maybe desire to damage.

If the cut is on the body it indicates a hurt or sense of injury to whatever the part of the body represents. This may link with a hurtful relationship with someone. Or it can mean being opened up to external influences such as an infection. If you are doing the cutting then it is about desire to injure. It may also represent your sexual desires, that through the pain associated with experiences of being let down, scorned, ill treated, the feelings of love only express as the desire to hurt, to cut, to connect through pain. Can also mean reducing in importance or impact.

Cutting in an organised way, or even when random, can point to change, as when we cut our hair. Also we can cut something to open it or reveal something, to get something, or to get somewhere, as when we cut through red tape, or cut a lemon to get its juice.

A plant cutting that you are going to plant may link with good and growing parts of yourself that you are looking for a life situation to ‘plant’ or experience them in. It may thus depict a search for a caring and ‘fertile’ relationship. See: plants.

Example: My father was THE original authority in my life. I had cut off from him because of the lack of support, and I had done the same with school and other authority situations. The worst bit of all though, was to see that in my desire for my father’s love, I had been seeking older males in a form of latent homosexuality.

A short cut: If it works fine, but a short cut may in the end be a long way.

Cutting through: Cutting through entanglements, through barriers is a sign that you are using strength of purpose to get rid of things such as worries, fears and even neuroses to become whole and healthy.

Cut off from: Shows that you either feel someone has shut down any emotional contact or support, or else you have done it.

Idioms: A cut above; you can’t cut it; cut to the chase; cut through; cut away; cut back; clean cut; cut from the same cloth; cut corners; cut the crap; cut a fine figure; cut a wide swathe; cut and dried; cut him off; cut it fine; cut it out; cut losses; cut his teeth on; cut me some slack; cut to the quick; cut off your nose to spite your face; cut price; cut the mustard; cut down to size; cut to ribbons; cut your own throat; have your work cut out; short cut; cutting edge; low cut.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I been opened up to something, or to see what is going on inside me?

Am I consciously or unconsciously cutting off feelings, connections, or importance regarding a situation in life?

Am I angry about something, or have a desire to cause injury?

What am I trying to open up or get to?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsLife’s Little Secrets


Cyclone

Emotions and urges against which you feel powerless, and which may become obsessive.

See: tornado

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cylinder

In dreams they often express man made or shaped. The can be columns that are natural but with man made designs, so are indicating powerful natural forces in you that have been shaped by the quality of your life.

They are sometimes a power source and suggest something you could access.

Example: Now I looked back at the column, and was very surprised to see, on the top strange designs, little fronds of green leaves. It was, I suddenly saw, a huge tree, and the leaves were sprouting at the top. To the right was another such tree, but smaller. The shape of these columns was like massive spacecraft cylinders pointed at the top.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of cyclider are they and what do they suggest?

Are there any feelings in the dream, or suggestions of feelings?

Do they give the impression of being alive or hollow?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cyst

A morbid collection of memories, emotions, energies, that are not harmonising or adding to your life in general.

A cyst on a certain part of the body can show a physical or psychological hurt connected with that area. So a cyst on the right leg could indicate weakness in your confidence in external activity. See: abscess boil.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What memories, emotions, energies are causing me problems at the moment? (Imagine going back into the dream and drain the cyst, or apply healing cream to it.)

Have I got a physical condition or pain in the area shown – if so might it be a good idea to have it checked?

Does my dream give me any clues to its cause?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Letter D

Dad Daddy

See father dad

Dagger

Aggressive urges, hatred, expression of force whether intellectual, moral or physical. Can denote male aggression or penis.

This is the sort of weapon that can be easily hidden and used in treachery or betrayal. It can depict the sort of attack we make on someone through criticism and underhanded remarks or rumours. In ones own hand it might suggest those things but can also depict defences, or being defensive. See: weapons. The following example clearly shows two defensive images – the castle and the dagger.

Example: I dreamed that it was a cold night in a castle and I had a dagger in my hand. Then a pale guy (with blood dripping from his mouth) attacked me and I stabbed him.

Daggers have often been used as an instrument of initiation or of rituals. In a dream where one is killed by a dagger, apart from the meaning suggested above, it can also be about the death of an old self, and the transition to another stage of life, an initiation. See: individuation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I angry or defensive about?

Am I aiming my anger at someone in particular?

Can I see signs of defensiveness in how I relate to others?

Am I pressurising or threatening others, whether intellectually, morally or physically?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams BackgroundDreams are Virtual Realities

Dalai Lama

It depends very much how you feel about Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. In general it represents a great teacher, so would probably indicate your own higher wisdom, the best guidance you can get.  See: guru.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I know and feel about or associate with the Dalai Lama?

Does he represent a level of wisdom that transcends reasoning or personal learning?

Do I feel at ease or against Buddhism?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMagical Dream Machine

Dalai Lama

See: Guru.

Dam

This often indicates the way we ‘bottle up’ our emotions, and drives such as ambition or sex. There is often tremendous power or energy waiting to be used or directed in the dream of a dam. So it can depict the controlled release of such physical, emotional, mental and sexual energy.

The dam can show not just how you restrict, hold back or repress energy, but also how you direct or conserve it. The following dream shows another aspect of this.

Example: My boyfriend and I were at a local beach. I had been there before but he hadn’t. It was at a dam situated just up from the beach. I was floating in the air about ten feet above him, and he was dead. He had drowned. Since I had this dream we have broken-up. I still love him very much. T.H.

The dam here suggests the boyfriend was holding back his feelings, and so was shown as dead, drowned in his emotions that he kept dammed.

Building a dam shows you developing ways to control the way your emotions or sexual feelings express.

A dam bursting is an indication you either feel threatened that your emotions or sexual needs will overwhelm you, that you have no control over your feelings, or that you are experiencing tremendous release from repression or tension. See: river.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this dream about holding back or releasing?

In what ways do I restrict or release my feelings and sexuality?

Am I holding back my flow o feelings and energy?

Is this about what I sense in someone else?

See People Animals and Objects of our Dreams are ProjectionsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsA Dream is Like a Seed

Damage Damaged

The suggestion here is of a hurt or stress that has done some sort of harm. What the harm is depends very much on the dream and surrounding events and people. Often the damage does not break or completely ruin what is shown. But it is information about what is being hurt or stressed.

For instance you can damage a relationship, your health, your work prospects, your respect for someone. So it is helpful to define what is being indicated in the dream. Is it bad diet, uncontrolled habits or anger? Is it lack of care or attention to detail? You can damage yourself or others by things you do or say, or even by what you do not do or say. In this way your mouth can be a deadly weapon.

Look up the thing that is damaged for more information. See: hurt; broken.

Useful questions and hints are:

What is it that is damaged and what in my life, body or relationships is that pointing to?

Is there any indication of how I or someone else is creating the damage?

Is stress or carelessness damaging my life, prospects or people I care about?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets

Dance Dancing

If you are dancing with someone it shows feeling at one or in harmony with someone or others, or aspects of yourself; or unity, as seen in the cells working as a harmonious whole.

It can also express happiness, or a sexual mating dance. Sometimes getting closer or more intimate emotionally or sexually. In fact so many women love dancing and want to dance with a partner because it is a woman’s way to express her full female self and sexuality.

If dancing alone or watching someone dance, the meaning depends upon what you feel as you dance or watch. It often suggests enjoyment, self expression, release, allowing your creative or sexual feelings to flow.

Many figures dancing in time with each other is an expression of an insight into how life expresses through a multitude of creatures or people, and ones own part in it. This can mean cooperation or social integration. Some dances lead to a trance state in which one touches the divine.

Many women have an urge to dance, and in past ages this was a way of expressing her beauty to a man. Today it can be a means to express oneself, ones creativity or feelings.

We can communicate something to other people by our dancing.

Example: One evening I joined a free dance group. As I danced I had a strong impression somebody was watching me and getting something from it – feeling my spirit as it flowed in the dance. At the end I stood very still for some time, sunk in the stillness again. I felt that whoever it was watching and sharing with me wanted to speak to me, but nobody came to me, so I moved away. Then a while later Una, an elderly Irish lady came and told me how much she had got from my dance.

And ancient form of dancing is done by the Sufis who twirl, rotating on the spot. This can produce dizziness, which if continued can produce a faint. This causes the ratioinal mind to faint, and so brings about a condition in which one can contact one source, perhaos having a profound vision. This was the method of Jalal ad-Dīn Rumi.

 “In Black Africa, many women traditionally pride themselves on being dancers and birthers – endeavours that require uncompromising physical strength, mental clarity, rhythmic integrity, and a direct link to forces greater than themselves. As dancers they give birth, bringing to the birth process the tremendous strength acquired over years of night long and sometimes week-long- ‘spirit dances’. Daily work, the honouring of womanhood, the deities, the ancestors, the darkness, and the celebration of birth itself are all depicted in the dance. And the dance is carried into the fibres of everyday life.”

Animals dancing: Harmony with unconscious drives and sexuality.

Dancing with someone usually shows a loving relationship, or even the prelude to a sexual relationship.

Circle dancing:  And ancient form of dancing is done by the Sufis who twirl, rotating on the spot. This can produce dizziness, which if continued can produce a faint. This causes the ratioinal mind to faint, and so brings about a condition in which one can contact one source, perhaos having a profound vision. This was the method of Jalal ad-Dīn Rumi.

But also it relates to the nucleus of the human identity. Although we are, in our everyday life, the magical and mysterious process of life, it is difficult for us to actually answer the question ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ with any lasting conviction. The mysterious essence of ourselves is met in dreams as a circular or square object or design. So circle dancing can show you getting closer to you own centre.

If the dance is awkward: Lack of harmony connected with what is depicted.

Skeletons or dark ‘things’ dancing: Developing a relationship with what we fear – meeting it; dancing with death – in life we always dance with death, meaning we have an intimate relationship with it, but might not be ready to recognise who our partner is.

Stepping on partners toes shows you upsetting others or being awkward in your relations with others.

 Example: ‘We were both shy of each other but as the dance went on I found I could move so well to his steps that we felt like one, it was so effortless that it felt like floating.’ Heather.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was expressed in the dance and what do I gain from that?

Am I expressing spontaneity, creativity or love in this dance?

Did I feel any connection with the divine?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets


Danger Dangerous

This may be unfounded anxiety or a warning about possible outcomes. We may fear the danger of allowing our sexual urges – the danger of falling in love with its possible pain – the danger of failing if we take a risk. Even ideas, such as those of future peril cause enormous anxiety. These may be depicted as impending danger in a dream, or a sense of present danger. In such cases the real danger is of taking our anxieties as reality, instead of seeing them for what they are, feeling reactions to a situation. But in fact you cannot be hurt or die in dreams. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

But some dreams are very clear warnings and should be used to avoid or be aware of the situation shown. An example of this and how to deal with it is shown in the following dream.

“I awakened one morning with a sense of foreboding and the word `ETIWANDA’ ringing through my mind. Realizing that I had probably failed to remember all of the dream, I simply prayed about it.

“Although it was early November, I was prompted to get out my Christmas card list and addresses. One of the first addresses I saw was the street-name Etiwanda. I called the friend who lived there and learned she was about to take a mountain road trip to Big Bear, Calif. I warned her to be especially careful and to pray for protection. When she returned from the trip, she told me: `As I was coming around a sharp mountain curve, I heard brakes screeching. Because of your warning dream, I immediately drove completely off the highway onto the grass on the cliff side of the road. The next moment a sports car, out of control, came careening around the curve in my lane.'”

Awareness and seeking to stay open to ones core self can protect and guide when danger is imminent. In fact pray for help on avoiding danger.

A relative or loved one in danger: The temptation is to believe the dream is presaging a real event. Our concern for children and loved one’s, but more often our fears regarding them, create most of such dreams. A woman told me a dream in which her daughter was strangled while at university. In processing her dream the woman wept strongly as she met feelings of fear about her daughter leaving home and living independently at university. The daughter was in fact okay. See: Child Killed; attack; precognition.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this danger to myself or someone else – and what can I do either to calm my anxiety or deal with the danger?

Is there any sign this is simply anxiety, and if so where does it arise from?

How can I remain aware of this impending danger?

See Facing Fear – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams


Dark Darkness

Lack of understanding; difficult to grasp, obscure. Dark can also mean ancient, worn dark with age, and it can relate to sombre, or depressing feelings.

A woman with dark hair sometimes represents this intuition. Similarly, a dark skinned person in a dream can represent parts of yourself that are difficult to understand, or are only just becoming conscious and the way in which they influence your life and are obscure.

What is unknown, not defined by the intellect or conscious self. What is unconscious and perhaps only vaguely sensed. Some dreams of darkness depict depression or confusion, or something we are frightened or terrified of.

Darkness in some dreams illustrate forces of what we might feel overpowered by, secrets we hide from self or others, or things we do or sense that are done ‘under cover of darkness’.

Darkness can also represent age, the experience of  prenatal life and feelings about death.

Universe/God was originally the darkness of night. Universe/God then created light. Science says that it look 300,000 years for light to finally shine in our Universe.

“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. “And God said: Let there be light; and there was light.” Genesis is a scientific treatise

For the Creative force of our Universe was Everything and everything cannot take a shape or form, for then it would be something. The spiritual worship of light is misplaced, for we were all started in the darkness of Everything. Light is for the human recognition of what we sense in the Hugeness we hold within us in Darkness. If everything was light you would not be able to recognise yourself, for colour and shape exist because kight and darkneess mix to give us our experience in the world.

Dark water: Emotions that are felt and powerful but have not been defined or their source understood.

Dark colours: Feelings emanating from unconscious sources; depressed or unhappy feelings. See: Aboriginal; Black.

The following examples are given to show the many facets of  darkness and its many meanings. In the first example the feeling is of being lost and trapped in depressing feelings.

 

Example: ‘I ran down very dark streets, like a maze, and could not find a way out of them. ‘ Mrs N.

 

The following dream depicts particular aspects of darkness.

Example: ‘It was a festival in this strange world, in which everything had a rather dark, dilapidated look.’ Tom.

Dark here is about ancient; things dating from times past. This may refer to ones sense of childhood which feels like the ancient past; or to our unconscious knowledge of family and cultural attitudes and experience. In general the ‘strange’ world of the unconscious or sleep.

Example: ‘I was overwhelmed by terror, as if the very darkness of the tunnel was a living force of fear which entered and consumed me. I screamed and screamed, writhing in uncontrollable fit like contractions. Nevertheless a part of me was observing what was happening and was amazed, realising I had found something of great importance.’ Andrew P.

Because the dreamer explored this dream with me, I know the darkness was depicting fear Andrew experienced while a 9 year old in hospital. He was given a rectal anaesthetic because he was about to have an operation on his nose. He fought and begged for the nurses to stop, but to no avail. This led to a very real feeling that humans were terrifyingly dangerous animals who would not respond even if you were on your knees begging. So this fear was the awful thing in the darkness. Darkness here is the unconscious area of experience.

Example: ‘I am back in time looking at an old cottage. I see the windows, walls and doors, everything about the place. It is dark and old and warm. I see the curtains and bedrooms, all the ornaments and I feel safe and comfortable.’ Mrs R.

Here dark expresses a feeling of comfort, perhaps because it is undemanding, or that one is not in any glare of attention or activity. It is the relaxed quiet of evening. This woman has a relaxed relationship with her unconscious.

Example: ‘I met a woman I know in a long, dark underground tunnel. She was waiting for me. We had sexual intercourse. She had a very formed vagina mouth, and a very large clitoris, like a small penis. I masturbated this.’ Norman.

Norman has no fear of the tunnel. It is his secret desire and pleasure which he admits to no one, often not even himself. Dark here is one’s secret self. It has the meaning of the saying, “Keep it dark.”

 

Idioms: A dark horse; in the dark; keep it dark; a shot in the dark.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feeling or thoughts does the darkness in my dream provoke – can I define what they are?

Is this a warm comfortable darkness or one of foreboding and heavy feelings?

Are there things I am discovering in the darkness – if so what?

See Avoid Being VictimsResistancesFace Fear

 

Darn

Healing of parts of your nature symbolised by the object being darned. Also a careful, saving attitude.

Dart

Hurtful thought, hatefulness, aggressive sexuality.

Date

Calendar date: This needs to be considered in connection with the other parts of the dream. It can relate to something that happened on that date in the past, and is still important to you in some way. If not that try looking for what you associate with the month, year and numbers in the date. In this way they are a reference point, usually for important experiences or relationships that occurred in the past.

If it is a future date, this may be about the way dreams tend to extrapolate a future from present and past events. It is like drawing a line on a graph from prior performance.

Idioms: bad date: blind date; dates you; up to date.

Romantic ‘date’: Hopes about or insight into a relationship. Release of pleasurable feelings about yourself.

Example: I was in a dorm room and saying goodbye to someone I had been dating. There was a corkboard with old pictures of me on it. I thought it was unusual for him to have these pictures of me. He really liked them, which made me feel like he was really going to miss me, which surprised me. He was trying to kiss me goodbye, but I hesitated because there was a carload of my friends looking at us, and they didn’t approve of our relationship. Then I went to my mom’s house, where I found my dog; she is actually dead in reality. Angie.

Angie’s dream is probably typical of ‘date’ dreams. In it she is assessing the relationship and realising that he really likes her. It also show how the pressure of her friends attitude interferes with her own natural feelings. Then the dog shows the coming alive again of warm feelings that were dead.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the dream telling me about the date?

Was it with and ex or a new friend?

Did it work out well or a complete disaster?

See Integrating an Ex Difficult Relationship – Characters and People in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams


Daughter

Dreaming about your child often relates to how you feel about her. Is she an adventurous creative person? If so then it will usually be depicting your own feelings of creativity and risk taking. Is she an introverted person, or anxious. Are you worried about her? If so then the dream is either about your own urges to withdraw, or your feelings of concern for her.

Any child is a fruit, an expression of the marriage or relationship from which she sprang. So she can represent what is happening, or what is being felt, about the relationship. So a sick child could represent problems in the relationship.

In a mother’s dream: Your daughter could represent the support you get from her; any ties you feel through being her parent; or even your own feelings and difficulties at her age, that might be surfacing at the time of the dream. You might even be feeling her as a competitor because of her youth.

A feelings of not being alone in the area of emotional bonds; or one’s feeling area. It can also represent the responsibility or the ties of parenthood.

Sometimes it is oneself at that age; one’s own urges, difficulties, hurts, which may still be operative.

A comparison. The mother might see the daughter’s youth, opportunity, and have feelings about that. So the daughter may represent her sense of lost opportunity and youth – even envy; competition in getting the desire of a man.

In a father’s dream: Your daughter usually represent your feelings, your more feminine or receptive side. So problems in the dream could suggest you are having difficult allowing your feelings to mature. She could also depict whatever difficult feelings you have about mistake you have made in the relationship, or self recriminations you experience. When she starts courting, dreaming of her might also point out the struggle you have to let go.

One’s relationship with the daughter – in other words what feelings you have had regartding her recently. The daughter, or son, can represent what happens in a marriage between husband and wife. The child is what has arisen from the bonding, however momentary, of two people.

In dreams the child therefore is sometimes used to depict how the relationship is faring. So a sick daughter might show the feelings in the relationship being ‘ill’. See Characters and People in Dreams this can help enormously in understanding your dream.

In a father’s dream: One’s feeling self; the feelings or difficulties about the relationship with daughter. Or it can illustrate the struggles one’s own feeling self goes through to mature; how the sexual feelings are dealt with in a family situation – occurs especially when she starts courting. It can also indicate ones sister; parental responsibility; one’s wife when younger.

Someone else’s daughter: Feelings about one’s own daughter; feelings about younger women.

Death of daughter: This can sometimes suggest you are losing your daughter because she is becoming independent. But it can signify feelings of great loss, or the end of something such as a relationship.

Example: ‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F.

Such dreams of the daughter becoming independent can occur as soon as the child starts school, persisting until the mother finds a new attitude. See: child; woman.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What way do I describe my daughter to a stranger?

What are my secredt feelings about her?

What was my relationship with her in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working With

Dawn Dawning

dawn Beginning of understanding; illumination; a new beginning; hope. Our youth or the first part of our life; energy; enthusiasm.

The emergence from darkness, depression or confusion. Also the beginning of a new cycle, a new period that is lit by the sun. A healing because of a new approach, a fresh perspective or a breakthrough in understanding.

Idioms: crack of dawn; dawn of history; dawn on me; greet the dawn.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this show an illumination, or beginning of understanding?

Am I hopeful about something?

Am I embarking on a new phase of life?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldLearning to Allow Yourself

Day and Night

day: Mostly our mood. In the example Kim feels bright and cheerful. An overcast day would be the reverse. Also it means being conscious; ‘seeing’ what we are doing; our waking experience. See: lightMorningAfternoonEvening, where relevant.

Example: ‘It was a beautiful hot sunny day, and I was in a children’s playground talking to a woman I knew vaguely.’ Kim B.

night: Similar to dark. Usually the unconscious, dark, or little sensed areas of oneself. It can sometimes indicate loneliness or areas of subtly felt urges or feelings, or even fear of being attacked, or even fear of being attacked, or even fear of being attacked. See: Night.

Sometimes: Freedom. We may be constrained by the social or moral rules we apply to ourselves during the ‘day’ or waking consciousness. But on the edge of consciousness, or in sleep, we find a wonderful freedom which allows us escape. It might be shown by escaping from a house at night and running away. See: dark.

In the example the secrecy occurs because parts of Tom’s childhood experience were ‘hidden’ behind the forgetfulness or unconsciousness of emotional hurt.

Example: ‘I was creeping through a field at night. In darkness I and others were trying to accomplish some secret act, rather as spies or underground agents might.’ Tom.

 

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the day express our mood or interest?

Could it mean that we are mpre conscious?

Am I finding a new life or freedom?

See Meditation with SeedTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Dead

Seeing something dead in your dream suggests you are realising that some part of yourself, or your feelings, are no longer expressing fully. In fact you may have killed that part of you by denying it, repressing, or freezing it from normal life. The ‘death’ may even have been caused by a painful experience. But even so, it still means you have made a decision – perhaps unconscious – to shut out that part of your life. This can also relate to a lost opportunity or potential.

Some aspect of your outer or inner life is fading, or being superseded by a changed approach, so may be shown as dying. Your drive to achieve something might die, and be shown as a death in your dreams. Changing from adolescence to puberty, maturity to old age, are also shown as oneself dying. Lost opportunities or unexpressed potentials in oneself are frequently shown as dead bodies. All of us unconsciously learn attitudes or survival skills from parents and others. If these are unrecognised they may be shown as dead. Sometimes we have killed the child or teenager in us because of difficulties or trauma at those ages, and these may be seen as a dead person in one’s dream.

Some death dreams may show the awakening of new life in the dreamer. For instance, Sue worked on a dream in which she was told her baby had died. She woke shaking with grief and tears. The dream and emotions appeared to show her becoming alive enough to feel the grief of her past pain as it connected with the death of her hopes, love, and ideals. She had suppressed her pain for so long. In now coming alive enough to feel her emotions, she was feeling at last that something had died in her.

If the death is someone we know: Frequently, as in second example, desire to be free of the person; or unexpressed aggression; perhaps one’s love for that person has ‘died’. We often ‘kill’ our parents in dreams as we move toward independence. Or we may want someone ‘out of the way’ so we do not have to compete for attention and love.

Death of oneself: Exploration of feelings about death; retreat from the challenge of life; split between mind and body. The experience of leaving the body is frequently an expression of this schism between the ego and life processes. Also: Death of old patterns of living – one’s ‘old self’, the loss of the boundaries that limit your awareness to an identity connected only to the body. This latter is usually a willing surrender of self to the process.

The walking dead or rigor mortis: Aspects of the dreamer that are denied, perhaps through fear.

Dancing with or meeting death or dark figure: Facing up to death.

Example: ‘My son comes in and I see he is unwashed and seems preoccupied and as if he has not cared for himself for some days. I ask him what is wrong. He tells me his mother is dead. I then seem to know she has been dead for days, and my two sons have not told anyone. In fact my other son has not even accepted the fact.’ Anthony.

Anthony is a divorcee. Processing the dream he realised the two sons are ways he is relating to the death of his marriage – the children’s mother.

Example: ‘During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.’ Mrs D.

Example: ‘I dream I have a weak heart which will be fatal. It is the practice of doctors in such cases to administer a tablet causing one painlessly to go to sleep – die. I am completely calm and accepting of my fate. I suddenly realise I must leave notes for my parents and children. I must let them know how much I love them, must do this quickly before my time runs out.’ Mrs M.

This is a frequent type of ‘death’ dream. It is a way of reminding ourselves to do now what we want to – especially regarding love.

Although the unconscious has a very real sense of its eternal nature and continuance after physical death, the ego seldom shares this. Unconsciously we realise that collective humanity carries living experience from the life of those now dead. The farmer today unconsciously uses the collective experience of humanity in farming. What innovation he does today his children or others will learn and carry into the future. But apart from that there is life after death. See: Life after Death By Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross.

Idioms: Dead and buried; dead from the neck up / or neck down; dead to the world; play dead.

Dreams about a dead person: Dreaming of someone who is dead, a relative or loved one, is quite common. After all, the person may have played a big part in your life, as for instance a husband or wife. Therefore the influence of their existence is still very much a live in you.

As an example of this, you will probably be able to realise that some of your traits, some of the ways that you think or respond to things, have arisen because of the way you related to the person you dreamt about. So in many cases the dead person indicates the feelings you have about the, the traits you still have alive in you from them. When someone close to you dies you go through a period of change from relating to them as an external reality, to meeting and accepting them as alive in your memories and inner life.

Some dreams of dead people are expressive of attempts to deal with feelings, guilt or anger in connection with the person who died; or your own feelings about death.

Dreams about a Dead husband or wife: Many dreams of dead people come from women who have lost their husband. It is common to have disturbing dreams for some period afterwards; or not be able to dream about the husband or wife at all; or to see the partner in the distance but not get near. In accepting the death, meeting any feelings of loss, grief, anger and continuing love, the dream may become as in the third example. See: Death.

Dead Person

Usually represents some area of our life that has ‘died’. This can refer to death of feelings, such as hopelessness in connection with relationship and the loss of feelings about someone; the depression that follows big changes in our life such as loss of a love partner, job, children. It can also reflect the sense of ones life in general being without the stimulus of motivation and satisfaction, as when one feels oneself in a ‘going nowhere’ relationship or life situation.

The dead person in the dream may link several of these feelings together, as symbols often represent huge areas of our experience. So the dead person my be a part of oneself you want to leave behind, to die out.

Example: I am sitting in a large comfortable room when my husband comes in and starts to take off his overcoat. The room is not one I know but outside there is a lovely garden, which I see when my husband opens the door.  It is a lovely sunny day although my husband has been wearing an overcoat.  The garden is full of flowers so it seems to be summer. As I turn to greet him I see his dead body lying in an open coffin between us. My husband starts talking of our plans for the following day. Pointing to the coffin, I say, “Yes, but we must do something about this first. We can’t leave it here much longer.” My husband goes close to the coffin, takes a long look at the body, his own, says, “Yes, we must. It is beginning to smell.” There the dream ends. I wake up feeling very sad and haunted. I can’t forget it. My husband died over eight years ago.  Mrs. P. M.

The dreamer still has not adjusted to the fact that death is not the end, and so creates a dream that says there is a wonderful life together, and also shows her seeing the dead body which creates a haunted feeling – haunted by her doubts.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent changes…leaving the past behind and moving on?

Do you have a fear of dying?

Do I fear something in life that I’d rather not deal with?

See Inner WorldAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Dead-End

See: Cul-de-sac.

Deaf

There may be a desire not to know what is happening to you, or something you are feeling. Or you might be frightened of hearing something that could hurt you, or to learn things about yourself you do not wish to face.

Dealing – Cards

See: cards-playing

Death

Death of someone known

Death of yourself

Death of child

Death the walking dead or rigor-mortis

Death dancing with or meeting dark figure

There are two forms of death and any study of death needs to be aware of them.

Another person says, ‘Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.

I am a wave on a shoreless sea.
From no beginning
I travel to no goal,
Making my movements stillness.
Constantly I am arriving
And departing,
Being born and dying.
I am always with you
And yet have never been.’

Slightly different but still the same enlightenment. ‘Everything seemed to slip away and I felt as if I melted back into the primal being of the universe. It didn’t seem as if my ego was gone, just melted into everything else. It was blissful.’

Dreaming of death: Some aspect of your outer or inner life is fading, or being superseded by a changed approach or attitude, so may be shown as dying. Your drive to achieve something might die, and be shown as a death in your dreams. Changing from adolescence to puberty, maturity to old age, are also shown as oneself dying. Lost opportunities or unexpressed potentials in oneself are frequently shown as dead bodies.

But death of anything also involves a tremendous release of energy as the form breaks down. But the various levels of energy involved in the death of a person are never lost, for energy cannot ever be lost, it is transferred and used elsewhere. A transformation takes place. The consciousness and energy that gave the body life also goes through a process of transformation into universal life.

All of us unconsciously learn attitudes or survival skills from parents and others. If these are unrecognised they may be shown as dead. Sometimes we have killed the child or teenager in us because of difficulties or trauma at those ages, and these may be seen as a dead person in one’s dream. Some death dreams may show the awakening of new life in the dreamer. For instance, Sue worked on a dream in which she was told her baby had died. She woke shaking with grief and tears. The dream and emotions appeared to show her becoming alive enough to feel the grief of her past pain as it connected with the death of her hopes, love, and ideals. She had suppressed her pain for so long. In now coming alive enough to feel her emotions, she was feeling at last that something had died in her.

Because you cannot actually die in your dreams. It is like you become totally involved in a movie that you can only escape from by waking. But when you wake things are the same – you are not dead – but you have been enriched by a lot of new experiences. I feel so deeply that our society does not let us die. What a terrible thing! The process of death isn’t just your heart stopping, it is a long process of shifting values, of creating a self that is no longer so deeply identified with the things of the world. The way our society is structured forces the ageing individual to go on and on almost like a hunter or warrior tied to processes in the external world trying to pay their way. Why I wonder? It seem so strange that the Stone Age societies living in very difficult circumstances, without our massive technological back-up, could manage to support their ageing and allow them a period of sinking into death. We, with massive resources, cannot do this. I felt a tremendous desire here to let go of all my worldly activities. I wanted to hand all my savings over to my sons and say, look, you care for this. All I ask is for a small amount of money to pay for my food and basic needs. I dearly wanted to give up and live from within myself.

Also parts of ones feelings sometimes die. Our love for someone might die for instance, and so our dream illustrates this with a death, perhaps of that person. Some teenagers dream of their parents dying as they start to become independent. This is a form of killing of dependent feelings about their parents as a means of growth. This happens in some relationships too, where we want to break with the person. See Dimensions of Human Experience

“The dead differ from the living only in this respect: they are in a permanent dream state the subconscious state because the conscious mind of the physical body no longer exists. But the body is an expendable shell, and all else is intact. On the astral level of existence, the sub-conscious mind replaces the conscious mind of the soul, and the superconscious replaces the subconscious.  Hence, in dreams, we find that communication with those who have passed on is more logical than the average person is able to comprehend.” Quote from Edgar Cayce.

Death of someone known: Frequently, as in the example, this might express desire to be free of them, or unexpressed aggression. Perhaps your love for or connection with that person has ‘died’. We often ‘kill’ our parents in dreams as we move toward independence. Or we may want someone ‘out of the way’ so we do not have to compete for attention and love. When someone we know dies lots of things happen to us. First of all we have always thought of the person as being outside of us. Then suddenly they are gone from the outside world, and we either think of them as gone forever never to be seen again; or we do what dreams often do and find them inside of us. In this way we can discover a new relationship with them, either because they now communicate with us as a dead person, or we receive from them what they left in us.

Example: ‘During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.’ Mrs. D.

Death of yourself: You might be exploring your feelings about death, or retreating from the challenge of life. Sometimes it expresses a split between mind and body. The experience of leaving the body is frequently an expression of this schism between the ego and life processes. It could also be death of old patterns of living – your ‘old self’, or the loss of the traits that limit your awareness to an identity connected only to your body.

Example: ‘I dream I have a weak heart which will be fatal. It is the practice of doctors in such cases to administer a tablet causing one painlessly to go to sleep – die. I am completely calm and accepting of my fate. I suddenly realise I must leave notes for my parents and children. I must let them know how much I love them, must do this quickly before my time runs out.’ Mrs. M.

This is a frequent type of ‘death’ dream. It is a way of reminding yourself to do now what you want – especially regarding love.

Example: During a major operation I dreamt I saw my little daughter – dead for many years – standing in a corn field. When she was actually buried the cemetery was skirted by a corn field, and later in life, coming to terms with this early death of a child, I imagined my daughter walking into the corn field. In the dream I walked into the corn field. My daughter was waiting for me with her arms held up. I put my arms to her and we greeted each other smiling. At that point I felt it wasn’t time to die yet, turned and walked out of the corn field.  Ken S. Example: I was upstairs watching T.V. with my dog laying on the bed. I heard a motorbike out in the yard. I went downstairs and the dog followed me and this person on the bike tried to run the dog over. My husband came out and told me to go back to bed. I picked the dog up and started up the stair, reached the top and there was a big gap from the top of the stairs to the bedroom door, so to get to the bedroom I had to jump across this gap. I tried to jump this gap but missed and I fell and hit the bottom. The next thing I remember was I was floating up, I looked down and saw myself lying face down with arms spread out and I suddenly realised I was dead. I was so frightened that I woke up. I had the feelings of fear of dying and that the dog had been killed. I felt no pain.

The dream is obviously about her fear of dying, and also shows that even if one hits the ground one does not actually die, but experiences feelings of dying.

Death of child: Dreaming that your child dies can have several meanings. In some dreams a parent, much to their horror dreams of killing their child; or as one dreamer said, “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of ones child in a dream. Another women describes it differently as follows:

‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F

Mrs F was dreaming about her young daughter leaving her, and she has to grieve it, almost like a death.

This can mean a lot of other things than your actual child dying. For instance a man told me a dream that worried him enormously about walking with his wife and his young son fell down a hole and was apparently dead. But in fact he had had a terrible row with his wife that day, and it was showing the child as what they had created between them. In fact the dream child recovered as did their marriage. Your child dying can also be a warning that your inner child is dying. We each carry some awful memories from childhood that are shown in our dreams as our child. So it is worth taking hold of your apparently dead child – nothing can actually die in our dreams – and hold it and tell it you love it. Watch any feelings that emerge as you do this and any tears you shed. See what you understand from what you feel. Of course this could be a ‘mother’s’ dream in which your terror of losing your child is dreamt. A woman ones told me a dream in which her daughter was murdered. As we helped the woman explore her dream – not interpret it – she burst out into enormous sobs, crying that her daughter was leaving home and she was terrified of losing her. The girl was never murdered. See Baby or child hurt or killed So ask yourself what your fears are about.

But our dream child can represent many things, and it is useful to realise that any person, object or scene in a dream is not a symbol – it is not dead thing that has to be interpreted – it is a living part of you and can only be understood by relating to it. So in this way I have found that a child can represent whatever our strongest feelings about them are. It can represent your marriage or partnership because it is what you have created between you. In that case the death of the child can depict something like an awful argument that feels as if it the marriage has died.

A child and its death can also show you how you have killed out the growing or adventurous side of you; or if you see your child as vulnerable and needing protection it could show you the death of that part of your feelings.

So you need to ask yourself what your dream child depicts as a living part of you.

When our child actually dies it is one of the most heartbreaking experiences we can meet. Sometimes it takes years to adjust to what has happened. Not only is the adjustment emotional and psychological, but also your way of life is often built around the person you have lost. Therefore the changes we meet can be enormous. However, we each have enormous resources of healing and ability to meet the new if we can access them. Very often there are experiences we have, or dreams, that continue our relationship with the child. Unfortunately we live in a culture that often denies the possibility of this. See Life’s Little Secrets

For instance, Dr. Morse, in his book Closer to the Light, tells of a mother who came to him because she hadn’t slept properly for 1041 nights after the death of her son. She showed him a picture of her son, but Dr Morse was suddenly called away to a ward emergency. Having dealt with the sick baby, he was writing up the notes and a nurse who had been helping said to him, ‘Who was that person who came in with you? Is he a student?’ Morse did not understand what the nurse was talking about as nobody had come into the hospital with him. As he was trying to find a pen for the notes he was writing he pulled out the photograph of the woman’s son. Immediately the nurse said, ‘That’s him. He kept trying to get your attention’. When he returned to his office Morse asked the mother if she had ever been contacted by her son after his death. She said, ‘Oh yes. After he died, for several nights he would stand at the foot of my bed and tell me he was alright, and that I should stop crying. But that was only a crazy dream.’ However, such things are not crazy dreams, but insights into a greater reality. After her converstation with Dr. Morse the woman slept properly for the fist time in nearly three years.

Death the walking dead or rigor mortis: Aspects of you that are denied, perhaps through fear.

Death dancing with or meeting dark figure: Facing up to death and developing a different attitude to it – unless of course you are running away. If you turn around and face these figures you will break through to a different way of life. Death of someone close to us: As explained above, this often refers to ones own feelings or talents that have been hurt, denied, or ‘killed out’ by events and your response to them. The following example illustrates this.

‘My son comes in and I see he is unwashed and seems preoccupied and as if he has not cared for himself for some days. I ask him what is wrong. He tells me his mother is dead. I then seem to know she has been dead for days, and my two sons have not told anyone. In fact my other son has not even accepted the fact.’ Anthony.

Anthony is a divorcee. Processing the dream he realised the two sons are ways he is relating to the death of his marriage – the children’s mother. Although the unconscious has a very real sense of its eternal nature and continuance after physical death, our conscious personality seldom shares this.

Also we all we all carry within us ideas, behaviours, talents and ways of life from those now dead. The farmer today unconsciously uses the collective experience of humanity in farming. What innovation he does today his children or others will learn and carry into the future. This aspect of a life beyond the physical is shown in many dreams.

For instance a man I knew dreamt of walking with a friend of his. As they walked they came to a river. The friend crossed, but the dreamer was unable to. Even in the dream he felt crossing the river meant his friend had died. Some time later he discovered that his friend had died at about the time he experienced the dream.

As the dream points out, the friend died, but continued another type of life ‘across the river’. A woman told a similar dream to me. Her teenage son came down to breakfast looking very unhappy. When she asked him why he said he had a dream that deeply disturbed him. In it he was walking with a friend and the friend walked through a door. When her son tried to follow he could not pass through the door. They could not find a rational explanation for the dream, but on arriving at school, her son heard that his friend had been killed in a motorbike accident on his way to school.

The river and the door are often used in this way, suggesting a change to another dimension of life usually unreachable by the living. Idioms: Dead and buried; dead from the neck up/or neck down; dead to the world; play dead; dead to the world; dead tired; drop dead; stone dead; at death’s door; brush with death; death wish; kiss of death; sick to death. See: Dreams of Death; Illness;

Useful questions and hints:

What feelings about death does this dream highlight?

If I imagined the dream being carried forward, how would I change it?

Am I changing and my past self dying?

If this is someone I know what are my feelings about them – and where are those feelings arising in me at the moment? What part of myself have I killed?

See Being the Person or Thing – Near Death Experiences – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death

 

Debt

You may be feeling you owe something to someone, or to society. We are all, in fact, in debt for our life. Do you have a feeling that you have not given to others what they, in their life, have given to you? Have you promised something that you have not taken care of?

Some dreams show the recognition of your deep links with your culture, and the enormous debt you have to it for language and the formation of your identity. Recognition of your cultural inheritance is the gaining of a new life, and is an access to a wider awareness.

Dreaming of financial debt probably shows you in a state of anxiety or tension that needs to be dealt with. Often if we explore the dream it shows a way out if the difficulty.

Debt also suggests actions in the past, either performed by you or someone else. This means there are things to deal with in the present arising from that past. Strangely dreams sometimes suggest paying off a debt is involved in the difficulties of your life. Living through difficulties is paying off your debt.

Example: ‘I am sitting in a high window box facing outwards, with my son and a friend of his on my left. I feel very scared of falling and asked my son and his friend to climb back into the building. I feel too scared to move until they shift.’ Trevor N.

At the time of the dream, for the first time in his life, Trevor was working as a full time freelance journalist. His wife was out of work and his frequency of sales low enough to cause them to be running out of money. The building behind felt like a place he had worked in on a nine to five basis, so associated it with security. Falling was fear of failure, getting in debt, dropping into the feelings of self doubt and being incapable and feeling inadequate.

It can sometimes express the idea of not living up to the mark; a sin or trespass; not giving to others what they, in their life, have given to you. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”


Useful questions:

What influence from the past am I facing at the moment?

Is there something I owe someone or to society, that I need to pay?

What do I feel indebted to or what given that I have not been rewarded for?

Why do I feel in debt?

Who do I feel in debt to?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of HabitsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Decapitation

See beheading

Decay Decayed Decaying

This suggest a sense of something in your life not being alive and expressive. Possibly it is something you are not proud of, or you feel ‘rotten’ about. Occasionally this could indicate something not working well in your body or feelings.

Rotten might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship; a hunch or feelings about something, such as memories.

Example: I look at the trunk of the thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

In exploring the dreamer the man in looking at his hand and realises there was a hole in his life. He took note of what he felt. Just prior to the dream he had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether his marriage was breaking up. The dream made him realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps.

This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life. He could see that as a person he only entertained thoughts and emotions. They were simply what he thought and felt about reality, not reality itself. It was up to him as to what he wanted reality to be. Did he want to entertain the reality of the tired ageing man who could no longer satisfy his wife’s need for love and companionship, having nothing worthwhile to contribute to others? That could certainly become reality if he allowed such feelings to dominate him. He had thought that his life was like a giant thistle, but on closer inspection he saw it was a giant hardwood. It did have branches which needed pruning, but the rest of the tree was good and perfumed – giving off good feelings to others. So he decided to put love and care into his life and marriage instead of self doubt and a sense of defeat.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel is decaying of rotten in my life?

How do I meet these feelings of something decaying?

Is it about ageing?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams –  Life’s Little SecretsTransfiguration


Deceased

See death; death and dreams

Decision

Whatever decision you make in your dream, it is wise to look at the drama and details of the dream to understand why the decisions was made, or out of what influences or needs. The dream process often brings to your awareness insights that help you to choose your way or direction, and these should be considered. But dreams should not be seen as totally saying what you must do, only as wise advisors.

But many decisions arise out of old angers, hurts or fears, so make sure you are not acting out of those. Unconditional and detached love and insight are the best attitudes to act from.

There are also life decisions we make that are not always made by clear thinking or as an adult. Even as a baby we can experience enormous feeling reaction to some situations we are confronted by. These reactions constitute a decision, even though not made consciously. From that point onwards we, as the baby or child, will respond to a similar situation in a given way. For instance a baby may have found so little love and warmth from it mother, and so much care from someone else, it alters its responses to its mother, and transfers it bonding and warmth to someone else. Such decisions have enormous influence on adult life, and are often not recognised for what they are, and so are not re-evaluated.

We are all the time deciding, although most of the time we do it unconsciously. We do it as habits of response, as habitual attitudes and feelings; even our habitual fears and beliefs are building blocks of our decisions and faculty of deciding.

Imagine a woman or man who constantly feels they are a failure; not only that they feel fear that they will never change and to find it they will have to die. Their fear and their beliefs turn them away from making or trying any new approach. As they say, “I cannot let myself express my feelings because I am frightened I will not survive”.

Of course we have met such people. They suffer crippling depression, and are convinced that what they suffer is incurable. And it is such etched in convictions that are the things that imprison them. See Life’s Little Secrets

Out of such things we create the decisions we make. But of course there is another route, and this person feels certain, from looking around at life in the plants, trees and animals. That Life is a process which constantly tries to heal any wound. It does it best to do this in vomiting up what we have taken in, or as a boil creating a situation to get rid of a poison. And as unpleasant as that is it is the way we are healed physically and psychologically.

It is not a case of thinking positively, but of being aware the direction our thoughts or decisions take us. So our decisions are important as the second example explains.

Example: “I had woke that morning with a headache.  This was very unusual so I knew another lump of pain was ready to come up.   For some weeks my sessions had all been centred around being a tiny baby left to cry.  As that baby I had hungered for my mother with every ounce of my being.  I don’t suppose many adults can conceive of a condition where any feeling or desire is totally engulfing.  We are used to thinking of that sort of being swallowed up and possessed by a feeling as madness.  Because of the pain most of us feel when we really begin to experience our deep yearning we do relate to our deepest feelings in a sick mad way.  Yet a baby is neither sick nor mad, but it is totally engulfed in its feelings. See LifeStream

I had been experiencing this in the sessions in which I opened to LifeStream (LS), and how as a baby I had killed my longing when nobody came.  And because of that I had not as an adult been able to really let myself feel deeply in relationships.  Or when I did begin to go deep into a feeling relationship with someone it brought great pain.  So I thought the thing coming up was another lump of baby pain.

As soon as I had an opportunity I had a session.  I had been sitting in with a friend while she had a session, and now we swapped roles.  As I lay down the pain in the head increased. I felt sick and dizzy.  My body began to jerk and it was like words being forcefully squeezed out of my body.  It feels as if those words, and the emotions pouring out with them, were literally in the body, like juice is in an apple, and the process of LS, squeezes out this painful juice.

At first the words were just a jumble of noise being pushed out as my body cramped up and squeezed.  Then I was shouting out ‘I’ve got VD  I’ve got VD’  Then every so often I would gasp out ‘A father…s father…’

I didn’t understand at this point what it was meaning, but I knew from the past it would explain itself if I let it come, and there was no need to analyse or think it out.

Now the body contractions became deeper and I could feel some real deep emotion in my chest just beginning to come up. ‘Dirty,  I’m dirty,’ I was shouting.  ‘I’m a father and I’m dirty’.  Then my body just gave a big heave like I was having a baby or something, or a tooth out, and I was just one frozen block of pain, and a great moan of pain came out.  I was sobbing and moaning about my children.  Hardly able to say it because of the pain and sobbing, nevertheless the words squeezed out of me ‘D…. Duh …Does.. a… Does a father…’  I just couldn’t go on for a while.  My body contorted up with this inner emotional pain again, and a sort of bellow of it came up from deep down.  Then the words came again.  ‘Does a father…Does a father kill his children?’

I couldn’t take it.  I just wept.  I knew that’s what I had been doing for years.  That’s what most of us are doing, only we can’t and won’t see it. We kill the bright hopes and joys of our children. We forced education upon them, and education thought up by people themselves with a hurt amounts of pain in them. But even though we hide from it, the pain of it is there like poison juice in our body.  Now mine was being squeezed out and the words were like pips forcing out of my mouth.

Example: Somehow I had managed to enter what people call the unconscious – yet I was far from being asleep or unaware. Instead I was wandering through the vastness of my own inner world and I could also see my waking self and everyday life. My outer life seemed to me to be like the surface of the earth, where things like plants and people sprout from seeds and grow. Whereas where I was I knew as the creator, the Source which gave all things life.

But as I wandered and was amazed at what I was experiencing I realised that I was looking for a way out, an escape from the awful depression and pain I was lost in. Knowing that I was in the very foundations of my being I thought there was a doorway out, a release; or else I could manipulate it to find some escape.

So I looked and sought, but all I saw was a world I had created, and as such a world I could not escape from. It was such a crushing realisation that every thing I had decided to do was my own work in creating a hell. It wasn’t a hell that was a punishment because I saw I had created it. And any release could only come through starting to create a new me. It was all so clear – no escape from myself.

In that clarity I saw that all the woes of my life, the terrible things I had met, the afflictions we apparently have as an accident, were all my own awful creativeness. As Kipling says, “And lose, and start again at your beginnings.” Fortunately the lesson was so well impressed on me that I could not blame my fortune on fate, God, others, my mother or the people around me – it was all my own work. And fortunately too I had time and strength to start again.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware that I constantly shape my life through my decision?

What is the driving force of my decisions – fear, depression, hopelessness or love?

Can I accept the responsibility of my life situation and not blame it on God or other people?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of HabitsYou Are a Dual Being

Decoy

Means you lead others to believe something you really do not feel, or think. A self deception of what you feel. For instance a man, because a job offers a high wage, may lead him to believe he likes the work, but inwardly hates it.

This could also be the warning, either of a trap you have created to trick someone, or else you sense it is put out to catch you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I being led into or leading another into a deception?

Am I deceiving my self or even lying?

What is the decoy about or for?

See Dream Yoga –  Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Deep Deeper

Most of the processes of our body and mind take place without our having any awareness of them. Going deep underground or into water usually shows you becoming more aware of what is taking place in these usually unconscious parts of yourself.

It can also mean you are becoming more aware of the past strands of influence from family and culture, out of which your present personality was or is woven.

Another meaning is that it can link with experience of life in the womb.

You can be deeply troubled, experiencing deep peace or relaxation, deep emotions,  deeply in love, or in deep trouble.

Usually we live on the surface of our mind. In sleep we dive down deeper but lose sense of self. If we maintain some awareness in these ‘deeps’ of the mind, it is somewhat like snorkelling in a deep sea. We realise what immense and unbelievable depths lie beneath us. Dreams often portray this as depth – a hole; deep water; a chasm; space.

It can also indicate our non verbal life in the womb, or early childhood, which is remembered as patterns of feeling reaction rather than verbal utterance. In the depths we may find gems, skeletons, archaeological objects, and these relate to the memory of our evolutionary past, family influences we carry within us unknown.

Deep cuts: Suggests a hurt which penetrates us; or emotions which affect us powerfully.


Idioms: In deep water; in the deep end; deeply troubled; deeply hurt.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I experiencing as deep – water , sleep, peace, despair?

How am I dealing with the depth?

Am I anxious about it to is it a revelation?

See AbyssHoleTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Deepening Dream Understanding

The methods described above will throw light on most dreams, even if you do not take time to write out fuller associations. When the insights gained in this way become useful, you may wish to increase your skill still further. Therefore, below, and throughout the book, additional information is given on how to draw out the wisdom in dreams. A working attitude toward them is also outlined.

I suggest you only try one method at a time and use it until you are capable or it or it doesn’t work for you, then move on to other methods taking time with them until you find what works best for you.

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

Dream Processing – The following dream needs no deep techniques of processing. The word ‘processing’ is used throughout the book instead of analysis. Analysis has the connotation of giving our own thoughts or opinions to the dream. Processing is used to suggest extraction of information which leads to insight. With this particular dream, all it needs is a few facts brought to it to make clear what information it holds. The dream is that of a young woman, Mrs C. L.

It is a bright sunny day. I am walking across a large concrete car park. It is empty except for a huge trailer from a truck. It has BOOTS written on the side, and stands high off the ground. Being 4’ 9’ tall myself I decide to walk underneath. As I am half way the trailer starts to be lowered on top of me. I try to shout but cannot. I get onto my hands and knees and the trailer still kept coming down. I am now lying on my stomach, convinced it is going to crush me. Then it suddenly stops a couple of inches from my head. I wake feeling terrible.

The dream is interesting, although the information it holds may at first not be obvious. But with a minimum of processing the dream information will become clear. The first technique of processing the dream is to recognise some of the key statements within it. These are I AM WALKING – I TRY TO SHOUT – CONVINCED IT IS GOING TO CRUSH ME.

The reason these are key statements is because the dreamer is saying ‘I am walking’ – ‘I try to shout’ – ‘I …am convinced’. The word ‘I’ is important.

This form of processing has not added anything to the dream. It has simply drawn attention to the information already there in the dreamer’s description of her experience – this is why it is useful to write the dream out fully. If we add a little more information which the dreamer herself connects with the dream, then it becomes even clearer. Mrs C. L. says, ‘I work for BOOTS the chemist. The employees at the shop I work in were told at the beginning of the year that Boots are selling our shop. When that happens I will be made redundant. We were supposed to finish on May 26th. It is now the end of July. The deal fell through so we are now just left hanging indefinitely until a new buyer comes along. I feel very unsettled as I can’t make any plans for the future.’

Having read these comments, it would be difficult not to see the dream as relating to the woman’s work situation, and to her strong anxiety connected with it. She herself says – through her dream – she is ‘convinced it – the situation – is going to crush’ her. She also feels her strong emotions about this – expressed in her attempt to shout – are not being expressed or ‘heard’. From just this one dream, we can be forgiven if we assume that dreams may express in dramatic form our feeling reaction to the circumstances of our everyday life. Taking this dream as information, Mrs. C. L. could see she is feeling crushed by the situation, yet not stating her feelings loudly enough to be heard. She might therefore speak to the manager to clarify the situation for herself.

Here is an even shorter and less complex dream. It has been left just as it was written so its information is immediately apparent. The key words here might be TRYING TO CONTACT HIM and NOT UNDERSTANDING WHY HE LEFT ME. The dream is from Mrs C. J.

Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him, not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

On speculating about the dream from what is immediately apparent, we might say that although it is irrational to continually  try to contact her husband when there has never be any success, nevertheless, her desire to be with him continues year after year. This same part of her cannot understand why he died. We might put such feelings into words as, ‘But what had he done to die so young? Why should it happen to me twice?’ We can also assume that her desire to understand these questions, which is what contacting her husband represents, is expressed in the dream as the telephone.

The dream process has dramatised her situation and inner feelings – given them form and made them experiential. Looking at this dream helps us see how an image, such as the telephone, performs exactly the same sort of function as a spoken word, although in a different way. Namely, it represents feelings and thoughts. That the woman’s questions remain, that her problem is unsolved, is apparent from the fact she does NOT make contact on the telephone, and does not find peace. Understanding her dream shows her the importance of the questions she continually asks herself, and the need to release the emotions behind them. With this she could be free of the dream. If she cannot manage this by herself, taking advantage of the professional help of a therapist might help.

To make it clear how everything is a dream holds personal information, to give an example, I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

For fuller Dream Processing – Below are described simple techniques that make it possible to quickly gain information from your dreams. They have been put as a series of questions. If you take time to consider and answer the question you will find your way into a new experience of dream understanding.

Read it in: Processing Your Dream

Link to the next section of Introduction


Deer

The soul, the gentle harmless self that is often hurt or wounded by our aggressiveness and cynicism, or by other people’s criticism; vulnerability; the unsocialised or wild, but gentle side of our instincts; love-sickness.

In Greek mythology the deer was associated with the virginal huntress Artemis. So the female deer in a dream suggests the qualities of female gentleness and the connection with nature and the hidden world of the unconscious with all its strange wisdom. While the stag often links with bold and powerful masculinity and sexuality in a natural and potent form.

The Core Self often appears as a deer, or woodland creature in dreams. Below is a quote from Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbols.

Example: “I am your child and your mother. They call me the ‘connecting animal’ because I connect people, animals, and even stones with one another if I enter them. I am your fate or the ‘objective I.’ When I appear, I redeem you from the meaningless hazards of life. The fire burning inside me burns in the whole of nature. If a man loses it, he becomes egocentric, lonely, disoriented, and weak.”

Example: As I walked the meadow my dog was running free. I felt I must call him to heal, as there were grazing animals about. I called him and saw him coming, almost wraith like, or like a spirit form, shadowy and powerful looking. He was running behind a wonderful looking beast – a mixture between a sheep a gazelle and a deer. The remarkable thing about it was its colouring. There were bright blues on its hindquarters, and radiant almost transparent colours elsewhere, perhaps on its head. I shouted to stop my dog frightening the creature. It ran towards me and jumped into my arms, very fearful, but relaxing and feeling safe as I held it. I could sense its emotions of terror. I seemed to feel what it was feeling inside. It was a creature without any means of defence except to run. So it was frightened for its life. This sense of its inner condition was impressive as I knew what it was like to be that creature when hunted. I also could feel how it could feel safe in my arms because somehow it was like handing over its defence to a sort of mother, as a baby might.

Then I seemed to look at the creature anew and saw that it had a much bigger body than I had first thought. In fact it must have been different because when in my arms it was small, but now it seemed to be about the size of a fallow deer.

In the above dream the man actually feels the quality of his inner condition represented by the deer.

Deer are sometimes used to indicate a sexual longing for a woman – the hunter and hunted. The sexual implication of the deer hunt is underlined by a medieval English folk song called “The Keeper”:  The first doe that he shot at he missed, And the second doe he trimmed he kissed, And the third ran away in a young man’s heart, She’s amongst the leaves of the green O”.

In a man’s dream: The deer may depict a young woman the man is in pursuit of, or a daughter if you have one.

In a woman’s dream: The deer may link with you as a young woman, or to a daughter if you have one.

Killing a deer: It can suggest many things depending upon the rest of the dream – the killing of the feminine, feelings self; a willing sacrifice such as crucifixion; male conquest of the feminine.

Because animals, plants and all creatures are expressions of the One Life, and so have the divine spark of life in them the same a humans, and because animals and deer are seen as examples of the Creator of the one Life’s awareness. the deer often represent the ability to know both the hidden worlds and the world of the known body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the qualities of the deer in your dream?

Does it link in any way with a feeling of entering the magical realm of nature or the unknown?

Are you feeling about it as you would with a female?

If a stag, are there symbols linking it with sexuality, such as its horns or its attraction to you?

See AnimalAnimal ChildrenBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Defecate

Self expression; release of tension; getting rid of negative experience or emotions; creative expression; permitting the natural in oneself. See: excrement ; Faeces.

Example: After seeing my woman and daughter off I felt so angry that I give so much and yet when I try to speak to those I have known so well all I get as a response is lies or shit. These past few days have seen my kids putting me down, Nan in many ways doing the same, my lover is not being truthful. I give them my home, time, money, and love and feel, they just want to keep harping on about the past or, if you don’t do it my way attitude, then your a bastard. Any way I kicked fuck out of the settee, it’s like being left alone again. I sense what they are feeling yet when I ask and they don’t confirm I go back into insecurity.

Idioms: sometimes life is a bucket of shit and the handle is inside; a pinch of coon shit; up shit creek; that’s a crock (of shit); in deep shit; dump on; take a dump; the shit hit the fan; wouldn’t say shit if her mouth was full of it; get your shit together; shit or get off the pot; happy as a pig in shit; shitting bricks; shit list.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel shitty about?

Have you released it or do you still need to?

Do you identify with any of the idioms?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsQuestions

Defence Defend Defended Defending

Any sort of defence system such as a castle, a shield, weapons, fighting, may depict one of the basic ways of dealing with life – being defensive. Defensiveness means that in some way one wards off the impact of life experiences. In this way the influence of these experiences negative or positive, are kept from being taken in and absorbed or integrated.

For instance a person may have very rigid religious beliefs and defend themselves from hearing anything which enlarges or questions these beliefs. They may do this by arguing away any other ideas or experiences, or by holding a sense of righteousness and difference between themselves and other people. Similarly one can defend using clever intellectual argument which yet has no open doors to allow new ideas, feelings or new experience. See: castle; defence mechanisms; anima under archetypes.

The most ancient part of our brain, one we share with reptiles and birds is called the R complex – R for reptilian. This part of your brain deals with deeply instinctive behaviour such as flight, fight, procreation, swallowing, automatic reflexes, inbuilt mating behaviour, territorial defence and aggression. This R complex developed about 200 million years ago and is still an underpinning part of what influences your behaviour today. Dreams often portray these urges in you as snakes or lizards and are part of our defence system – or, if it is mot dealt with well it becomes inturned and destructive. See Levels of the Brain

Example: William massaged at the area and discovered a pea sized nodule. It was like a concentrated lump of pain. When he pressed I started moaning, crying, and at one point, laughing. I realised that not being influenced by anyone was a defence I had used for most of my life. Underneath that was the laughing. As William continued words started coming up by themselves. The cries of pain were real, but without linking with feelings. I felt this massage method could release the pain, but it would be like a dry labour, long and unnecessarily painful.

Later I found quite few of these nodules of pain on my back, and then I learnt how to really express anger from my past by beating hell out of cushions with a stick. Then slowly the nodules disappeared.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I defending against?

Can I recognise ways I defend myself with very rigid beliefs?

Do I ever get aggressive when faced with some idea or belief?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsNothing Can Hurt You in Your DreamsDreams are a reflection of your inner world

 

Deformity

Part of your nature, that due to fear, repression or ignorance has not been able to grow in its natural beauty. This often happens from traumatic childhood experience. Or it could be something you do not like about yourself.

The deformity also can say that whatever is affected does not work well, so you cannot express fully because of it. Often this deformed part of you, often shown as someone else or child, needs love to help it grow into it full form in your life.  See abnormal; dwarf


Useful questions:

Do I in some way feel inadequate?

Have I been traumatized in the past and now need to develop my potential?

What does the deformity suggest is not functioning well in me?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsThe power of Habits

Degenerate Degenerating

There is a feeling of sliding back, of not living up to what you hope and desire. It occasionally refers to some process in the body that needs caring for, or is degenerating through misuse or misunderstanding. Sometimes refers to ageing, or the prelude to a rebirth where degeneration heightens prior to regeneration.

Parts of our nature, through lack of self worth or feelings of guilt, often prompt us to do things or live in ways that slide right back from our best. This might be indicated by someone or something that is degenerate or degenerating. Our beliefs can also degenerate and this can lead to conditions of uncertainty or feelings of lostness or even apathy.

In dreams we can often dream of a degenerate alcoholic or a degenerate woman, and these can sometimes point to things that are not admitted by the dreamer. For instance a man who constantly irritates people by his holy than you attitude might dream of the alcoholic passedout in a street, in order to aid him to balance his opinion of himself. The man dreaming of a degenerate woman, in a similat way, might be helped to see that his female self is not a nice person and needs some work being done on his nature.

Also degeneration is part of our natural processes, as in our digestive system, and the decay and eath of thousand of cells each day. We die to be born again; and because of this it represents life as well as death, growth and renewal, as well as degeneration and decomposition. So it can in fact be a way of perfect union, balance, equality and atonement of the different parts of our being.

Our culture, government and our way of life can also sometimes be seen as degenerate or degenerating. Things that do not have a good foundation, things that are degenerate, diseased or weak, do in a way shake themselves to bits through their own internal energy because of the energy playing upon it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is the dream showing degeneration?

Do I feel or see any signs of this in myself?

Is it parts of my nature or body that are shown as degenerate in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being VictimsResistances

Delay

Frustration. Putting things off. Unwillingness to make a decision, or confront or acknowledge that which is symbolised in dream.

But delay can point to delayed development, delay in speaking to someome, delau in getting on with what you intended, with a relationship, with life.

It might link with an unexpected delay in some area of your life, with frustration or irritation, or even lack of energy to move or be sexual.

The end of the world was only delayed by the efforts of the devout in some religious beliefs. Peoples living in the uncertainty of seasonal changes and unreliable harvests, may have expressed their deep fears and hopes through such rituals and beliefs.

Example: I dream that once at the doctor’s, after some delay, I am given the serum for the snake bite after first being ‘branded’ with some initials – imprinted on my arm, supposedly so they will immediately know what killed me  if I die which is very likely!

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this indicate that I have been putting things off?

Am I have difficulty making a decision about something?

Is there something important I should be remembering about a situation?

See ResistancesActive PassiveTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Dell

A quiet retreat within yourself. A way you have found of creating inner quiet. Female sexual organs. Sometimes the dell is shown as a magical place where you are in touch with the usually hidden life beyond your usual senses.

The part of yourself that is not unconscious but out of the way of general awareness, and so hidden attitudes or desires can take place there. It can also be the place the refuse of your life gathers.

Example Dreamt that there was a green and beautiful place on top of the world. It had crags and cliffs and vales and hills, and all was covered with bright green grass and moss. In a deep dell, more green and beautiful than the rest of the place, a young girl met a young man, and married him; for what reason I cannot tell, except perhaps that the place was beautiful. Now the young man was an alien from another planet, but he did not tell the young girl in case she would not marry him.

‘As time passed the young girl and man drifted apart and slept in separate rooms, still on top of the world, and the young girl grew to hate the young man, although he seemed unaware of it and quite content.

‘This then was their state when I arrived. I immediately leapt and skipped over the hills to the place where they had met, but found it no different in appearance to the rest of the hills: no more beautiful, no less. I then went to see the young man and talked to him. I explained to him the feelings of the young girl, and that it was because she did not understand him that she felt the way she did. Whereupon he immediately went to her and confessed to being an alien, and she accepted him as he was. Then they grew together again and slept in beds side by side and peace filled their nights and beautiful children one after the other were born to the young girl. And the young man was surprised and amazed beyond his comprehension.’


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is taking place in the dell and what is that in my life?

Am I experiencing something that is usually out of sight here?

What magic or unusual am I finding here?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreamscarry the dream forward


Deluge

A release of emotions that you feel as overwhelming, as might be experienced in breakdown or shock. The deluge is also often a sign of release and a cleaning of withheld emotions or problems. As such it probably signifies a time of change, usually brought about spontaneously rather than by your conscious acts. Defenses you have used to prevent this are washed away. In fact any emotional pain felt in connection with this may be a struggle between your will and the forces of nature within you. See: Water.

Dreams about water, rain, floods, deluges sometimes indicate situations of the mucous or excessive water in the body. In such cases it might be wise to take less salt, and more brweres yeast tablets and vitamin C, which helps the body deal with such illnesess.

As with Noah, it symbolises in some dreams a cleansing of mind and body.

In some cases one can have a deluge of raging emotions – or in a dream a deluge might indicate that.

Example: I see to my left a picture flash, like a vision, of ocean water or some sort of rushing water coming from a distance. A deluge? Earthquake? Terrible storms? All I know is that some natural calamity of terrible magnitude is coming and will wipe out the people. It is coming much sooner than anticipated and it is almost upon us. Many people will die and they don’t even realise what is coming.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the deluge doing in my dream?

Was I involved or  just a witness to it?

Did I feel any feelings, fear, hope?

See  TsunamiTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEmotions and Mood in Dreams


Delve

To explore memories, past experiences, inner contents, underlying feelings. See: digging.

The dreamer of the example was starting to delve into himself and the dream shows him ready to give his life to dealing with his internal conflicts. It also shows the love and courage necessary to make this journey.

Imagine, if you have not already made the journey into dreams, delving into the level of yourself where your eyes no longer see, your body sense of form or size and touch have disappeared. There is no hearing of the external world. You are sinking into the country of what we call the mind or consciousness, the world of sleep, death and dreams, in which the usual boundaries of experience are taken away. Here you meet – given form by your fears and cultural symbols, as if with real bodies – your own fears, the pains buried deep in your past, the residues of all past actions so far unredeemed and of course the wonder of yourself.

Example: ‘I entered a neglected garden adjoining a house I had formerly lived in. I was astonished that I had never noticed this garden before. I took a spade and hoe and began to vigorously work in order to put things right, digging like a navy. But wherever I put my spade I turned up live shells and hand grenades – highly explosive and very dangerous. I was terrified I would be blown to pieces and hurried away.’ From Organism of The Mind, G. R. Heyer, Kegan Paul, 1933.

That is an example of someone who knows nothing of his inner world and was not prepared to meet it. In fact one cannot be hurt by dream images.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I delving for – and did you find anything?

What you find has tremendous significance?

What did I feel about whatever was found?

See Inner WorldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLevels of Awareness


Demolish Demolished Demolition

The breakdown of ideas, philosophies, emotional attitudes, or ways of life in which you have been established. The threat to hopes you have cherished. The feeling that some other person is undermining us by criticism, arrogance, antagonism or aggressiveness.

Major changes in your inner or outer life have been, or are being, undertaken. This often shows the breakdown of old attitudes and approaches. This may threaten the hopes you have cherished.

Or the dream might indicate that another person is undermining you by criticism, arrogance, antagonism or aggressiveness.  Demolition is the state of breakdown of the past, so look for signs of new development.


Useful questions:

What is it that is being broken down in myself or in my situation?

Is this an internal process or arising from my life situation?

What do I feel this is leading to?

See Martial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Demon

Expression of things in life and yourself that you feel threatened by. You may feel an urge is sinful, so you repress it. Your dream then presents it as a demon or devil, not necessarily because it is, but because that’s how you see it. Thus, a person who has terrible feelings of guilt about sexual urges, may represent them as a demon threatening to possess them. Therefore a demon may represent guilt, hatred, feelings of uncleanness, aggressiveness or desire for love, and so on. See: Devil; Satan.

Although many dreams about demons are probably reflecting anxiety feelings and struggles we have with moral issues or sex, sometimes the battle with demons can be about our body fighting a virus or bacterial infection. See: devilunder archetypes.

Example: We were trying to cross the hall diagonally toward the exit, but were constantly attacked or haunted by black demons or ghosts. I was fighting them off, but the struggle went on and on as they came back. Then toward the end I had a large pole and I was smashing them aside shouting, “By the power of God within me, I dismiss you” – or words to that effect.

The dreamer says of this dream, “I felt a slightly sore throat as I became semi awake wondering about the dream. I remembered that yesterday I had a flu injection, and what I arrived at was that the blackness depicted serious illness that I had been fighting off. As I was looking at this the black demons became very real for me and I felt I could not really dismiss them as an influence. I struggled and struggled with this, as I had in the dream, but now semi awake. But gradually I became aware of peace, a solid unmovable peace – a steadiness of consciousness – and the steady peace seemed to dissolve any threat I felt. Also the sore throat went.”

This suggests how we can deeply influence our health and recovery by our attitudes.

Example: I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that someone I know (an old family friend of my parents) had purchased a new house, which was not yet furnished. But the house is apparently possessed by the Devil. We, some friends and I, have been called into the house to analyze the situation. Each time I speak the word Devil or Satan, the lights of the house switch off automatically on their own.

Well, I decide in consultation with the people and in my thoughts in the dream to perform an exorcism on the house. I chant some prayers for the house to be cleansed. (These are Hindu prayers, and parts of Psalm 99 from the Bible). I find myself standing with some friends in front of a life-size rectangular mirror which has been kept against the wall, facing us upright on the floor. When I stand in front of the mirror, I cast no reflection on it. But my friends do.
Throughout the dream, I was not afraid even one bit of trying to challenge the devil or in my entire thought process.

Here is an interpretation of the dream’s meaning: I think here is the answer: “When I stand in front of the mirror, I cast no reflection on it. But my friends do. So I hear myself say that “The devil is doing this to the mirror cos I am fighting to get rid of him.””

In the best of Hindu and Christian traditions, you are the Devil because at your Core you are everything. In Hindu there is the saying, “You are That” – or “I am That.” THAT being the Divine. In Christian belief we are told, to quote: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”.

As an image of God you are everything. And that is why your dream did the little trick of showing you without reflection in the mirror. Once you realise that dreams create an external reality of our inner world, then an aspect of you become exteriorised. As in past ages this was a world that people lived in, they made the devil and God as exterior to themselves instead of realising the truth about themselves. That we are all, in our core, the divine.

Having watched a person meet the devil in their dream exploration, what they arrived at is very helpful in understanding your dream devil. She saw that her lack of self esteem, her self doubts and depression were like an open door that allowed destructive feelings and fears to enter. These attitudes or feelings may have been inherited from ones recent or ancestral family. She saw these as portrayed as the Devil.

The words demons or evil spirits in the past really meant, ‘invisible but powerful influences that can make you ill in mind or body’. They are what today would be called viruses, bacteria, or trauma we that we are unconscious of.

 

Useful questions:

If I think of the demon as the difficult feeling in the dream, what (feeling) am I actually afraid of?

Have I been raised to believe certain things were sinful or evil – if so that?

Am I haunted by guilt or something I am ashamed of?

See Dreams are a reflection of your inner worldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe Con About EvilMartial Art of the Mind


Dentist

Depends on your relationship with dentists – fear of being hurt. The courage and ability to deal with painful areas of experience. See: Teeth.

Sometimes this indicates father’s distressing sexual attentions – or rape feelings.

It may also suggest need for care of what comes out of our mouth, such as things we say, opinions, criticism – and of course any dental problems that may be indicated.

Dreaming that you need dental treatment might also suggest there is something needing attention in your life or health. A missing tooth links with this as something is missing that you need help fixing or you need to give it attention.

Example: One morning I awoke from an unusual dream which I found difficult to understand. In the dream I was sitting silently in a Quaker meeting. A man entered the room and sat down on my right. Almost immediately he seemed to be moved from within to come over to me: he put his hand just in front of my right ear and said, ‘Did you know you have an ear condition?’ I told him I had not even thought of such a thing, which was true. He then said ‘Well, there is something wrong with your ear. It is caused by two things. Firstly you have an infection arising from a tooth, and you are also eating too much.’ There the dream ended.

I noticed I had a slightly dry throat, but such things usually disappeared working outdoors. But as I worked the dryness spread to my left ear that began to ache slightly in the cold wind. This disappeared and spread to my right ear, which now persistently ached. I naturally began to see the dream in a new light, I couldn’t believe there was anything wrong with my teeth as I had only recently visited the dentist, and he had said that my teeth were okay. However, it was only after many weeks that the earache eventually disappeared. During this time I felt lethargic and bloated after meals, and I experimented with smaller more frequent meals, which left me feeling cleaner and happier inside.

I made an appointment with another dentist who found several cavities needing attention. One in particular just under the right ear, was the source of the problem, and as soon as it was dealt with, the earache disappeared.

For some people the dentist is linked with the experience of anesthetic. So you might have feelings about someone doing things against your will, or even being pushed into strange worlds.

Dentists chair: Depends how you feel about dentists, but suggests stressful feelings or facing something that is difficult.

Example: I had a two hour session in the dentist chair again, today, and my head is not my own…….went shopping afterwards and couldn’t remember my plastic card number…..felt very stupid and wondered if Alzheimer’s was showing it’s ugly head or just that my nerves were shot to bits!  Must say the dentist is very good with me……one day it got too much emotionally for me and I had to tell him I was feeling very vulnerable and could cry at any moment. (I didn’t tell him that at one point I felt very angry and had a big urge to bite his hand and scream for blue murder; but under that was the vulnerablity….he took it all in his stride and now watches for the white knuckles and checks that I’m OK. He said that I hide my vulnerability very well and that he was glad I told him.


Useful questions:

How do I feel about going to the dentist?

Is this about fear of pain?

Should I be taking care of how I express my opinions or emotion?

Do I feel there is something needing attention in my life?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsMartial Art of the MindSimple Truths


Depart Departed Departing

This suggests a leaving of an old way of life, or a relationship. It might also depict a search for something new, or desire for a change. Such a departing may reflect becoming more independent of parents or lover. If you find work or a relationship difficult, the departing might show you wanting to run away from responsibility or demands. See Abandoned

In some dreams this can refer to death, perhaps when we see a spouse walking away from us, or departing on a journey. This is not necessarily a prediction, but a confrontation with what we feel is likely to happen.

A breaking away from, or leaving behind, old or habitual patterns of behaviour. Leaving a situation, such as a relationship, a financial set-up or work; the struggle to become independent as in leaving home. It can also indicating you are making a change.

Example: ‘I was leaving some people, like at a junior school. Some of the children tried to detain me, with the attitude that I was defying teacher’s authority, and they restrained me with the rules they restrained themselves with. I broke free and walked off.’ Timothy.

Idioms: New departure; the departed dead; leave in the lurch; leave someone to it; left holding the baby.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you departing from or who?

Do you feel a loss or difficult feelings about the departure?

Have you recently experienced leaving or being left?

See The Dream as a CodeTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Department Store

Because such a large store can supply all your needs, from food, perfume, clothing to electrics, it is like a one stop shop.

Why are you visiting the store – making choices or decisions, looking for something, being with friends, looking for someone, hoping to see famous people? If so, ask youreslf what is urging you there.

People often dream of spending leasure time in the store, or even sleeping there overnight, suggesting filling all your needs. So it can be a form of social centre, a place you feel easy in, so suggests finding a special attitude within you.

Example: I am in a huge department store (like a Las Vegas-style hotel, skyscraper) where lingerie is piled high to the very, very high ceiling. I am in awe. “Why do you think people come here?” they (my male friends) say to me. (Some black boys tell us how to be smart shoppers and get coupons and points which can be traded in for reduced prices. Later I make fun of them – accidentally – to their faces.) When I turn back to show these guys the lingerie boxes piled to the ceiling there is a huge green curtain in front of them, but the guys have already seemed to know what I am talking about anyway. I can’t get over all this lingerie being piled this way and in such a large building.

Exampl: I was in the bathroom of a large department store, sitting on the toilet. It was crowded. People would peek in. There were two men in the lobby area by the sinks. A woman questioned them and they laughed. They were really women dressed like men. Then I saw George Hamilton, a star, come in. He came over to me and peeked in. I was a little embarrassed because my butt was showing. I got up and he wanted to hug me. That was O.K. He suggested we go to his hotel room to make love. I said, “No, I don’t want to,” because I wanted him to care for me, or be caring and then the sex would be good.

Example: In this dream, I seemed to be on the top floor of what looked like a high rise department store.  It was very crowded with a great any people looking at all the glittering shop windows, for some reason I was not aware of, they seemed to draw a lot of attention.  I was looking for something that you could eat, for a special purpose.  Something that had a special purpose, rather like the magic mushroom in Alice in Wonderland.

 I was given, or came in possession of two very small round objects, the shape, size and colour, of the old English pennies and half pennies of my childhood.  They were round, brown, and very small, and had a special effect on you when you ate them.  I was aware that they could bring about inner changes when you had eaten them, and seemed to open you up in some way to the awareness of something beyond the day to day experiences of ordinary everyday life.  It seemed that it opened you up to the beauty, goodness, and loving kindness of another existence that was in the air, everywhere, you could see it wherever you looked.  Impossible to fully describe, but harmonies just playing out in tiny glittering spots of shining Light and Colour, that extended everywhere, and in some way opened you up to a different would, to change your relationship to yourself and your Inner Being.  I knew that it would have a deep effect for Healing and Good.

 It seemed that I alone, at that moment, saw the potential of the deep inner effects of eating them. I tried to find some more, to offer to others, but it seemed that the two that I had were all that there were.  I felt that many others could experience what I did, by something deep within coming to the surface, but somehow they were not yet ready to wake up to it.  It seemed that its presence was everywhere but not being absorbed by the people gathered there.

Depend Dependent Depending

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter with dependency in dreams is vital. We are totally dependent upon these processes of Life yet we seldom acknowledge our dependence.

Can we not see that our very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of our impoverishment to suggest an awareness of a creative force is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure. Have we never understood that? Have we not seen that acceptance of our own inner unconscious life is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it?

Often men and women dream of their partner leaving them, or going off with someone else, and such dreams are really about the dreamer’s own feeling of being abandoned and unloved, particularly feeling dependent. The difficulties we feel when we have dreams are about what we call love, but might, for greater clarity, be called dependence. For instance, if a partner leaves us and we experience great pain, much of that pain and anxiety comes about because we have depended upon our partner to supply, or help supply, such needs as money, a place to live, social standing, sexual satisfaction, a sense of being wanted, companionship and support in crises. See Beware of LoveLove

 Also we often depend upon our work or position to gain a decent self image. Yet such dependence can be shattered if one loses the position – for change is constant.

As Helen Keller so wisely says, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

These life forces need to be cared for, for our body is an ancient animal, for it is now known that our body started its long journey from a single cell. Also it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To explore it see Opening to Life

This ancient animal that you are has needs and if it were a thoroughbred horse you would need to see that it was properly fed and exercised, that it has sexual needs that must be cared for – poisoning it with alcohol and processed foods would lead to an ill horse or you as an unhealthy adult. See Life’s Basic Functions

Depth

See: Deep.

Derelict

Parts of yourself long unused, or that you have not taken care of, or not needed, or have been used badly. Sometimes this refers to outgrown beliefs or a way of life you have left behind.

This might reflect a feeling you have about yourself, and considering that in dreams you can create any feeling or situation – that in fact you are incredibly creative – you need to ask yourself out of what beliefs or life situations you have created this feeling – why not something else?

Useful questions:

Do situations in my life lead me to feel like a derelict – if so what is holding me in that state?  Am I acting and carrying on doing and thinking things that do not work or produce satisfaction, yet carry on?

What have I outgrown and ready to tear down and start building something new?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsResistancesSecrets of Power Dreaming

Descend Descending Descent

To regress into earlier, more youthful ways of looking at things, or behaviour. This may mean you are meeting the effects of a childhood hurt or betrayal. It can indicate a period of depression, or feeling low. In some dreams where there is intense fear, it can show a fear of falling or descending from favour, power or authority. Coming down to earth from a more idealistic, fanciful, or visionary viewpoint.

Things can descend on us from above, and this can be frightening if we are afraid of change and the new; but it is often something of benefit like the descent of Grace, a big bird, or even the descent from a long line of forebears. So what is it descending and what do you feel about it?

Also we can descend into the ‘underworld’, the forces of Life within us.

In most cases an ascent is like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however, whereas the ancient beliefs saw it as a continuing cycle.

Descent, going down stairs or in a lift: Getting more down to earth or practical; a return to difficulties after living in our fantasies or escapism; depression; sexual restraint; a return from meta conception. In many dreams this appears to link either with a lowering of sexual excitement, or to coming down to earth. If it is stairs there may be some anxiety about falling involved – falling in love, failing to keep balance.

Descending into cave, cellar or hole: Meeting unconscious content such as repressed fears or wisdom carried unconsciously from family or culture.; experience of womb existence.

Going down a hill: Can mean loss of status, ageing, failure or death, but is also as shown in the second example, a positive sense of life within us. The life process within us is ever aware of the experience of living. This includes birth, change and death. This sometimes refers to the ending of youth, the beginning of old age. But it also can mean losing a wider view of things, getting back to everyday life.

Something below us: As in Rita’s dream below, where there is fear, can depict past trauma which is not being faced. Literally run away from. Something we have left behind or we now feel ‘above’.


Idioms: Feel down; down and out; down in the dumps; down to earth.

Example: ‘I look down and the stairs and banister rail are swarming alive with a black moving wave of crawling things, like some awful insects; and in the hallway is a swamp with crocodiles and other hideous things. My terror is terrible and I cry out to stop dreaming this nightmare. The person who actually lived in this part of the house was the owners mother. She treated me badly but no one knew as she was artful in her abuse. She pulled me along by my hair, locked me in a cupboard, and once locked me in the orchard – four high walls and a hidden door.’ Rita.

Example: ‘Then I was climbing down a steep hill. Arriving at the foot I found rippling sparkling water. I stopped and looked around and found everything incredibly beautiful – the green fields and the pebbles in the water, the soft fresh air; then I looked up and the sky was a glorious picture, the sun so warm and the clouds fluffy and soft and pretty. I felt at peace and so happy, and thanked God with all my heart for giving us so much beauty.’ Mrs R. E.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I descending into or what was I seeing descending?

Did I feel any particular feelings?

Was it a feeling of wonder or remorse, even fear?

See The Slow BreathCharacters and People in Dreams Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Desecrate

To belittle or scoff at our deepest intuitions about the purpose of our life, our spiritual directions, our deepest feelings and needs. It is to deny ourselves things for which we may deeply hunger in an inner sense.

Desert Wilderness

Loneliness – literally being deserted. It can also point to feelings you have of that you lack emotion or satisfaction, that there is no creativity or growth in your life; or you are a dry intellectual. Dry intellectualism; social isolation or sexual barrenness.

In some dreams it shows you feeling social isolation. In some women’s dreams it indicates whether the fear or reality of sexual barrenness. But the desert can be a warm and quiet place for a retreat from the ‘noise’ of work and society.

Occasionally, as the image in the bible of wandering in the wilderness suggests, it depicts both the sense of having no real meaning or direction and of being a wanderer in the infinity of time and decision. It shows the difficulty of being self responsible and making decisions in the infinity of choices, and of honouring your core feelings in such decisions.

Example: One day I was investigating a troublesome anxiety. As I followed it, the emotion grew and intensified until it finally became almost intolerable. Suddenly I found myself standing on a desert of white sand and ashen rocks. The sky was burned to a metallic gray by the, blinding sun. The dusty cactus, the lifeless sage, the very air seemed to wither at its touch. The stillness itself was a horror. No leaf would ever stir; no rain would fall; no scream of anguish would change that pitiless silence of heat and shimmering light. I seemed to face a doom of slow attrition, of agonized waiting for something that would never occur. I realized then that the much-touted eternity of the experience is a dubious blessing.

The dreamer, W. V. Caldwell, on exploring his dream eventually saw that all his life he had been taught not to complain, not to indulge in self-pity and not to cry out in pain. With wonderful feelings he saw that his desert was the death of his feeling in non-expression. A passage from the Bible came to him, “I will make a loud noise unto my Maker.” Then, as if a dam had broken, he was crying, not as loudly and vociferously as he felt, but loudly and vociferously enough for a male of twentieth-century America. There was joy in the wash of bitter hot tears, joy in the voice raised in outrage and anguish at the pain of life, joy in announcing to my fellow men, whether they liked it or not, that he hurt.

Now there appeared before me a baby. Face and eyes red, his cheeks stained with tears, his little mouth contorted in sublime release, he bellowed and howled. Instead of the distress and anger I usually felt when my own children did this, I looked at him with sympathy and enthusiasm “Yell, you little beggar,” I howled.  And yell he did! He screamed and bellowed. He would not stop. Gradually my exultation subsided to annoyance and then distress as his angry screams sank into sobs and then into silent heaves and snuffies. Finally, anguished silence reigned and the anxiety I thought I had conquered returned again, more intense than before.

The child stood in the timeless desert of anxiety—about him the white sands and burning rocks, above him the blinding sun. Nothing stirred. It would go on that way forever.

Slowly, like the imperceptible movement of stifling desert air, the anxiety enclosed and smothered me also. I could not speak, I could not scream; I was paralyzed by it. Just as slowly, like the subtle dissolution of forms in a shimmering mirage, the child and I fused into one being; and the giant cactus before us, stretching its long arms upward, melted and reformed into the slats of a baby bed. Only the sun remained, casting its merciless light on my face. I was standing in a crib, waiting in helpless anxiety for a bottle that might never come.  Here was the core of the trauma. As understanding dawned and the ghostly anxiety gradually vanished I realized I had carried this painful memory from my childhood wherever I went. Moments of peak anxiety triggered not only the anguish associated with the trauma but the infantile orientation which had made it so terrifying. As a baby l had not yet developed a sense of time. I had not learned  to break into days, hours, and minutes the unqualified eternity of my infant mind. “Now” for me was “forever,” and I could conceive of no end to my agony until mother ended it. Whatever the reason for the delay in feeding, I had no idea why or how long I would wait. If my mother had notions of schedules and four-hour periods, I had none.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the desert a friendly place or a place of loneliness and desertion?

Were there any emotions in the dream – if so what?

Have you live in or near a desert – what do you feel about it?

Do I feel there is nothing alive and growing in my life?

Have I been wandering in uncertainty and lack of direction?

Have I a real or felt situation of being infertile?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With

 

 

 

 

Desk

This suggests work of some sort. It might also indicate authority or discipline – the discipline of a task or work to be done. A deask can be about a centre of mental activity, of study, concentration, or computing. Maybe you are contemplating something, or creativity in writing something. Are you involved in bringing your accounts up to date? Are you at a desk to figure out problems? Or are you there as an authority or to confront and authority?

A desk is also often a place where you communicate either by telephone, computer or writing. It could be a project you are dealing with, or refer to the sort of ‘office work’ necessary to run your life or home well.

A check-in desk could mean a change you are making or a new opportunity; perhaps a break or time away, even a love affair. Registration desk is slightly different to a check-in desk. It suggests something you are aiming for or hope to be involved in; may be a test to see if you would like the direction.

School desk could have many associations with it – school, teachers, study, feelings of success. See Associations Working With to explore you own associations.

Flight desk can indicate a big change of scene or of life you are considering. Is it for business,work or pleasure?

The following example points out issues of change, work, being judged and also presentation.

Example: I am very busy working at someone else’s desk.  We are in the process of moving our desks to another area.  Once the desks are moved we are interviewed or have to present our desks.  There are two other desks on either side of mine.  The woman who interviews us judges us on how well we’ve personalised or decorated our desks and wants to know what we’ve named them.  I believe there are others with her.  The other two women go first.  When it’s my turn I explain that I haven’t had time to name my desk because I’ve been filling in for someone in addition to doing my own job.  However, I suppose I’ll give it some type of pet name.  The woman can’t hear me very well and misunderstands.  She thinks I’ve named my desk “Pet.”  I explain that what I meant was I would give it the type of name one would give a pet.  The desk arrangement looks like an inverted L with my desk at the point of the angle.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you work at a desk – if so what does it involve?

Have been in front of any type of desk recently?

Do I need to be paying more attention to the mundane tasks of life?

See Martial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Destination

Because the unconscious has a powerful faculty for synthesising our experience, it frequently arrives at a sense of what we most wish for, or want to create through our life. Yet we may not have become aware of what has been realised. It may be depicted by a place we are heading toward, or a goal; a destination we do not remember. Also it could be our conscious ambition and desire; our hopes; what we have struggled long for. See: direction.

I never reach my destination –  this shows a level of dissatisfaction with your life. Your ultimate destination in life is to let your potential to flower and spread seeds; if it does not then you need to ask yourself how you are holding yourself back. See Methods of Awakening

Our destination is ultimately death and the afterkife. And so our destination in life, shown by many dreams is to learn the lessons of life so that we might grow. To do this we need to look at our inner life and understand it. See Inner World

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I reached a state of satisfaction with my life – if not honestly ask yourself what needs to be done?

What was the destination in my dream – if it was not clear imagine what it might be? See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Am I seeking destinations that never satisfy?

See Associations Working With – Learning to Allow Yourself – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Destination

Your unconscious is able to summarise your abilities and desires, and present them as a destination you are moving toward, or hoping for.

Destroy Destruction

We hold in us the seeds of our own destruction. Our body constantly dies, losing millions of cells, but it also has the seeds of Life, and so continues. Our attitudes to this may be shown in dreams where we see destruction.

Example: Dreamt I was alone in a house and asleep in bed. Something materialised or landed on the foot of the bed. It woke me a little and I felt afraid. I had the feeling it was some sort of entity materialising and coming for me in some way. It moved up the bed a little. I felt paralysed, partly by fear but also as if the ‘thing’ was influencing me. This made me more afraid of it. Then it moved up higher, not on my body but on the bed. I was very afraid and struggling against the paralysing influence. I managed to shout at it – I will destroy you. I will destroy you. As I shouted I pushed at it with my hand. This felt to me as if I were going to will its destruction and use my hand to smash it. I still felt a little uncertain of the outcome but I was very determined to fight it. At this point I woke up or was awakened by Hyone. She asked me what I had been dreaming. Apparently I had been pushing her and shouting that I would destroy her.

Here the dreamer explains what he felt on exploring the dream: “Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing. The ‘thing’ seemed at first to be woman’s vagina. There was a little feeling in this but not much. Then it slowly grew in intensity and I realised the ‘thing’ was death. Recently it is obvious from the mirror that my body is going through another period of rapid ageing. The dream was a dramatic representation of my feelings about this. Death was gradually creeping up on me, gradually overwhelming me and I was fighting it. As the session deepened I saw that in my feelings I felt that death had put its finger on me. The touch of death was like a disease though. Once touched the disease was incurable and gradually took over ones body. I could hardly breathe as I experienced this, and I understood the sort of emotions that might lie beneath asthma attacks. This struggle with death went on for some time. It was not terrible but was felt strongly.

I began to wonder what to do about the situation, the feeling was that death was claiming me. So I wanted to face the truth about death, whatever it was. I wanted to walk right up to it and look it in the face and know whether death meant a final end. If it did I would rather know. As I approached death it – my feelings – went through an amazing transformation. All the tension left me. I felt good, positive and with a sense of hope about life and death. This was so surprising and sudden I wondered what had produced it. I needed to be aware of how this change had occurred. So I retraced my steps to look at death and try to understand why it had lost its power of fear.  But in looking it in the face I saw another view of it. I saw the dead body, the corpse, the skeleton, as a form left behind by the process of life. It is like the shells on the beach here, wonderful forms life crates as it moves on. When I looked at myself to see what ‘Tony’ is – I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms. I am Life!!

Quite a number of dreams are about the threat of destruction by the end of the world, an atomic bomb of war, by a wild animal or even a great flood or tsunami. Of course you are in the dream world that is a wonderful and real virtual reality in which not harm can actually come to you. But of course you can feel a lot of fear – which is unnecessary. The dream process is in no way trying to hurt or destroy you. Such dreams are about massive changes taking place in your life. (See Tsunami.) They are destructive only to the rigid viewpoints, opinions and beliefs we hold onto, often with awful fears. It is helpful to learn relaxation and use it often to move beyond your fears see Relaxation and Learning to Allow Yourself

Sometimes our dreams create things that dramatise our fear or terror of out own life process, that feel is intent of destroying us. If we fail to understand that the dream action can produce spontaneous movement which does not arise from our conscious will we will totally miss understanding some dreams. We will be terrified something, an alien force or another being has taken control of us.

In life and sleep we have two powerful actions working in us. The first is our waking experience based on having a body, its limitations, vulnerabilities and a particular gender. Our second is the power that gave us life and continues to express as dreams.

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Life’s Little Secrets.

So if you can find courage to believe Life/God is not trying to crush you but trying to heal you of the terrors you carry around in you, then you will take steps toward being healed.

The destroyed house is another sign that our attitudes and beliefs are out of harmony with out life purpose. The house is a symbol of oneself and ones way oflife and sometimes has to be destroyed to make way for a more harmonious life.

Example: On touching the woman with a sword I hold a feeling sense comes over me that now I have to fight. I hear a voice from a hatch saying, “Your sword is ready”. But I do not want to fight anyone. It is ready he says and I glimpse it but then I look up and hurtling towards me at great immense speed through the air is a huge sword, heavy, and just before it hits me I see the blade is a spiral. I am blasted apart and have a major bodily judder and wake up having been destroyed by the flying sword. Even if I had taken the sword it would have been of no use against this major force.

An interpretation of the dream: I wonder if the sword is an expression of your anger that is showing but you are not acknowledging. But a sword can also be a sign of will power or discrimination; strength to defend oneself and ones rights. It depends how one uses it.

But what it does is to reveal a hidden beauty in a part of you that is sleeping – the woman who exists under water. It is important because you do it again as an unconscious action. It is surely trying to wake you to two things – your unconscious state, and the revealing of hidden feminine beauty.

Touching with your sword is evident, and can mean that without realising it you are touching part of you and other people with your recognition and strength. For a sword can mean strength and ability to defend others and oneslf. You do not wish to fight anyone, but you can protect and rule. Then the mighty sword that blasts you apart is something wonderful, a full realisation of your power. Of course you haven’t been destroyed, just blasted apart. In other words you are realising the emergence of a wonderful power you have, and the realisation totally knocks apart the image you have of yourself.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What have felt you might be destroyed by?

How have you dealt with feelings of fear?

Do you realise the dream images cannot hurt or kill you?

See Facing Fear Dreams are Like a Computer GameTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Detective

The search for clues as to ones own identity and meaning in life. The techniques or skill you use to follow information and clues to discover insight or meaning. Suspicion as to your own actions and motives.

Example: I am a detective following clues regarding some sort of crime. They lead me in a large cellar, and within the cellar I come across the entrances of two tunnels. These are nearly the size of underground train tunnels, and are side by side leading away into pitch blackness. I decide to explore the tunnels and start to walk into one. I was overwhelmed by terror, as if the very darkness of the tunnel was a living force of fear that entered and consumed me. I screamed and screamed, writhing in uncontrollable fit like contractions. Nevertheless a part of me was observing what was happening and was amazed, realising I had found something of great importance. Andrew P.

Because Andrew explored this dream with me, I know the darkness was depicting fear he experienced while a 9 year old in hospital. He was given a rectal anaesthetic because he was about to have a nose operation. He fought and begged for the nurses to stop, but to no avail. This led to a very real feeling that humans were terrifyingly dangerous animals who would not respond even if you were on your knees begging. So trauma was the fear in the darkness.

It can also indicate your curiosity or persistence in trying to understand something or questions you ask about your past, your guilt over your guilt over dream murders, or the truth in what you are meeting.

There is an aspect of ones unconscious that is always following clues as to the origins of the pains and hesitations we feel, and this is often shown as a detective.  “Dreams also pinpointed exactly where I was in my growth process. Sometimes, the dreams would uncover unconscious fears and intuitions. Often, they also held important clues and offered solutions to my problems. It was like doing detective’s work – arduous at times, but rewarding beyond belief.” Quoted from Meeting Shiva by Tiziana Stupia.

Being questioned by a detective is about feelings you might have about guilt, or also a pinpointed search into your self.


Useful questions:

What is the detective investigating and what do I feel and think about that?

Are there issues in my life that I consciously seek to understand?

If no resolution occurs in the dream what happens if I imagine it forward?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With


Devil Demon Lucifer

The devil or demon in our dreams usually represents the parts of our own urges and emotions we have repressed or do not feel in control of. The angers, fears or urges may even feel to us as if they are strong enough to control us, so we represent them as an external force pushing us to some sort of evil. In each of us there is also the potential for creativity or destruction. This is especially noticeable in connection with our fears, such as fear of illness. Such a fear, if based on imagination rather than a real cause, can still cause illness. In this sense our own mind can turn against us. The enemy of our own undirected fear may be pictured as the devil or an evil entity. See: archetype of the devil under ; demons; evil; aboriginal. See also: active/passive.

“The succubus, a female demon who seduced male dreamers. References to seductive demons, such as Lilith, had appeared in the Talmud but had not previously appeared in Christian writings. The Commentary – by Macrobius – became an extremely influential book and thirty-seven printed editions appeared before 1700. It was the most important and well-known dream book in medieval Europe. Its inclusion of the fear-inspiring sexual demons was to play a role in supporting the paranoia about evil spirits that developed during the later centuries.”  Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert van de Castle.

Example: I’m 18 and recurrently dream my house is haunted or possessed by the devil. I am not religious, but in the dreams with the devil I try to remember prayers to scare him away. In every dream my family and I have to pack our bags and move back to the old house I lived in as a baby until seven. The dreams really frighten me and I can’t sleep. E. F. Teletext.

The struggle with something that appears exterior can be clearly seen in this dream. The influence of religion in giving ready made symbols to suggest there is an exterior evil that is invisible, but can powerfully influence one, is also clearly shown. And in actually facing the devil in ones dreams it turns out to be ones own emotions and desires that are not allowed or tuned back on themselves – thus devil spelt backwards is lived. It is the unlived or repressed urges that take on the image of a devil. “All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.” EC

Example: I was going mad. I was crawling around on my hands and knees and wailing and behaving in a most peculiar manner. I actually felt mad. But inside my head a tiny voice kept saying, ‘You aren’t completely insane yet – there’s still a chance.’ People around me kept saying to each other, ‘We think she’s possessed by devils.’ My sane voice then said ‘Make the sign of the cross, cast out the evil spirit.’ I kept trying to do that but my hands wouldn’t or couldn’t complete the sign. I woke still feeling disturbed. Margaret F.

The power and sense of being out of control is dramatised here, along with the resulting fear arising from feeling the controlling force as alien. If you take the images away and simply look at the situation, what is apparent is a huge conflict that Margaret is facing. The conflict clothes itself in imagery of the Devil because Margaret is afraid of whatever it is that is trying to express. This is a powerful internal conflict that is simply a struggle between the conscious self and the person’s own unexpressed potential.

Example: I was walking toward a house. It was quite dark, but not night. As I neared the house a number of demons or devils came at me menacingly, trying to stop me getting near the house. Although they made all the ghostly noises I wasn’t at all afraid of them. I felt they were a damned nuisance, and to show them I meant business I grabbed one and with my right hand I gripped its flesh and squeezed. It started to squeak in pain and I squeezed harder. At that point I was woken by my wife. I had hold of her belly and was squeezing madly with my right hand. Ben. C.

In this dream Ben shows a completely different response to the stereotype of fear. He is not afraid of his own anxieties or internal urges, but he hasn’t actually transformed them.

Example: Tell me where was the Devil? I do not understand. Jesus, why have we not been tempted?  There is no answer – at least, not from outside. But something within me speaks. It . . – says – – . wait, I begin to hear. It says. . – You . . . were . . . the Devil. It was. . . you – – . who tempted me. Your fear, your loneliness, your dependence on things of the world, on people’s opinion, on wealth as a means of self-respect, on hate as a means to love – all these you tempted me with. Now you have left me for a season, for with God’s wider view given with the descent of the Dove, I showed you the illusion of your gods – the emptiness of your fears, the powerlessness of your determinations. The shadow cast by the knots tied in your heart, your head and your belly, was the Devil. Like children’s hands held between a candle and the wall, your pains, desolation’s, and terrors have cast grotesque shadows upon your consciousness, which you took to be real, and you lived according to their demands. By these shadows men are led to war, murder, theft, terrible ambition, lust, even madness. All mankind is possessed by these shadows – by this absence of the Light, the Life and the Love. I come, not to condemn them but to redeem. For you are your own devil, and your own angel. But my hour is not yet come; when it does I will redeem.

Example: Devil Snivel Havel – They are just words to describe human fears, fears put into us by a church thousands of years ago speaking of things it only had primitive words to describe what it saw. I have met the devil myself several times, sometimes in great fear, and then slowly in wonder and direct insight. In such meeting I saw and realise that devil was ‘lived’ spelt backwards. In other word it is the Light we are all born with that through fear or ignorance we have turned back on ourselves. In doing so we have created great chunks of stuff blocking the light causing depression, suicidal impulses, and all the many human pains and suffering. But it is not some evil person ‘doing it to us’ it is our own misguided actions that can be undone by understanding them.

Such feelings, such entrance of foreign and destructive forces, is seen by our unconscious as the devil, demons or even a vampire. They suck away the life force and create illness in your body. Recognising them is very important for your health and person wholeness. This is called a dybbuk in Jewish folklore. Remember that devil is lived spelled backwards, and evil is live backwards. They both suggest the turning of your life force back on itself.

Example: The Devil attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was held back sexuality. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available energy, sexual or emotional. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the connection between the Devil and how they were repressed sexual feelings.

Fears of dream devils and demons are completely unfounded. That is because the dream is only a virtual reality that are self created images that can be changed. The following example shows how lack of fear changes the way we relate to our dreams – and of course how fear creates our awful images.

Example: Had a very unusual dream last night. I was in an outdoor environment. It seemed a bit dark, or maybe morbid is the right word. I was with other people but none of them stood out to remain in memory. There was a definite awareness though of being near to a place that was haunted, and that a man was in trouble in the haunted place.

I decided to go and see if I could sort out the problem. I walked down a slope to where the centre of the haunting existed. It was an open space with an old double-decker bus in it. The only person on the bus was a middle-aged man who was sitting on the top deck leaning out of a window on the right hand side of the bus. I stood beneath him and looked up. He was staring in a glazed way and didn’t see me. I could see and feel that he was being hit by fantasies or hallucinations by whatever was the source of the haunting. This invasion of his mind was grabbing his attention so fully that he wasn’t aware of his surrounding or of me. I was sure that if he went any deeper into this mind stuff he wouldn’t be able to pull out. I waved my hand in his line of vision and banged my hand on the bus to make a noise and get his attention. At first it didn’t seem as if I would bring him out of it, but after a while he looked at me.

I shouted at him to pull out. I said that he had a wife and some more years of his life to live, so why lose himself into this entrancement. This didn’t seem to grab him so I shouted again and said that he would eventually slip into this empty mind world anyway – at death – so why not live with his wife the remaining years of his life. I was sure that if he lost awareness he would let himself starve.

I was aware that what he desired was to slip away into the void, into the awareness of the one life in which he lost any awareness of self. But I banged and shouted and he became more ‘present’. I then felt I had to confront whatever was the source of the powerful ‘haunting’ that was pulling him into the inner mind. I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type – a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out.

This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body. The only way that felt as if I might deal with the creature was to have the meditative state of holding on to the nothingness that was my centre, and not feeling panic at it’s attacks. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.

Here a woman comes face to face with the devil –

Knowing this, we can see that much advertising attempts to call these demons into action – Are wrinkles making you look old? – Can you no longer make love like you used to? – Lacking energy, zest, confidence, take this fantastic new formula – What will happen if you die leaving your loved ones uncared for? – What is holding you back – why not completely change your life by signing on to this $2000 guaranteed three day course? Defeat ageing, get rich, have fantastic sex, leave failure behind – you know the story. But what the adverts are reaching are the beliefs, fears or feelings that you are ageing, you no longer or never did have fantastic sex, you are childless or a failure. They are grabbing hold of the imagination already working in us that tells us we are doomed, failures, unloved and lonely. See Integration – Meeting yourself

Useful questions:

What relationship do I have with my own natural urges such as sex or eating?

Have I turned my own urges back on themselves, transforming ‘lived’ into ‘devil’ by a reverse process?

Can I dare to meet this devil and release the repressed energy as living flows of personal life and love?

See – Masters of Nightmares – Dreams are Virtual Realities Take Everything into YouTechniques for Exploring your Dreams The Secret of Time and Satan 

 

Devour Devoured Devouring

If you are being eaten by a creature of some sort, this shows you being deeply influenced by urges that you feel will rob you of your will or direction. In English we often use the phrase devoured by worries, and your dream will use just this imagery to show what is harming you. Being swallowed by something huge may be something quite different. We all have a sense of universal life around us. This is so huge that when we become aware of it we sometimes feel threatened, as if it will take away our personal identity.

If you are devouring something or someone, it suggests you are being possessive, overbearing, or deeply insensitive to another being’s needs. You might, of course, be absorbing something very fully.

To exist, living forms devour each other. We are predators like every other life form. We live on other life, and are part and parcel of the whole critur eat critur. I remembered a friend Pauline apologising about feeding meat to her cats. She was trying to avoid recognising she was in no way different to a cat, killing its food, scavenging – what is shopping? What is devouring and shitting? It is no excuse to say we are a vegan or vegetarian. All life arose from the same source, whether a plant or tree or fish. Everything has a right to live, but Life itself is the giver of itself so all life forms can live together – unless we are greedy.

Conversely, experiencing the effect of the devouring mother, a woman might hold fast to her children, using every bonding and binding force she can.

A baby often seizes upon its mother’s breast with this feeling, so it may represent the desire to posses or devour others.

Any emotion or desire that devours the strength or purpose of your life. Fear is such a feeling, and so many people have irrational fears about them.  Devoured by jealousy.

Example: S is trying to integrate A through sexual intercourse, but that is not the way this unification can come about. As A, that kind of union is no longer there for me to give and as A I am not honest in even this attempt to give her what she keeps hounding me for, so my anger takes over and I am not entering her in a loving way. This is not who I am, so as A I am violently ill with the contact of our bodies and souls, and this horrible green jealousy and envy of S grabs me and attacks me. I recoil violently as it wants to consume me, but I am an old soul and very strong and experienced, so I am able to wretch and expel it from my body. Now I have been able to get this horrible thing out of S, and out of me, so, while the dream ended I can take it further and have us both lie together hand in hand, resting peacefully. P no longer needs to devour A, to smother him and make him her own, we can hold hands and simply be friends, be brother and sister and share a more innocent and less selfish love.  We fall asleep and rest in a garden of lovely, healing dreams. There is an integration that does not require possession or control, but an acceptance of the way things are.

Being eaten by dogs or creatures: Losing your sense of identity, or what you think or want, in meeting other people’s will, anger or ideas; being ‘consumed’ by fear, emotion or a drive; fear of death.

Swallowed by large creature or fish: Opening to awareness of unconscious content. See Archetype of the Search for Self

Devouring: Being possessive; hungering for something.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What strong feelings are expressed or suggested in the drama of this dream?

What am I consumed by at times?

Were you devoured or th devourer?

If I am attacked, what am I trying to avoid feeling at the moment?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsDream Yoga


Diamond – Body

This is the hardest known material. It lasts forever, so the advertisements tell us. It represents the eternity of spirit, the gem or jewel at the centre of being, your Spiritual consciousness. It can also represent human greed, hardness, cold as ice, anything for power. But is not often used as such in dreams. See: Jewels.

Diamonds in dreams can indicate success, also wealth and happiness. They can represent the power of care and love that hold men and women together in marriage.

They can also indicate clear ideas and sometimes beauty of the soul. The jewel if is worn near the throat in a dream can suggest the ability to speak truly or sing with beauty. It acts as an amplification of the abilities of whatever part of the body of the wearer. So worn on the ear can indicate the possibility of psychic hearing.

Diamond Body: Is a more permanent body or identity which is formed by the transformation of sensory experience into a body or identity that has connections with the unchanging and eternal aspect of oneself. Buddhism calls this the diamond body, the imperishable self.

It shows that the person has the ability to perceive beyond the physical body and is capable of experiencing bodiless awareness. See Bodyless Awareness

It is also known in other different spiritual traditions: “the most sacred body” (wujud al-aqdas) and “true and genuine body” (jism asli haqiqi) in Sufism, “the diamond body” in Taoism and Vajrayana, “the light body” or “rainbow body” in Tibetan Buddhism, “the body of bliss” in Kriya Yoga, and “the immortal body” (soma athanaton) in Hermeticism.[2] The various attributes of the subtle body are frequently described in terms of often obscure symbolism: Tantra features references to the sun and moon as well as various Indian rivers and deities, while Taoist alchemy speaks of cauldrons and cinnabar fields. See – Opening to Life

The caterpillar, while changing into a butterfly, closes the delicate fluids of its within, inside a hard crust, but the hard crust drops away as the butterfly emerges. So, in a sense, one’s outer disciplines, even if imperfect, protects, and gives a receptacle within which our formless nature shapes itself. Within us the imperishable diamond body is taking form. This is the eternal of our nature realising itself in common life, in time. For as Blake says, “The Eternal is in love with the creations of Time.” Our diamond body is our personal awareness, now conscious of the self beyond form, time and space. Thus, our individual self is deathless for it has found union with the core self.

The spiritual exercises/practices then, are there as a womb about the infant body of the divine child within us. Without them we could not face and bring to consciousness, our own fears, ambitions, sins, passions, without being carried away by them.

Example: In a lucid semi sleep state, I felt as if I had died, not the death of my body, but a blotting out of my waking personality. A memory arose of another similar experience where a beautiful slightly see through woman came to me and told me she was the spirit of my whole life, my female counterpart. She took me into her to form the essence of both my male and female self to form a baby uniting us both in its being.

Then I wondered, because the memory was of an event some time previous, where the child was, what was it like? Then it appeared before me as a small child covered by diamonds, as if the gems clothed it. But I could not see any body behind the gems, and it arose in me that I was looking at the diamond body, which was invisible to our eyes.

Example: My friend burned sage and asked the spirit of his wife to move on. (After 7 years of her presence). That night he dreamt that she was with him in a room looking so grand, the way that he liked her to dress and look. They talked and then she took off a ring (a big diamond), placed it on the night-stand…then she left. They really loved each other in life.

It is said there is no marriage or giving in marriage after death, so the dead wife was saying there is no longer marriage after death and here is the ring you gave. That was not a rejection of their years of marriage but a way of showing she had successfully moved on.

Example: I had a dream I have a diamond ring with 3 stone’s. This is not engagement or wedding ring. Sitting in a group, suddenly I noticed I have lost one stone. I and my husband searched and I found the stone on the table. Later we went to someplace and I found that I had forgotten to take the diamond. We went back, but could not find it. We found something but it turned out to be not diamond – something white, but stretchable thing – not very hard. What does this mean?

I have an intuition that the ring with the three diamonds actually represent the three aspect of love, one of which is loving without possessing. But the one that was lost was about a tragic thing that you forgot – a hurt to your love that you tried to forget. But you have met more of yourself as you have grown and the memory of the loss has come back.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the diamond used for in the dream?

Does the diamond or the jewellery have any memories of associations for you?

Were there any emotions in the dream – if so what about?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Diarrhea

At times a dream about this could be a sign of a digestive problem. Also it could indicate you have a lot of difficult emotions that are pouring out of you.

The body might be clogged with toxins and this is, in a dream, a way of discharging them. Toxins might arise in the body through poor food, or through an allergy to something like wheat. So these dreams might be suggesting the physical need to have a healthy bowel. See: kasatkin.

Example: I say, “Not feeling good, huh?” I feel a bit guilty for not having gone to help her. Then she looks distraught and I see she’s having diarrhea. I say, “Oh, it looks like you’ve got the stomach flu. Go on into the bathroom. It’s all right.” She has left little piles of shit like chili con carne on the floor.


Useful Questions and Hints:

In my dream did I have diarreah or simpy dreamt about it?

Was there any information about how it came about?

What was my feelings about it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsDreams are Like a Computer Game

Diary

Memories; insights into yourself; looking within and discovering things you might not otherwise know, remember, not otherwise know or have forgotten.

Also a diary or journal can also be a wonderful way of seeing how the future developed out of thoughts, failures and decisions taken years before. Maybe even an exposure of your secrets.

A diary can also be a trail, a pathway taken by a beautiful mind and its investigation into life, oneself or even the universe.

Example: I say haughtily, “I’ll read my diary, if he was there, it will be in my diary.” I realize my diary and journal could be an embarrassment to me if people read it. I walk past a field of corn, touching the plants as I walk by.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I keep a diary, what do I associate with it – what of me is in it?

Do I find insights or understanding in the diary – is so what?

What of myself or my past are revealed?

See Inner World Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Dice

Fate, chance, luck, or a gamble. There might be a suggestion here that you are ready to take chances, or that you are gambling a situation on spontaneous events rather than planning.

Sometimes people might use dice to make a decision – high number yes, low no.

Example: At the shopping center they are selling trick stuff – magic – false poop, that sort of thing and there is gambling – dice are thrown and the crowd shifts with the throw of the dice as if to see it better or to make it look as if they are really not participating in this gambling. The young man seems fascinated and seems to fall further and further behind me in the crowd of people that is here.

Idioms: The die is cast; it’s in the dice; no dice.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I taking a chance on?

Do the dice in the dream represent chance or luck or even a decision?

Is there a win or lose situation in my life?

See Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Die Died Dying


See: Death.

Dig Digging Excavation

Digging usually depicts delving into hidden or buried areas of ourselves. We may uncover feelings from our childhood – creative realisations – features of the unconscious – even dead bodies or ancient creatures. If it is dead bodies, these need to be understood, as they are parts of your life that were buried under forgetfulness. As one dreamer said, “I was digging and found some potatoes, but they were too hot to handle.” In that case what was being uncovered was difficult to face. See: Delve

Any dead bodies we uncover depicts a whole set of personality traits or attitudes, very often potentials, that have been denied life or expression. For some reason we have not allowed them expression. A person hurt in love might kill out any feelings towards the opposite sex. This ‘dead’ part of them can be shown as a body. For more information see dead body

Example: I was in a land something like America. People were digging an area with care, like archaeologists. They were uncovering body after body, one under the other. All the people had been murdered, and I was implicated. I watched, amazed at the amount of bodies – bones really. I felt no guilt, just amazement.

We can also dig as with our garden, to clean out weeds and to replan or plant. But it also if it is a garden being dug or new land, it usually indicates your work on yourelf, the work to help your growth as a person and not a body. Sometimes the change is one of achieving new realisations. There appears to be a drive from the unconscious to gather and integrate experience to thereby expand the sense of self. A means of renovating our attitudes, personality structure or habits.

We can be digging for a new building, so here digging represents effort to change your life or circumstances. This suggest that you are or are thinking of creating something new, a new idea or project. Our imagination and mind are constantly building things which show in our dreams as images. Our ideas and beliefs are the main builders in our dreams, and it is a world we then live in. We build an inner world that few people realise they have. See Inner World

If it is a well you are digging, then you are searching purposefully for the source of life, or for something you have a thirst for. Also access to ones deepest resources of life – therefore personal spiritual wisdom or information from the unconscious; the source of ones ‘well-being’.

If you are digging up treasure or ancient things, this is an uncovering of your past, or your ancestral past. This can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage. See ancestors.

If you area digging your own grave, then it is an obviously statement about the life you are leading. This might be a warning that your habits or thoughts are a source of negative energy that can cause illness.


Example: ‘I entered a neglected garden adjoining a house I had formerly lived in. I was astonished that I had never noticed this garden before. I took a spade and hoe and began to vigorously work in order to put things right, digging like a navy. But wherever I put my spade I turned up live shells and hand grenades – highly explosive and very dangerous. I was terrified I would be blown to pieces and hurried away.’ From Organism of The Mind, G. R. Heyer, Kegan Paul, 1933.

The dreamer was a man in his forties who had taken up meditation on the suggestion of a friend. It shows him discovering and uncovering a part of himself he had not known before. In doing so he meets explosive emotions and conflicts he is not used to dealing with. See: garden; fork.

Idioms: dig a little deeper; dig deep; dig in; dig in their heels; dig it up; dig me; dig it; dig your own grave; dig yourself in; digs


Useful Questions and Hints:

Why is the digging being undertaken and how does that relate to me?

Is anything uncovered and what does it suggest?

Is this cultivating the land, and if so what results are shown?

See Associations Working WithMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Digest

To absorb, to make use of, to understand and incorporate into your way of life. To accept. See: Food.

Digestion is a very important function not just for our body but also for our mind and spirit. I have seen people become very ill in mind because they have not digested their experience or what they have learnt at school or the lessons and experience of a relationship long gone. And digestion is a Life function. Life in us is often greatly overlooked and our dreams are one way of showing us how we have not surrendered our life experience to that function. See Life’s Little Secrets and Dreaming of an ex.

There is a double signification. It is to “consume” and to “con­summate.” It means – both in a literal and a figurative sense – to take something into ourselves and make it part of ourselves, either for our substance or satisfaction, or for our completion or perfecting in some way.

When we digest, whether it is an idea, something we have read or learned, it has to be first surrendered to the life process. We can see this in our body – it is first chewed and swallowed, then broken down into parts and the useful stuff, the building stuff, can be taken into us and the rest is passed out. The important thing is that even if it is dead or living food, it is transformed into our own living being – in other words our living understanding. If it has not been transformed through digestion it is like something dead inside us. But to be capable of such digestion we must swallow the experience and allow our unknown self to do its work, as described in Life’s Little Secrets. See: absorb; eating; food.

We transform it by giving it to the fire within us that burns as our life process. So if you are troubled by dreams of your ex or a past experience, the best way to deal with them is to work on integrating the influence left in you from it. You can do this by thinking about the dreams about your experience and drawing on all you got from him or her or it. So I would suggest you integrate all the good and bad things.

Try doing this by taking the dream images of your experience or person and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. I know you may feel, why should I merge with something or someone who gave me so much trouble. Well, I have found that we take into our memory everyone and everything we experience. So merging with it makes it conscious again, and if any feelings are allowed expression you have a chance to really understand and sort out what is useful and what has to be let go of – exactly as our digestion does. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from you inner world onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what we learned, bad or good, from the relationship. Think of it like digesting something. In a relationship, whether a feeling relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person or event. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in.’

Example: It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery. Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naive, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle.

Here the person is meeting and digesting a part of him he had never met before. It was done by allowing spontaneous movement and feelings. See Methods of AwakeningArm Circling Meditation

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the experience or person you need to absorb?

What stops you from meeting it – is it because you believe your dream images are separate from you and not a part of you?

Can you own that a dream is a projection of your own memories and experience?

See What we Need to Remember About UsDreams are a reflection of your inner worldWhat do You bring to Your Dreams?

Dinner

Taking in life; absorbing something of life and the world and being enriched. If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to others. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others.

Sharing a meal: Sharing sustenance with others. In the ritual of the mass, it shows the recognition of sharing life with all others – being sustained by the flow of life as substance and energy. See: meals under food.

Example: I’m cooking hamburgers at my mother’s house. I come in with 4 little ones. She sneers and says that there should be more. I feel hurt and angry and then I go out. I look and there are lots more but they’ve fallen on the floor, the messy greasy floor. I’m crying as I pick them up because I know if she sees, I’m in trouble. I have a hard time picking them up. Finally I get them into the house, and she comes up to me and growls, “Hurry up. They’re in there, hungry, tired and fighting,” (My father and the rest of the family). I say, “I have to cook the potatoes first,” and she says, “No! Do something about the hamburgers first. Feed them the hamburgers and then come cook the potatoes.” She walks out. I’m crying and angry and I get stubborn. I look for the potato peeler in the sink of dirty dish water. All I keep coming up with are sharp knives. I’m careful with them. I peel the potatoes and get them into a pan and take them to the stove, move another pot off the burner to make room for the potatoes and see that a cooked steak is there. There are lots of them, 3. She comes back in. I say, “Look! You had a good dinner already cooked and you had me out there working and crying and you weren’t even going to let me have a good dinner.” She yells at me about finding some other place to live. I say, “Yes, sure, I’ll get out.” She storms out. My father says to me (he’s standing behind me), “7-6-5-4 yeah, you could be packed and out by 5.” I know he means a.m. and I don’t get up early, and I get furious at him and I turn and yell, “You little short runt!” D. is standing nearby. My father is about 4 feet tall. I yell, “You always take her side!” I am angry and hurt.

Example: We are sitting at TABLE. Table is very important you understand – for a family that is. Table has all the right knives and forks. It has all the correct glasses. Table has manners. Into this ‘table’ comes a little kid. He is about three. Mother is on the left. Next to her is her eldest son. He is a shattered person. Daughter is successful. She is like Mum – Who is ’successful’. The daughter is an attractive girl. Mum has ‘made it’ – So everything Mum says goes.

Husband, across the way, Is shut out. HE is not even at the table. But is standing by the outside door, not allowed at table, And barely existing. His task was to fuck her
for her to have a baby. This is the woman.

As can be seen from the two examples dinner and the family gathering it sometimes is can be far from harmonious. Bit what follows is a ver different scene involving dinner.

Example: I dreamt that my mom cut her left hand off and cooked it as dinner for us because she doesn’t want us to starve and there was nothing else to eat. I didn’t see my mom cuting her hand off but just her hand in a dinner dish on the dinner table right next to a whole steamed corn. I asked my mom why would she do that and she said because she doesn’t want us to starved.

If alone, it suggests independence; loss of family ties; lack of social relationships or outside stimulus.

If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to others. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others. Sharing a meal shows you sharing sustenance, what you have, with others; or taking in what others offer you.  See: Food; Meal.

Sharing a meal can also be about making a link with someone in a romantic or business way – or about trying to find out more about them. Many women dream of a romantic meal with aloving and caring partner.

Preparing a meal expresses the care or otherwise with which you ‘feed’ your needs, physical, emotional and spiritual. But it might also show how you relate to supporting other people, such as your family.


Useful questions and Hints::

What situation is shown in this dream in regard to being alone or with others, and the quality of the meal?

What difficulties if any are shown and what can I gather from that?

Am I relating easily or uneasily to the meal and the people?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsSimple Truths


Dinosaur

Your present personality and body has arisen from processes and experiences that are millions of years old. The dinosaur or a prehistoric animal often represents your sense of this primordial past out of which your present self has grown. The dinosaur can also depict deeply instinctive urges, or your feelings about being a devouring monster.

Life on the planet is also only an extension of processes active in the cosmos. So in dreams we often sense this primordial past out of which our present self has grown, and frequently depict this meeting as a prehistoric animal.

The dinosaur might also suggest something you are dealing with that is no longer alive or functioning in your life. Perhaps it is outmoded, clumsy or instinctive.

Exploring dreams is like uncovering different strata of human psychological history – history we all share. The dinosaur often depicts one of these deeply buried strata, linking with our very basic urges of survival such as fear, reproduction, and survival reactions to situations. This does not make these brutal. They are fundamental and necessary in today’s life. Because these aspects of ourselves are so old, and have survived so long, there is often great wisdom in them if we can bring it to consciousness. Such urges as fighting over our territory or mate – grabbing what is available for ourselves – striving aggressively to provide for family, also need to be integrated in a way that socialises them, otherwise they exist in a primitive form still, perhaps in conflict with our present needs. This is similar to most animal symbols, but the difference is that the dinosaur portrays them at their most basic or unsocialised. They can also depict something that has not survived or the will to survive; something, or some element of your attitudes or feelings that is outdated or has no survival value.

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.

Don explored his dream and says – I realised that through my internal digging into myself I had uncovered some feelings I had never met consciously before. This was about anxiety, which I had suffered from a lot, and about the anger I felt toward my step children for not appreciating the work I was putting into building them a home and working to provide. Seeing these things helped me understand what was behind my difficult feelings and fears. For instance I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience, and I needed to meet it and help it to enter into the modern world instead of be repressed and remain primitive.

Example: It was darkening and the street was very appealing to me. I could just discern a house at the end of the street, facing me, and I walked toward it. I was not far advanced along the street when I saw, coming from the direction of the house at the end, in my direction, a very large dinosaur – as high as the house itself. It was walking upright on its large hind feet and the front feet were quite small and held in front. I was very nervous and frightened, but thought, If I walked very slowly, it might not notice me and pass by me But as I was just past it passing me on my right I quickened my steps in fear. It turned and caught up with me, and I thought, If I talk to it in a gentle voice, it might know I was a friend. I talked to it in a soothing voice, saying Good evening, and what are you doing with your little feet in the air? It turned its head down to me and said something in a very sweet voice, and I knew at once it was a friend, but I couldn’t understand what it said. I asked again what it did with its small feet, and it repeated what it had said before, softly, while we were walking toward the house at the end of the street. But I could not understand, though I knew it was something nice. Mrs. G.A.

Here there is an obvious meeting with fear, but this is transformed through communication. As with the previous dream, fear is part of this primeval level of us, along with flight or fight, reproduction and ritualistic behaviour. This means behaviour that is deeply instinctive and not learned. Like the dancing mating rituals of birds, it is behaviour that arises through an external stimulus. For instance some lizards will nod their head and expand their size if something red is flashed in front of them. They cannot help but respond in this way as it is hardwired behaviour.

Example: I meet a beautiful female from Jupiter, she is wearing a white cheesecloth dress and is almost divine in nature, and I am very attracted to her. We walk towards an entrance to her world (Jupiter), through the entrance I can see strange other worldly creatures, some look like dinosaurs, I am in awe of what I am seeing, as we step into her world, she tells me to look up, which I do, the reason for this was, she was telling me not to be distracted by what I am seeing around me, as a great raptor/eagle was coming out of the sky to pick me up.

From what you say of your dream it seems to me you are moving into a new awareness of yourself and what you life is – and its possibilities.

Example: My sister gets through the gate and we are being chased by dinosaurs, they are everywhere. We are running through an office building where I work but we cant find a way out. I distinctly remember reaching back to hold my sisters hand to keep her with me. Eventually we hide in an office and hope the dinosaurs don’t find us. My boss appears and we start to calm down but we are still in danger. As though the responsibility to keep us alive has switched from me to my boss. 

Perhaps you have been digging into yourself to let them loose. If not that, then you are meeting a very primal level of anxiety. But remember the images of the dinosaur are an aspect of yourself, as is the boss. I will try to explain.

When you were conceived you were at the very beginning of life forms. In fact we have to go to the very primal to reproduce. That may not mean much to most people, but in the dream world it means an enormous amount. Because from there we go through the whole process of evolution as we are in our mother’s womb. Again, most people say, “So what. I don’t remember!” You remember not in ordinary memories, but in ancient feelings of fear, or religious wonder or even intuitions of life’s meaning. But of course we do remember and such memories are seen in our dreams. So when you learned language you forgot all the past. A new program was running that aided you to have the waking, self conscious awareness you have today. And that awareness is often at odds with what are the foundations of consciousness your present self is built upon. That is what is happening in the dream. You need to meet and be at ease with what is actually a part of your experience.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I relating to the dinosaur – am I at ease or scared of it – and what does that show me about myself?

Is the dinosaur communicating anything to me, and if so what?

Am I caring for or injuring the dinosaur?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsBeing Person or thingFacing Fear – Dreams are Like a Computer Game

 

 

 

Dionysus

See Bacchus.

Direction

The direction you are heading in the dream, and the atmosphere or conditions surrounding the direction, suggest your intuitive summary of where you are going in life, and whether it will be profitable or difficult. So a direction into a storm for instance speaks of difficulties ahead. A road that takes you up a mountain could mean hard going, but leading to wider vistas, a more inclusive view of yourself and your life.

What you meet in the direction you are taking shows what you intuitively feel is in front of you if you continue in the way you are living. But it is important to remember that exactly as in life the future shifts as you change direction – the road ahead changes. So if it is a difficult direction imagine other direction and watch what you feel. See: Secrets of Power Dreaming for help with this.

If you feel uncertain of direction, while awake take time to define what you really want in life and what direction you need to go to get it. If you are happy responding to life as it comes, then lacking direction is fine.

The four major directions such as North, East, South and West also have unconscious significance, but this must depend upon whether one grew up in the northern or southern hemisphere and what associations you have with them. What is said is for the northern hemisphere, reverse it for the southern hemisphere.


North – for those born in northern hemisphere: Coldness, difficult; away from understanding, aloneness, poor climate for growth; the head.

East: Inwards; the unconscious, the mysterious wisdom of the unconscious or inner life; toward light and rebirth; understanding; the intuitive wisdom.

South – for those born in northern hemisphere: Warmth; fertility; sociability; the genitals.

West: The evening of ones life; the ending of things; new lands or territory.

Struggle between East and West: Conflict between the conscious and unconscious, between wisdom or intuition and intellect; between rules and rationality, and impulse and feeling; or perhaps between the head and the genitals.

Conflict between North and South: Struggle or indecision between what is thought- the North – and what is felt or desired – the South. The north may represent the head, and the south the genitals. This north south struggle may also be a conflict between coldness and warmth, duty and pleasure. See: east; north; south; west.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I lacking direction in a situation?

Am I allowing something beyond my control to take its course?

Is this an expression of dropping dependency and attachment?

What is ahead and behind me in the direction being taken – and can I translate that into waking experience?

Am I heading in a direction, and if so what does the imagery of the dream suggest about it?

What do I feel about having a clear direction in my life?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsUsing Your IntuitionSecrets of Power Dreaming


Dirt

A sense of what is unclean, or of being unclean in mind or body. We have to realise however that dirt is only misplaced earth, which can form the material for growing vital things. See: Earth.

Actions or feelings that we feel are grubby or immoral. The unconscious has a natural morality based on its sense of connection with the universal principles of mating, birth, growth and death. Where our social or sexual life does not align with this or our own consciously accepted principles, we may dream of being dirty. But we also live within the moral pressure to conform to the morals and expectations of the people we share life with and the society we were raised or live in. So a sense of ‘dirtyness’ can be a reflection of that rather than any real transgression against ones own sense of rightness.

Or it can link with mental and emotional housekeeping you need to do – clear up the rubbish in your head or heart. Dirt can also suggest influences from the past, something still in our life that can be got rid of. So dirt or trash can depict past problems that have not yet been dealt with. See: Example under archetype of the beggar; corruption.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is dirty and what does that suggest?

Is the dirt on my, and if so where – look up the part of the body?

Do I need to ‘clean up my act’ in some way?

Is the dirt life giving, or vital for growth in some way?

See Secrets of Power DreamingMammal BrainThe power of Habits

Disabled

Being disabled in your dream, or meeting, or dealing with a disabled person or child, usually refers in some way to an aspect of yourself that has not developed its full potential. For instance your activities or endeavours may have been held back by feelings of inferiority or lack of confidence, or even raising your children, which is a huge responsibility. Those feelings are usually due to something that has hurt your feelings or self-esteem in some way, or is about life circumstances so is shown as a disability. See: cripple.

It can be caused by trauma in your early years, such as premature birth; things done that smashed your young self.

Example: I’m carrying two heavy bags home from school. A teacher doesn’t help me. I am at home, now a mother with children moaning for their tea. I can’t go to bed unless I complete my housework. I’m on a sinking ship like Titanic, jump overboard, divers helping others avoid me. I cry out for help, but they ignore me. I’m a disabled single parent with 2 teenage children.

I am hearing your cry for help Elizabeth. The sinking ship tells me you are near to emotional collapse. However, at a distance I am wondering if – a) From your schooldays you felt nobody supported you so you get into a victim role. b) You consistently take on too much and push yourself too hard. c) You have asked for help but have found no response.  Do any of these apply?

The two bags are your children, who you have no help to carry. The dreams describe the man in your life as apparently strong, but in fact doing nothing to help. What can you do though? Certainly stop pushing yourself so hard – or learn to relax the feeling of constant pressure. Make a long term plan to gain help from your children, to share the load. As a mother you are an important person and no mother should live in a society that make a mother feel such stress. So be like a tigress and stand up for you rights.

There is also a feeling of isolation in your dream, despite you being among people. It is important for you to recognise this and wonder how it has come about.

Human beings has evolved through huge periods of time to have self awareness, a truly amazing thing, but for many it is a state of constant pain and suffering leading many to commit suicide. But Dr. Maurice Bucke, who himself lived in constant physical pain tells of how him and many others were able to evolve to a new state in which their suicidal pains no longer were active in them. He called it Cosmic Consciousness, but it has been known for ages under different names such as Enlightenment and Liberation. Those who evolved to this level of awareness often say, “That we could all be experiencing this, if only we could stop being typical suffering humans. Regardless of what hell one might fall into an enlightened one is an ordinary person who acts like a true adult.” All the major faiths recognise this and so have left records of how to reach this evolution of self.

Here are some – Ox Herding Pictures  – The Many Ways To A New Life – Psychological Vomiting – Communicating With Your Inner Guide

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is shown as disabled in my dream, and what can I recognize about myself from that?

Is this a physical or a mental disability? If mental what lack does it suggest?

Do I feel I am a failure in certain areas, and if so does my dream show me how I can transform those feelings?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the Mind –  Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Disappear Disappearance Disappearing

To forget, to lose sight of something. Or it may express a hope to be rid of that thing or person. Occasionally it can symbolise spiritual power and the magical world of the mind, where thoughts, feelings and memories constantly appear and disappear. In this case it suggests something that is manipulated or emerges from the unconscious.

Depicts the way our conscious self relates to the unconscious. Memories, emotions, abilities, or ideas suddenly appear in awareness, but can disappear just as rapidly, sometimes never to be seen again. See: vanish.

Being with a certain person or in a particular situation can bring about difficulties, problems, or positive feelings and creativity that disappear when you are not in that situation or with that person. So the dream might be showing you what attitudes or situations bring about inner changes. If you learn what ‘buttons’ people or environments press, you can work your own controls. See Avoid Being Victims

People often make things disappear by using a prayer or magic words, even holding a religious symbol. This is basically using one symbol to deny another. It is a way to change your feeling of confidence, and so changes the dream. Better to realise that all dream images are self created from what we have experienced; even the images of God and the devil are images we create. See Dreams are a reflection of your inner world

Dr. Jung also realised that the strange and mysterious phenomenon of the death of God is a psychic fact of our time. In 1937 he wrote: “I know – and here I am expressing what countless other people know – that the present time is the time of God’s disappearance and death.” For years he had observed the Christian God-image fading in his patients’ dreams-that is, in the unconscious of modern men. The loss of that image is the loss of the supreme factor that gives life a meaning.

This is probably to do with a maturing process that as a first step is at war with the old conception of God, and from there finally meets God in him/her self. In a poem, a man who searches his unconscious ends by saying, “At last I see the face of God – it is my own face”.

Example: I know I have  killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar. The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. The various dreams I have based on these circumstances all involve various people visiting my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of the dreams the police were actually investigating the disappearance of “the person” and went into the cellar. You can imagine how I was feeling. When I wake from this dream I always have the most terrible guilty feeling and it takes some time to remember it is a hang over from the dream.

Example: Another definite change is the disappearance of the very dark depressions which existed a year ago, causing desire to die. It seems so far away, yet it was only a year, when I wept because life felt so unbearable due to the dizziness in the head, lack of energy, and darkness in me. The death desire, the dizziness and darkness have gone.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that disappeared, and what does that associate with in my life?

If I disappeared do I wish to get away from a situation or relationship?

Is there something that was important that I have let slip away?

See Secrets of Power DreamingAutonomous ComplexMartial Art of the Mind

Disc

See: Circle.

Discarded Clothes

Discarded clothes: Things you have left behind, or purposely tried to remove from your life. Sometimes this is a way of life, or a period of your life that your ‘wore’ in the past. But occasionally it refers to things from the long past, prior to this present birth, that you are coming across that are relevant to your present.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am aware of at the moment that I left behind, discarded or forgot at some time?

Am I experiencing influences or situations that do not appear to be from this lifetime – if so can I define what they are?

If this refers to something from my past, is it still something I want to discard?

Disease

See illness; illness and dreams

Disinfectant

This has been used in dreams to represent the power of healing, of cleansing fear, or feelings of guilt and being dirty. It is sometimes linked with pain, or burning as a cleansing power. That is, the painful experiences of life have a healing power in themselves, due to the way in which they force attention to the cause of pain, and make us adjust, or let go of emotions, desires and attitudes that have caused trouble, but which we would never have let go of otherwise.

Disinfectant often appears in dreams where there is dirt or infection that creates feelings of concern.

Example: I was in my childhood house in London, about the age I am now. I wanted to go to the toilet badly and was walking from the kitchen to the back door where the toilet was. As I was nearing the toilet I could hold back no longer and shit started dropping down my legs. But as this happened I realised I had worms, and it was these worms dropping down my legs. I dashed into the garden to empty my bowels of these worms, squatting on the grass. As I did so I could see they were not tape worms but short ones like maggots. I was worried they would spread and multiply, and saw some crawl away into the grass. Then I was squatting over a drain hole in the grass and could see the worms/maggots dropping into the drain. I thought I could put disinfectant down the drain to kill them.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is being cleansed or healed in the dream?

Do I feel the need to release or cleanse difficult feelings at the moment?

Am I getting to the root of where the disinfectant needs to be used?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working With – – Inner World

Dislike

What you dislike most in your dreams or in others is usually what you hate most in yourself; and so you refuse to see it in your own actions.. The problem is we cannot see our own faults and tend to put the blame on others without stopping to look more deeply within.

Like and dislike are a very deeply buried level of our instinctive responses. Some times we dislike things or people from our reptile or mammalian brain, and it is worth noting to see if you can find out why you feel this way. “In simple facial expressions, gestures or silence I always picked up on the fact that I did not please my father.”  See Reptilian Brain

Even matter shows a form of like and dislike in magnetism – like poles repel, opposite poles attract. A child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure – a pity to stop a child expressing its real feelings.

Example: Jane had for some time been living with a friend, Eileen, who kept on irritating her by her gushing, immature outpourings, her never-ending flow of small talk, which even kept the servants from their work. Jane had never given vent to this irritation but had remained silent, although underneath she boiled. One lovely summer’s day she went for a walk: all nature seemed to smile. She sat down on a tree-trunk in the sun, and her mind for a moment ceased to function and she thought of nothing. Suddenly a great wave of hatred for Eileen flared up in her. She let it develop until in her mind’s eye she seemed to be strangling her. This was deliberate on her part and she felt no remorse. Instead, indeed, she felt herself enjoying her cruelty. When this happened there was a sense of relief, and a feeling of affection took the place of the former irritation and continued throughout the day. The next morning, when Eileen came down, she narrated a dream she had had that night, which was something she never normally did. She dreamed that she had opened a drawer in a cupboard and there she had found a little kitten half crushed and nearly dead. She took it in her arms, and gave it milk and coaxed it back to life. Then she took it into the garden, where a cat sat looking at it. She was afraid of what the cat would do and told it not to hurt the kitten.

Jane realised at once that the dream was a representation of what had actually been happening. Eileen was the little kitten and she herself the sinister cat. Until late in life Eileen had been at the beck and call of her invalid mother and had never had a life of her own. Then her mother died, and the half-crushed little kitten struggled back into life again. But the cat was a danger. It disapproved of the little kitten’s first efforts to make new and independent contacts, its own contacts, with other people, and disliked its gushing ways, now that at last it could say what it really felt without fear of mama’s displeasure. So Jane came to realise the situation emotionally and thus could really sympathise. She no longer felt irritated, or, if she did, could laugh at herself over it, so that the whole situation was changed.

We also have dislikes for the work we do and also people like neighnours or competitiors – especially in love. Sometimes it is worth asking yourself if the person is an enemy. We do not have to love everybody, and it is good be real about who is an enemy, and whether it can be worked out so you do not feel tension near them. Your dreams will give excellent advice about that.

Dislikes can be caused by having a different belief, and this will show in your dreams and also a way of growing beyond it. Or jealousy can cause tremendous dislike.


Useful questions:

What and who is showing the dislike?

Is it something I cannot recognise in my self?

Ask your close friends if they can reconise it in you?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Dispose Disposing

As can be seen from the examples we can dispose of things that are dead in our life and of things I body needs to clear out. But we can also dispose or try to get rid of past things we collected but do not find them useful any more. The first example shows this well. But we can also try to get rid of memories about a past relationship that didn’t work and we keep dreaming about it. It is not good to try to get rid of such things because it would be like denying a big part of you. See Dealing With an Ex

People often try to get rid of or deny any connection with bodies that have been murdered. These are parts of you that you have killed out by killing love, or through denying an important drive or emotion.

Example: I recently dreamt of finding dead body in my back garden. It had been dead for a very long time. When I explored my dream I traced the body back to a time when I had killed out my growing manhood because of events in my early life. I felt guilty, but by offering the dead person love it all resolved, because I understood exactly how it had happened. So I suggest giving those dead bodies love, and meeting any emotions that emerge. Love is a wonderful force that can transform the past.

So you can transform the dead and give them life again. Use Secrets of Power Dreaming to do this. Also there is the possibility of resurrection.

Example: I had just experienced a very vivid memory of mylife as a woman, a woman who had died in great emotional pain because all her family had been killed.

I stood and started pacing up and down the room. I still felt, as the woman, trapped and unable to find any resolution. But a resolution did gradually arise. It arose because I, realised that I must simply remain open and allow the process to continue emerging. And as it did there came again that wonderful feeling of resurrection. The woman and I gradually merged and she knew herself in my life. In doing so she woke up in a new world, in a different world. She realised that she was out of that trap, of that mental and emotional state in which she had existed. She/I wept loudly with the relief of feeling released from such a condition. Still sobbing she rejoiced in what women had achieved in the present time, where they could choose to work, where they could choose to stay in the or leave a relationship without the chains that had kept them bound in the past.

Example: Dr. K calls. “Her husband is curious as to whether you are going to teach or not.” “I am curious too,” I say. I don’t know. I am trying to make up my mind whether I will go back to teaching or not. I have all my books or many of them in a big plastic garbage bag ready to dispose of. This is after I took a course with a woman who really taught me how to teach. I now know how to teach for the first time really well.

Example: My fiancé and I were trying to ‘dispose’ of five infant bodies. We hid them amongst tree and lawn clippings which were piled up on a car trailer. We were trying to hide them and were ensuring no one could see the bodies.

I was thinking about disposing of them at the rubbish tip but was concerned that someone might actually see them as we removed them from the trailer, or that the police might pull us over on the way to the rubbish tip.

I don’t know why I felt we had to cover up the deaths, I don’t think we actually killed them. I don’t know why we thought it was our responsibility to secretly dispose of the bodies. The actual death of the infants is a mystery. I recall seeing each dead baby fleetingly and saw their bodies smeared with blood. It was a sad heavy feeling and I felt as though the deaths were out of my hands, as though there was nothing I could have done about it. I kept saying, ‘my god, five infant babies dead’.

I think before you can understand your dream you have to realise that as a modern person you live a life of several levels. Your body is millions of years old and is that of a mammal. Your brain is segmented into several levels, and it carries the basic spinal, the lizard brain, the mammalian brain, and then sitting on top of that is the human brain dealing with speech, thinking, etc. So you are a complex being. But mostly you know yourself as ‘Candy’ – a person relating to the social and physical world around you. This part of you – what you call ‘me’ – relates to the world quite differently to the other levels of yourself.

If ‘Candy’ didn’t exist you would still be a mammalian animal moved by all the urges common to mammals. That means you would probably have reproduced by now. The urge to reproduce is still there underneath all your social programming and consciously developed likes and dislikes, with the social needs and decisions you make. See Woman’s Creative Power

So, if we look at your dream, we see the opening scene is one of trimming back on natural growth, the unconscious emergence of life in you. In fact you are, in your relationship, cleaning up stuff related to your growth or development. You are at an age where as a woman you near a great change. Your ability to conceive and bear a child will go, along with the identity you developed out of being a sexually attractive and nubile female. This, I think, is why the clear up is going on. What you cut back on though are not dead things. You have cut back living growth, and as the images suggest, this means the possibility of children.

Even though you do not want children consciously – and that is fine – the mammal and fundamental life processes in you have constantly been trying to reproduce – thus the dead children. You didn’t actively kill them, but your direction in life meant you did not allow them to live.

Example: I was trying to dispose down the toilet a huge bundle of faeces mixed up with toilet paper. It was about the size of a large beach ball and when I put it in the toilet and tried to flush it away it bounced right back again. I think I tried several times before realizing that I would have to break it up into very small pieces and flush them away a few at a time. I saw that I was doing this with my bare hands and that they were getting covered with the mess, but I knew I had to carry on, it was the only way.

While I was doing this there was a knock on the bathroom door, I shouted that I wouldn’t be long but it was my youngest son and he had a key so he let himself in. He wanted a bath and I continued to dispose of my faeces while he was in the bath. Then I saw that he too had a very large bundle of faeces and toilet paper of his own and was trying to dispose of it in the other toilet that was in the room and, as with myself, each time he tried to dispose of it in one go it bounced back again. I then showed him that the only way to dispose of it was to break it up into small manageable pieces and dispose of them a few at a time.

The message of the above dream is – do not tackle a big problem all in one go. You’re your time and break it down into manageable amounts.


Useful questions and hints:

What is it that is being disposed of – and what connections or understanding have you gained?

Is what you are trying to dispose of memories – memories are part of you and you may end with a dead body in your dreams.

Was it a good feeling to dispose of it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsRecurring


Dissection

Intellectual enquiry that lacks feeling and sympathy. But it can also show a deep self analysis that might be painful, a sort of tearing oneself apart to discover why or what is happening. This can happen in relationships where people tear themselves apart because of the pain they feel. They are attempting to either find the cause of the pain or trying to understand it.

The dissected body is frequently seen in myths and is particularly related to death and rebirth, to suffering and new beginnings.

Example: I was walking along a road and recognised a house. I had known a man who had lived there. He had killed his wife and I had disposed of her body. The body, cut and broken into many pieces, was buried in the front garden. I realised I felt guilty about my part in the murder, and had purposely pushed the memory of it out of my awareness to avoid feeling guilt and fear of the body being found.

Andrew, whose dream this was, when he explored it met feelings about how he had messed up the opportunities for love in his life through living out his hurts and angers with his wife. He had thereby killed the love between them and had tried to bury his awareness of this.

Example:  I had a dream in which I was walking along on the flat roof of a university building, and in my right hand I was carrying the head of a man stripped of flesh, and in my left hand a bag containing the dissected body of that man.  As I looked from the roof I saw a man draw up in a car park below and I threw the head to fall near him.  He picked it up thinking it was plastic, but then dropped it in horror.

As I explored the dream I felt the depth of it.  The man was myself.  I had torn myself apart trying to deal with the constant pain.  I had even put before other people the awful situation I was in, and they had pulled back.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being dissected and what does that suggest is being enquired into or torn apart?

Am I being over logical about the way I am looking at myself or my situation?

Am I arriving at any understanding or insight through the dissection?

See Avoid Being Victims – – Life’s Little SecretsSecrets of Power Dreaming

 

Ditch

Obstacles; things you might get caught or trapped in, therefore a hazard. A drainage or release for your feelings. A way of getting rid of something or someone – ‘ditching’. Feeling discarded or thrown away. So you cen be ditched, or ditch someone, or even ditch a car. They all mean an ending of something that was important to you.

Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of past events coming to light.

Jumping a ditch can mean – if you succeed – that you have the ability to overcome or cross barriers and to stretch himself.

Someone in a ditch can mean you are in a place of little hope, maybe because you have fallen through neglecting lifes lessons, maybe an addiction or through emotions. See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being Victims

Irrigation ditches suggest ways you have worked on to direct you emotions and energy toward growth.

A ditch can sometimes be a hiding place when danger threatens, as in the example.

Example: A woman who was a radio researcher was offered the job of presenter. She was thrilled but dreamt she was in a road walking and planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting. She had to dive into a ditch to avoid being killed. When she explored the dream she realised she was afraid of facing the public directly, and this fear if left unconscious would have caused her to refuse the job. She accepted the fear and managed to press forward with the job.

Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of pat events coming to light.

Example: I am searching/looking for a lost baby bird, I’m not sure why or where it came from. But I am searching for it in some long grass and along a ditch. I remember seeing a large truck(like a cube van) parked off the road a few hundred feet away. I never found the baby bird, I did see it a couple of times, but by the time I got to where I had seen it, it was gone. Jennifer

An interpretation given to Jennifer: Baby birds often link in some way with feelings about childhood, a child or a baby. The rest of the dream is about there being a suggestion of loss, or not finding something in connection with your own childhood, a child or a baby. The ditch might mean this has been ditched, cast away, lost. In some dreams it might even suggest attempting to have a baby. The truck brings in a suggestion of a commercial influence, but it seems quite inert. When this was pointed out to Jennifer she said, “My husband and I have been talking about starting to try and get pregnant, but he is out of work at the moment, so we’d rather wait until he finds another job. So it does make sense.”

Idioms: ditch him/her; last ditch.

 

Useful questions:

Is the ditch an obstacle or to drain water/my feelings?

Is there something I might fall into at the moment?

Is anything found in the ditch – is so what does it suggest?

See Martial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

Dive Diving

If you are not showing off or challenging yourself in your dream, then it is probably indicating that you are taking a chance, or entering something new and unknown, perhaps facing fears in doing so. Or trying to get away from something. The second example shows how we can learn confidence when learning to take chances.

Diving underwater: Delving into one’s mind or unconscious. Exploring the meaning of a dream, or an eventful meditation, might be depicted as swimming underwater in dreams. See: Swimming.

We can fly and dive in dreams, and this too is a way of developing confidence – mental and emotional confidence. If we do not have that confidence then we will feel fear or wake up. But you cannot be hurt or die in dreams. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

Diving from a great height suggests a sudden descent, which you may not have much control over, but it is a chance to learn to fly or to control your descent. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: Last week I dreamt a teenage (or early 20s) boy rushed down to a riverbank where he had discovered the skeletal remains of a young child.  The clothes were still there.  He wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to this child.  He ushered an authoritative figure down there and told him of his plans to investigate.  The key aspect of this investigation involved him diving into the river to get to the bottom of things.  I watched as he relayed his plans.  I had no idea how deep the river was.  No idea where the bottom was.

Example: I was looking around the school, and came to a very large gymnasium. Near the end I stood was a diving board, about 20 feet off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling while standing up.

Example:  Tonight I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.


Useful questions and hints:

Was I watching or was I involved in the dive?

What emotions did I feel in the dream?

Did I lose control or did I gain it?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working WithMartial Art of the Mind


Divining Rod

Intuitive realisation. Or intuitive directions.

Divorce

This might be either that you are angry at your partner, or that you fear for the continuance of your marriage. It can also mean difficulty with your inner partner feelings/intellect. Occasionally this is a dream that looks ahead to the future, because one senses a parting of the ways.

Also fear of or hope for break up of marriage. Occasionally such dreams do define the problems in your relationship that will eventually lead to divorce.

A partner often depicts your male or female characteristics, and so the dream might show you cutting them out of the way you live your life. But it also shows the struggles we might go through with our feelings in an otherwise good relationship. So wherever possibly it is worth trying to repair the partnership. Remember that we have to MAKE love.

Example: A man dreamt he was holding divorce papers and saying ‘Next time I will marry someone more mature’. Some time later he dreamt he was in process of getting divorced and marrying an old flame. In yet another dream he was trying to telephone an old girlfriend but being impeded by his wife.

At the time of these dreams he was married and thought the marriage was happy and secure. He did not feel himself tempted to have an affair. However divorce did follow the series of dreams, and looking back from a remarriage he felt both he and his first wife were unsuited to each other, and should never have been together. His first wife also happily remarried. Taken from Dream Power by Ann Faraday.

Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I was at the beach with a lot of strangers. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.

In A’s dreams the beach and sea depict the barriers to achieving a meeting with her own simplicity – herself without all the clothing and trappings of social life and anxieties.

Example: I am divorced from my husband. Before it became final I had this dream. I was running along a deserted beach towards my husband. As I ran I could see the tide was far out. When I reached my husband I put my arms around his waist. Instead of holding me close he dumped his arm around my shoulder and looked in the opposite direction.

One of the difficulties we face as humans is the difference between our emotions and our reasoning. At the time of the dream you probably knew in your head that the marriage was finished, but your heart still held a hope for togetherness.

The beach represents the urge to be together and intimate. It is at this point where your husband looks away that your heart realises there is a separation between you. In this way the dream opens your heart to feel the emotions of loss and the grieving for the lost relationship. So it helps heal the wound. The beach also depicts your ongoing life. The tide is out – showing a low ebb in your life – but it will come in again and bring new fortune. See Learning to Love

Divorce single male dream: Difficulty with your feelings.

Divorce single female dream: Difficulty with social extroversion and intellect.

Divorce married male and female: Possible difficult feelings about present marriage. This doesn’t mean there is a real problem, so carefully watch future dreams.

Divorce woman going through divorce: A survey of the dreams of American women going through a divorce showed that those who best navigated the problems had dreams about the past, the present and the future. Those who dreamed only about the past were apt to be trapped in old feelings and unable to adapt as quickly.


Useful questions:

What difficulties are shown in the dream, and can I see them and deal with them?

Am I cutting off the expression of my male or female qualities?

Deep down do I hope for a separation from my partner, and if so do I need to own that feeling and its consequences?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims


Dizzy Giddy Vertigo

Losing your sense of balance, of relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.

This might indicate a feeling that you are bombarded by new impression or changes. The sense of balance in relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.

The sense of strain causing us to feel dizzy in dreams is shown in the following example.

Example:  It was at our coming convention (I am running for president of our organization). I could see the crowded convention room, dimmed with smoke. I had been furiously taking minutes (I’m secretary) and had got up to speak on a topic that concerned me–I don’t know what it was, but I was passionately sure they were all wrong–I got up to talk, feeling dizzy and tired, but made my point and went out for air, feeling utterly exhausted and beyond caring if the convention took my advice or not. One of the boys was outside–someone I’d met before–I was almost in hysterics by then and shaking–he took me in his arms and held me, then we sat down and I leaned on his shoulder and after awhile he kissed me gently. By then, feeling very tranquil.

Being unready to face a new experience can also cause dizzyness in dreams. A woman who dreamt of a dizzying flight on a spaceship describes it as, “The “very advanced spaceship” is my body/mind. The flight represents sex, and also on a larger level my whole life, creativity, etc. I don’t want to “go all the way” to the moon on the first flight, and they tell me I won’t, but then we do. This feels like the way I jumped into sex, intercourse, with no preparation, no years of slow making out or extended foreplay. In my recollection of the dream I am not clear whether it is on the space-ship (some part of myself) who is responsible for this decision. Similarly, in waking life, it was both of us who were responsible for it. The flight could be exciting and beautiful-the stars spin by the window-but it makes me dizzy and nauseous because I am not ready for it.

Dizzyness can also be about losing control or feeling control slipping away. At a very practical level it might be indicating that you have an ear infection, or that wax in your ears is interfering with your organs of balance.

But if it is a waking experience, it is best to try the Epley manoeuvre.

 

Useful questions:

Do I need to have my ears checked to see if wax or infection is leading to dizziness?

Am I feeling in a whirl of impressions and experiences?

Is the solid ground of my experience being disturbed?

Am I reacting to meeting unconscious material. See Reaction to unconscious

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming Avoid Being Victims


Doctor

Our dependence upon authority figure for a sense of wholeness, or to deal with anxiety. The dream doctor can be the healing process within us – or the unconscious wisdom we have concerning our needs and well being. The doctor might give us advice for instance, or help us with anxiety about health.

The doctor can be a figure you look to when feeling desire for intimacy or to be looked at and touched. Occasionally the figure of the doctor presages or is a supportive agent in the process of dying. There might also be fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure involved in the dream.

In some dreams the doctor appears to represent intellectual curiosity or rational thought, but perhaps with an open mind.

Seeing a doctor can also suggest fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure.

Dreams of collapse and destruction are more prevalent before a woman’s menstrual periods. Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”

Women with negative attitudes toward their menstruation (“the curse,” “falling off the roof,” “on the rag”) showed 15 percent of their dreams during the first two days had concerns about their body health. While those with positive feelings toward menstruation (“my secret friend,” “my monthly visitor,” “Mother Nature calling”) had less than 2 percent of dreams showing concerns.

Example: When I was working hard renovating a great big dance hall to turn it into our house, I developed a pain in my right arm so bad I went to the doctor. He told me I had tennis elbow and it could never be cured. He added that I should avoid exertion.

I thought what a load of b*******s he was saying. I know my body has the ability to heal itself, but I didn’t know how. As I was working to renovate our house and it was difficult, and the pain had continued for six months without any change, so I surrendered to the process of Life active in me and I asked what I could do. The answer was quite detailed. Holding in mind the pain in the arm I waited for the responses to arise from within. Soon, spontaneous fantasies and ideas bubbled into awareness, almost as if someone were explaining the situation to me. I was led to understand that during the past year I had not only been working hard physically to renovate the building, but because of divorce, family conflict within my new relationship, plus the change of home, I had experienced much stress and anger. During my sawing, plastering and hammering, I had discharged much of this anger and stress. As with any hard work, the cells in my right arm had broken down, but the anger and tension had prevented the cells from regenerating adequately.

As this insight emerged I could see what a shrewd summary of my recent unconscious attitudes it was. The emerging explanation went on to say that each cell is a tiny individual life, and in the body, they each take on a particular task. Some live as workers in the muscles; some are thinking beings in the brain, and some act as transformers, as in the liver. Each cell depends upon the others to co-operatively share food, oxygen and pleasure. The cells in my arm didn’t mind the hard work, but they also needed to share the pleasures of eating, music and love making. I had been unconsciously deluging them with anger and tension, and denying them laughter and relaxation.

So when I ate I would consciously allow the pleasure I felt in my mouth to be felt by the rest of my body, particularly the right arm. When I made love, I attempted to relax and let my whole body feel the pleasure, not keep it in the genitals. I frequently concentrated on my right arm, relaxing it and allowing pleasure felt elsewhere to flow to it. Within a week it was completely free of the pain, and the problem has never returned.

Example: While visiting Amsterdam in the summer of 1966, my husband and I returned to our hotel rather early one afternoon because he had suddenly become very ill. No specific symptoms appeared and he lay down. He soon fell asleep and dreamed that he was visited by the best doctor in the world, who told him to take a massive dose of Phillips milk of magnesia.

He awakened and ordered a taxi to drive me to the nearest apothecary. I went to five before I found a shop which had one dusty bottle of Phillips milk of magnesia. He took a massive dose and by the next morning he had completely recovered.

Idioms: Doctor something; have an animal doctored; doctor the accounts; doctor in the house.


Useful questions and hints:

Do I suffer from worries about my health, and does this dream reflect them?

What is happening in my relationship with the doctor?

Am I in a healing situation, and if so in what way?

See Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Document

Usually an important idea, or important information about yourself.

It can also a symbol of your right to continue or to enter into a new phase of your life – such a passport or ticket is. Or it can be a proof or sign of your identity such a birth certificate.

Documents can be evidence in a claim or in a trial of your worthiness, or even to give power – as in power of attorney. Also a chance of inheritance.

Example: At one point I confronted a tree stump which spoke. It had a large lower lip of bark which could protrude. I gave it something to eat which it spat out. It said it wanted something ‘connective’ I believe. I dropped some knitting wool in its mouth. This satisfied it. It had a huge amount of wool in its mouth, and I was concerned whether it could chew the stuff. Then the tree wrote out my report.  The document was very grand and it was written out with an air of great solemnity and legality. I had passed the test, but not with very high marks – maybe because I put the wrong stuff in its mouth first.

Whether written by yourself or someone else, this is usually about an important idea, or important information regarding you or what you are doing. While asleep we have access to a much greater range of memories and connective links with information than while awake, and so can be more creative in what we realise or what we call out of our inner world.

If the document is old it is probably expressing intuitions you have about what you have inherited from the past.


Useful questions and hints:

What impression do I have of what the document was about or what it contained?

Was this my document or did it connect with someone else – if so who?

Does this contain information about the past, about family or inheritance, and can I define what?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsPlot of the DreamLife Changes

Dog

The dog appears more often than any other animal in dreams. It depicts our natural drives that are well socialised, but still have the tendency to revert back to the spontaneous or ‘wild’ state quite easily. For instance our anger might usually be well under control, but if someone teases us we might surprise ourselves by the amount and strength of our anger, or our desire to cower and hide. But the dog is often a sign of enthusiasm, care or warning – as can be observed so often if we have a dog. See animal

Example: I had misinterpreted the meaning of Tramp my dog, who I felt was my inner self. I now see that Tramp is my psychic self, the mixture of instinct, complexes, feelings and closeness to nature. Possibly my intuitive, habitual or instinctive response to events. He is my companion on walks, to run faster, react quicker, smell better, fight more savagely, and face hardship.

Similarly our sexuality may be usually expressed in a socially acceptable way, but if we are in a situation where our sexual pleasure is stimulated or allowed easy expression we might deeply shock other people and ourselves by what we do. It can also represent easy expression of such aspects of ourselves as aggression – maybe because dogs show their teeth easily – as well as their sexuality, especially male sexuality; also their easy expression of love. Also the parts of self we usually keep out of sight, but which may express spontaneously. The dog as an example of intuition is shown in the following dream.

Example: Was crawling through a tunnel underground. I was now in a dreary, dismal, drab Edwardian type room. My mother, father and my dog, Tramp, were also there. It was quite a big room. Tramp went up to the fireplace and put his paw up under the shelf as if pointing. I looked and saw he was indicating a crevice under the shelf. I felt there and found papers in there, but also that there might be fingers in there touching mine. I said this to my father, but he did not reply. The hole was getting bigger all the time, and the room darker.

The dogs can represent this feeling energy, this natural life response to events and ones situation, our easy flowing natural feelings such as devotion, perhaps to a lover or child. The dog is yourself if, the natural you if you let your emotions off the lead. So it can be your uninhibited love or anger, your open sexuality, or even your honest needs.

For some people a dog was the only source of expressive love in their childhood, so may well depict this; fidelity and faithfulness, as the sheep-dog it is also the guardian of our welfare. Like the cat, the dog can be a substitute baby for childless women, or represent affection or caring.Occasionally we depict a person, or what we feel about a person through the character of a dog. See: cat.

Example: Actually seeing a dog in my dream I find not the dumb animal that humans patronizingly assume to be there, but a creature of remarkable complexity and deep emotions, capable of various levels of behavior, of guilt and loyalty, or shame, of identification with people—a creature so like themselves that other distinctions seem negligible. It broke down my assumptions of superiority. It sent me spinning back to the sense of kinship with animals that primitive men, in their rituals and folk myths, so clearly revealed. I found myself becoming snakes, tigers, bears, rabbits with such ease and pleasure that there would seem to be a veritable menagerie in the back of my mind. Moreover, the conviction of animal identity, once accepted, is terribly convincing. Having accepted the limited truth of my animal kinship, I am loath to see the broader areas in which such a communion is untrue. See Animals in your Brain – Temple of the Animals

Example: The role then came to life and spontaneously I as Vince the dog went to Alan and stood up on my hind legs with my paws on his chest, looking into his eyes. I wanted to communicate something to him.

The communication was so strong that I as Alan felt it and will describe it. Vincent reminded me of the many things we had shared in life. As this happened I felt such love – the love I really had felt for that beautiful dog. As I felt this Vincent and I became one being. I remember carrying him in my arms when he was young because, as a runt he was so nervous that at times he couldn’t even walk. I remember going everywhere with him as I walked London. I also knew that Vincent represented for me the ability to see into the invisible worlds – psychic sight and sensing. He had demonstrated it to me at least twice.

As all these memories poured through me I felt deep emotions pouring up and started crying. Crying because Vincent was helping me be aware of things I had not put together before. Lately I have been trying to extend personal awareness again, into lucidity and into the world. The emotions I was feeling were due to a realisation, and as this happened I knew what the previous dream of Vincent meant. I understood because various bits of memory came together to form a whole.

In mythology the dog has symbolised the guardian of the gates of death, or a messenger between the hidden and the visible world. The dog was also thought of as a guide or guardian of the hidden side of life entered in sleep and death. The following example illustrates how love can survive death.

Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!

Dogs can be a wonderful intuitive friend, even life saver. This is because it has been proved that dogs often know when their owner is ill or about to have an attack. But dogs are also very psychic. See Talking with Dead also Cats and dogs know

Example: In a dream, my dog, Gus, told me he had worms and needed to go to the doctor. We went the next morning. Dr. Dennis Umlang looked at Gus, a picture of health, then asked why the visit.  I – told him Gus needed to be checked for worms. “Have you seen any evidence of worms?”, he asked.  “No.”  I answered, “but I still want him checked.”  The testing showed negative.   I told Dr. Umlang the dream and asked that they try again. That’s when he told me of the heartworm test which is costly but the only way to detect their presence. “Do it,”  I said.   The test was positive! Ordinarily there is no real warning of heartworms.   By the time symptoms appear it is often too late and treatment is dangerous due to the animal’s weakened condition. Because of early detection, Gus survived the treatment with no damage to vital organs.

Barking dog: A warning or a sign of protection. Warning that something or someone is there who is not a friend – or that you should not approach whatever is shown in the dream.

Black dog: The black dog figures in quite a lot of people’s imagery. Bernard Levin uses it to represent depression. For some people it brings feeling about death. The sense or meaning the dog gives in relationship to depression or death in dreams is that it is a living energy in us that has gone ‘bad’ and thus causes the depression or death. Such depression is usually the result of past painful experiences that are like lumps blocking free flowing positive life energy.

The black dog also show you urges which are largely unconscious, or it is a messenger related to what is unconscious in you. So the black dog can indicate sexual feelings that you are not proud of, or any natural feelings, even feelings of love that you hold back.

Dog attacking: Either being attacked by someone and so representing their anger or snide criticism – or your own anger or aggression. See: What Does my Dream Animal Mean

–  Animal phobias at the end of the animal entry.

Dog on lead attacking: If you are holding the lead – restraint of your aggression toward someone. If someone else is holding the lead – feeling attacked by someone. As in Cornelia’s dream in the example below, there may be a sexual connection.

Dog on lead: Restrained or controlled urges; urges we have trained or directed; holding back or restraining or directing parts of oneself.

Puppy: Youth, heedlessness, spontaneous affection and enthusiasm. It often represent a child, or feelings about wanting a child, being pregnant with a child, even one of your own children. Also vulnerability or dependent needs. Like any young animal, it can depict your need to care for or love something, or be loved. What happens to the puppy, if neglected or mistreated, most likely indicates memories of pain from your own childhood, or neglect of vulnerable parts of yourself. See: Baby animal in animal situations; Neglected animal in animal situations.

Woman’s dream – attacked by dog: Could well be feelings about male sexuality or a relationship with a male. Possibly the dreamer is holding back her own female strength and cannot meet the male strength.

Example: ‘I continue on my path, and suddenly the nettles disappear and the path is clear. Ahead the wall has curved round to face me, but there is a gate in it, and I can see my dog waiting for me on the other side.’ Mrs M. G.

In the dream from an elderly woman the dog is leading the way through the experience of meeting death. Mythology has often shown the dog in this light, as an inner sense of knowing how to find transformation through death – or as the ravaging threat of death.

Example: I was with a female friend who is a lesbian. Two dogs attacked us. My friend ran away but I couldn’t. Cornelius.

On exploring her dream Cornelius discovered feelings about her own womanhood and relationship with males. She realised the dogs represented her relationship with male sexuality, and that her friend was afraid of males.

Example: I was aware of the danger of two, or maybe one young child. They had been allowed to carry a small animal which acted as a scent lead for large tracker dogs that were hunting and would attack and kill whatever they were tracking. I found one of the boys trying to hide under a pot or a basin in the spare ground behind the house I lived in London. I pulled him out from his attempts to hide. He had no idea of his danger. Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing. D.G.

There is an obvious reference in this dream to the unconscious urges some people have to hunt and hound others. The dogs especially depict this unleashed aspect of human nature, harmless when not set into motion. It also shows how such actions by others threaten the child in us, or the areas of personal vulnerability.

Example: I come out of my house. Across the street is a nursery. (this is actually true, there is a nursery across the street and the street is well used and busy) I looked up to see my yellow male Labrador dog named Odo. (He is a dog I have now) He was sitting in a truck on the passenger side. He looked like he was smiling. I thought, “What in the world is Odo doing in that truck?” At first I thought he was driving the truck, but then realised that he wasn’t, an ancient old man was. And the truck was weaving from one side of the street to the other. I yelled for Odo to come back and he jumped out of the truck. How I don’t know. But he did. He came running toward me, but there was a chain-linked fence between us. The fence ended at the street, but Odo was attempting to climb over the fence instead of going around it. I shook my head and said to myself that he was going to hurt himself. Sort of laughed, too. Then I woke up. I remembered thinking the day before that I was comparing my husband, A, to Odo. And thinking if I could just accept the silly things he does as well as I do with my dog, our relationship would be so much easier. K.

In this dream K. is probably right that she is using her dog to consider her relationship with her husband. She may even be using the dog as an image of her husband and his character.

Idioms: See a man about a dog; hair off the dog that bit you; call off the dogs; you can’t teach an old dog new tricks; raining cats and dogs; dirty dog; as sick as a dog; dog eat dog; dog in the manger; dog tired; dog’s life; gone to the dogs; let sleeping dogs lie; lucky dog; tail wagging the dog; top dog; die like a dog; dirty dog; gay dog; go to the dogs; hair of the dog; sick as a dog; lucky dog; raining cats and dogs; see a man about a dog; teach an old dog new tricks; tail wagging the dog; thrown to the dogs; etc.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream dog represent someone I know or my own spontaneous feelings?

Is there any indication of relating to this dog as a child or a love object?

What feelings is the dog expressing?

Is the dog helping me meet or understand death or the unconscious?

If so what am I learning?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming –  Life’s Little SecretsDream Yoga

 

Doll

This frequently represents yourself when you were a baby, or at least, your feelings when young.

Many dreams including a doll show it being savagely beaten or injured. In this case it could show you how hurt you felt in your own childhood, or perhaps it means you are angry and need a target that will not hit back. Occasionally, in a woman’s dream it could mean you want to be cared for like a precious doll.

Many ‘doll’ dreams are, as the example, using the doll as a target for violence. This may refer to how the dreamer felt as a child when smacked or attacked emotionally – like a helpless doll.

It could also be a means of displacement for anger or feelings the dreamer would like to discharge on another. See also: toy; cuddly toy.

Example: ‘She continues to attack him and to my horror and feeling of helplessness, his head comes off. But the neck is made of some sort of material with a string hanging off it, and I realise it is a doll’s head.’ Mr R. H.

Many dolls are used to express a desire to have a baby.

Dolls can also express the way we feel about the past, or represent different people – Mum and Dad, brother or sister. We use them to act out or experience things we might not be able to do in daily life. Using a doll in the dream frees us from any guilt we might feel if we really expressed our real feelings.

Example: And then last night, I dreamt that I had really long hair, which I have had, but now it is shoulder length; and then I went to put it in a braid because it was all in the way, and easily tangled. Instead I cut it all off, unevenly… I looked like a bald Barbie doll, varying lengths of pieces sticking every which way, and a shiny bald spot on the front. But I wasn’t upset, just a bit confused why I cut it off, because I liked it long.

In the above dream the person had recently gone through a massive transformation and the dream shows her uncertainty of how she sees or feels about herself.

Sometime a desire to return to wonderful days of childhood or a part of you that needs to be brought to life.

Example: In answer to this rather truculent question the patient flared up. “You fool, how do you think I can give it to myself? Can I go back and make my parents rich? Can I take back the doll my sister stole; can I go to school without those awful holes in my dresses—ashamed, ashamed of everything I had and was? Oh, God, oh, God, it’s frozen in time, like a fly buried in amber, and nothing can ever change it. As long as I live that little girl will go on wearing her coat to hide her dresses. As long as I live that hateful woman will always be turning away, cold and disapproving. Nothing can save that girl, nothing!”—and now she ‘was sobbing quietly for the past she could not change.

The rupture between the patient’s ideal of herself and the facts that shattered it was eventually healed, but her dilemma points up a fact that all of us face. Reality can seldom be bent to our dreams for ourselves, either the reasonable ones or the unreasonable ones that could never possibly be achieved. Our hopes are too big for it. Every life bears its residue of unfulfilled dreams, and every parent looks to his children to satisfy them. See Opening to Life

Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep longing for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of ones skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.

 

Useful questions and hints:

In my dream what feelings are there connected with the doll?

In what way is the doll being handled or used.

What does the condition of the doll express?

See Every 7 Years You ChangeSecrets of Power DreamingAutonomous Complex

Dolphin Porpoise

Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things. See: Fish.

The dolphin can also indicate powerful inner energies, or conscious awareness of your link with all life and contact with the one life within all things. In some dreams a dolphin can be alink for you with your core self, your spirit, and so it may communicate or teach you.

Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.

I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.

Useful questions and hints:

What do I feel in connection with the dolphin?

What is emerging from with and influencing me?

Am I aware of knowing my connection with the one life?

Does the dolphin communicate anything to me?

See Inner WorldAssociations Working WithLife’s Little Secrets

 

Donkey

As with the animal: The hard working and long suffering processes of the body, such as the automatic or instinctive processes. The ass or donkey may also represent your body as a beast of burden, or that you are living as if you are only a dumb working animal.

If the ass or donkey is being ridden by or pulling someone else: You may be feeling you are doing all the hard work in a relationship, or working like a beast of burden.

Riding a donkey or ass or donkey: This may represent humility or feeling in a lowly position. But this may also simply relate to your relationship with your body’s needs and responses. For ass as part of the body, See: Anus.

See: Ass.

Door Doors

Freud felt that a door, a keyhole, a handle, a knocker, all depicted sex and sexual organs. The first example shows this clearly. Knocking refers to the sex act, the cul-de-sac is the woman’s legs.

But the image of a door has so many other ways of being expressed in dreams and is used very frequently. In the first example it represents the experience of discovering a new feeling state. For instance if one had always been apologetic and now became affirmative, ‘new doors’ of experience could well open.

Example: Dreamt I run away from police into a cul-de-sac. It is night and I cannot see a thing. I feel my way to a door, and knocked. An old woman of about 60 comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and embrace her sexually. Then she is naked and I feel her cold flesh against mine and I have intercourse with her. As I do so, she moans in apprehension and pleasure. I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good. When she’s back upstairs, she notices the window is open, and a strong wind blows the curtains apart. This terrifies her into feelings of guilt and shame, and she makes me hide behind the bed while she tries to close the window. She leans out of the window to push her neighbour’s curtains back also, and falls to her death. I then wander in gardens outside.

This is a description of the whole Oedipus complex as stated by Freud.

General meanings depending on dream: Remember that context is everything in understanding your dream. So depending on context it can indicate a boundary; the difference between one feeling state and another, such as depression and feeling motivated. A barrier to change or growth or the passing from inside oneself to exterior life. The feelings or attitudes, such as aloofness, we use to shut others out of our life to remain independent or private and being open or inviting. See Context Theme

A sense of leaving an environment or relationship – or escape. A door can be an entering into a new work or relationship situation; entrance to a new life style, or a new phase of one’s life. Or conversely, an exit from one situation into another. The door can also show how you are open or inviting, or how you leave or enter an environment or relationship a life style, or a phase of your life. This is usually shown by the place, room or environment the door leads to or from.

In each of our lives there are initiations into new experiences or maturity. These are often shown as doors. So at puberty we are initiated into sexual development and a wider sympathy. At marriage we may face a door to parenthood and an initiation into motherhood. Do you enter those doors, and if so with what feelings? Why not walk beyond the door and see who, what, is on the other side.

An actual example of this is of a woman who wrote telling of a recurring dream in which she discovered a door in her house she had never seen before. Beyond it was a whole apartment she has never known or used. It was obviously an area of her life she had never lived in, but she had no idea what it was. So, the technique of exploring the dream while awake was explained, and she imagined walking into the new apartment and observing what she felt and what memories arose. A soon as she entered the apartment she began to remember and feel again things that had happened in her childhood. Her mother and father had separated when she was very young and her mother had constantly presented her father as weak and of no value. But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.  An important point here is that the woman did this working alone on her dream, not with professional help or supervision. See Dreams – Practical TechniquesPotential

I see that we have created a great screen of our mind onto which we have projected all these images. Out of our own need, out of our own hopes, out of our own fear we have played all these images onto the screen. What grabs us beyond the door is the power of the suppressed desires and fantasies, our fears, our hopes for love, a longing for beautiful sex. They seem to have a life of their own – which they have – because they have been denied so long that when one allows them they are full of suppressed energy. The more one has suppressed oneself the more power that image has – the more power it has in ones life.

Back door: Our private, family life; our more secret activities; the anus.

Black door: The barrier that ones fears or apprehensions set up; the unknown, but perhaps imagined in a way that does not relate to reality. Going through the black door may therefore lead to a freedom from the limiting fears.

To close a door: To be closed emotionally, or to end or shut something out. Often this requires a decision or strong feeling. Or it might be a response to protect yourself or someone/something else.

Door to strange landscape of world: Finding entrance into unconscious, a way into wonderland – in other words the infinite world of our mind or consciousness.

Doorknob – See: knob.

Front door: Public self; confidence; our relationship with people in general; a vagina.

Leaving door open: this can suggest that you remain ready and sympathetic to new ideas, a relationship, or to move in and out of a situation. It can also mean you are leaving the door open to a new relationship or sexual activity.

Glass doors: Invisible barriers in the way of your goals or possibilities; being able to see through to the possibility of change.

Opening a door: Is a very powerful thing in a dream and it depends what you are opening the door to – is it the unknown; is it a lover; a business opportunity; something frightening; a new experience and a new room; or is it an old room full of memories, associations, things long forgotten that you can reclaim? Is it someone else’s dwelling and you are unsure of a welcome. Whatever it is look it up in the rest of the dictionary, or explore for yourself using Techniques for Working your Dreams

Opening a door for me: If someone opens a door for you in a positive way, it suggests the person has, through meeting you, helped you to find or develop a very new experience, skill or method that is helpful to you.

Room with no doors: This can represent a feeling of being trapped with no way out of a situation. Or if you are outside the room a feeling of being excluded.

Shutting a door: Privacy; trying to find ‘space’ for oneself; the dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact; repressing memories or feelings; decisively ending something.

Side door: Escaping from a situation or being indirect.

Someone at a door: Opportunity; the unexpected; new experience or relationship.

Waiting outside a door: Waiting outside the door – what a wonderful symbol that is. What a beautiful symbol. It represents all that we have as humanity placed behind the door. All of the gods, all of the images, all of the dreams, all opportunity, all of our fears, the devil, the angels. All that we place behind the door within ourselves. And they are only available to us if we walk through the door.

Car doors: Your way of letting other people share you life. The passenger door in particular refers to the people you let near you or push away if you do not let them in your car.

The car door can also suggest allowing something to be seen or as access to things you have ‘within you’. The door is a barrier, a protective shield against people trying to harm you, or against other influences.  The lock on the door links with how confident you feel about your own strength. Not being able to open your car doors shows you feeling a loss, or at a loss. It is a loss of power to be able to go where you want, or to access what you have in the car. This is like being pushed right back onto your very personal resources.

Example: ‘I am being strangled from behind by a faceless man! I had gone down to lock my flat door for the night when I noticed the door was open. I hastily bolted it and ran upstairs, but unknown to me the intruder was already in the flat.’ Miss H.

Here the door represents the censorship the dreamer places between her conscious self and her sexual drives. In ‘strangling’ our own life drive, we ourselves feel cut off from life.

Door never seen before or hidden: Or it can be  an unknown or newly discovered door, and is a common theme. It can mean the recognition or discovery of previously unnoticed aspects, abilities, fears, or traits in oneself. If the discovery is distressing, this may reflect a feeling of a change in ones status quo which is disturbing.

Often it is about the discovery of a huge new area of your mind, or the possibility of a new dimension of your being. See Dimensions of Human Experience

Example: I had no sensation of it other than space, hugeness. Then I lost my left arm, and – my whole body. It was like falling through a trap-door into the stars. I had been taken through the magic doors of sleep into a universe it seldom ever sees – deep dreamless sleep.

Example: I own a house. Its a big old I guess Victorian place and I love it. But there is a place “in” the house that I try to forget exists. You get to it through a hidden door and go down a corridor which takes you under the road outside into another house and a sort of separate studio room, which is light and bright and its a kind of arty place where people (me?) work.  I feel I’ve been there before in reality, and I don’t know why I’m frightened of it.

In this dream the person is constantly forgetting that she has a part of her that is light and bright where she could work at art and creativity.

Wrong door: . This shows you wish to do things in the wrong way – the wrong door.

Example: I own a house. Its a big old I guess Victorian place and I love it. But there is a place “in” the house that I try to forget exists. You get to it through a hidden door and go down a corridor which takes you under the road outside into another house and a sort of separate studio room, which is light and bright and its a kind of arty place where people (me?) work.  I feel I’ve been there before in reality, and I don’t know why I’m frightened of it.

In this dream the person is constantly forgetting that she has a part of her that is light and bright where she could work at art and creativity.

 

Useful questions:

What does this door stand between – indoors outdoors – me and someone else – a bedroom?

Am I in control of how I let people into my life or let go of them?

What way am I relating to the door?

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions

Dot

An end or a beginning. A point or centre of consciousness. As a collection of activities may centre around one desire, or thought, one aim. Also, the central core of yourself.

Example: I am eighteen, and ever since I was eight I have had the same dream. A small black dot which rotates in a spiral. As it goes around it gets bigger and faster until in the end it laughs or glares at me and then it blows up. I used to have this dream about twice a week. I don’t know why it keeps coming back.

If you look at the imagery of this dream it seems to be saying you are at times a worrier. A small issue, remark or thought – the dot – goes around and around in your mind and feelings until it becomes a major anxiety. A lot of our personality is built on habits. Even negative ones replay over and over each time we face a similar situation – unless we change them.

Example: I looked on my thighs and saw there were several red tattoos on them.  This was her mark, an unconnected circle with a dot at one end. It made me feel it depicted a sperm. This meant I was her male. The women in the ruling class could claim a male from the lower class in this way.

Idioms: on the dot.


Useful questions and hints:

Does the situation of the dot and the feelings surrounding it suggest its meaning?

In what way is the dot being used?

Is this there and end or beginning of something in my life?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Dough

Money. The possibilities in us.

Dove

The dove is often used to depict peace or the lack of aggression. It might in some dreams point to the awareness of your potential. It can be awareness of one’s potential often felt as a religious experience. Also relatedness. See: religion and dreams

Rising and falling are used a great deal by dreams to indicate how your feelings and awareness can shift and enter expanded or contracted modes. The dove is used in this way. The descending dove can indicate a new and expanded awareness touching you. The rising dove show you reaching up with love or wonder to touch something beyond what you are at the moment.

The flow upward is the unfolding of personal awareness from the basic levels of physical sensation up through the levels of awareness such as mutual attraction in sex; absorption of something other than self as in digestion; sympathy and empathy in emotions; communication of self in speech; understanding in mental activity; transcendence in going beyond the limitations of identity with your body. The down flow is the entrance of an influence beyond the physical into your experience. The New Testament describes this in the image of the flame or light touching the head at Pentecost, of the dove descending. This touches, cleanses and enlivens the levels mentioned in the up flow.

Matthew 3:16: And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him; and lo a voice from heaven saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”


Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling about the dove?

Is there any obvious influence the dove has in the dream?

Is the dove rising or falling – and do I feel either the striving upwards or the descent of grace?

See You Are a Dual BeingUsing Your Intuition Techniques for Exploring your DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Down

Down, in the sense of lying on the floor, or squatting, suggests several things depending on the context. It can be feeling without power or a loss of power. It can suggest dropping activity, resting, becoming passive and open to inner feelings and intuitions. Of course it can show rest, recuperation, an interlude from activity. See: Descent.

As can be seen from the enormous number of ways we use down in our speech (see idioms) it depends on the way the dream present it.

But things like going down in water, a cave or the earth or even your house is usually depicting getting deeper into your own nature. This may at times be felt as threatening or scary. See The Life Will

 

By using such things as suggested in – Secrets of Power Dreaming can help. Also use Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

If you are feeling down, see Avoid Being Victims and depression.

Idioms: turned down; slowed down; lay down your arms; look down your nose at; back down; bear down; bed down; blow me down; what it boils down to; get down to brass tacks; break down; breathe down my neck; come down on like a ton of bricks; bring the house down; buckle down; get down to business; calm down; caught with his pants down; chips are down; come down hard; down for the count; a dressing down; come down off your high horse; come down to earth; come down with; cut you down to size die down; down a peg; down and dirty; down and out; down home; down in the dumps; down in the mouth; down my throat; down on his luck; down the drain; down the garden path; down the hatch; down the road; down the tubes; down to a T; down to brass tacks; down under; down with; get me down; go down for the third time; go down on; guard is down; gun down; hand me down; hands down; hold down; hose it down/ hose it off; keep it down; knuckle down; lay down your life for; let you down; lie down on the job; look down on; nail it down; put down roots; put my foot down; run down; settle down; shut down; simmer down; slow down; step down; tone down; wash it down; wash it down; wear down.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Are you feeling put down run down or down and out?

Is it a new feeling or an old condition?

Does the dream show any way out or through?

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Life’s Little Secrets – Methods of Awakening – Brain Levels and Dreams

 

 

Dragon

Because the part of our mind we name ‘the unconscious’ is so ancient and huge, we sometimes depict contact with it as a dragon or monster. In myths the hero is often shown doing battle with a dragon, serpent or some other monster, to get a treasure. This is probably because the dragon depicts the massive and irrational forces of the unconscious, the life urges and untamed fears and sexuality that one must face and deal with in order to gain the treasure of potential locked in sexual, mental and emotional energy. See Reaction to the unconsciousPotential

It is also the untamed or unsocialised sexual drive which can overpower or trap a girl emerging into womanhood, or threatens a youth facing manhood. The integrating it means facing one’s fears of the vast power of such natural drives, and finding satisfying expression. See Meeting yourselfReaction on Meeting Our Hugeness

Example: In the dream I entered a cave and I saw a dragon resting inside, it woke up, saw me and we stared at one another for a moment and then it moved and I saw a sack of diamonds and diamonds overflowing/ coming out from the cave wall, it looks like the dragon was guarding it.

“In Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech. In some traditions dragons are said to have taught humans to talk.” Quoted from Wikipedia.

Narratives about dragons often involve them being killed by a hero. This is typical of the Christian view which is to kill anything – such a devils, sex, demons, serpents and dragons. But to kill the very basic and powerful within us is pointless, for in doing so we have lost our real source of power and creativity. The Chinese  Dragon is a mixture of a serpent and dragon. See Serpent Power

Example: I dreamed of a dragon that flew through my house at night watching over me and my family. It was only 3 feet tall or so and I only saw its silhouette in the darkened house and thought of him only as “the dragon” with no other name. I felt with him there I had nothing to worry about and felt safe and at peace. It was a very pleasant dream.

This is a very special dream. It shows the dreamer at ease and protected by the forces of life in her. She must have a very wonderful family for the dragon to protect her family. If she could at sometime imagine herself as the Dragon and be quiet and watch what changes occur in her body and feelings, she might know exactly what the dragon is in her life. It is also something that can warn you and guide you when you are faced by dangers, or lead you in the years ahead; that is why I suggest becoming closely connected to this wonderful power.

Joseph Campbell felt that the frog is another example of the dragon and other frightening monsters whose role in mythology is to guard treasure. The dragon represents the dark and frightening aspects of ones own nature; the huge instinctive feelings we usually resist or repress. We often call someone a dragon if they are fiery and aggressive, so we might use it in that way too.

Love Your Dragon

The treasure guarded by the dragon is your Core Self, which enables one to attain real womanhood or manhood. To love the dragon is to open to the great treasures we hold within us and to know for certain that we are far more than simply a body.

 

Useful questions and hints:

In what way am I relating to the dragon – with fear – with strength – or cooperatively?

Did I gain any understanding or information from the dragon?

Is there any treasure or reward involved in this – if so what?

See

 

Drain

This can represent the way of pouring out of your rubbish, difficult feelings, old spent emotions and the ‘washing up water’ – the way that you clean up your life.

If  it is a big drain and you go down it, it is a way that you enter into yourself and see that which is empted out of you and others. It can be an entrance into the world of your ancient past.

Example: Two dreams. I am in the basement of our house at Woburn Walk. There is a great drain, about a yard square, which is blocked and flooded. With a poker I unblocked it and the water flows quickly away. Now I noticed that the drain leads to an enormous sewer. My son and I go down. It is as large as big rooms, stretching away chamber after chamber. My son goes off into the sewer and I am very afraid of him being lost, as the sewers are like an immense uncharted realm, with countless turnings. I catch him and blaze a trial to give orientation. There were rats.

Now I go tentatively into the sewers. Underneath a house and a few doors up the road, I see the outlet of their sewer blocked with an old coat, perhaps an overcoat. I poke it with my poker. It could easily be dislodged, but I am hesitant as I realised a lot of foul water will pour out and down, making an awful smell. But I feel that if I stand to one side, it will pour harmlessly into the sewer.

When the dream was explored the drains were found to explain why mankind is in the present condition. The sewers were built by men thousands of years ago. They are the level of awareness at which mankind once lived. They are the ancient past. They are revealed now because you can face what they will show. Some of the things you find will be the things you have yourself left behind in the sewers. For the sewers represents a man’s sunken past. The reason they act as sewers is because in the past man acted as the means for tremendous cosmic forces to flow down into the earth. This faculty was desecrated and now what is represented as the drains acts in man as the means by which, through which, destructive thoughts, energies, are released, lest they destroy man. See sewer


Idioms: brain drain; down the drain; drain the swamp; a drain on me


Useful questions and hints:

What is happening in the dream involving a drain?

Is the drain blocked or flowing easily?

Are you emotionally troubled at the moment or feeling drained?

See  Life’s Little SecretsInner WorldAssociations Working With

Drama

Dreams are actually the most dramatic and passionate experiences any of us have. The passion of dreams is not on show for the casual observer except in nightmares. Instead they are masked in the images and characters of dreams. They are like icons on computer screens that are lifeless unless one clicks on them. That is because dreams are not thought processes that you can analyse with the rational mind. They are a living expression of Life and its processes, created in animals millions of years ago before words and human language were formed. Their communication is emotions, body language, life and death – the whole drama if life, its struggles and triumphs, its meetings with all the drama of living, fighting, loving and creating itself over and over in reproduction. See Clicking On

How do we click on the masks that dreams show us and release the wonderful passions of life and its drama? Well the first step is to realise that we associate profound and subtle feelings with everything around us and within us. We must also recognise that we have a very powerful inner life/world that is equally important as the outer world that many people give so much time to. Missing the importance of the inner world is to risk being its victim. See Inner World and Associations Working With

Example: My mother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly about 7 months ago. I find myself having dreams where, in my dreams, she is lost and I find her. In my dream she is alive and I realize when I wake up she is dead. What does this mean?

She mixes up the beliefs and experience of the outer world with the inner world of dreams. She believes from her experience of the outer world that her mother once dead has disappeared and is lost. But there is no death in the inner world. For start, without arguing that there is life after death, the memories and experience she carries within her is not dead. All the skills and learning she gained from her mother, positive or negative, is alive and grows. See Programmed Dead Partner or Ex

Fortunately the inner world is wonderfully set up to clear out all the mix ups,wrong associations, traumas and infantile habits. To read about its action see Life’s Little Secrets. In it you will see there is plenty of drama in an ordinary life when we ‘click’ on our inner world.

Drama

Dramatic events in your dream signify something you feel strongly or passionately about. Such feelings can be positive or negative, joy or anxiety. You will need to define what the subject of the drama is about to understand what it is referring to.

Drama Class: Learning to express what you really feel, or to mobilise your abilities to express yourself in a variety of situations. It might refer to attempts on the part of your dream process, to lead you out of a narrow range of feelings and responses to opportunity and events. Obviously, if you have been in a drama class, it would link with what you feel about being in such a class.

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Draw Bridge

See Drawbridge

Dream Body

There is something that almost everybody brings into their dreams – their image of their body.

In dreams, our sense of self – our ego, our personality or identity – is depicted by our own body, or sometimes simply by the sense of our own existence as an observer. In most dreams our ‘I’ goes through a series of experiences just as we do in waking life, seeing things through our physical eyes, touching with our hands, and so on. But occasionally we watch our own body and other people as if from a detached point of bodiless awareness. If we accept that dreams portray in images our conception of self, then dreams suggest that our identity largely depends upon having a body, its gender, health, quality, skin colour, the social position we are born into, and our relationship with others. In fact we know that if a person loses their legs, becomes paralysed, loses childbearing ability, becomes blind or is made redundant, they may face an identity crisis. Yet despite all of that they still exist as a person, and if we realise that early we can avoid all the pain and distress caused by a complete identification with our body.

But the bodiless experience of self shows the human possibility of sensing self as having separate existence from the biological processes, from ones body, ones state of health, and social standing. In its most naked form, the ‘I’ may be simply a sense of its own existence, without body awareness.

This is very noticeable in dreams where the dreamer does not identify with his human body but an animal or something else.

Example:  I’m always having dreams of me running free in a field on all fours but in my dream I was an all black wolf. Also in one of my dreams I was running on all fours chasing something and I was chasing some thing and killing it with my pack, but other times I just was running on all fours in the woods or a field when its dark and misty.

For instance what is the real person in these dreams? Is it the body that everyone is so fixated on?

Example: Had a very unusual dream last night. I was in an outdoor environment. It seemed a bit dark, or maybe morbid is the right word. I was with other people but none of them stood out to remain in memory. There was a definite awareness though of being near to a place that was haunted, and that a man was in trouble in the haunted place.

I decided to go and see if I could sort out the problem. I walked down a slope to where the centre of the haunting existed. It was an open space with an old double-decker bus in it. The only person on the bus was a middle-aged man who was sitting on the top deck leaning out of a window on the right hand side of the bus. I stood beneath him and looked up. He was staring in a glazed way and didn’t see me. I could see and feel that he was being hit by fantasies or hallucinations by whatever was the source of the haunting. This invasion of his mind was grabbing his attention so fully that he wasn’t aware of his surrounding or of me. I was sure that if he went any deeper into this mind stuff he wouldn’t be able to pull out. I waved my hand in his line of vision and banged my hand on the bus to make a noise and get his attention. At first it didn’t seem as if I would bring him out of it, but after a while he looked at me.

I shouted at him to pull out. I said that he had a wife and some more years of his life to live, so why lose himself into this entrancement. This didn’t seem to grab him so I shouted again and said that he would eventually slip into this empty mind world anyway – at death – so why not live with his wife the remaining years of his life. I was sure that if he lost awareness he would let himself starve.

I was aware that what he desired was to slip away into the void, into the awareness of the one life in which he lost any awareness of self. But I banged and shouted and he became more ‘present’. I then felt I had to confront whatever was the source of the powerful ‘haunting’ that was pulling him into the inner mind. I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type – a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out.

This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body, we usually feel our body is US and are terrified of it being damaged, but in our dreams it is just an image we form and can recreate. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.

Example: Then in the dream the scene changed and I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs.

When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and leapt into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change.

Dreams such as those illustrate the possibilities of us human beings. It shows first of all that we need not be frightened of all the strange creatures that haunt many people’s dreams. They are simply images created by us to reveal things to us. They have not more power the hurt us that an image of a monster on a cinema screen. Unless of course we terrify ourselves by believing in it. See Dreams are Like a Computer Game

We cannot die or be hurt in dreams either. What we do is to take real fears about the external world and take them into us and believe they are real and can hurt us. There is an old wives tale that if you fall from a great height in a dream and hit the ground it will kill you. I know that is not true because I have fallen and hit the ground and I got up none the worse. Other people have also sent me dreams of falling and they were not harmed.

But some dreams of our body can be useful. On occasion they show us what is going on inside us and what they need to stay well. Early warning dreams forecast conditions that may develop, often years before physical symptoms appear n and often counsel on prevention and alternative approaches. When we do become ill, dreams give us fresh and powerful imagery for healing and recovery. Because the body does not appear to distinguish between a physical event and a mental or emotional event that carries real energy, these images can help us reshape the physical blueprint. Some leading-edge research suggests that in this way we may even be able to change the cellular memory of the body. Above all, dreaming puts us in touch with the hidden sources of illness and wellness, and opens paths to recovering soul. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Some people are sure they have an ‘astral body’ as real in its own way as our physical body. Again I say that is not true because of personal experience. The truth is that dreams can produce any scene or drama, and it is all a virtual reality. See OBE.

Dreaming

To dream that you are dreaming can mean a lack of attention to everyday affairs. Can symbolise a contact with innermost contents of your being.

Dreaming You are Dreaming

To dream that you are dreaming can mean a lack of attention to everyday affairs. It can also suggest you are only dreaming, only imagining, or that you haven’t woken up to something. But more likely it is a way to hide feelings we do not wish to acknowledge.

What you experience when you “wake up” in a dream suggests the meaning is very significant. Your dream creator is telling you to really be aware of what the dream is trying to communicate. It could also be a first step to the lucid state.

Bruce Marcot says, “ I’m sure I’m not the only one to have dreams within dreams … such as experiencing a nightmare and waking up in bed, only to discover that it’s still a dream because something unearthly happens and then I finally, really wake up from that”.

Example: And even if I was the subject of the dream I developed two techniques to avoid having to deal with the emotions arising in the dream.  One way was to change myself into another person and become the observer of that person;  the other way was, when things got really scary, to ask myself whether or not I was dreaming and turn the dream into a dream within the dream; only realizing that they were both in fact dreams, when I awakened.  I was always quite relieved that I could do this and avoid having to handle situations that I would rather not have dealt with.

This dreamer has developed a massive technique of repression, a way of avoiding instead of dealing with his fears. See Masters of Nightmares

But there is another definition of dreaming within a dream – lucid dreaming. See dream within a dream

Example: I noticed thousands of small stone’s embedded in the earth like a mosaic. I had never noticed these before, despite having walked that hill in dreams many times. I believe the boy threw a piece into the sky, making it fall like a meteorite.

In this case the person does not dream that they are dreaming, but in their dream remembers other dreams. The resulting insight into this was seen as; it means through an inner weakness or instability; I have not made it a conscious or whole life reality; I have not built it into my waking life. Therfore it remains a dream.

But here is an example of waking in a dream:

Example: In my dream I was watching a fern grow. It was small, but opened very rapidly. As I watched, I became aware that the fern was an image representing a process occurring within myself, one that I grew increasingly aware of as I watched. Then I was fully awake in my dream and realised that my dream (perhaps any dream) was an expression in images of actual events occurring unconsciously in myself. I felt enormous excitement, as if I were witnessing something of great importance.

Useful questions and hints:

What feelings are in the dream, and can you acknowledge them?

What is the surface you and what is the deeper you feelings?

What are the differences between the do dreams?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsProgrammed

Dreams Are The Alternative We Are Most Aware Of

Dreams-Practical Techniques for Understanding Them

Help for you to understand your dreams – Help to unravel that wonderful background of information in your dreams – Introduction to features that can guide you – Learning to explore dreams – The many things dreams are can show you

Many people see dreams as nothing more than fanciful imaginings, but dreams are more than ‘dreams’. If you think of dreams as similar to an icon on your computer desktop, you can arrive at a fuller insight. This is because each dream image holds enormous data, emotional response, and created patterns of behaviour. So in considering any dream image you need to remember you are in touch with a full surround data-bank of fantastic information about you, your past and your possibilities through the dimension of dreams. You can interact with this information by exploring it in the right way – you need to ‘click’ on it.

You need to understand that while we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will is in full operation when we sleep and in fact runs all our important life processes like heart beat, digestion and also dreams.

So humans live in two very different dimensions. The one most people identify with is the three dimensional physical world of the body. In this world our body is quite vulnerable and can be hurt, damaged, become ill, lost and a thousand other threats.

Also in this dimension or world we appear to be a lone body that is separated from other beings and has to move or travel to achieve things. All it can experience is through our eyes, ears and our other physical senses. But remember that compared with other animals we are almost blind and deaf with hardly any  sense of smell. We are also prone to mental  breakdown; the number of people using drugs to face the world, or even those who habitually drink alcohol or use other drugs to cope with life are enormous. This may be because we have only recently in biological terms evolved from instinctive animal consciousness to self awareness. Being Self Aware without the support of instinctive guidance is a huge stress.

The second dimension, often called the dream or inner world, is totally different and is caused by our senses of hearing, sight and touch shut down as we sleep, and is experienced in dreams or deep levels of our mind/consciousness. It will surprise many people to realise that in this dimension you have no physical body because our senses have shut down and we are simply consciousness that creates dreams – the body is not needed – although most people are so locked into thinking that their reality is their body, that they create a body image of themselves. For in sleep our senses are gone, so we cannot see with our eyes, hear with our ears, touch with our fingers, for we are alone in a virtual reality created by our own mind/consciousness.

In this dimension we are in a wider awareness, in this wider awareness you leave the limited view of the three dimensional world most of us are trapped in, and enter a world beyond time and space. Beyond time we are aware of all time, past, present and future – all at once. So we do not look into the future, but are it. Our body life is to learn important lessons by being locked in time, space and our body, with its gender and limitations. Quantum theory says something similar: “To quote Gary Zukav, ‘Quantum mechanics is the theory. It has explained everything from subatomic particles to transistors to stellar energy. It has never failed. It has no competition.’The implications of the theorem are enormous. Something can be in two places at once. Apparently distant objects, or people, are intricately linked in an immediate way. There is no separate existence as we previously thought. Our view of the world is not one supported by the facts of physics. Time and space are transcended. David Bohm, an eminent physicist, goes as far as to say that all things in our observable universe are inextricably linked. Nothing has separate existence.”

In this dimension of our inner world, whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

Another thing to remember is that  all the images, people, animals, places we see in our dreams, are simply your own feelings, fears, hopes and wonder projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind as images. So, it makes sense to take the image of your dream person, thing or animal back into you and own it. In that way, you are meeting and dealing with the things about yourself you are not owning, are scared of, do not wish to see or be conscious of. That is why dreams are often difficult to understand, because we are hiding things from ourselves.

Lastly, when you think about a lover, a friend or a person you know, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and these memories change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person  can appear in dreams or visions because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

As an example I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me very full memories of being in the USA, and that the shirt was part of those memories, but he wasn’t prepared to say what the memories were as they were so personal. I felt he had had an affair while there and didn’t want to talk about it. So his T-shirt represented his hidden memories of his time in the USA – not a T-shirt at all.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

So, the methods described below will throw light on most dreams, even if you do not take time to write out fuller associations. When the insights gained in this way become useful, you may wish to increase your skill still further. Therefore, below, and throughout the site, additional information is given on how to draw out the wisdom in dreams. A working attitude toward them is also outlined.

Click on the links to quickly find a feature:

The Bare Bones – A quick way to gain insight – Being the Person or Thing – Key Words – Stand in the Role of Character or Object – Talking as a Dream Character – Walk On Part – What do You bring to Your Dreams? – What is your Role or Theme in the dream? – Writing it all down – don’t be fooled, it can work

Although the process of dreams might not be a direct attempt to present MEANING, a dream may nevertheless have a great deal of INFORMATION in it. This becomes clearer if we remember that not many years ago it would have appeared highly superstitious or suspect to claim to be able to tell a person details of their health and parentage from a sample of their urine or blood. Today it is common practice. We accept that a growing amount of information can be gained from these unlikely sources. Blood doesn’t contain meaning, but we can gain information from it. In a similar way a sample of our dreams can also tell us an enormous amount. Sometimes this data is obvious, sometimes it needs processing to uncover, as with urine and blood.

But dream exploration needs to be learned and practised. Many people say they cannot get any results from using the techniques. It is like any skill like riding a bike or driving a car – at first you will fail until with practise it becomes second nature.  You need to learn new skills and habits.  When they are learned they are life enhancing like learning to drive a car.

For instance, speaking as an object or dream person, one needs to take time with it. Learn how to actually describe what you are as that dream object or person. If I dream of a dog, don’t simply describe what you think a dog feels like, but actually take time to tune into the dream image and describe the dog dreamt about. Is it an old or young dog? What is it doing in the dream? Listen to your feelings and describe what it/you feel. Remember that each image is a creation of your own mind and unconscious, so you are really describing yourself. Say whatever comes and consider its value afterwards. Below is a quote from Tiziana Stupia’s book Meeting Shiva 

So below are listed several ways to gain insight and information from your dreams. Take your time with each approach until you get the feel for it, and then experiment with other approaches.

The Bare Bones

Getting at your Dreams Meaning

People often look at the main word in their dream, look it up, and leave it at that. But usually a dream has a main theme and several other images, people, animals or things are mentioned.

I will give an example to show how to arrive at a dream’s meaning from use of the Dream Dictionary entries. It is important to first write the dream down as fully as possible. Don’t stint on the use of words. Be descriptive. Then take the very opening scene of the dream and look it up in the appropriate entry.

Example: I was standing in the back garden of a house – one of a row of terraced houses. Each garden was fenced and ran down to a large drainage ditch. It seemed to be raining and water was filling the drainage ditch. The water was backing up into the gardens because something was blocking the ditch. It started rising up my legs. It was quite hot. I realised this was because hot water was running out of the baths and sinks in the houses. I felt I must get out of the gardens. Not only because of the water, but because of how people might feel if they saw me in their garden. I managed to find a way into a farm yard where I felt relaxed.’ Ted F.

The first scene here is Garden. On a piece of paper separate to the dream, write Garden, with space for notes to be put beside it. The entry on Garden in the Dictionary says – ‘Your garden dream often reveals what you are doing with your latent possibilities. It is pointing out whether you have cultivated your abilities, or buried them. A garden is sometimes a place of love in a dream. In which case it can denote what is growing or dying in your relationship. Another garden theme is connected with activities we do in the garden, like pets we keep, or work done.’

The words Houses – Raining – Hot water – Fences – Farmyard need to be looked up and relevant comments written down next to each word. It is important to realise that the dream and its images are a story, not in words but in images with which we have personal associations with. So wrtite down by each word the basic meaning that appeals to you – i.e. makes sense to you.

Houses – Other people. Raining – emotions, release of feelings. Hot Water – Strong emotions or facing difficult situations, such as social criticism. fence or wall also suggests social barriers, the attitudes and feelings people express to keep others at a distance, to keep a separation between those of different social, religious or economic class.

Framyard – This usually has to do with your relationship with your natural urges, the basic drives, such as sex, survival, social hierarchy, parenthood, the down to earth side of yourself.

If we put them together into a story form, we have: I was in an environment with other people and was in hot water facing a difficult situation such as social criticism. I was also in other people’s space and felt that their fences, their attitudes and social difference were there to keep me out. But in returning to my natural feelings I felt at ease again

Making a story of it is an important step, and through you will probably even see what the message of your dream is. But in doing this with his dream, Ted took it further by adding his own associations and ended up with the following. But it is important for you to see what your feelings are and whether any of what is said applies to you. It doesn’t matter if the entry on garden doesn’t contain what is said in your dream. Instead you can say, ‘None of those things apply, but the entry has made me remember my dream garden is a place of pain where a terrible incident happened to me.’ See Working with associations

Ted arrive at and wrote:

Garden – The growth and changes occurring in my life at present.

Row of Houses – Other people.

Raining – Depressed feelings or difficulties; emotions which take away enthusiasm and act as a barrier to action; tears and emotional release – an outpouring; other peoples emotions ‘raining’ on me.

Hot Water – Emotions. In the Idioms is ‘hot water’ suggesting I have got myself in trouble.

Fences – Social boundaries.

Farmyard – Where my natural drives such as sexuality, parenthood, love or fellowship, are cared for or expressed.

When Ted added his own associations to this the dream became fully understandable to him and read like this:

I am going through a lot of changes at the moment – the garden. These are to do with allowing myself to have a warm but non sexual relationship with women. I have always been too dragged along by my sexuality in the past. Just a few days before the dream I was in a ‘growth’ group. I had made friends with a woman there, Susan, who I was warm feelings with, but not sexually. The group work required some close physical contact, and I and another man worked with Susan.

It seemed to me to go without complications. But a while afterwards a woman in the group came to me and with evident emotion, said I had made love publicly to my lover, meaning Susan. I had certainly been physically close to her and had felt at ease, but the viewpoint and feelings of the woman’s accusations, coupled with her threat to expose me to the authority figure in the group, bowled me over.

This is the hot water in the dream. The fences are the boundaries people erect between their personal life and what is socially acceptable. For some days, up until understanding the dream, I felt really blocked up emotionally – the blocked drainage ditch. I cut off any friendship toward Susan. When I realised that in the Farmyard – the acceptance of natural feelings without neat little boundaries – I could feel at peace, I was able to allow my natural warmth again. I also realised the the woman who attempted to damage my reputation had probably never had love that was not directly sexual.

After writing the comments next to each dream image or setting, add any personal memories, feelings or associations, as Ted has. Put down anything which amplifies what has been dreamt. For instance, a car is said to be one’s drive and motivation in the entry on car. But it is helpful to add what personal feelings one has about one’s car. Try imagining what the absence in one’s life of the car, or house, or symbol etc., would mean.

A friend recently told me the absence of her car would mean loss of independence. So this was her personal association.

If you use this method on your dream it can lead to instant insight.

Key Words

Another way to gain quick insight into your dream is to take the keywords and fill in the gaps.

To illustrate this we can use the following dream:

Example: I meet an acquaintance who tells me she is sick. I suggest ways that might help her. As I speak I become aware that others are listening and coming nearer. I apologise and say that I appear to be preaching, but they say, ‘Please go on we want to listen.’ As I continue I find that a rostrum has formed and lifted me two steps higher.

To use the technique of ‘keywords’ on this dream you would need to write down the most important words in the dream. Doing this you might arrive at the words – I meet an acquaintance – sick – I might help – as I speak – others are listening – I apologise – I appear to be preaching – I find a rostrum.

For the next step you ask yourself what you have recently met with in yourself or in life that might link with each of those words. It is something you are acquainted with, and that has to do with not feeling well, whole or satisfied with your life. So you would ask yourself what you are acquainted with to do with not feeling at your best?

The word ‘help’ suggests you have information that will be useful. What is it?

You apologise for yourself, suggesting degrading what you know. How are you doing that in your life?

Preaching comes next. Have you been giving advice? If so, what is it, and is it relevant to you too?

And lastly, can you listen to your own advice given from a rostrum – higher level of viewpoint?

Having arrived at some associations with the major words in the dream, you next put them together in a way that explains some of the insights or ideas you arrived at. Filling in the gaps between the words you might therefore arrive at something like this:

I have lately become aware of the feeling that I am ill at ease with myself. This connects with my lack of confidence about how I feel when talking with other people. The strange thing is that I know how to help myself with this. I was talking with a friend the other day, and the advice I gave them about something similar really applies to me. What I need to do is to stop apologising for myself and positively use what I know will help. I can see from the dream that I have a lot to share with other people, so I don’t need to feel I am preaching.

What you arrive at using this keyword method will give you an excellent overview of your dream. It will take some practice, but persist and you will get very useful results.

The most important aspects of your everyday life may have influenced the dream or feature in it. Briefly consider any aspects of your life that connect with what appears in the dream.

Example: “I have a plane to catch. I get to the plane but the suitcase is never big enough for my clothing which I have left behind. I am always anxious about stuff left behind. I wake still with the feeling of anxiety.” Jane. LBC.

When asked, Jane said plane flights had been a big feature in her life. She had moved home often, travelling to different parts of the world, leaving friends and loved one’s behind. This background therefore suggests Jane still feels anxious about all she has left behind in her moving.

If you find obvious connections such as that in your dream consider what that means in terms of the events and situations shown in your dream. For instance Jane’s dream shows her feeling anxious about what has been left behind. So she needs to acknowledge that and seek ways of understanding why she feels that way, and what is it in her present situation that she still feels has been lost or left.

Here is another example:

The work of Dr. Caron Kent, is summarised in his book The Puzzled Body. He began to explore himself because of his own need to deal with his depression by giving himself regular time at a typewriter and writing spontaneously whatever came to mind. In this way he found he began to contact areas of experience and feeling previously unavailable. He developed this in his practice as a psychotherapist into working with the body and feelings directly.

The idea in this approach is to sit down with a pencil and plenty of paper or at your computer. Have a clock or watch before you so it is easily seen. You must now, non stop, write whatever comes into your head, for ten minutes. You do not try to think, you simply write whatever word comes into your head and there is no need for it to make sense, whatever word appears with the thought what does my dream mean. This cuts out the rational thinking mind and leads to you tapping the unconscious.

So you must actually not stop writing for ten whole minutes. If, for a moment, your thoughts block, write continuously the last word until further ideas arrive. There may be rather strange results at first. However, practice will bring the flow and harmony that you are seeking. The benefits of this will only be seen through practice. Try to do this exercise as many times as possible during the next week. Write anything that comes. You simply hold in mind about the dream without thinking about it. Actually, once you have asked about the dream you can drop it.

A quick way to gain insight

A dream image is a mask or cover of what we are feeling, and that is the core of the dream. So if you imagine removing the image of the dream you are left with the feeling that gave rise to the drama and images.

A way of doing this is to realise that the images in our dreams are just emotions, thoughts and feeling taking on, or presenting themselves, as images and drama, and if you take away the images of a baby, a tree, or an animal and see what you feel you have the real meaning. This is so simple that many people fail to try it, instead they ‘think out or about their dream’. This may be because many people do not like to meet or deal with their real feelings and emotions. So please take time with it.

So after you take the image away and feel the feeling underneath it, ask yourself, “When have I felt this before – even years ago? What is the feeling about and what

This is a technique I have used myself and with groups of people. People arrive at understanding very quickly. But for some people this takes a little practice because instead of – if we dream of a dog – saying, “The dog is only a puppy and is adorable” you need to talk as if you are the dog, person or place. So say “I am a little puppy and the person thinks I am adorable”. So do not say “This little dog” for that does not connect with your feelings, but distances you from the dream image. See Dream Exploration

The idea is to really describe in detail what it is you are dealing with, and also what you are feeling as the dream object. The more you use this the richer the experience gets and you allow yourself to really be the dream object or person – and do not make the mistake if it is a person you know by describing them as an outside person. Stick with them exactly as they are in the dream. But do not think it out but allow your feelings to show you9 what to say, and of course your imaginations. Thoughts are usually ready made explanations, so start by relaxing and allowing your feelings to dictate to you.

Here is an example: I dreamt I arrived at a railway station, but instead of a platform it was at the top of an old castle keep. I had to walk down through the castle and then out to a street.

So I said: “I am a Castle. In the past I defended myself so strongly against all manner of attacks and people. This caused all manner of conflicts in my life. But now I am a station. People come and go in my life. I do not stop the train of events. I have been redecorated, altered inside, not beautiful, but hard wearing and enduring. I am stairs, giving passage for people going down or up.” As soon as I said that I could see what it meant. I had suffered a lot of shyness and was defended not allowing people near me. I had built impregnable emotional walls to keep people away. Now I was finding it easier to let people come and go.

Here is another example: I dreamt I entered my living room and things had been thrown everywhere. It was a mess. I realised that it was my wife who had done it. Also it was not our living space but a dream one.

This is a tricky one because the wife was not in the dream, so if one sticks with the dream and not his actual wife here is what was said. “I am an invisible presence in my husband life, a presence he feels tears his living space to bits. Yet I am invisible and so could not have done this. But I am a feeling in his life that assures him that I am an awful intrusion. You see, I am just a feeling he has, and that makes him irritated with me.” The dreamer admitted that it wasn’t his wife that was messing up his ‘living space’ but his own feelings about her.

So try it and see what you find. But take time with yourself and ask the person, castle wall, dog, or object questions to clear things up. If you say whatever comes to mind you will be amazed how well it works. And remember – in choosing an image to work with, such as a person, a tree, cat, place, or an environment like the street in the example dream above, it must again be treated as it appears in the dream, not as it may appear in real life. One can take any image from the dream to work with. So describe yourself as the image in the dream. Remember what was said – So say “I am a little puppy and the person thinks I am adorable”. So do not say “This little dog” for that does not connect with your feelings, but distances you from the dream image.

Here is an example of a woman exploring her dream. She had already worked with a group and chose this method.

Example: I was wearing a wedding dress, there was a helper in the background, the dress was white lace as I looked down at myself in the dress I noticed red roses on the neckline, I was surprised at this, then looking down my laced arm there was a tarantula spider. I was not frightened but wanted it off my hand, it was really weighing my hand down, I took control not fearfully but knowing I had to deal with it, I went to put it under a running hot water.

I offered this dream to work on in the group. Collette used word association asking what the bride represented, Libby offered some figures of a bride to use to connect with the symbol,
I was asked what came to mind when thinking about the bride what it might represent young innocent romantic, but what I felt in my body was resistance to the symbol  which was a clue to what was trying to get through (the resistance),the spider I thought might be about the homework as that was what came to mind as I began, again it was from the mind. I felt grateful but did not get  ‘ah ah’ feeling that I get when it fits and when the knowing sense is felt.

So I went to visit Tony Crisp with whom I have worked for many years on working with dreams, using active imagination, LifeStream, a willingness to be moved from within, a surrendering of self, and being the dream image, a method where you step into each symbol and speak from that symbol.

I am a spider as a spider…… the important part of using these tools is to take time in letting the client sink into the symbol, not to rush with questions as it is a slow process moving from the known self to the symbol, the not so known self, (the symbol coming from the unconscious).

As I identified with being a spider I noticed I was covered in fine hairs with red eyes that were on little stems. My hairs were like little sensors feeling vibrations listening and feeling intensely fully focused. I realised that it was a part of my defences, having kept me safe as a child in a family with secrets, hidden sexual abuse to my sister but unknown to me. Due to that abuse I was verbally and emotionally abused by my elder sister not knowing why. I did not find out that this abuse was happening when I was a child. (In fact it was through working on a dream with Tony Crisp when I was 24 yrs old. Following that information I discovered what had happened).

So the spider dream brought to my awareness that I felt that I always needed to be aware of everyone else’s needs and to respond to them to keep me safe. I really understood the relevance of the spider being in my dream how it had kept me safe, but it took up so much of my energy that as an adult I could respond to my needs in a different way.

This sound very logical but this information has come from my unconscious, I can see and have spoken in my journal about noticing how I respond to others needs before my own. While still working with my symbols I thanked the spider and invited the spider to go live somewhere else. This was also stopping me from being free in my movement of my right hand, which does not know what it wants to do, but now feels freedom to explore my wants and needs. BB

This is the simplest of the methods. It requires you to play with your imagination a little and go along with a fantasy, the sort of talent we all develop as children. If you have a sympathetic audience it helps, but only if you feel okay in front of others. It is fine alone as well. Stand with your eyes closed in the middle of enough space to move around. About two or three square metres is usually plenty.

Imagine you are standing on the edge of your dream, like a film set, and you are going to walk into it. Before you actually step into your dream be aware of what you are feeling in your body and emotions. Your body and feelings are a screen upon which subtle changes and shifts will occur. It is this screen of body and emotions that will act as your monitor showing what responses your dream produces.

Now step into your dream. Literally step forward. Walk about in the ‘film set’ of your dream, watching what you feel, what memories come and what your fantasies are. Talk with the characters, even step into their body and register what feelings and intuitions they produce on your screen of body and feelings. This also includes objects such a car, tree, or animals. Literally get into their shape. This is important because all the images we use in dreams are like the icons on computer screens. The front object is only a small indication of what lies hidden underneath.

Speak what you feel and find to your helpers or to a tape recorder. You can enter into anything in this way, whether it is an animal, a tree, the sea or a house. As you explore your dream in this way you can ask questions and your intuition will play its responses on the monitor of your body and emotions. The possibilities are that you enter the dream and explore its different places and people, or you relive the dream by acting it out.

One of the most important things about actually understanding your dream rather that interpreting it is to become the dream person or object – to actually completely identify with it. This needs to be practiced as most people feel the dream person or object is something other than themselves and are often hesitant to become it. For instance the Devil in a dream is simply your own emotions and fears given an exterior image. And also Christ in a dream is the same thing. In doing this you can step beyond the imagery of the dream into direct experience of yourself in all its variety and wonder. The Christ for instance becomes an actual experience of the highest in you or any anti feelings in regard to Christianity.

So to do do this the dreamer next chooses one of the characters or images in the dream to explore. The character can be themselves as they appear in the dream, or any of the other people or things. It is important to realise that it does not matter if the character is someone known or not, or whether they are young or old. The character needs to be treated as an aspect of their dream, and not as if they were the living person exterior to the dream. So do not attempt to describe them an outside person, but the dream character.

In choosing an image to work with, such as a person, a tree, cat, place, or an environment like the street in the example dream below, it must again be treated as it appears in the dream, not as it may appear in real life. One can take any image from the dream to work with. So describe yourself as the image in the dream. Remember what was said – So say “I am a little puppy and the person thinks I am adorable”. So do not say “This little dog” for that does not connect with your feelings, but distances you from the dream image.

The dreamer then stands in the role of the character or image they are using. So if they chose to be the car in the example dream below, they would close their eyes, enter into the feeling sense and imagery of the dream, and describe him or herself as the car. Literally you can imagine yourself as that physical shape, as if your awareness has merged with the thing or person. Then let your immediate feelings and associations arise and be described.

It is important to step into the image by getting into their body if it is a person, or take on the shape if  it is an object. As I explained to a friend recently you do not even have to have a clear image of the thing or person, simply think of it as seen in your dream and then watch any thoughts or feeling that might arise – as if listening for a quiet voice or fantasy arising – but give it a minute or so.

Example – I am a car. Joel has recently purchased me, and he is driving me, largely because he feels I will help him gain respect from other people. I am quite a large car, and have a lot of power. But even with all this energy I do not make my own decisions. I am directed by Joel’s desires and wishes, and enable him to fulfil them more readily.

As can be see, it is important to speak as if you are the chosen thing as Joel did. If it was a person Joel worked on, He should not say, “I am a woman”, or “I am the woman who turned away” but, “I am Mary. I like Joel , but I can see he isn’t really interested in me – except as a trophy in his new car.”

From this short description it can already be seen there is a suggestion the car represents Joel’s emotional and physical energy, directed by his desires and decisions.

The dreamer stands in the role of the character or image they are using. So if they chose to be a person they would close their eyes, imagine themselves as stepping into the body of the dream character and describe him or herself as the person they now are.

To do this it usually changes the way your body or feelings feel. As this is done notice any changes in how you feel as that person – or object – speak as them in the first person. Do not say, “I feel as if this person is …” but say, “I feel I am and am doing ..” As this happens watch any realisations or insights that arise and explore the person. Ask question of this dream character until you feel you have realised what is is of you that is being revealed.

I know it is difficult for some people to say ‘I’ instead of talking as if the dream character is someone else. But if you start claiming the dream image as your own in this way by saying such things as, “I am a tree” you will quickly realise you are talking about yourself.

Here is an example. The dream was of a railway station that was an old castle keep/tower. In using the magic word I, this is what he described himself as. “I am an old castle keep. I used to be for defense and repelling people, but now I can let people in and out easily.” The dreamer realised this was a really excellent insight into his character and the change taking place in him.

What is the main action in the dream?

There is often an overall activity such as walking, looking, worrying, building something, or trying to escape. Define what the action or theme is and give it a name, such as those listed or something like ‘waiting’ – ’searching’ – ‘following’.

To understand what your definition means, activities such as walking or building a house represent just what they show – going somewhere and building something new, or repairing something in your life. Walking can simply represent taking a direction in life or going somewhere, and building can be seen as creating something new or developing what already exists in your life. When you have defined the action, look for further information in the entries in the on-site Dream Dictionary, such as swimming, sitting, climbing, or working. Having considered the general meaning of whatever your dream action is, consider if it is expressive of something you are doing in waking life, and what the dream plot and characters comment on this.

A simple example of this is as follows:

Dreamt I was involved in having a prostitute work for me. Terry.

On looking at my dream and wondering why the prostitute was working for me it was obviously to do with love and sex. What it showed me was that I always try to use love and sex for personal gain. It always has to be on my terms instead of loving a person for their own sake.

Are you a friend, lover, soldier, dictator, watcher or participant in the dream? Consider this in relationship with your everyday life, especially in connection with how the dream presents it.

The different roles or themes you play in your dreams, such as actor, lawyer, soldier or cook, usually represent the different abilities, weaknesses or interests you have. We all have different roles in everyday life. So a woman can be cook, lover, mother, counsellor, businesswoman, accountant, etc. A man can be a worker, father, a gardener, a handyman or builder, a chauffeur, artist, and so on. What is important is to see if you can get at is why the dream is showing you in that role and how it is relevant to your life at the moment. Therefore define what skills the role has, and see what the dream is commenting on them in regard to yourself. Where possible, look for the entry on the role in.

Other characters in your dream will also suggest other roles that are worth defining in relationship with yourself. Using the approach suggested in Be a different character can help define these roles. Below is an example:

Example: Feeling tired – exhausted – just lying drained of energy. I am conscious of people talking, saying I was ill. I thought I was just tired. Then asked what the matter was. I was told it was my heart, ‘dry and hard like a boiled egg’ they said. Found I couldn’t talk. Tried to write, wanted A. to know that I loved him, but the pen kept drying up. Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was hemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L.

Well, what do you make of the dream? What is suggested by Trish’s hard-boiled heart? What does it imply that Trish is ‘gone’ but I’m still there?

There are several themes here that are worth noting. The first is the theme of tiredness. Then there is the theme surrounding her heart and the inability to express her feelings. Perhaps we can contain those two by saying it is about ‘emotional dryness’ or coldness. Then there is the theme of death/life, neatly packaged together. And something that we might miss is that overall an enormous change is going on. Trish changes from feeling exhausted and dying, to being ‘incredibly happy and full of energy’.

This gentle relationship with your dream is so important, let’s look at another dream just for practice. It is a dream told to me while I was the dream therapist with London Broadcasting Company.

I grew up in Barbados and lived with my mother in a shack. While I was there I started having a dream that I have had occasionally ever since. In the dream I was getting married and was at home dressing for the marriage, looking in a brown, peeling old mirror. The dream always ends here. Pam.

This dream is not quite as obvious as the previous one. I use it because it will help you see how dreams use certain means to depict a theme or attitude. Don’t get confused by details. Ask yourself what Pam is doing, what are the overall actions or situations?

Well, Pam is thinking/feeling things about marriage. So that is one of the themes. When Pam told me the dream I asked her if she had ever got married. She said no. So that is a further clue.

Sometimes it is helpful to consider how the word ‘I’ is used. For instance Pam says ‘I was getting married’. The ‘I’ word is used to denote something we connect with strongly. If I take some examples from other dreams, we have, ‘I could hardly breathe’ – ‘I was in a room with my brother’ – ‘I was really terrified’.

What Pam says apart from the marriage is, ‘I was …… looking in a brown peeling old mirror.’

What might be missed here can be grasped if you think of the dream as a piece of drama, like a television film. What Pam is enacting is looking at herself with thoughts of marriage. What sort of image does she have of herself? It is of a country girl who can only afford a peeling brown old mirror. So the theme here is self-image. It is about how Pam may be seeing or judging herself.

Looking at them in this way, take some time with your own dreams. Even this simple step can be very revealing, especially when used with a series of your dreams. Often great insights arise from this alone.

What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Something that is obvious as you watch not only your own dreams, but other people’s, is that that we take into their sleep and dreams all the fears, terrors, sexual questions and longings, as well as all their speculations and beliefs. The huge bear, tiger or frightening person they are terrified of is actually fears either inherited or are frightening experiences from the past. They are purely mental things that you haven’t faced, and therefore are the victims of – victims of your own fears.  Obviously that only applies to those dreams that are frightening, to the people whose sleep is disturbed by thoughts and fears and so can never sleep well. The number is of these is enormous.

But see if you can list what you take into the dream you are considering. Is it fear, inspiration, sexual feelings, something new, worry – whatever it is write it down. Then ask yourself what that means.

Here is an example of how a dreamer carries a mass of false information, beliefs and speculations into her dream.

In my dream I was in the hospital giving birth I could feel the strong pain medicine working and I assume I had been given an epidural. I held my same sex partner’s hand and she comforted me. Soon after I was handed a beautiful baby girl whom I decided to name Veridian my mom tried to convince me to name her something else but I refused. The child slept in my arms and my partner held my hand still. Then I woke up. It was strange because I was brought to tears upon waking up and finding the beautiful baby girl not in my arms. I have never had any desire to have children and I know it would be impossible to be impregnated naturally by my partner but yet I was so drawn to this child it was an instant bond and upon realizing it was all a dream I have been very emotional when reminded of the child. I am also in my teens so I have absolutely no need or ability to be impregnated because I would never cheat on my love.

The dreamer carried into her dream a fear that birth would be painful and she would need drugs to mitigate the pain. Then she carried in the feeling of disagreement with her mother. She also believes that the only way to have a dream baby is through sex with a male. Also she says that she doesn’t want a child, but her feelings in the dream and her emotions show otherwise.

An even bigger problem is shown in the girls dream. She has the body of a healthy woman, a body which is built and has inbuilt urges to create a child, yet she is totally unaware of this. Such a separation between her basic life urges and her conscious personality leads to tension and neurosis. Of course she could decide never to have children, but to block the natural urge entirely can cause troubles. Such splits in our nature put us at odds with ourselves. See Peer Dream Group and Processing Your Dream for further insights in exploring your dreams.

Dress

The dream dress is often a statement of how you feel about yourself at the time of the dream – attractive, clumsy, depressed, etc. It can also be a statement about what you are thinking about or desiring at the time – a wedding dress, an evening dress, etc. So the dress is often a statement of s situation you are in, an emotional age – I was wearing a child’s dress – or a problem you are facing. A dress is of course about the enormity of your femininity, and an exteriorisation of feelings, and how you want to appear. See: Clothes.

                     The Red Dress – A Unification Of All Women – https://reddressembroidery.com/

A dress can be an invitation, as in the example below. The male dreamer feels it is an invitation to intimacy, and most dresses are easily lifted making sex quickly available. See: skirt.

Example: She had on a low-cut dress. I stood behind her and reached over her shoulders, putting my hands under her dress onto her bare breasts. I caress them with pleasure, but came to a point of hesitation and questioned what I was doing. Then I seemed to see that her present response was one purely of sexual gratification, slight tension, and this in a rather “rub my tits” sort of way. But I also saw that if I carried on, it would open her out beyond this stage, to one of affection, and warm loveliness. I went on.

If you are dressing: This shows you assuming a particular way of life, role, or appearance. See dressing

If in a male dream: Usually represents a woman, your own desires for a woman, or if you are wearing it, perhaps confusion about your role.

Wedding dress: See: marriage and wedding.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What type of dress is it and what role or situation does it suggest?

What do you feel about the dress, and why are you meeting those feelings at the moment in your life?

Does this express how you are feeling or how you want to feel or appear?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Dressing

This is an expression of daily routine that often seems like ordinary existence, and yet like everything else we do it is an expression of an immense past. It is largely a wave that carries us along, and we add our own colour to it.

Dressing is usually about assuming a particular role, or changing your role. This is very obvious when a woman or man finishes her/his daily tasks and goes out to a ‘do’ or for pleasure. They often transform themselves and even look different. So ask yourself what you are dressing to do or gain – what are you aiming for? Is it sexual attraction, business opportunity, relaxation, could care less attitude, or even going to church?

The examples show some of the different motivations we might express.

Example: I am in a room, dressing. Ernie comes to the door and I am only in a long sweat shirt, no undies or pants. I feel self-conscious. At least the shirt is long enough to cover my private parts.

Example: I am carefully gathering up information about the man who loves me. I begin to understand him and appreciate him. Now I am attracted to him. He invites me to dine with him. I take great care in dressing up as beautifully as I can. He is filled with desire and longing for me. I feel the strength of his feelings. I tell him he must let me go. He can’t bear to do that. I know he must do that so that I can come to him of my own free will. It is a powerful emotional struggle for him.

Example: My gendermap is female but my anatomy is male. Engagements were cancelled. Wills were revoked. Overdoses were taken. It’s astonishing how fast years can pass whilst in this state. Dressing as a woman helped. In private of course, (because I looked so bloody ridiculous). Dressing was my panacea. I would tell a lie if I said it was never sexual. (How could it not be?) But that aspect passed away very early on. Dressing was about tranquillity. When fully dressed, I could relax and set my mind free. I could function.

Example: After dressing like a policeman with a great set of police gear I am captured by a policeman and put in jail. He’s a young, black policeman and I give him all my great police gear. The only thing I am gonna have now is a lot of time to read. He caught me hiding behind a very high way as a narrow place. I had the drop on him. I could have taken him, hurt him with my gun, etc., but I was tired of running from him.

Idioms: Dressed to kill; dress up; dressed to the nines; overdressed; dressing down; dress rehearsal; a stitch of clothes; dress clothes; Sunday best clothes; a wolf in sheep’s clothing.


Useful questions:

What type of dress is it and what role or situation does it suggest?

What do you feel about the dress, and why are you meeting those feelings at the moment in your life?

Does this express how you are feeling or how you want to feel or appear?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or thing

Drink Drinking

This connects with your feelings of thirsting or longing. It denotes satisfaction of longings, either emotionally, physically or spiritually. It also shows you absorbing something, taking something into yourself. Most things have some effect on how you feel, so it points to a change in some way.

To absorb or take something subtle into oneself. This may be taking in feelings such as pleasure; absorbing a mood; ‘drinking in’ our surroundings.

Drinking alcohol is like poisoning and punishing yourself, and is not helpful if you wish to meditate successfully.

When connected with thirst: Suggests needs or longings being met. The dream will probably show you how successfully or otherwise you are managing to satisfy your thirst. And what are you thirsting for?

If in company with someone of the opposite sex, or a group: Taking in the pleasure or otherwise of the relationship or group. Sometimes connects with childhood emotional need. See: Alcohol.

If a ritual: Drink, being one of the fundamental physical needs, is often used in rituals. This is often about a shift in the way you feel about yourself, or a new stage of social or personal recognition.

Getting someone a drink: What is it you are giving the person and why? Is this an act of friendship or a desire to manipulate? Is it companionship or a need to be with someone? See: alcohol.

Example: It takes us sometime to find the officer and when we do he is curled up into a small ball. I pick him up and ask: “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

He nods.

“Ask him which hospital he wants to go to,” I tell T. as the dream ends. She is having trouble thinking of the names of hospitals.)

(My body also feels battered from several days of drinking. While I don’t think I need to go to the hospital, it’s as though I have been beaten internally.)

Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I was at the beach with a lot of strangers. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.

Example: These returns to the womb of fantasy, unrealistic as they are, nevertheless are necessary and nourishing to the mind. All of us are aware of the refreshment of body and soul that satisfying sex, or a great work of art, or deep love can bestow. In these comforts the divided mind is made whole again. It drinks deep of the spring of life and, refreshed and invigorated, returns to fight the battle of reality with greater courage and strength. Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W. V. Caldwell

Idioms: don’t drive and drink; drink like a fish; drink up; drink you under the table; drive you to drink; hold your drinks; in the drink; spike a drink; you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.


Useful questions and hints:

Am I taking something in, absorbing something?

Do I long or thirst for something – if so what?

Is this alcohol, and if so what is it doing to me in the dream?

See Life’s Little SecretsDream YogaTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Driving

There are two major conditions in life. One is being in charge of your life in a reasonable degree and making your own decisions. The other is being directed by your fears, lack of confidence or other people’s pressure or manipulation. Being in charge and directing your life is being in the driving seat. Being influenced by other people is being a passenger. 

Being in the driving seat is a state of mind. It is nothing else. IT IS NOTHING ELSE! See Avoid Being Victims

Dreamer driving: Being independent and confident. It also suggests making your own decisions and being responsible for your own life direction. See The Driving Seat

Car driving carelessly: Lack of responsibility socially or sexually and need for more awareness. It also suggests you are not really in charge of your life in any positively aware way. There may be an over-riding feeling such as anger or frustration that is eating away at you and causing the carelessness – or are you exhausted?

Car driving without license: Feeling guilty about your way of life or social conduct. Or perhaps you do not dare to test out your quality against social standards, therefore may hide your sense of inadequacy.  This might also point to a conflict with social rules and regulations – the social norm. See: Conflicts.

Car drunk driving: Not in control of your life; occasionally refers to spiritual influence leading you to do things that are not rational; or perhaps alcohol is dominating you.

Basically this is about losing real awareness and control of a situation or relationship – and especially your ability to direct your life well.

Useful questions:

If I am not the drunk driver, what or who is irrationally influencing me?

Have I been acting out of careless or irrational feelings or ideas lately?

Am I losing my hold on what is happening in my life?

Car not in control of: This often relates to strong feelings or impulses that you find difficult to deal with. Or if there is a mechanical problem with the car it could suggest that your usual physical and/or psychological checks and balances are not working properly, and so, as with a woman experiencing mood swings during menopause, perhaps you need to find ways of helping this. See Being in Control

The dream might also depict that in some way you are either not watching what you are doing, or are feeling anxiety about not being in control of things.

Car with one other person in: Relationship with that person. What is happening between you and the other person gives a clue to what this is about. So if you are driving somewhere it suggests you are in a relationship with the aspect of yourself depicted by the person, or with the actual person, in which you have a common direction and are linked in some way – emotionally, sexually or because of common aims.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How well was I driving in this dream?

Am I in control of the car?

Where am I going or what am I doing?

What are my feelings as I use the pedal, and what are they showing about how I drive myself?  Try using Secrets of Power DreamingPlot of the Dream

Drivers seat: Perhaps more than anything else this suggests responsibility and personal decision making. It can also point to the attitudes that direct how you live your life.

Whoever is in the seat is influencing your life, either through your permission, through dependence or dominance, perhaps even fear.

Being in the driving seat is a very special situation, whether it is a car, a plane or a rocket. Every tiny shift or thought, of motivation or doubt redirects where the vehicle – you – are going. So it is very important to clarify your feelings and state, as with the example below.

Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Being in the driving seat also means you can see all the instruments on the driving panel. This means being in an observing situation with yourself. You can if you wish, observe all the instruments of your being. You can watch and acknowledge what is happening to you sexually, what is happening with your fantasies, what is going on in your physical body – am I tired, am I relaxed, am I stressed, am I confident? You can observe all this in the driving seat and you can make changes. From the observations you can slightly shift, change, make adjustments, and so keep balance and direct the process of interaction and where you are aiming to go in life. This self observation also means you can more easily observe others and understand their needs.

Driving from another seat: This is about being able to ‘stand up to the plate’.

It is an American term and it is about whether you are ready to take command, to show your skill, to be in charge. See http://dreamhawk.com/poems/the-plate/

Are you in fact facing a situation which needs you to be responsible for the directions you are going in life, the decisions you make and take responsibility for who you are and are capable of being?

Try using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ and imagine placing yourself in the driving seat in one of the dreams.


Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am in the driving seat what are the attitudes and feelings hat are directing me?

Where is it I am actually taking this vehicle or my life?

If I am not in the seat, what are the skills or failings that are influencing my direction?

Try using Being the Person or ThingEasy Dream Understanding

Another person driving: This might suggest you are being passive or are in a learning situation with the other person. Perhaps you are being influenced by the opinions or emotions or desires of someone else, or are ready to allow someone else to make decisions for you. The other driver might show you are dependent on someone.

It could also show another aspect of you driving your decision making, so make sure the direction is to your liking. For instance anxiety or emotional pain may lead you to make many decisions, so they are then the driving force in your life, rather than what might be more satisfying.

See car.

Idioms: bottle drive; drive a hard bargain; drive around; drive it home; drive me batty; drive me crazy; drive me to the edge; drive me up the wall; drive standard; drive you; drive you nuts; drive you to distraction; drive you to drink; test drive; in the driver’s seat; take a drive/trip.


Useful questions:

Is this about being caught or avoiding notice?

What feelings are evident in the dream and where do you meet them in waking life?

If it is difficult to get a license, what are the barriers or difficulties?

See Control; Avoid Being Victims; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Drowning

Because of the water, drowning depicts fear of being overwhelmed by difficult emotions or anxieties, so it often points to struggles – conflicts – or fighting for survival you may have in your life. But this might apply not to dangerous emotions or urges, but to natural urges such as eating, loving or sex, that some people have enormous conflicts with. Drowning in a dream is also about struggling to survive as a person, so it applies to your identity as it is dealing with relationship with other people, but also with your own internal world of instincts, body activities and needs.

But the feelings of being overwhelmed can be caused by fear or anxiety. But if we can, we can meet and dissolve these. For whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

So in dreams you cannot drown, but fear takes away your confidence, so then you go through the agonised emotions of drowning.

This is about being or feeling overwhelmed by something. One can ‘drown’ in sorrow for instance. So you need to look at your waking life to see what you are feeling threatened or burdened by and see if there are ways you can deal with it. If someone else actually drowns in the dream it may mean some of your feelings, your creativity and responsiveness are no longer ‘alive’. But they can be brought back to life if you care for that side of yourself. Sometimes it is simply anxiety we drown in, and much of anxiety is about situations we imagine. Separating what is imagined from what is real can help this. See Characters and People in Dreams

But such fear can be caused because if un-dealt with traumas from childhood are not faced, or by being exposed to awful film images that you believe are real. Read  and Martial Art of the Mind

If you feel you are struggling to you ‘keep your head above water’ in a dream, do not give in for it is only emotions you are facing, not reality.

Water and drowning often indicates you are facing the unknown changes and so are afraid. But in dreams we can never die or even be hurt, for we wake without real hurt except for our feelings.

Going under water in a dream depicts you are going deeper into your awareness, so you are beginning to explore your unconscious. That is a major step in your development and is an evolutionary advance. It can lead to many major new abilities such as a wider awareness of life around you. A person describes one of the possible changes, “Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.”

Dreamt about someone else: May occasionally show Your apprehension about their health or well being, having the suggestion of death or breakdown.

Example: ‘I fell into a pond. My brother was frightened to be by himself so he jumped in. We were both drowning in the water and we shouted out for Mum. My brother drowned.’ Poppy S.

Poppy dreamt this while feeling insecure and anxious due to her father being seriously ill.

Example: I had been dreaming about sitting on a sofa with my friends – well watching horror movies, when suddenly everything comes to live. I was afraid of the ghost that had been drowning with her husband in the movie, and it comes to haunt me. I asked the ghost’s sister to help and she passes me a necklace with can protect me. And suddenly the ghost appears and tells my friend she was pretty. What does this means?

It means that you need to understand how your mind works. It means that you have nothing to fear about ghosts. As the ghost that appeared showed you, there was no harm in it. Dream images are like images on cinema screens – harmless unless you are haunted by your own fears. But the dream also shows you that whatever you believe in becomes a fact and alive in our dreams. It mean that the necklace gave you confidence, and in fact the necklace is only a crutch for your confidence. But we need such things until we can deal with our own emotions. See Facing Fear

Idioms: drown your sorrow; if you’re born to hang, you won’t drown.

Useful questions:

What powerful emotions or changes am I dealing with?

Am I feeling overwhelmed by something?

Can I define the strengths and ways I use to deal with threatening feelings?

Do I feel as if I am ‘drowning’ in a situation or relationship?

What is it I am feeling overwhelmed by recently?

Is this someone else drowning – if so what facet of me do they represent?

What resource or person could help me survive in this situation?

Another person or animal drowning still suggests it is an aspect of your own personality you need to care for.

Whoever or whatever it is, imagine yourself back in the dream and save them. If necessary imagine rescue services coming to your aid. In doing this you are using imagery to shift your feelings and anxieties.

All water in some way signifies your own inner world of feelings, but the sea often suggests meeting urges and wisdom lying beyond the boundary of your conscious mind. What is it you feel in the sea or river? Try putting it into words.

See Associations Working With; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; Avoid Being Victims; Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

Drowning – Many Replies

-Serena2015-12-11 2:44:38

I often have basically this same dream and don’t know why. I’m always in a car with some of my closest family or friends (usually family). For some reason we always get in a crash and end up in this lake that’s about 30 minutes from my old house. In every dream I do everything I can to help save one of them, usually the youngest first. Then one of two things happen- I either get above water safely with the person I helped first but when I try to get someone to help me get the others it’s like I can’t talk or I’m just not there. If that doesn’t happen then while I’m trying to help someone in the car their seatbelt is locked and I can’t do anything to help them get out of it. I have these dreams at least once a month and they started around the end of last year. I don’t know why I have them or what they mean so I was wondering if you could help me understand?

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-17 10:34:43

Dear Serena – I can imagine how you must feel in dreams like these and yet you do not mention any of your feelings once. Are you aware of that? Are you aware of the way you habitually respond to certain situations in your waking life?http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/ If we take away the images and events occurring in a dream and simply look to see what feelings or emotions are evident, the dream is often more understandable than if we try to interpret the symbols. Feelings in dreams are nearly always undistorted. We therefore do not need to interpret them, simply to recognise them and see if we can recognise where they occur in waking life. You wrote; “For some reason we always get in a crash.” Are other people involved in the crash; do you crash with another car? Who is driving the car that you are in? Where do you sit in the car? http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/driving/and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/car/#Crashing and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/sub-personalities/ I trust that the information provided will give you a start with exploring your own dream; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/not-enough-information/ What will be very helpful as well is to explore the useful questions in this entry. Do know that the answers are inside you and help is always available; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-incubation/ Let me know if you have any questions. Anna  Reply

 

 

-SusieQ2015-12-12 8:41:21

I had one dream where I sunk to the bottom of a body of water and when I tried to push myself off from the bottom, I couldn’t. I was very very heavy and couldn’t move. The thought crossed my mind that I was going to drown and then I woke up. The next dream I had was that I was walking with some people in a resort. The pools and ponds were frozen. I had a Yorkshire terrier and he disappears. I turned around to look for him and found him sunk to the bottom of a frozen pond. I jumped in to rescue him and felt panicked that I was too slow and wouldn’t be able to rescue him. Then I woke up. Can you give me some ideas about these dreams please? Thanks!

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-18 14:43:26

Dear SusieQ – Yes, I can give you some ideas about these dreams and please explore them yourself too; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ Your first dream shows that you are confronted with “heavy”, difficult feelings like for instance “the weight of responsibility”, which can cause a feeling of stress too and you are afraid you will ‘drown’ in them. In the next dream you have found a “solution” in order to feel relaxed – the resort – by freezing your emotions. You become aware that when you freeze your emotions, that the Yorkshire terrier that is part of your inner world will disappear and sink to the bottom too. A dog can be a symbol of the parts of self we usually keep out of sight, but which may express spontaneously; so it can be a sign of enthusiasm, care and warmth. Your fear about being too slow might also be caused by you mixing up your waking life with your dream life. In your dream life and so in your inner world you can bring the missing parts of you back to life, even if they have been at the bottom of a frozen pond for years; http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/integration-meeting-oneself/ So push on and please be patient with yourself and your inner process. Another way to reconnect with your inner dog could be to use “Being the dog” – both when it is still with you in the dream and when it is at the bottom of the frozen pond – and feel the difference between the two;http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson Questioning your beliefs is another way; beliefs like “and couldn’t move” and “that I was too slow and wouldn’t be able to rescue him”; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/beliefs/ Using Power Dreaming might be helpful to move beyond these beliefs;http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ Let me know if you have any questions SusieQ. Anna

 

-Asmi2015-12-19 5:42:16

I have had a fair few dreams where I am either trying to cross what looks like a shallow pond, or I am chilling with one or two friends by a lake at night, and I drown. There is always me holding someone’s hand (someone familiar) and they are with me being all ‘I will show you how’ and then I leave their hand momentarily and the waves (!?) Or speed at which we are moving cause me to float/sink ahead. They say ‘hold on to something’ but by the time I outstretch my arm, I am drowning. I can’t swim in real life but I am not scared of water, even in my dreams. But I never seem to make it across the pond/lake. And it’s all so fast.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-23 10:32:37

Dear Asmi – What I see in your dream – and please explore it yourself as wellhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ – is that you are practicing moving through change (like happens in puberty or when you move from adolescence into adulthood) Dreams often stand in place of actual experience. So through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally. For instance many young women dream in detail of giving birth. This function of what might be called ‘imagination’ is tremendously undervalued, but is a foundation upon which human survival is built. Seehttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/imagination-and-dreaming-2/ You perceive these changes as that you cannot hold onto something familiar anymore when the waves of change appear, and in a way you are right about that. Important transitions (like changing from child to adult) are often perceived as an emotional rollercoaster – a loss of control – and it takes some practice to learn to move through this stage of your life without fear. Looked at your dream from another perspective, it is also about understanding and accepting that you are developing your own identity as an individual rather than as a part of the family or your friends. This “crossing” – growing into “the unknown you” – is a process and it will take many dreams and time in your waking life to move to “the other side”. So please be kind and patient with yourself and know that most of us are scared of diving into the unknown, of uncertainty, of unfamiliarity, of not knowing what’s going to happen. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/ and perhaps also (you did not mention how old you are) http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/teenage-girl%E2%80%99s-love-dreams/ Let me know if you have any questions Asmi. Anna

 

-Joanna2015-12-19 6:24:27

I dreamt that my mother evicted me & my daughter from the house that we rent off her. We decided to move into a house boat at the side of a river near where some horses were grazing. My daughter decided to walk across the top of the river boat & I was chastising her for being foolish, next thing a submarine was passing by at the bottom of the river & my daughter was sucked into the depth of the water & imp screaming, terrified, trying to jump in the water but something is holding my foot & I can’t reach her. I awoke with a jolt & the image haunting my thoughts. Any ideas of a meaning??

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-24 7:04:04

Dear Joanna – Unfortunately you did not share what you think might have triggered the dream or links with it in some way; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/not-enough-information/ nor how old your daughter in waking life is. What I see in your dream – and please explore it for yourself as wellhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ – is that your dream starts with expressing the difficult process that was part of you “leaving home” and so becoming (emotionally) independent from your mother. Your natural feeling reaction to this (undigested? http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/digest/ ) stage of your life is that you want to avoid your daughter having to go through the same difficulties. The part where your daughter walks on top of the house boat expresses her attempts (her first steps) to become emotional independent from you. See alsohttp://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/example-emma/ I believe that your undigested memories make that you can only respond to her efforts with fear and so you criticize her. The submarine is a way to explore your own inner content; it is your ability to meet the depths of feelings and experiences of your inner “child” when she had to go through this process. Meeting these feelings and dealing with them, will give you the freedom to choose with awareness and wisdom how you want to approach your daughter’s individuation process. The end of the dream shows your difficulties in letting go of your child, because you project your own unresolved, difficult feelings on your daughter; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/projection/ and you becoming aware that you cannot hold on to her. Let me know if you have any questions Joanna. Anna

 

-Eli2015-12-21 14:18:18

I just had a dream that I was in a pool with my friends and the boy I have unrequited feelings for is holding my hand me and he pulls me under water. I struggle and fight to show him that I need to surface to breathe, but he doesn’t let go. His grip is like steel, and it feels as if he had already drowned. My body begins to weaken and I stop struggling. We sink further down, and I recall being very aware of the feeling of his hand in mine. My eyes start drooping and I think “am I drowning? Is this is it?” And before anything else happened, the dream shifted completely.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-24 7:18:09

Dear Eli –I wonder which dream follows after you ask yourself the questions “am I drowning? Is this it?” Because our unconscious mind responds to our communicating with it, the answer to your question might be in the next dream; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-incubation/ See also http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/lucid-dreaming/ QUOTE: Throughout history there have been individuals who have described a different meeting with sleep. They wake up in what is usually a dark, unconscious world. Or, in the midst of a dream, they become aware of the situation and relate to their dream in a new and dynamic way. This condition, usually called ‘lucid dreaming’, holds within it enormous possibilities that are generally unavailable in waking time, sleep or dreaming. To understand these possibilities and also something of what takes place during lucidity, it is helpful to appreciate that during sleep your five senses are largely switched off, and while you are dreaming your voluntary muscles are paralyzed. Usually you enter this sightless, soundless, immobilized world of sleep without awareness. However, traveling consciously beyond sensory input into the substrata of your mind and body is an incredible experience: you then enter sleep with all your critical faculties, with active curiosity and with the ability to explore whatever you find. When you become lucid in sleep you carry the bright torch of personal awareness into the depths of your body and mind. Anna

 

-Kelly2015-12-22 18:42:07

I had a dream that my 10 month old daughter was drowning in the tub but I pulled her out and she lived what does this mean. It’s really been bothering me and I don’t know why I dreamt about this. Please help

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-24 8:22:06

Dear Kelly – I do not have enough information to explore your dream; what do you think might have triggered a dream like this or links with it in some way? See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/not-enough-information/ In general seeing a child drown may mean that you perceive that a child is struggling and/or having difficulties to overcome life’s obstacles so an inability to cope with whatever is confronting her. Dreams have many functions however – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/function-of-dreaming/ – and often one dream may cover several of these. I feel it serves a purpose to do some inner work and see which functions you can recognize, by exploring your dream. To give you some examples: Function 2: “A dream can be a link between the sleeping mind and what is occurring externally.” Was your daughter crying the moment you had this dream? If so then you could have become aware of your daughter “drowning in sorrow” and in your dream you instinctively respond to her needing your help. Function 6: “Dreams can be a means of compensating for failure or deprivation in everyday life, and as a means of expressing the otherwise unacknowledged aspects of oneself. Such dreams are a move toward wholeness.” Perhaps you have felt the day before that you did not respond in an adequate way to your daughter needing your help? Perhaps you have recently started a new project and you believe/feel you are not doing a good job? Perhaps you feel very vulnerable in your role as a mother? See also http://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/the-baby-in-your-dream/ Function 8: “Dreams often stand in place of actual experience. So through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally.” Perhaps you are practicing helping your inner child and with helping her heal, you can respond with less fear and with more inner wisdom to your daughter’s struggles in waking life. Function 12: “Dreams may be a presentation in symbols of past traumatic experience. If these feeling can be met this can lead to deep psychological healing. Such dreams are therefore an attempt on the part of our spontaneous inner processes to bring about healing change.” Perhaps you remember in your dream how you have felt as a 10 month old baby and you become aware how you can be a mother to your INNER child and help her heal that way; http://dreamhawk.com/health-and-healing/inner-baby-and-child/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson I trust this will give you a start and please let me know if you have any questions Kelly. Anna

 

-Oliver2015-11-20 0:06:05

My boyfriend has been having this dream lately where he looks into the sea and then falls in, he sinks and sees a little girl at the bottom and tries to reach for her. People jump in to save the girl but never see him and so he drowns. He told me he doesn’t know who the little girl is. Could you tell me what this dream means?

Tony Crisp2015-11-20 9:45:43

Oliver – It sounds like your boyfriend is trying to explore himself, because going under the surface of the sea – in dreams – represents becoming aware of what was his subconscious, the world experienced after death, so discovering a new world. The little girl he reached for leads me to wonder whether any of his family died young – a little girl for instance. Or it could be someone he felt love for when he was young, because love links us all in mysterious ways. But of course it could simply be his female self, and only he can find what it is by ‘being the young girl’. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/ Death in dreams is nothing like it is seen in many people’s thoughts and feelings. In our inner world of dreams death is simply an end of something we have outgrown and the beginning of a new life. Think of the times you have died in that way – the death of the baby you as you developed into youth; the death of youth in you as you became a teenager; the death of the teenage you as development took place and you moved into adulthood. His death says he has changed in some way and is ready to emerge with new views or realisations. Tell him to explore being dead by imagining himself – while awake – and watch what happens. Tony

 

Meg2015-11-22 11:24:09

My boyfriend told me he had a dream that I was drowning him whilst he was trying to swim but after a while I let him back up. Could this mean that I’m holding him back from something?

Tony Crisp2015-11-22 13:28:07

Meg – Not necessarily – it’s his dream not yours, and so deals with his feelings and fears. I am guessing he is learning to ‘swim’ in the relationship. Many males feel inadequate in today’s world, and so have a trouble feeling proud of their masculinity – many men shave all their hair of trying to make themselves more like a female. But that might not apply to you boyfriend, but he felt he wasn’t doing too well, but has now come up again. Also he wasn’t dreaming about you, the figure in the dream is one he made up from all his memoires and feelings about you he has collected. Nearly always when people dream about someone they know or a strange new person or situation they automatically believe the dream is about that person, situation or animal. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them. See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing Tony

 

-Laura2015-11-30 4:23:42

I had a dream of me and my mom being next to a pond and an animal started chasing us and my mom panicked and jumped in the pond and was drowning and I jumped in to help her but the animal was still after me and kept biting me and I couldn’t get to her.. Then a couple weeks later I had one of me and her again in the beach and a tsunami started to happen and I held her hand and ran but we got split up and I couldn’t find her after that.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-03 14:20:23

Dear Laura – When we grow up we absorb a lot from our mother, who then, becomes our inner mother in our inner world. Many people do not realise that they have an inner mother equally as powerful as an external mother. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your mother, and they are what makes you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner mother can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you. You become aware what you share with your inner mother; the fear of the animal inside you and the fear of entering your own deeps, beyond your conscious mind, which makes that you are more likely to “drown in it.” See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/animals-as-dream-figures/ Anything moving toward you in a dream usually signifies that you are becoming more aware of it, feeling it more intensely. So being chased in a dream usually denotes that you are feeling something you fear more intensely and are trying to avoid confronting it. This is not usually a good policy, as you can never get away from yourself. You can learn to become friends with unconscious feelings (what kind of animal was it?) that “chase you” by using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ and/or http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/ In the last dream that you describe, you are exploring what it feels like to go through inner change and growth and let go of your (inner) mother. So what did that feel like? http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/growth-of-something/ Anna

 

Leanne Lewis2015-11-30 8:51:48

I just dreamt that I was walking with a friend down the beach and suddenly from nowhere a coach full of mostly children and some adults came rushing through the sea and turned upside down with everyone inside it and started to sink. My friend without hesitation jumped tight in to begin saving people. I stood for longer than I wanted screaming and crying mainly at myself as to what to do as I am terrified of water although I can swim but not confidently. I wanted to help so badly but I couldn’t. I didn’t even try as I was so scared. Children were drowning while I stood there not helping. I was crying so hard telling myself aloud how I failed myself how innocent people were dying and I did nothing….I was a complete failure. Then my friend and others were pulling people out of the coach and just as they were on the edge of the sand I ran to grab each child and put them as far away from the water as possible. So even though I was in bits crying I tried to help drag children from the sand even if I couldn’t get in the water. It didn’t feel like anyone really survived though as the dream switched suddenly to me and my friend high in water and me holding on to something as we waited to be rescued. This dream has really upset me.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-04 11:40:46

Dear Leanne – What I see in your dream is that you become aware of habits/beliefs that were previously unknown to you. The children and a few adults are all aspects of you (your past) and they still influence the way you approach yourself and situations in your (inner) life. Being paralysed by fear and guilt makes that you decide to not get near those parts of yourself that perceive a situation as overwhelming. To make matters worse, you then decide to feel a victim of your decisionhttp://dreamhawk.com/news/avoiding-being-my-own-victim/ and you are about to drown into the inner drama you have created in which you are dragging your (inner) male with you. To move beyond this approach, it might help to become an honest observer of yourself and the way you approach your (inner) world and to take responsibility for it; http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/#MakesInner This will also assist you to not judge yourself for the path you have chosen and to not identify (too much) with what you are feeling, which are two components that will aid you to move beyond being stuck in your inner drama towards change and transformation; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/personal-growth/ Observing your own ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings, your own habits and responses to things, is one of the most powerful of tools to use in transforming your life. This also leads to a fuller connection with your intuitive connection with your core. If one uses observation you may at time realise that you are cycling through feelings or moods. So it can imply that one is experiencing a cycle which you may be trapped in. The way to get out of this cycle is to step back from it using observation; this is like stepping back and not be lost in your emotions or moods. Please continue reading at; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/ Let me know if you have any questions. Anna

 

-nancy leigh2015-12-01 14:55:13

I had a dream I looked in dirty water and I fell in and I was drowning then when I was trying to get back up everything went pitch black I couldn’t talk or see anything I was trying to awake from my dream I was suffering for half an hour then finally I woke up then I was alone… Please tell me what it means.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-07 12:29:26

Dear Nancy – What I see in your dream – but please explore it for yourself as wellhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/ – is that you make an effort to look at your inner world. Dirty water suggests that your emotions are in need of some cleaning up and/or that you perceive your emotions as “dirty”. With the right approach, you can use your looking in dirty water as a means of moving towards inner healing and growth; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/dirt/ It takes practice to learn to look at your feelings without identifying with what you see. When you choose to believe that you are your emotions, then you are more likely to drown into them and you will lose any sense of being able to clarify what was “dirty” before; what was meant as exploring then easily turns into suffering. There are several approaches that you might want to explore which could assist you in unlearning to identify with your feelings. Self-observation is a way of observing your inner world without judging what you see and/or with identifying with what you see. This can produce awareness and an inner transformation; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/ Becoming aware that you are not your thoughts, not your body, not your feelings, but “Something Unknown” that is far beyond any change, can also help you approaching your inner world in a different way; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/life-beyond-change-and-pain/ Practice makes perfect! Let me know if you have any questions Nancy. Anna

 

– .. 2015-12-08 10:49:44

My 4 year old daughter keeps dreaming that she’s drowning. Why?

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-12-14 16:13:16

Dear .. – You will have to do some exploring and investigating to understand why your daughter is having this recurring dream; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/not-enough-information/ You could ask your daughter if there are other people involved in her recurring dream; like her parents, brothers and/or sisters, other adults, children from kindergarten etc. I ask because a dream like that could mean that your daughter is struggling to keep her head above water in some aspects of her life – family life, life in kindergarten etc. – because she perceives (some of ) the demands as too much to deal with. A way to change this “threat” is to question where the demands might be too much indeed and help her learn to cope with demands that are appropriate for a child her age. Even at age 4, your child is very much her own person. She has distinct likes and dislikes, and her personality is developing more every day. It could be that your daughter feels that her likes and dislikes are not honoured and that she is struggling to survive as a person, so it applies to her identity as she is dealing with relationships with other people. Perhaps she needs to learn to express herself (better) and experience that others are listening to her; see her as a unique individual with individual needs? Perhaps you daughter is a so called highly sensitive child that is easily overwhelmed by high levels of stimulation, sudden changes, and the emotional distress of others; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Highly-Sensitive-Child-Children-Overwhelms/dp/0007163932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450159104&sr=1-1&keywords=the+highly+sensitive+child I hope this gives you a start. Anna

 

-Marie2015-09-26 13:31:04

I had a dream that I was in a really deep pool with my family. Some sea creatures could get in the pool as well. One of my sisters sank to the bottom and we all tried to get her, if we could bring her back up then she would be alive even if she was down there for long. Once she was down there I also saw my friend’s cat in less deep water that was screaming, I went and saved the cat. This is not the first time I have dreamed about something like this. I have also dreamed about all three of my dogs drowning and I saved them all.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-10-12 8:29:50

Dear Marie – Being in a pool or with other people around or in it suggests you are sharing a common awareness in some degree. It indicates an opening up of uncharted territories in the unconscious. The depth of the water and the ability of the person(s) are all factors reflecting one’s feelings concerning the unconscious. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/the-unconscious-2/ Sea creatures can depict something arising from within you that you perceive as threatening. You might allow feelings from within to emerge that had been held back in you and your family, perhaps for generations. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-conjuring-trick/ Actively helping to save “others” that are drowning suggests an action to deal with feelings that might otherwise engulf you or someone else. In this case it is showing what strengths or techniques you use to deal with difficulties and challenges. Questions you could ask yourself to get a better understanding of your inner world could be; what powerful emotions or changes am I dealing with? Am I feeling overwhelmed by something? Can I define the strengths and ways I use to deal with threatening feelings? Do I feel as if I am ‘drowning’ in a situation or relationship? Is this someone else drowning – if so what facet of me do they represent? See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/ Anna

 

-Iris2015-10-31 10:27:54

I had a dream that my boys drown in a crowded shallow pool of children, i walked in and was searching for them and saw their lifeless bodies on the bottom. I picked both of them up, and tried CPR. I couldn’t save them, in the dream they had been in there for hours. What does this mean??

Tony Crisp2015-11-01 14:44:05

Iris – I have received many, many dreams like this and not one of them was predicting the death of their children. Dreaming that your child dies can have several meanings. In some dreams a parent, much to their horror dreams of killing their child; or as one dreamer said, “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of one’s child in a dream. But anxiety is a normal part of life, except as humans we do not deal with it well. Your baby can trigger your mothering instincts with a vengeance. Being female and a mother holds with it an enormously increased anxiety about the baby. They see all manner of things that might be a threat, and I believe that is what such dreams shows. Your imagination for such dangers is enormously increased. This is natural in all female mammals, but is greatly magnified in humans. I hope this helps. Tony

 

Taylor C2015-11-14 7:22:06

I had a dream where in the dream I was madly in love with a man. I have no idea who he was when I woke up from the dream so I was really confused. But anyways, this man and I had taken a trip to what seemed like a tropical island. While we were there, we had gone scuba diving. We had dove into the water and spent a long time under water looking at I don’t remember what. When we came back to the surface, I had taken all of my equipment to help me breathe under water off. Then as soon as all of it was off, the man I was with forcefully shoved me under water. He took me pretty far under the water and I was scared and confused. I thought I was going to die and then all of a sudden he was just gone and I was able to swim back to the top. I really don’t understand this.. Help?

Tony Crisp2015-11-15 11:28:28

Taylor – Unfortunately, like most of us you confuse the dream world with the world of your body. It is also important to realise that every image, every scary or terrifying thing, is taken place inside you, in your mind, as you sleep. This means that every awful animal, every scary thing or person, is created out of your own fears and must not be seen as outside you as happens in waking awareness. The problem is that we are often scared of or frightened of actually experiencing our emotions and so they confront us in our dreams. Avoiding them or controlling them is like running away from oneself – there is no escape – unless you meet them by not running away in fear. But your dream is a wonderful teaching dream – the man you love is your guide, your future self. A modern view of the personality says that our mind is made up of many modules which are quite distinct. Some drives or areas of self act or express despite what we would want. These are named autonomous complexes. Recent research into brain activity shows that in fact the brain has different layers or strata of activity. These strata often act independently of each other or of conscious will. Sensing them, as one might in a dream, might feel like meeting an opposing will. So you met a part of you that opposed you in some degree. But the you that you see yourself as – your personality – is just a tiny part of you. It is like living all your life in one room when you have a massive and splendid mansion with many rooms. The loved man was a representation of a part that lives in the mansion, and is trying to show you what a potential you have – so is your future self. He took you under the surface of your mind, taking beyond the small room you live in, with its fears and preoccupation with the world of the body. It was an initiation to the wonder you are. See http://dreamhawk.com/news/there-is-a-huge-change-happening/ You perhaps couldn’t remember what you saw because it is a strange world and you were still seeing it through your old stereotypes. Seehttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-paradigm/ He took you mask and underwater gear off to show to try to show you that you are also a native of a different world or dimension, where you do not need anything to breathe underwater – in your inner world. But he was just giving you a taster. For the fuller experience you need to try being him – see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson It is just a start if you can take it. Tony

 

-Demi2015-07-11 10:22:56

Hi, I keep on dreaming that my 2 year old son is drowning and I get him out of the water but he is not breathing. I wake up with sweat all over and crying. Then I also dream that my deceased mother is killing herself. Like the last dream was where she tried to drown herself. I also then wake up with sweat all over and very upset.
Can someone please help me to what this means because I’m tired of this horrible dreams.
Thank you in advance.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-07-12 16:12:42

Dear Demi – In general dreams recur because there are ways the dreamer habitually responds to their internal or external world. Because their attitude or response is unchanging, the dream that reflects it remains the same. It is noticeable in those who explore their dreams using such techniques as described under processing dreams, that recurring themes disappear or change because the attitudes or habitual anxieties that gave rise to them have been met or transformed.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/processing-dreams/
I believe the dream in which your mother tries to drown herself sheds some light on these recurring dreams. So explore what it is that you are doing to your mother role; ask yourself if you lack pleasure in your role as a mother, if you are too anxious in your mother role and if you imagine too many situations that make you anxious.
Also explore how your own mother dealt with her emotions/fears and with your emotions/fears and how much of her approach you absorbed.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/mother-mum-ma/#InnerMother
The dream about your son drowning could reflect that you project your own difficulties as far as dealing with your emotions and fears is concerned onto your son.
This probably also means that the moment you “own it” or stop repressing it and accept that it is something you have to work on, your dreams about your drowning son will change or disappear.
The other good thing is that while you learn to deal with your emotions/your fears you will pass it on to your son, because children learn from what we do – or not do – and not from what we say.
Another helpful tool toward more awareness is self-observation. Observing your own ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings, your own habits and responses to things, is one of the most powerful of tools to use in transforming your life. This also leads to a fuller connection with your intuitive connection with your core.
If you use observation you may at time realise that you are cycling through feelings or moods. So it can imply that you are experiencing a cycle which you may be trapped in. The way to get out of this cycle is to step back from it using observation; this is like stepping back and not be lost in the emotions or moods.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/
Good Luck!
Anna

 

-Mo2015-07-19 8:14:20

Hello. For a few years now I’ve been having horrifying nightmares that rip me from my sleep. One of them is being held under water by someone. Almost always it’s just a shadowy figure, but sometimes it has the face of an old ex or even current lover. They hold me by my neck and force me to stay under the water until I jolt awake.
I don’t know what to do.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-07-25 13:37:09

Dear Mo – A shadowy figure in a dream is a symbol for an aspect of yourself that you have rejected.
Many of the characters or elements of our dreams act quite contrary to what we consciously wish. This is why we often find it so difficult to believe all aspects of a dream are part of our own psyche. Some drives or areas of our self will act or express despite what we would want. These are named autonomous complexes.
This complex may express as something evil, which can be very frightening because you believe that “something outside” is forcing you, rather than a repressed part of you, or the results of a traumatic experience showing itself in frightening images.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-archetype-of-the-shadow/
The way out of this recurring nightmare – and probably other horrible dreams as well – could be Power Dreaming.
Your dreams are a unique area of self-expression. They are a safe area to experiment and experience things in any way you wish. Often we introvert, or take into our dream life, rules and fears that have no place there. For example, while dreaming, you may fall into the sea and be terrified you will drown. But that is impossible because you are only experiencing images of your feelings and thoughts. All you can do is to feel fear. You can easily breathe under water in a dream, or fly, or die and be re-born. So remove such limitations from your inner life by visualising such changes into your dreams when awake. Imagine yourself being what you can in your dreams. Even passive people who couldn’t stand up for themselves can change as they do this.
Please continue reading at http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
Good Luck!
Anna

 

Ashley2015-07-27 12:41:40

Hi, I had this very real dream woken by my 2 year old daughter coughing during the night which actually made me cry as it was that real. It started with a group of my friends and me out and my mum looking after my daughter, when we arrived home I asked her how she was. Mum was tired on the couch nearly asleep and she replied she’s good. This time of night she would be in bed. Next thing I hear my daughter call my mum. To my surprise it came from the bathroom, I rush in and she is hunched over face first in the bath drowning. I pull her out a
She is limp and unresponsive par a cough. I’m screaming and not knowing what to do yelling for someone to call an ambulance. My mums reaction being very calm and said I’ll just call the doctor with me saying no the ambulance. Then I heard my daughter cough through the baby monitor and I woke up. I get on well with my mum and trust her with my kids is what I cannot get.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-07-29 9:34:52

Dear Ashley – What creates some confusion is that you fail to recognise the difference between your inner dream life and your waking life and so the way I see it is that this dream does not reflect that your mother in waking life cannot be trusted with your daughter or other children.
Dreams can have many functions and one of them is that a dream is a link between the sleeping mind and what is occurring externally. For instance, a person may be falling out of bed and dream of flying or falling and so your dream could be caused by hearing your daughter coughing while you were still sleeping.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/function-of-dreaming/
I believe that part of you – symbolised by the mother in your dream – is aware that your daughter is only coughing and so perhaps all she needs is a doctor – or you, because mothers often fulfil that helpful, healing role in life as well – to give her something to drink or some medicine that will relieve/heal her cough.
The dream figure in your dream is probably too worried about your daughter’s health and so sees her drowning.
I feel it will be helpful to explore your dream for yourself too, for your dream could also express that feelings of guilt are part of your inner world, as far as enjoying yourself in another role than your mother role is concerned.
For that purpose you can use “Being the person” or “Talking as the person” for all “actors” in your dream, but especially for your own dream figure as she appears in your dream.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/#TalkingAs
Anna

 

-apurva2015-07-28 5:16:05

I mostly dream of drowning but not dying and being attacked by snake, even bitten. But I don’t die. Why??

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-07-29 10:12:54

Dear Apurva – I feel a better way to put your question is “Why didn’t I die YET”?
And then I would answer that you probably need to be patient with yourself until your fear dissolves and that it might help if you get a better understanding of the meaning of death in the context of your dreams.
Being bitten by a snake and dying because of that is clearly described in the entry snake.
QUOTE:
The snake can bite you, and its venom may flow throughout your being and kill you. Most of us are very frightened of this. The reason is that the venom will take away your personal sense of self – it faces you with the death of yourself. It melts the boundary of egoic self-interest, and personal connections with family and children, with choices in action. It replaces the personal interests and fears with a self that is part of the one great life. So the fear of the snake is not because its venom is deadly, but because it transforms. It turns you into a being who is part of the whole. It robs one of the artificial walls placed between self and the collective pool of life consciousness. The snake depicts this force, purpose or energy behind that power of growth and unfolding. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us. It leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully”.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-archetype-of-rebirth-or-resurrection/
Does that answer your question?
Anna

 

-Riley M.2015-08-08 5:04:32

I had a dream, just now, where my (now) ex-boyfriend (who lives with me) and I were driving in Colorado (where I’m moving too, which is a reason why I broke up with him) and there was an icey patch on a shore thing, that led to almost like an arctic ocean. He was driving, & went to turn around, and spun out of control and we went into the water.
I could feel myself drowning, but I saved him and ended not making it out in time..
I’m not sure what that means.. does it mean I feel guilty for leaving?

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-08-14 11:57:25

Dear Riley – Your dream expresses that “something” – which might be guilt and/or fear – is driving your decision making at the moment and your dream shows that it is not a helpful approach.
Because with the change of the situation between you, you probably do not feel in control of things anymore and instead of daring to express your feeling vulnerable with the whole situation, it seems you have frozen your feelings.
I believe that this “freezing approach” is more likely to lead to feelings of drowning than when you would express how you feel honestly and openly; if only to yourself (at first).
Try to not feel guilty about leaving him and trust that each one of you is capable of dealing with this process using your own inner recourses; he is not a child you have to “save”.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/ages-of-love-2/
Anna

 

-Sagelynn2582015-08-14 16:49:34

I had 2 dreams last night. The first one was my mother dragging me under the water trying to drown me in the ocean. I woke up gasping for air. The second was that I was on boat that went down in the ocean and everyone was saved but me. A wave hit me and pulled me away before I was about to get rescued.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-08-27 12:39:29

Dear Sagelynn258 – I wonder if you are a very sensitive person, who easily picks up emotions and moods from other people after which you are not able to connect with your own inner world of feelings anymore.
Your last dream does suggest that dealing with a relation-ship with other people makes it difficult “to save” or to uphold what is part of your identity.
Often we are not aware of how we are actually “tuned in” to receive “the waves of emotions” that are sent by people with whom we have a connection and so the first step to learn to deal with your empathic ability is to become aware of it, and to learn to distinguish between your own emotions and those of other people.
A way to do that could be to learn to tune into your own inner world ONLY for some time, while using “the observer mode”.
This approach will also give you the opportunity later to learn to observe the emotions and moods of other people without identifying with them and so without “making them yours” and so feeling overwhelmed/drowned by them.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/
Does that give you a start?
Anna

 

-Carina2015-08-14 18:09:02

I keep dreaming my daughter is drowning and the more I struggle to reach her .we’re in clear water and try to swim closer but the farther she becomes. I wake up crying feeling like I failed as a parent to help n protect her.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-08-27 13:19:23

Dear Carina – It is difficult to see if this dream is about your feeling/belief that you are not good enough as a mother for your inner daughter/child, for your daughter in your waking life or for both.
Because this is a recurring dream, what IS clear is that you have to explore a different approach to deal with this situation in your (inner) life.
I feel that it could be helpful to approach these dreams as if it is about your inner child drowning and to stop struggling and become aware that you and your mother were not able to save her at that time.
With that point of view in mind, entering the process of acceptance could be a helpful means to change your dream and to start the inner work on healing your inner child.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/mother-mum-ma/#InnerMother
and
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/your-inner-child/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/health-and-healing/inner-baby-and-child/
Does that give you a start?
Anna

 

-Sy2015-08-15 22:17:37

I had a dream the other night that I was at the beach holding my 21month old daughter on my hip and I was standing in very low water below my knee, when all of a sudden, the water kept pulling us in further. I cannot swim so I was very scared that we were going to drown. All of a sudden my husband appeared in front of us and stopped us from drifting out further. Just as that happened, my husband woke me cause he said I was crying in my sleep.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-08-27 16:24:52

Dear Sy – Not knowing anything about your waking life, I will approach this dream from a more general point of view.
Because dreams have many levels and the core of the dream can be approached from many angles, it would be wise to also explore this dream for yourself; you could explore for instance if you tend to identify (mainly) with your mother role and if you dare to let go of that role for a while.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/water-wonderland/
The way I see your dream is that you are on the edge of surrendering your ego or conscious self which can be seen as being at the border between everyday life and your unconscious sources of motivation, energy and life.
You perceived the pull from the sea as a threat, probably because you mixed up your waking life – in which you cannot swim – with your dream life and/or because you are afraid of “The Unknown Huge that you are”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Reaction
It could be that you dreamed of your husband stopping you and your inner daughter from drifting out further, because he started waking you up.
One of the functions of dream is that they can serve as a link between the sleeping mind and what is occurring externally. For instance, a person may be falling out of bed and dream of flying or falling.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/function-of-dreaming/
Does that give you a start?
Anna

 

-Bella2015-08-27 10:57:52

Hi, the last week almost every night I have dreamt about drowning. It’s my worst fear, but it’s not just drowning. It’s my dad, my mum or my close friends that are dragging me under the ice and then letting me go and swimming away. I then can’t find the hole to the surface, and I stay down there until I ‘drown’. These dreams often start happy, but they’re all on ice. Sometimes I’m out ice-skating, others I’m in a pool having fun and then the pool turns to ice and the nightmare begin. These dreams are terrifying and only one time this week has gone without one of these nightmares. It started last week when I started school again.
Please help; I want it to stop and to understand.
Thanks in beforehand!
(Ps. I’m 14 yrs old)

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-08-31 19:00:18

Dear Bella – First of all it is good to understand that these dreams are sent to help you. Being a teen is a lot like being a chick inside an eggshell. You’re pushing out against the wall of the shell, trying to find your identity, struggling to break away, yet sometimes not quite ready yet to survive on your own.
The way I see your dreams is that you are testing your skills which is symbolised by ice skating and being in the pool with other people.
Especially ice skating is about keeping your balance in challenging circumstances.
Being a teenager IS a challenging and often stressful part of your life – even more when school is part of your everyday experience again – and I trust that with some more understanding you can learn to deal with the situations you find yourself in.
Going from having fun to turning into ice I see partly as a symbol of your mood swings – which are normal by the way – and it is good to know that it is not necessarily what happens in your life that is the cause of you having mood swings; it’s how you react to what’s happening in your life.
It could be that you are more sensitive when people who are close to you – your mum, dad and close friends – do not support or agree with the way you are learning to manage your life (skills).
But finding your own way to approach Life – sometimes with and sometimes without the support of people close to you – is part of becoming a self-aware and independent human being.
A way to change these dreams about drowning is to use a tool which is called Power Dreaming.
So while awake and relaxed imagine yourself back in the dream and continue it as fantasy or a daydream. You could for instance imagine your parents and your close friends criticising you while you are ice skating and you could explore different ways of responding to that.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
Let me know how it goes.
Anna

-Alana2015-08-31 12:07:04

Hi , I was dreaming that I was in my bedroom and this little girl that I didn’t know came knocking on my door , in felt in my dream as if she was annoying me and I was about to lash out on her but then she was gone and I was outside of the room where it look like I was standing on a small piece of a beach only enough sand for me to stand on where my I stood but as I looked behind me the beach stretched out there where houses and people as if a beach was just put in the middle of a busy street to my sides and in front of me I could see that the water was shallow ,the sun was shining bright ,blue sky ,and suddenly I saw two nephews of mine in a small boat in front of me and they said let’s take the boat out , I said to them ;this just is just plain stupid as the water is shallow and the motor will get stuck in the sand and they said no , as they were adamant to go on the water with the boat I got in to protect them it felt we were on the water now for a few minutes when the boat was struck by something and I fell overboard , I could see them getting out of the water and I felt like have to sit up than I will be ok as the water I had seen before we went on it was shallow but I could not reach the surface , I started swimming around to look for a way out of the water , as I was seeing the surface , feeling the sun on my skin , the water was clear I could not believe it that I was not reaching the surface as my heart was starting to feel like it was about to blow in my chest ,I knew if I did not get out I would drown ,I frantically looked around and saw stairs I swam towards it and was feeling that this is my last chance to get to the surface I started climbing them the steps were covered with barnacles and they cut into my feet but I continued when I was almost at the last step to be on the boardwalk I saw that the whole city above was under water , I knew that was it , I took the last step and accepted the fact that I was about to drown and I could not fight anymore ,suddenly I saw 4 or 5 little children around me I put my arms around them and took a last gasp for air and my mouth was filling with the seawater I could taste the salt ,feel the sun warm and I was not afraid anymore , I looked down on the children and saw that they had white almost translucent angel wings ,I looked up again and saw a explosion of bright light and then I woke up . Can someone tell me what this was about , I am usually not curious about my dreams but one of the nephews I got in the boat with he once attacked me and I have forgiven him but I am also not as close to him as we were before. Thank you in advance.

-Anna – Tony’s Assistant2015-09-07 9:38:36

Dear Alana – Thank you for sharing such an amazing dream with us.
Your dream starts with you feeling annoyed by your decision to completely repress from your awareness what we could call your child self; this is probably better described as your vulnerability, your eager youthful feelings that wanted recognition and warmth but were angrily denied.
This attitude is depicted in your dream as one which also denies you anything except a very small view of the beauty around you, that is until you look behind you and see the expanse of the beach.
In other words; it shows your lack of relationship with Life itself, for life arose in the sea.
See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/
Other symbols that could refer to repressing Life are shown in the depth of the water; this might be because you prefer to feel safe in “the shallows of life”.
Your relation-ship with your nephew(s) got stuck and you were thrown into the water that you thought was shallow, but is in fact like you; much deeper than you expect.
So the dream has gradually moved you from your early feelings into the ocean within you.
You scramble to get out of this ocean within you and you hurt yourself that way; “I started climbing them; the steps were covered with barnacles and they cut into my feet.”
It is good to realise that you cannot die in dreams, BUT dying can be a symbol of letting go of your old views and beliefs about yourself and the (inner) world, which you did in the dream and then you were able to see that “the whole city above was under water, I knew THAT WAS IT.”
Yes that IS IT, because now the whole city is “bathed in a new awareness”.
So fortunately the dream shows you that “dying” is a symbol of becoming aware that there is a different view of life; you can see that children are all wonderful winged creatures who are not trapped in the view of life given us when we live only above water, the world of our inadequate senses.
It will be helpful to recognise the feeling of not being able to breath and the enormous fight to survive and ask yourself “survive what; my view and beliefs about myself and my inner world?”
Please also explore this dream for yourself, because it is an important one –http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
You can also explore your “inner ocean” while awake by using this approachhttp://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/water-wonderland/
Anna

 

Druggist Drugstore

See: Chemist.

Drugs

Most drugs in dreams represent the physical and psychological influence they have. For instance a pain killer is not just something that muffles physical pain, it also enables us to feel we can deal with certain levels of pain. So it would depict those feelings.

Therefore it is important to consider what you feel about the drug, what you use it for if you do, what you have read or feared about it if you don’t.

So a drug can be seen as the sign of a healing activity, or of something that will influence you or pervade you against your will. Some dreams give detailed insights into what a drug you are taking is doing – whether healing or hindering.

Of course, some drugs may be associated with illness, so you must see if you have this association with the dream drug. See Animal Children.

Example: Since taking that strange drug some very remarkable things have happened to me. However, the drug has set things astir inwardly, and I will try to explain this has much as I can.

It was brought home strongly to me that one does not really discover things or people by thinking about or analysing them. Things and people are what they are. Their nature is inherent in their being. Every tiny move we make, every line on our face, every cell of our body, is a total expression of what we are, of our inner state. Knowledge of things is not external to them, it is not thought out, it is only seen. In other words, we only need to look at something and allow the inner being within us, which is also the inner being in all else, to perceive itself in what we are considering, and we will know the thing.

Even this is not clear. But suffice it to say that we do not have to do anything to understand those things that appear outside us, or indeed to understand ourselves. Understanding is inherent in things – we have only to watch for it. Maybe an analogy will explain. Once I went hunting in a wood. I walked and walked, looking and searching for the creatures I was going to shoot, but saw nothing. Tired, I rested by a tree, stood quite still, and gave up my searching. Within a few minutes, what had seemed like a dead wood began to come alive. Birds flew to trees and settled, or moved here and there. Squirrels appeared in the branches and on the ground, and all was moving with life.

So with ourselves and others. We have to stand back and be still for a while to see really what is going on. Having realised this far more fully than ever before, due to the drug, and began to practise the mental and emotional attitude as often as I could in a form of meditation. The drug pushes one into this state, then proves that it works by releasing all sorts of inner material. This proof encouraged me to persevere with the attitude far more confidently than before.

Some of the most effective work with drugs was done with LSD prior to its being made illegal. A number of psychiatrists were registered to work with it. To understand this positive side to these drugs, it is useful to read such books as Myself and I by Constance Newland; and LSD Psychotherapy by W.V. Caldwell. When compared with the literature on ‘tripping’, the tremendous difference can be seen between playing with and working with, the inner process of homeostasis-self-regulation. See Iboga for the Treatment of Drug Addiction – Healing Cancer Using Magic Mushrooms

 

Useful questions:

What are my associations mentally and physically with this drug?

Does the dream show a shift of feelings or awareness?

Is this shown as harmful of useful?

See Drugs End UserTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Drum

This may represent your heart, depending on the dream content. In some dreams it is obviously about sexual tension, intercourse or masturbation. Or it can be an expression of natural rhythms of the life processes in you and around you, and how you are in rhythm or not. The drumbeat is also occasionally linked with the primitive in us being called out. See: music; musical instruments.

Drums in dreams can also suggest an ability to change your state of mind as in initiation. Drum music can also indicate marching in a crowd, suggesting being moved by the same beliefs or feelings, or else marching to a different drummer.

If you are the drummer it might mean you are calling attention to yourself or creating a beat for others to follow. Or drums might relate to war drums to raise emotion and get one to follow the community direction.

The drum can sometimes indicate the chest, as in the following example as he explored a dream.

Example: “It’s about strength. So much concern about being strong. So much care taken over all this (body; this because he was very weak as an infant and developed anxiety about his health). I’ve got to keep it strong. All the vitamins and good food I eat are taken with the effort to keep it strong. I’m working away at it even in my own kitchen, working, working, keeping its strong.”

All this came as direct realisation without images. I saw how I took so much care of my body. Then words came, but without insight. “It’s all in my chest. It so rigid, like a drum, and I am pushing something down, forcing it down, keeping it down in my chest. I kept it down so good. So much, all down in my chest, for so long. Like Mr. Hyams, a great big barrel all puffed up, a head on one end and legs on the other. Deadness in the chest. It’s fear. So much fear. Oh God. Go through fear. So much fear through pride.”

Example: I invite the audience to the ballroom. I’ll play the piano and the Cary Grant type gypsy owner will add accompaniment with the musicians. I go to the ballroom and some follow. I sit at the piano and play a beautiful classical piece. A drummer came and joined me. Then we improvise a reggae piece. Then I’m playing a dance number. Lots of people are dancing. It’s a success.

It is recorded that Quetzalcoatl’s priests would bang a drum in the morning and in the evening in reverence to Quetzalcoatl. At that time merchants could leave the city and visitors could enter Tenochtitlan. The drum of Quetzalcoatl may be compared with the flute of Tezcatlipoca. The drum separated night from day. The flute was heard at night. The sound of the flute was shrill and anxiety followed it’s music.

Example: Six years ago, I became a member of the Bwiti. I had heard about ibogaine from an assistant in an anarchist bookstore in New York. On a magazine assignment, I went to Gabon and took iboga in an initiation ceremony. It was one of the most difficult, yet rewarding, experiences of my life. I had heard the substance described as “10 years of psychoanalysis in a single night” but, of course, I did not believe it. As the tribesmen played drums and sang around me until dawn, I lay on a concrete floor and journeyed back through the course of my life up to that point, witnessing forgotten scenes from childhood. At one point, I had a vision of a wooden statue walking across the room and sitting in front of me – later, I was told this was “the spirit of iboga” coming out to communicate with me. See Intro to Ibogaine

Idioms: drum up; follow a different drum; follow one’s own drum; beating one’s own drum; drumming up a storm.


Useful questions:

What influence if any has the beat of the drum on me?

What is happening to the drum and what is my connection with it.

Is there any suggestion this might be about my ear-drum?

Can I feel it as my heartbeat?

Did the drimming put me in a trance state or induce initiation?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsReaction to the unconsciousThe Life Will


Drunk

This might indicate loss of control, lack of reason or having no soul or self control. See Being in Control

Sometimes drunkenness is about being abandoned and allowing expression to parts of you that are usually repressed. It might thus represent a form of freedom from the burden of self awareness, responsibility, and decision making. Occasionally it means we are filled with power from our spirit, or connection with the one life. 

Drunk driving: This shows you out of control in your life. Perhaps alcohol is dominating you. See: drivingAlcohol

Example: M. makes a list of what she did with the money she stole, while I get drunk. Behind me, Sakol presses her body up against me, turning me on. M. spent thousands of dollars getting drunk because she was lonely.

The following example is quoted from LSD and Ritalin in the Treatment of Neurosis by Ling and Buckman. She was exploring the roles of her mother and the drunk.

Example: My mother seemed very afraid of a drunk man around the place. It was definitely not my father because this drunk person spoke in Urdu with a Punjabi accent. I don’t know exactly who he was and I don’t remember having heard a name mentioned apart from the “drunk”. He must have lived fairly close to us for he was often around. He unceremoniously leered at my mother. She was afraid and complained to my father but he laughed and said “It’s only a drunk” in Bengali.

On this session I played several roles. Firstly of the drunk. It was as if I had not much to do so I walked up and down, kicking my heels just like an average street loafer. I acted the drunk, I also was like my father, solid and calm and quite unworried about my wife’s fear which I dismissed.  When I acted my mother I felt apprehensive that this man was not only thirsty and hungry for food, he was also hungry for sex. He desired me. At one time I strutted around the room and walked up to the bed which then appeared like a home and said to my mother to come away with me. You are beautiful. This was spoken in Bengali. My breath was hot and I panted like an animal. Next I was in my mother’s role and fought and freed myself. Everything around reeled and I said “I’m expecting” and felt I fainted.”

Idioms: a cheap drunk; as drunk as a skunk.

Useful questions and hints:

Does the dream indicate loss of control, and if so what is happening with this in waking life?

Do I feel unrestrained and free in the dream – and if so how can I live that without alcohol?

Was there any indication of a higher power touching me in the dream?

See The Life Will ProgrammedAssociations Working WithAges of LoveAvoid Being Victims


Duck Ducks

Because a duck can fly and also dive under water it can represent both your ability to raise your awareness, to expand your mind and horizons, and also to look into what is hidden under the surface of life. And its ability to float and swim on the surface of water shows it can survive in the conscious mind. Of course for many people it can be associated with food. See: Cormorant.

Ducks can also be beautiful when flying, and are also hunted and shot, so it depends on the dream what they mean to you – are they a thing of beauty or vulnerable.

Ducks are also always followed by drakes, and can be about the way we may also wish to pair off. With babies they are wonderful and highly vulnerable – and even the tiny pieces of fluff leave small waves – suggesting the waves we all leave in living our life, whoever small and vulnerable we might be. See Associations Working With

‘Duck’ might also indicate that you are ducking to avoid something as in the second example.

They are often vulnerable birds because they are hunted, as the following dream shows the duck part of us is vulnerable and needs help.

Example: In my dream last night I was cycling down a familiar lane and came across a white duck which had been injured by a car, it looked dead so I stopped and got off my bike and propped it against a gate but when I turned round the duck was standing and looking at me. It was strange because the way it came right up to me and looked directly at me. I seemed to know what this creature was thinking and it was asking me for help.

Example: Then there is some excitement and we duck down right before a shot is fired by a Secret Service agent standing in front of us. He fires at a man running behind us out of sight between two buildings. I watch the man fall, slowly lowered to the ground by two other SS agents, saying something as he dies.

Idioms: sitting duck; duck takes to water, dead duck; lame duck; duck out; duck soup; duck’s guts; ducks in a row (ducks in order); duck an issue.

Useful questions and hints:

Is the duck wild and free or is it a pet?

Does the duck look vulnerable to you – if so what do you feel vulnerable about?

Are you ducking to avoid something – if so what are you dodging or avoiding.

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLifeStream


Dumb

Inability to express inner feelings.

Dump Dumping

See Avoid Being VictimsEmotions and Mood in DreamsEmotions and Mood

Dung

See: Cesspool; Faeces.

Dust

Ideas, thoughts or ideas that can be lifted up by your inner nature. Or ideas without feeling, dried up. The accumulation of time, the passage of time since you last felt or realised what the dream portrays. Also physical life ends in dust as the last example shows. So dust can suggest the remains of what was once alive or active in your life. It is what is left of what has died or worn out till it is tiny and can be blown away.

Dust is often associated with dirt, the debris of how people live, and of not cleaning up ones mess. It can be something that obscures what is of real value – or covers up the past – so depicting feelings that stand in the way of our clear perceptions.

Clearing up the dust shows you making big changes in your life – changes that needed doing for a long time. Dust swirling up can suggest that you are unable to see or realise what is in front of you. Dust thick in a dream house can suggest age or even long lack of care.

In some dreams there is magic dust that can heal of make real changes.

Gold dust can have such an influence. It can represent all that you have realised or built into your life from deeds done or words read. Coloured dust depends on the colour, but it is about bringing a change of mood and power. See colours

Example: We take turns spending the night at a dust filled place underneath a stadium or at home. We do this because one place or the other is always being bombed. I am upset having to move back home when T. asks me (for tonight) as I have all my stuff under the stadium.

Example: “You are nothing but dust. I have called and called to you my dead father. I have begged and prayed, and receive nothing from you. And now I spit on you and kick you aside.” Then, to my amazement, there beneath where the bones had been shone a beautiful treasure. It was not a treasure of gold and gems, but what we so often attempt to represent with precious metals and jewels. It was the shimmering and holy presence of Life. The bones and dust had been covering up, hiding this radiance. When I picked up and held that treasure I knew that this was my true inheritance. I had buried it underneath what was dead and worthless in my life. I had taken the dead shells of what had been living to be a value. And I cried out because I had been duped. The religion of my land that had promised to lead me to the living spirit of things had presented only bones, only what was dead, only what was without life and power. The idolatry of the dead had led me into worshipping a false God.

Idioms: bite the dust; collecting dust; dust bunny; dust devil; gathering dust; see me for dust; when the dust settles.   Useful questions and hints:

Is the dust a sign of age or obscuring things?

Is this all that is left of something – if so what?

Is my dream telling me I need to clear out the dust and cobwebs in my mind?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsInner WorldLearning to Allow Yourself Martial Art of the Mind

Dustbin

The The unwanted parts of your experience and memories. The things you want to get rid of in yourself; things you don’t like or are ashamed of.  See: garbage.

Does the dream point in any way to health or the body; it may be about collecting toxins that need to be got rid of.

Often things that you have used but are no longer needed in your life – or the packaging that goes with ‘life’. In other words you might need company, but you have to feed them as well. Ask yourself whether you are collecting views or things that are of not use to you.

Occasionally there are things in the garbage that are really useful. Can you wort out what is useful from what you feel or think is rubbish?

Trash has been used in America to refer to people thought to be inferior – white trash.

Useful questions:

What part of my life or experience are no longer useful and need to be got rid of?

What is the dream telling me about the trash?

Are there things I am throwing away that are in fact valuable in a way I didn’t see?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProgrammedCompensation Theory

Duvet Comforter Quilt

Comfort, warmth or protection. There are links in dreams with romance or  sexuality. Some people use a duvet or comforter to withdraw when things feel depressing or unhappy. See: blanket.

Example: Then, he took me by the hand and led me to his bedroom. The bedroom in the dream was one I have never actually seen before, like the apartment. However, in the dream, I recognized it like I had been there many times before. He crawled into bed. The comforter and sheets were dark purple, almost black in color and the pillows were bright red. The colors seemed romantic and plush like Valentine’s Day. He lifted up the sheets, inviting me in like he always does. When I lay down, I told him how much more I liked this bed than the other (referring to the only one I know in reality) because it was so comfortable. Then I fell asleep in his arms and woke up this morning in my bed.

Example: I put my cigarettes and lighter beside me on top of the duvet and picked up my book. The bed trembled again and then slowly, rhythmically, the cigarettes and lighter moved across the bed and onto the floor. I was going mad.

Useful questions and hints:

What feelings did I meet in the dream?

Was I looking for comfort or withdrawal?

Did you have or dream about romance or sexual feelings?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With

Dvd Recordplayer Cassette Computer-disc

They indicate your internal process that can reproduce memories, recent or ancient. In doing so it can stimulate any emotions, loving or traumatic feelings that were part of the original experiences. This can occur in sleep or in waking as a projected reality. See Waking Lucid Dream

Can simply be the sort of pleasure you feel on listening to music; the impressions left on you by events, people – therefore memory, but often memory integrated by the unconscious into insights.

Information you have gathered or the impression we might leave behind at death through what we have created during life – what remains of us. Also the impression we would like to give others. See: hard-disk under computer.

If an LP record it sometimes indicates memory from the long past or even a past existence.

 Example: I was walking by a riverbank near a cemetery. As I walked and drew near to the cemetery, I saw submerged in the river a record player – in fact my record player. I walked into the river and pulled it out.

Prior to this dream he had experienced several dreams showing the river being blocked, or silted up, or made sluggish with reeds and weeds, and in this dream he was walking in the direction the river flowed, it being clear and free flowing. The river is the flow of his life, showing the energies of growth and creativity, the energies underlying emotions, thinking and sexuality. The dream shows him as consciously following their flow. The cemetery is the many past memories buried within him. The record player is the faculty of memory covered up by the emotions or flow of his inner life, but now he is bringing this faculty to the surface. He felt this dream had something to do with past lives, but was far from being sure.

Idioms: For the record; track record.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were there memories stimulated that are meaningful?

Was there something playing or do the music or words remind of something?

Does anything met in the dream have links with the far past?

See Memory and DreamsThe Long Memory of ExistenceMagical Dream Machine Water Wonderland

Dwarf

Unconscious forces, or the powers that work on your being to keep it functioning. See: dwarf poem.

A dwarf may also represent a part of the yourself that has been held back in development due to fear, pain or guilt. If you dream you are a dwarf it may express the feeling/fear you are small, insignificant, undeveloped.

A part of your personality left undeveloped or not integrated. For instance we may have musical ability which was suppressed by the need to bring up children, or a part of you malformed by painful childhood experience or lack of emotional nourishment. It may therefore be a link with your unconscious.

The story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs are an excellent example of its symbolic meaning. The dwarfs worked underground – the unconscious – bring up treasures. They are working well because of the caring love of a woman. If the dwarf or dwarfs are care for they will become valuable and help the dreamer to do well in the world and they will grow into adulthood and full stature.

So a dwarf often represent the potential or intuitive ability you have that has not been helped to realise itself. Because of the world the dwarf lives in, unable to be like other people, the dwarf is often a figure of deep understanding of the human condition and its tragedies.

Example: I had, or was, a deformed baby, having four eyes, and a somewhat distorted face. The eyes were operated on, two being removed. But the baby grew up a dwarf, very lonely, and shy. The dwarf and the normal me were one yet separated. He lived downstairs, and would often climb the stairs and stand outside my door hoping I would see him and befriended him. I, inside, vaguely felt his presence, but whenever I got near the door his shyness made him retreat downstairs.

The next thing was that a large male dwarf, and two female dwarfs came along the footpath. The two men (whom I now was) recognised they were deeply related to each other, and ran into each other’s arms with great love. As they held each other, they (I) felt that two incomplete parts have now found each other and would become whole.

The following are a series of dreams showing the development if one cares for ones dwarfed self.

1st dream: Then we heard footsteps upstairs, and knew it was the ghost. The eerie atmosphere increased and increased, and the footsteps could be heard coming down the steps of the stairs. We decided to go and have a look at the ghost, despite the fact we were somewhat scared. But when we looked up the stairs we saw it was a youngish woman who was dwarfed in stature, and very unhappy. This was why she haunted the place, and had materialised. I put my arm around her shoulder, and made her feel loved, and led her into the kitchen, where we talked to see if we could help her. The whole eeriness had disappeared.

2nd dream some months later: I was in the wings of a theatre, watching the acts, some sort of variety. As I sat watching, a dwarf woman who was one of a troupe, came and whispered to me and kissed me. I was overwhelmed with love, and tears ran down my face. I hoped she would see them to know how much I loved her.

3rd dream many years later: The woman dwarf had features that, even in the dream, reminded me of someone. On waking I realise it was the dwarf woman who played the ‘medium’ in the film Poltergeist. Once in the room with her I felt more strongly I had known her for many years. She told me she was going to look in her crystal ball to tell me what she could see for me. The room was quite dim. It was her bed-sitting room, and like the corridor, had an air of things going on difficult to see in the dimness.

Throughout this dream I had an erection, and at this point got much nearer to waking, and am aware of the erection and the warm sexual feelings filling my lower trunk and chest. I realise the woman has never been made love to, and I feel compassion and love for her. I pick her up and hold her lovingly. I do not have an awareness of penetrating her, but the charge of sexual feelings flows into her. She transforms into a beautiful female and I know she will always love me – be a haven of love. She has a sister or friend in the room, also a dwarf. She is more difficult to love but I manage it. She transforms into a more native woman.

My beautiful friend looks into the crystal. It is not a thing made of glass, but a great dimension of mind which appears to open in the room, hanging in the centre and is a portal to another dimension, about eight feet across. She tells me I am already touching something that is beginning to happen in the world. My life will become involved in it. I will play my part – by no means a key or leader, but one which I will gain great satisfaction and love from.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What is the dwarf doing in the dream?

Do I feel small in relation to others in a situation?

What of me has been held back by neglect or pain??

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

 

Dying

See: Death.

Dynamite

Explosive emotions or a threatening, explosive, situation. See: Bomb.

Dynamite

Explosive emotions or a threatening, explosive, situation. See: Bomb.

Powerful pains or emotions, perhaps past experiences, that could explode into your waking life with destructive effects. This is probably linked with past trauma that if not confronted is not known, but if touched on is like an emotional bomb.

It can also point to anger as it explodes in a destructive way. This can be a defensive thing.

But it can also suggest enormous energy that can blast through any emotional or inner blockages. To bring down old buildings – old personality structures to make way for new growth.

Useful questions:

Am I aware of situations that can stimulate explosive reaction?

Do I ever respond with enormous anger?

Am I involved with someone who is dangerously explosive?

Am I aware of any explosive emotions or anger?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Letter E

Eagle

The eagle can represent several things, depending upon its context in your dream. It can point to the powerful, strong hunting instinct in business or in being a providing parent. It can depict protective strength; a male figure; relentlessness. Dominance or a male figure. It is certainly an uplifting power of feelings or ideas, a protective influence.

Because the eagle, like most hunting birds, has an extraordinary far reaching and inclusive vision, it can link with the ability of your own mind to at times expand far beyond the immediate sense impressions and concerns, to include years of life experience, and what you have learned when looked at as a whole. It can therefore represent spiritual vision. This is because the height of the bird and its steady gaze give it unusual perception and wide awareness. To touch such enormous wealth of experience is to be penetrated by the holy. Something so beyond the limitations of our own small personality enters us and leaves its imprint. See: Birds.

Sometimes it is seen as a threatening influence, if it is seen as connected with carrion. But if so it is you fears you are dealing with. Because it is a bird of prey it might appear as a threatening influence. Also this wider awareness may at times feel as if you are ‘carried away’. Being lifted into the unknown in this way can cause unwarranted fear. See The Life Will ; Dreams are Like a Computer Game

In some dreams it represents love, and its death or destruction can mean the death of love – as occurs in divorce. Cayce says that teenagers at a critical stage in life sometimes dream of an eagle pecking or tearing at their heart or thymus area. He says this represents the emotional entanglements that youngsters are subject to and incapable of understanding.

The Egyptian god Horus is a hawk or falcon, and was called the ‘all seeing eye’. This was because it represented the higher function of the unconscious to see all things.

Also the Hawk of Achill, or Seabhag, was one of the first animals to come into being according to Celtic mythos. He has an immense memory and is said to live a very long time. He represents knowledge and the search for it as seen in the poem The Hawk of Achill. He is an ancient bird, over 5,000 years old easily at the time it was written. He is also, as many birds are in mythology, a messenger between the realms. This means he can travel from this realm to that of the otherworlds of the myths he exists in. See Myths and Legends

Example: I was gazing at the sky and the stars, looking up to the sky. The stars were shiny and yellow gold similar to the colour of fire. There were a couple of stars similar to shooting stars but they almost looked like tiny pieces of fire display, like fireworks. It looked beautiful. Soon after the dream shifted to a computer screen and I was checking my emails. I was scrolling down the in box and then clicked on a message thinking ‘why didn’t I check this before?’ the message appeared with a picture of a huge bird and it looked like a Eagle (but the colour was white with a bluish/black outline) with its wings fully spread and moving as if the Eagle was flying; and there was a message underneath in tiny English letters which I read something similar to ‘ your life is going to transform’- I can’t remember the exact words but it was something similar to this and then I woke up. Could this be a message for the future /a prediction/ a omen?

Such beautiful dreams are a real indication of your potential and should be taken seriously. Of course dreams arise from a very deep part of your nature and are like seeds, and so need time to grow and open to the surface; so be patient and hopeful.

Idioms: Watch like a hawk; eagle eyed; like a mother hawk; watch me like a hawk;

 

Useful questions:

What do I know and feel about eagles?

How was the eagle portrayed in the dream?

Does this have something to do with keeping a ‘sharp eye’ out for something?

Is this about nobility, power and freedom?

Have I experienced an overview, or bird’s eye view of a situation?

See The Wider LifeTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Ear

Dreaming of ears suggests awareness of subtle information, rumours or intuition. Because we do not have to see what we can hear, the dream ear can depict information we have gathered without seeing it or being aware of it – in other words intuition. That is, impressions of things that are not obvious. This particularly refers to the ears of animals. See Intuition – Using It

Ears also refer to your ability to know what is going on around you out of sight, but particularly your skill in listening to what others are telling you. This might be literally about what they are saying in words, but also about what they suggest by who they are and how they are.

Ears can also suggest private things whispered to you, as in the example. But they can also be an erotic area when kissed or nibbled.

Example: James Mason and I are in the back seat of a car. I’m like Lolita. He’s very sexually attracted to me and tells me to change my clothes. He kisses me and pinches my left nipple. I’m sexually excited. I say, “But people can see.” An older woman is standing outside the car. He insists. I put on a pretty, brief pleated skirt with see-through lace seams and a turquoise velour top. He leans back in the car and says in a whisper in my ear, “Take off your panties.” I feel sexually excited. I do so. I get out of the car, noticing I can see flashes of my legs through the lace. He is possessive and demanding and I love it.

A dream might also at times indicate ear infection, as the following example.

Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.

When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, and one should check out ones health in the area.

Ear rings: They can often refer to the quality or otherwise of your hearing/intuition.

Example: In my dream I found a pair of earrings on the floor, found one first and then spotted the other.  I picked them up and had a good look at them.. they were shaped like strawberries and sparkled.. as if made of some kind of jewel.  I popped them into a box labelled “lost & found” up on a shelf knowing they would be claimed.

The dreamer gave an interpretation – My own thoughts on this is something I had lost, connected to my own inner hearing, that which enabled me to listen to my own intuition/Spirit. Berries being that they nourish ourselves from within so I have once again found something that will nourish my being on a deep level. DD

Idioms: An ear for; all ears; bend your ear; blow it out your ear; can’t believe my ears; cauliflower ear; coming out of our ears; cute as a bugs ear; ear candy; ear to the ground; pin back my ears; in one ear and out the other; play it by ear; reach one’s ears; flea/bug in the ear; gain the ear of; ears burning; long ears; lend an ear; music to my ears; having an earful; hear from; up to my ears; will not hear of; hearing things; silk purse out of sow’s ears; up to my ears; wet behind the ears.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am failing to hear something, what does the dream suggest it is about?

What am I hearing and what can I gather from that?

If I am picking up intuitions of things ‘out of sight’ what do they tall me?

See Using Your IntuitionTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams


Ear Rings Earrings

They can often refer to the quality or otherwise of your hearing/intuition. Maybe you need to pay heed to a rumour you have heard or to subtle realisations – intuition.

Example: In my dream I found a pair of earrings on the floor, found one first and then spotted the other.  I picked them up and had a good look at them.. they were shaped like strawberries and sparkled.. as if made of some kind of jewel.  I popped them into a box labelled “lost & found” up on a shelf knowing they would be claimed.

The dreamer gave an interpretation – My own thoughts on this is something I had lost, connected to my own inner hearing, that which enabled me to listen to my own intuition/Spirit. Berries being that they nourish ourselves from within so I have once again found something that will nourish my being on a deep level. DD See ear

See Using Your Intuition

Earth

The earth is your body. It is all the things in nature that you take for granted, that enable you to exist. Just as the physical earth is made up of past events the trees and leaves, the plants and creatures that have lived and crumbled into the dust of the soil so the earth of your dream represents your past on which your present exists, and your future is built. Therefore, digging into it would uncover things you have buried there from your past; feelings that have lain buried. The earth is also your mother. It depicts the soil, the genetic material, and the background from which you have sprung. It is the womb of the past from which you have being born.

Anything growing from the earth in your dream shows something that has developed from the possibilities of your life, and who you are. From the point of view of dreams, everything you do think can feel is a creative act and things grow from them. Therefore, if you are planting something, then you are attempting to develop something you from your possibilities.

If you are uncovering an object, or old bones, then you are probably becoming conscious of long buried memories and feelings from your past. If what you are taking from the earth is vegetables, or things to eat, these are the fruits of your past efforts, and suggest benefits arising in your life.

If the earth is muddy and difficult to walk in, you are probably finding your present life hard to deal with. Negative emotions are bogging you down. But if the earth is dry and firm, then you are feeling of firm ground as far as relationships and creativity are concerned.

The level of awareness prior to birth; the basis of consciousness out of which your personal self-awareness sprung. The unconscious processes of yourself, with its collective family influences, and racial memories.

In some way our exploration into humanness leads us to reach up against gravity until we break into cosmic identity. We leave the womb of the earth. We complete our birth cycle, like a caterpillar finishing its life, and the metamorphose into something else. We become free of gravity. Free of the body that gave us birth, and become a cosmic entity.

Being in a tunnel, cave, or mine, show you exploring what is usually beneath the surface of your mind and feelings. This is a journey into your unconscious. Remember the rules here are different to those in everyday life. Here you create your own environment, your own traps and freedom, out of your fears, hopes and love. See mine

This often represents the things you take for granted in life, like your body, the processes of life, your family or cultural background, the basics of belief upon which you stand. But earth also represents the past, the fallen leaves of your experience from which soil new structures of self are built.

Digging into the earth is digging into your history, and in its layers you find the story of the evolution of consciousness and life in matter or mother.

To come up out of the earth, or a grave, is to be born out of this mother’s womb, into new insights or period of your life.

Clods of earth: The stuff of life, of the past from which we grow and have our being. Clods can also represent the basic everyday thing we meet in life that are life lessons we learn from.

Soft earth or fields: Mother; the fundamental processes of life out of which you have your exist.

Off the ground: Losing connection with your roots of family or culture. Living in a state of mind that does not connect you with common reality. This may also be occasionally shown as being on a high building.

The things we take for granted which act as the supportive background to our life and activities, such as parental love, our own reality as a person, social order, the thousands of things which constitute ‘reality’ for us; the basic ‘taken for granted’ aspects of one’s nature. For instance language and culture are such. They give us the very basis for our personal and unique personality, yet we stand upon them just as the earth supports us.

The earth is your body. It is all the things in nature that you take for granted, that enable you to exist. Just as the physical earth is made up of past events – the trees and leaves, the plants and creatures that have lived and crumbled into the dust of the soil – so the earth of your dream represents your past on which your present exists, and your future is built. Therefore, digging into it would uncover things you have buried there from your past; feelings that have lain buried. The earth is also your mother. It depicts the soil, the genetic material, and the background from which you have sprung. It is the womb of the past from which you have being born.

Example: In that darkness we were one as I had never been one before. For an age we remained, and then gradually arose, as I gave him the keys to new life. “All that was dead has become earth. It’s no longer sick or rotten, but bloody good earth. The new thing can grow in it now. It is been a hard winter, and it’s going to be a good summer. There is a good harvest coming.”

Idioms: Down to earth; go to earth; like nothing on earth; more things in heaven and earth; life on this earth; spirit of the Earth; under the earth.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way am I relating to the earth in the dream – digging – planting – walking on?

Is the dream suggesting something about my background or heritage – if so in what way?

Is it about the soil, the symbolic nutrients of my growth?

See planets – Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets


Earthquake

Usually involves feeling of fear or insecurity. The loss of confidence in things that have always been stable or dependable in the past – this includes things such as a relationship, your personality structure, health, etc; so the breakdown of opinions, attitudes or relationships which seemed so dependable and you have taken for granted.

An earthquake, like a tsunami, are the result of deep natural processes taking place in the earth. But as human beings, most of us live as if we are somehow not a part of nature or the earth.  Yet we are products of natural processes and our conscious self if a tiny little bit of consciousness largely cut off from its deeps.

These deeps are shown in dreams are often depict earthquakes, floods, huge waves and floods that take place in our own nature as creatures of the earth. They depict huge changes that are taking place within us, for each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change.

So it may also show great inner change and growth that makes you feel uncertain of your ‘ground’. The growth from youth to puberty may be felt as an earthquake, as also maturity to middle or old age. Because earthquakes can destroy our house, a whole town, it can represent the attempt of our inner being to shake and destroy what we have built and hold onto as our reality. Often we have become so unmoving and solid in our thinking and beliefs that a  dream earthquake is needed to destroy the old to allow a new or more flexible you to emerge. In such cases the dream indicate great changes in your life.  See: Earth.

If you told me you had dreamt of an earthquake I would therefore want to ask you about your marriage or other domestic relationships and about your work situation. I would ask about any changes happening in your life – especially those caused by deep down tensions that are starting to release to bring in a new life for you.

Occasionally, but not often, you have a dream that warns you of a coming earthquake.

Example: At two in the morning on the night of the Los Angeles earthquake, Claire Douglas, a British born psychologist who now lives in Malibu, woke up having had a most alarming dream.  ‘In the dream,’ she said, ‘I am outside when suddenly the earth starts to shake.  It starts slipping away and I slide down this hill with a terrible sickening feeling, but I realise I can get to the side and get back up again.

‘I look up the hill and feel terribly worried that something worse is going to happen. What I see is a great bank of earth with a tree in it. Some of the earth around it has slid away, leaving a few roots exposed. but most of the roots are very firm and it’ll hold. I see the terrible damage, but I’m all right.

‘I wondered what the dream meant, especially when my cat Sophie crawled under the covers with me for the first time ever. Am I getting ill, I thought?

‘But at 4.30, when the real earthquake struck, it helped me so much. Even though these books – which I only just managed to clear up before you came – were being thrown all over the place and the crockery in the kitchen was being smashed, I thought this is not the end of the world. “The dream had come to show me I was going to survive. I haven’t the foggiest idea how it happens, but there are pre-visions.’

Example: The dream of a few days ago where I was putting posts in to start a new building wonderfully typifies this process going on in me .  The building is set upon a moving surface, yet built in a way that can stand earthquakes.  It doesn’t have to be built on a rock, because actually rocks get shifted around in an earthquake.  So, it is built on moving base making it in a way that it can move and yet maintain its own structure.  And that is how I see my life today, it needs to be built in the middle of such enormous change.  We need a structure, but we need one that will shift with a change.

Example: Just after the four days of meditation I dreamt the following – I was standing or walking in a landscape that was uncultivated, rocky, and with many trees but not a forest or wood. The land sloped away to my right. As I looked to my right though I could see a great river of boulders and earth flowing downhill till it went out of sight behind me. I knew that great earth changes were going on, with earthquakes as part of them. The wide river of huge rocks was a part of these earth changes. I did not feel frightened, but I did feel it was necessary to keep watch on what was going on around one.

In exploring this dream I realised I am the landscape as ‘changes that are part of natural events’. I clarified that the ‘power’ was myself. I am life. I am the creator. I am what created my personality. I created the attitudes and structures of this personality that are now breaking up because they are not mobile enough. I can create other forms. I created this body and will break it down again like all forms. I am facing great personal change.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the signs in my present situation of great coming changes?

Am I feeling signs of coming change or the shifting of dependable people or situations?

How can I prepare myself for change?

See – Life ChangesTechniques for Exploring your DreamsFeatures on Site

 

East

The indefinable but felt source of your personal awareness. The mystery of birth and existence. Sometimes represents what you know unconsciously but have never made conscious.

The four major directions such as North, East, South and West have unconscious significance, but this must depend upon whether you grew up in the northern or southern hemisphere. What is said is for the northern hemisphere, reverse it for the southern hemisphere. There are polarities in your nature. Two obvious ones are your physical body, that gives the appearance of solidity and is obvious to others, and your thoughts, that are not visible or apparent to others.

Beginings starts in the east – from where the sun rises we begin a new dawn. Each day is a good new day with a fresh beginning, a new start.  East is the direction of the physical body and newness including children and newborns. It is the time of change for all is a new beginning. New ideas and seeing the light. It represent change in all its ways. Also Spring is the season when all things begin to grow and awaken. Yellow is the path of Life, to begin the walk as a warrior, to shine in all that you do. The sun rising in the east empowers each of us. The energy to do and to begin the action of the mind and heart is there.

The East represents one polarity, that opposite to individual personal awareness. Every night in sleep you slip into a condition in which you lose personal awareness. Your sense of self is lost in what you call unconsciousness, but which is, if you enter it with some awareness – lucidity – a great ocean of consciousness, a universal mind in which you exist as a part of all life. Sometimes we bring back some insight, some wisdom from this ocean. We stand on the shore of it and understand something. This is the Wisdom of the East so to speak. So the East links with the mystery of life. It also connects with rebirth due to the Sun rising; resurrection from ignorance or darkness. It is the source of the teachings concerning your immortal self. See: Answer to CriticsDirections.

In symbolism it is what in the East is called the Crown Chakra – the symbol of realised personal potential, the redirected fundamental instinctive drives, leading to the opening of higher brain functions. For many Westerners, the East and its mysticism is a balancing influence to the often dry and sterilizing effect of Western intellectualism.

Example: I look to the east and I see a bridge, and a few industrial buildings with lights and smokestacks, and I feel relieved as I think I may find some people here. As I look towards the city a single skyscraper pops up straight out of the ground, fully formed. Then another building pops up, and another off in the distance. A whole gleaming, ultra modern skyline appears like Oz, all glistening and brand new, a complete cobalt city arose in the distance, shining through the deep purple night miles from where I stood by the river bank. I realize that this is a most amazing thing, and I see that this is now a time far, far in the future from the place of the beautiful cranes and the human rains, and even in the future compared to our present era.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I brought back from the ocean of sleep?

Do I have personal associations with the East?

What does my dream suggest about this?

See Reaction to the unconsciousTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Eat Eating

Satisfying one’s needs or ‘hunger’. This can be any area of need, such as emotional, mental, sexual, depending on dream context. To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.

Occasionally a dream about eating shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies.

Eating is also taking something in you that needs to be digested. This is mostly about our life experiences, but can of course sometimes relate to food. See digest

If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family – ie we all evolved from single celled creature and gradually developed different bodies so we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we do it might be questionable.

It is a deep seated urge to eat, but often our dream self expresses it as a great hunger for life experience – all manner of experience, not just the frothy ‘enjoying oneself’ sort. Instead of running or avoiding things, even scary things. take them into you. This is like eating; you take something in and it becomes you. This is because we project all things outside of us in dreams, and to some extent we lose the energy they would otherwise give us. So accept that every part of your dreams is an expression of some part of you. So taking it into you makes you stronger and more capable. See example under alligator.

Example: With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

Here the dreamer’s emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life.

Example: ‘I am putting four of our puppies under the grill and cooking them.’ Maureen. LBC.

Although Maureen hasn’t eaten her puppies yet, her dream illustrates how food is used to represent emotional needs. Maureen is childless, has a lot of mother love, planned the pregnancy of her bitch, and gets enormous satisfaction from rearing the puppies. She is literally hungry for the exchange of love and care she finds in dealing with her puppies.

Example: A male friend of mind had finally come back from his vacation and I was flirting with him and he turned me down. We were eating pancakes outside. I remember leaving the table and the pancakes no longer hungry. Then I came back wanting to eat the pancakes again. Then I got in my car and drove for a long period of time.

In the above dream the hunger is for a loving relationship, but when she is turned down she loses her hunger, but regains it and regains her drive.

Here is a completely different view of eating:

“I had prepared some food to eat later. When I ate it I experienced the most wonderful awareness of hunger and absorbing, not just the oats, nuts and seeds, but also the environment, and all that I had learned and taken in from Jacqueline. I mean by this the total environment, earth, air, water, culture, history, people. I felt like a hungry animal, cramming food in my mouth, loving it, and knowing I was feeding Life as well as myself.

I felt that if we have the courage, we are a firmament of experience. By exposing ourselves to experience, and allowing ourselves to really feel the pleasure, the torment, the passion of what we meet, we are feeding the essence of our being, Life itself.. But we are more than a mouth, we are also a way of gaining insight, of integrating experience, and that is the real food of for our essence.

I felt this is the real human work on the planet – consciousness, integrative sentience. This, I felt, is certainly my work, my function. It is to feel, to experience, to cry, to laugh and certainly to love. But in the midst of all that, to connect, to learn, to ask why or what, to gain insight and knowledge even if that is a struggle.

Life, places are situations where we can feed. Life says, “Take this in! Take this in! Experience, feel, ferment. Then show it to me. You are my digestive organ.”

Humans are the body of Life. So each of us has a fundamental function we can perform in the body of life. The brain, the nervous system, the mouth, the digestive organs, the muscles. But if you will not perform your function; if you are so shot full of being something just for your own ego or needs, then you forget you are part of this super organism – this massive body of Life. Then you have lost something wonderful. You have lost your place in the scheme of things. But if you will not feel your emotions, your fears, your passions; if you will not get mixed up in the dirt and splendour of life, then you are not really alive. You are not a part of the consciousness of Life”.

Occasionally: Shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies. Also: To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.

To not eat: Shows a conflict with the physical reality of one’s body and its needs; an avoidance of growth or change; an attempt to be isolated from others, reality, the whole.

Avoiding certain foods: Expression of decision making in dealing with needs; food allergy.

Fasting: Withdrawal or turning away from natural urges. Or learning a different relationship with the instinctive forces. Not taking in what society, the world is offering.

Giving food to others: Giving of oneself to others, or nurturing some aspect of oneself.

Eating objects or repulsive food: Meeting objectionable experiences; trying to ‘stomach’ things which make you ‘sick’.

Example: ‘I ran into a house and came face to face with a huge stag. I noted the open back door, whereupon he started eating my leg. I was pushing against his horns and managed to stop him chewing me.’ Jasmine C.

Being eaten: The first part of Jasmine’s dream, not quoted, is obviously sexual. Being eaten therefore suggests she is being consumed by her sexual drive. Being eaten, especially if it is the face, also shows how our identity, or her fragile sense of self, is feeling attacked by emotions or fears, other people, or internal drives. The classic story of Jonah illustrates this, and shows how the conscious personality needs to develop a working relationship with the unconscious.

Eaten by dogs or maggots: Feelings about death. See Individuation

Eating an animal: Integrating our natural wisdom and energy; absorbing strength from sources other than or conscious personality; sensual pleasure and nutrition.

Eating clothes: Trying to digest feeling about your social image – how you appear to others, or how you feel you appear to others. There is a big difference between the two. It might also suggest having a hard time enjoying your life situation or even your own self-image.

Idioms: Eaten away; eat dirt; eat humble pie; eat like a horse; eat one’s heart out; eat one’s words; eat out of one’s hand; eat out of house and home; what’s eating you?; proof of the pudding is in the eating; dog eat dog. See: food.

Useful questions:

What am I eating and what does the dream situation suggest about this?

Is this saying something about my needs?

Is there any hint of this indicating nutritional needs or allergies?

See Levels of Awareness – Levels of the BrainTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Echo

Inner response from outer action. This might suggest the effect of things you do in life, like reaping what you sow. It can also be a representation of things glimpsed in everyday life, the importance of which were missed, or impact overlooked.

It might in some dreams indicate a copy of something or that you are currently in a rut and could do with a change of routine or environment – like stuck record.

Example: There are so many reasons with which we explain how and why the beginning, but the underlying one is usually that unconsciously the realise whole areas of our being I had been brought to a condition of deadness or pain.  Life in us through whatever means, ideas, feelings, longings, it can express, leads us to seek a aware of healing this deadness and agony can lead into.  Life in us lies wounded, pleading, dead but alive.  It’s cries echo up into consciousness and filter through the mass of ideas, or justifications, and hopes we have been buried alive under.  Perhaps only slowly we begin to listen to the voice that calls for help.  If we do, then a particular day stands out as the one on which we rolled away the stone which blocked the tomb we had buried our life in.  That day, and experience on it will be different for each of us.

Example: Now memories swirl before the person like the sere leaves of autumn. The times of empty houses come back, the sound of slamming doors echoes down the halls of the mind, and a cold wind frets curtains of memory. He remembers the time he was lost in a railroad station, the nightmares of being sent to an orphanage, the nights he awoke screaming in strange darkened rooms and cried for a mother no longer there.

Example: “Never! Never! Never!” Shouted the woman who had sprned God’s love.

“Ever! Ever! Ever!” echoed God.


Useful questions and hints:

Am I echoing somebody else’s behaviour?

What is it I hear and can I understand it?

What is this an echo of?

See What is the main action in the dream?Avoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power Dreaming


Eclipse

This can mean that something is either cutting of your source of energy – the sun – or else in an eclipse of the moon might suggest that something has come between you and your mother. Or else that you are becoming emotionally independent from her. Seeing that light in dreams usually equates to knowing, seeing or understanding clearly, any eclipse can mean a loss of clear knowing; and end of an eclsipse is inidciating a return or ability to really ‘see’ or the start of clear vision.

An eclipse of the sun in your dream can suggest that you are feeling overwhelmed by irrational impressions you are not used to having. Also that you might be feeling uncertainty about your life or direction. Perhaps you need to seek reasonable answers.

Darkness can also mean a positive experience that links your conscious mind with the huge darkness of our immense potential we hold within ourselves unconsciously. Part of this potential is an experience of going beyond opposites, of resolving paradoxes, of moving beyond the limitations of the rational mind and emotional responses.

Example: So I let go and fell into the darkness. I didn’t go to sleep though. Instead I fell into an awareness of immensity, of hugeness, and the immensity was full of knowing. Like a raindrop falling back into the ocean, I seemed to merge with that hugeness and yet maintain a sense of my own existence. And between the hugeness and my own sense of being there was communication.

The end of an eclipse signifies a new beginning. It can suggest an end to a period of darkness within or depression. A start of an eclipise might suggest you are feeling a decline of your mood, or a period of deepening inner experience. If it is felt as a decline look for the core self which is never influenced by changes of mood.

For a man an eclipse of the moon could mean losing contact with your own inner feminine self. See Archetype of the Anima

It is interesting that people who lost their nursemaids or carers in their 3rd year felt that the surrogate mother was obscured or eclipsed by the mother because of the feeling of loss.

Another interesting sign of eclipsing is seen in the development of the Ghost Dance among Native Americans. During an eclipse the tribe people felt great fear, and Wovoka – a Paiute – fell very ill and experienced a vision. When he arose he proclaimed that he had received a promise from God to renew the Earth, but demanding in return the acceptance of a moral code which stressed non-violence and the performance of the “Ghost Dance.”

The performance of the dance enabled the participants to encountering ancestors in their traditional settings within the trance. They experienced seeing the old campgrounds, playing the old games, eating the buffalo meat – all experiences which were lost during the reservation days. This brought them, once more in touch with their traditional culture, which would have been lost altogether had the breach with their inner world had not been restored through the Ghost Dance. So the eclipse was the loss of their inner culture.

Useful questions and hints:

Is there any diminising or growth of insight?

Do I sense a new beginning in my life?

Has anything been lost or gained in this period?

Can I see what was eclipsed in me?

See Associations Working WithInner World –  Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ecstasy

Reflects a state of being completely in accord and harmony. There are no discords, conflicts, or divisions of self. This is different to elation, which may be experiencing one sphere of the emotions.

Eden

Sometimes one has a feeling of being in the Garden of Eden, and this shows you have touched a sense of yourself beyond the limitations of thinking and time. It is the you that exists in connection with the rest of creation, and has always existed without effort. Often refers to life in the womb, or your infant state of awareness prior to learning how to speak. Can also depict purity, simplicity, or happiness. See Adam and Eve

If you think about the Bible story I think it is clearly about a tremendous change of awareness in human development or evolution. We existed in complete harmony with the rest of nature, and was all done for us by God/Life. And the change can easily be traced to the enormous shift between being a creature guided by instincts and that of modern humans whose instinct is to procreate. In attaining a personality with awareness of a ‘self’ we left Eden behind and had to find out own way instead of being guided by instinct. Now we are living in the midst of being cast out of Eden with our lack of awareness of a guiding forces, our nakedness of knowing what to do, our lack of communion with life around us, and our sense of fear of God/Life that is evident all the time in peoples dreams. See Reaction to the unconscious

Example: I was experiencing a strong feeling of being connected with all things. I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery.

Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naive, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle.


Useful questions and hints:

Have I experienced a feeling of being part of everything?

Does the dream in any way suggest life before birth?

Do I ever experience a feeling beyond good and bad?

See Processing DreamsLife’s Little SecretsDream Yoga

Eel

Something that is difficult to get a hold on. Male sex organ, sperm. Dreams sometimes try to depict the unconscious life we experienced in the process of conception, and such slippery creatures as the eel can express this. See fish.

The eel can also represent an underwater snake – the lifeforce that underlies all that we are. See Energy Sex and Dreams and Reaction to the unconscious

The example and the comments about it give a lot of information.

Example: Hi – I would love some help with these dreams. I’m not pregnant. I’ve had 3 dreams first its meant to be a spa turns out its big rock pool river, heaps of tiny fish swimming around my feet I’m scared of them LOL. My partner is in the deep back part of the water he is not scared. Bit there is huge eels jumping out behind him into another river . 2nd dream; little spa pool 2 really nice coloured fish swimming into my legs, they hurt to touch them, but I’m not scared, I just try pick them up away from my legs. My partner again is sitting next to some girl who looks pregnant; I look at my belly and hope I’m pregnant not her. I don’t want her with my partner. A fish net goes over her belly. 3rd I have a positive pregnant test. God is there and he brands my ear with a red stone earring. I argue with him about how I don’t want to be pregnant or something like that. If you can help with the meaning of all this I would be so happy appreciative thank you.

What an amazing dream!! It is so absolutely full of images about pregnancy. Let us start with the rock pool/river. It is the flow of Life you and all of us are immersed in. It is what carries us or drives us on despite our little selves – what in fact grew you from a tiny seed in your mother’s belly. And the tiny fish are the seeds we grew from, the tiny sperm wanting to find a good home. You are scared of getting pregnant – probably been watching too many films where the delivering mother is always pictured in agony. See Method to shorten labormany little fish

The bit where the eels are jumping is another neat image of your partner’s eagerness. Those eels depict his penis/sexuality. This shows how his inner self wants to give his sperm to you – the other river. The second dream is a bit more hopeful. Realising that you do not want another woman carrying your partner’s child you try to pick them up from your legs but it hurts. But God/Life steps in and brands you with a red stone earring – a sure sign you will get pregnant. Even then you are sure you are not going to get pregnant. Life has a way with these things.

Example: Next I see my self at the bottom of the ocean.  I see a tall dark figure and a short dark figure (child?).  The tall dark figure is feeding small pieces of golden bread to a Huge, Long eel or snake.  The eel seems to have thin, slanty eyes and can’t see very well.

Being at the bottom of the ocean shows her being deep in her inner world or unconscious. Here the tall dark figure in this woman’s dream is an aspect of herself that is nourishing her own life energy. Golden bread is something that will never tarnish and is therefore eternal – as is our own Life.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What way am I relating to the eel or eels?

Does my dream in any way deal with pregnancy?

Was I frightened of the eel/eels?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming


Egg

Apart from being food the egg is used in dreams to indicate your potential, the parts of you as yet unrealised or not fertilised by your conscious action or quality.

It might also represent the female ovum, prenatal life, being pregnant and from that the possibility of new life, new opportunities. Because of this connection with being unborn it sometimes is used to show a retreat from life, a desire to stay in the egg.

An egg is fragile and because it holds the potential of life, can express the feeling of vulnerability with something precious.

And obviously a food that you enjoy or do not eat.

If the shell of the egg is figured it may be saying, ‘come out of your shell’, grow up, or even “I do not want any part of life out of the womb”.

Whether the egg has hatched or not shows whether what is new in your life has emerged yet, or is still latent and needing further caring support.

Eggs can also represent nourishment, and if being eaten again link with potential – in this case nourishing your potential and helping it to develop.

The environment the egg or eggs are in gives a clue to the situation you are in regarding your potential and the development of what you are capable or. Basically you need to see if the eggs are protected, or in a difficult or threatening situation. If the latter, then you need to be more aware of how you are failing to support your own possibilities.

Example: Now I felt like an egg, like a chick in the egg. Somehow my shell had been taken away and all I wanted was to curl up and not have to be alive. Events were not offering me what my instinct had led me to expect. Without any certainty of being wanted, I was exposed, alone and vulnerable. There was nothing for me to unfold for or want to live for. Prior to this experience I had watched a documentary on the hatching of turtles on a beach. They were all impelled to run toward the sea, and if they made it they were comparatively safe. But on the way the seagulls swooped and ate many of them. As the baby I had no impulse to run for the sea. I was too aware of the dangers to want to move. I didn’t even want to be without a shell. There was no way the baby me wanted to unfold and participate in the adult life of M. So the baby me said “NO” to M who was asking me – the baby to take part in life, because without it I was a failure. But as M, observing this part of myself that had decided right at the beginning not to get involved in the difficulties or possibilities of life, I realised I had to find a way to induce it to change. If I did not manage this, a whole spectrum of my energy and potential would be missing.

Idioms: a good egg; all your eggs in one basket; don’t put all your eggs in one basket; don’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs; egg me on; egg on my face; goose egg; kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; nest egg; suck eggs; walk on eggshells; hard like a boiled egg.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do I relate to the egg – am I caring for the vulnerability of life?

Is this showing me the possibility of new life or new growth?

What does the theme of the dream suggest?

Has the egg hatched?

Is this egg being used as food?

Where is the egg?

See Processing DreamsThe Egg of Juno – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsEvery 7 Years You Change

Egypt

Usually the hidden side of self, what we usually call the unconscious or our inner world. But dreaming of Egypt is usually slightly different to dreaming of China or Japan. This because the Far East is associated with the East, the rising sun; whereas Egypt has rich associations with the mystery of the pyramids, of the wonders of mummies and the dead, so the riches of the unconscious and the dead, death and life after death and reincarnation.

It may also be a link with our dreaming self at a deep level; and initiation into a new awareness or ability, or the tests you must pass through before receiving initiation. See Initiation

Because it has associations with the Biblical story of bondage, it may attime indicate this. In the biblical symbolism,  life dominated by material values.

Example: Now I am experiencing going through the burial process of ancient Egypt. It is quite strange because I am both an observer and also the person going through the rite of death. I am seeing and experiencing the mummification process. I am not sure why but the word transubstantiation comes to mind. It is something I feel as the process is going on. As the substances are poured into my body I feel my being is transformed.

As I attempt to describe this I am reminded of what happened earlier with the incredibly fast vibrations that I felt were in some way changing my being. So this is again an experience of transformation. I sense it has a gradual refinement of the substance of my being. It is both a rite of death and a transformation of my being into a spirit, into a spirit being. As I write this I wonder if any of this translates into actual physical life. It is now two days after that journey and I do feel different in some way, but I feel that the process of transformation is still underway and I have to come back to it as a sort of meditation.

During my experience of this rite of death I understood that these rituals, but especially the meaning behind the rituals, have become a part of our unconscious. They are like a stratum, a level deep within us through which certain psychological, even physiological and spiritual growth processes still work. They are patterns that are still very powerful in us and our being used in some way to effect personal or spiritual growth. What I mean is that it might be very difficult for the deeper levels of our being too express or communicate to consciousness what is happening, what changes are occurring in us. Now these ancient rituals and ways of life are ready-made images and have great meaning for us, so are still relevant and powerful to us today.

Useful questions:

How is Egypt being presented in my dream, and what do I associate with that?

Do I have personal experiences or associations with Egypt?

Is there a suggestion of mystery or hidden meaning in this dream?

See Associations Working With Spiritual Life In DreamsInner World


Eight

Usually associated with generation, degeneration and regeneration. In the growth of a seed, we can take the seed to represent number one, its relationship with the soil or opposite as two; the budding of seed into shoot as three or the point of growth: then the reaching above ground and rooting as four. The opening of leaves five; the development of stem six, the formation of bud seven, the opening of bud and fertilisation eight, the forming of seed nine. Thus eight can be seen as a climax where the old self opens to the development of the seeds of the new. It is a sort of death or degeneration into matter, that yet develops the seeds of the future, of spiritual consciousness. It is thus the sign of death and rebirth. Also of Justice. In the symbol of the figure eight, we see that the down ward loop drops and then doubles back to rise again. The Zodiacal sign of Scorpio, the governor or inspector. It governs the generative Organs, and the eighth house governs legacies, death, the occult. See: Numbers.

Ejaculation and Emission

The example under black person shows how our sexual needs attempt to satisfy themselves even though we may make a conscious attempt to deny them. The ejaculation, male or female, shows the sexual nature of one’s dream, even if the symbols seem to have no obvious connection. The attitudes in one’s dream also show something of our relationship to sex. This may be mechanical, fearful, loving, guilty, etc. Alfred, in the example mentioned, sees sex as a problem to be solved, and has difficulties around commitment.

If you consciously try to avoid sex, then it may emerge in yours dreams as a way of releasing inner tension. Your ego is only a veneer on the surface of a huge depth of biological life processes and instincts developed over millions of years. What you decide to do consciously relates either well or badly with this deep self. Your personality is like a rider on a very ancient beast, and so is shown in some dreams either riding a horse or other animal, or struggling with a beast of some sort.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza in his Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione when he said “For as far as sensual pleasure is concerned, the mind is so caught up in it, as if at peace in a [true] good, that it is quite prevented from thinking of anything else. But after the enjoyment of sensual pleasure is past, the greatest sadness follows. If this does not completely engross, still it thoroughly confuses and dulls the mind.”

Example: I was with a woman. I don’t know who it was, but I had sex with her. I remember her vagina was very open and ‘fruity’. There was a lot of tactile physical sensation between my penis and her inner vagina. It was easy and pleasurable. When I had ejaculated it felt good and easy. I was surprised at how it left me feeling perfectly energised and healthy, not at all draining or tiring. So I had another go with the woman. It was so good and easy. Again I felt completely at ease, no anxiety, no tiredness. So for the third time I held the woman and made love. The woman’s vagina was like a flower; I don’t mean to look at, but in physical sensation. My penis felt like it was penetrating petals of flesh and touching with great pleasure a central receptive area. It was relaxed, easy and satisfying like the first two times. I was left with the feeling of being able to make love again and again without any negative effects. It was a very positive and healthy feeling.

Useful questions and hints:

Is the ejaculation openly sexual – if not out of what feelings am I trying to repress this side of me?

In what way am I relating to anyone else in the dream?

Is there any love in this or is it simply a physical sensation?

See Energy Sex and DreamsTiredness after Sex Techniques for Exploring your Dreams


Elastic

The ability to adapt. It may also show feelings to do with things that rebound.

Elastic is often used to hold things together so might be used to indicate a relationship that is either pulling together or broken. Elastic can also constrict, as it does when placed around the testicles of male sheep to cut off their sexual development. Also arrangements can be elastic.

Elastic also typifies the ability to stretch and reach beyond your usual boundaries. In some dreams and inner experiences time itself is elastic and can stretch infinitely or became shortened.

Elastic stockings can also suggest a medical condition that might need attention.

But there is something that a mother has with her children. Once it is made, no power on earth short of death, and no psychic power, can break the bond of connection that connects a mother to her child and the child to its mother. In the inner world of dreams their beings are held together by an elastic umbilical cord which stretches but never snaps. People have struggled to cut their relation to their mothers by psychological murder, repression, flight, and any other tricks. All in vain.

There is also another elastic connection that exists between a man and a woman, a strange cord running from their solar plexus, which can be felt. Sometimes it is felt as a throbbing or like the following example.

Example: This emerged with enormous emotional energy and carried many insights with it. One of them was that we still form this umbilical cord as adults when we establish a close relationship. I realised that many people experience the breaking up of a relationship as a pain in the solar plexus. I have even felt a rebound effect in one relationship – like an elastic band snapping and banging back into my feelings. I knew at the time the woman had suddenly disconnected from me. I phoned her later and found that her ex boyfriend had returned and she had decided to drop her relationship with me and go back with him.

Elastic band: Sometimes used as a way of drawing one back when they get too far away, or as a tight band to restrict the flow of blood, and therefore the function of what is restricted.

Useful questions and hints:

What is happening to the elastic and what does this suggest in terms of action – pulling together – stretching – broken?

Is the elastic being used for something – is so what?

What is my relationship with the elastic.

See Associations Working WithAges of LoveCharacters and People in Dreams


Elbow

A support. An idea or hope, giving support or flexibility in expression.

Electra Complex

Women at a certain stage of their development often dream of having sex with their father. As shocking as this may seem to the waking person it is a way a woman or young woman can achieve a real sense of equality with her mother in competition with her father. In this way she can move on to a real sexual maturity. See Electra Complex from Wikipedia for more information.

Electricity Electrocuted Electrified

Energy and emotions; anger; potential; power. The drama in the dream will suggest whether the energy or emotion is being met or used constructively or destructively. For instance in some conditions of anxiety or excitement one can ‘burn oneself out’. It is this power of our feelings and drives that electricity in dreams refers to.

Just as we are all enmeshed in an intricate chemical environment, in which detergents, fertilisers and hormones are now part of our food chain, so we are enmeshed in a massive electronic environment. Our dreams may give us insight into how we relate to this and it to us. We are constantly shifting our relationship with this life-power through our thoughts, attitudes and physical health. It has enormous potential but we tend to reduce it through fearful feelings, shame, guilt or disgust. These all lower the current so to speak. Also we can turn it into destructive energy through those feelings. So electricity can indicate the power of life and death.

Example: We came to a hill sloping down. Somehow we were then airborne and rushed downwards and across the valley. Then we became frightened because we were hurtling towards the opposite hillside at the wrong angle. We would hit it instead of gliding along above the ground until we landed like planes touching down. A power cable was crossing the valley. For a while I held it to guide our glide, but was frightened of the current, and it was the wrong angle anyway. But somehow we managed to land okay.

The dreamer explored his dream and said that gliding down is the descent into experiencing the problem I have of holding on to people because of the security they give me. The flying is me being carried along by the inner forces to facing or experiencing the fear of the problem. The power line is the descending life energies. I let go because I am involved in fear of failure, of being hurt. The power line is also the humility before life, realising how much we depend on Life for our existence. So I turn toward that help. The turning and the descending power are one. See: snake; emotions and mood.

Electricity can be the source for so many things such as sound, images, hospital treatments, computers and power as for a vacuum cleaner. So your life energy can also flow in many different ways, depending on how you direct it. It can be the power behind movement and work; the energy or sex, the power behind emotions and thoughts, and even the energy behind an enlightening experience.

A great deal of mystery has surrounded the word kundalini, the Sanskrit word for life energy. Basically it means the potential that resides within us, probably because it was not clearly understood, but in practical terms the serpent power is the psychobiological energy that expresses in you as the many processes and functions of your body and mind. It is like the electricity that flows into a house that while it is not the picture on the television screen, or the movement of the cooling fan, is the power underlying all the many things arising from electricity.

Your psychobiological energy is at the same time the energy underlying your physical movements, your digestion, heartbeat, your emotions, awareness and thinking; and also a potential that has not yet been expressed or manifest. Very often a person’s sexual expression or social expression is not flowing easily. All that energy backs up like water behind a dam. It creates a pressure that will seek to flow somewhere. In many cases it moves into neurosis. In other words, because it is not flowing outwardly and satisfyingly into social and sexual relationships, it may turn inwards, enlivening the usually unconscious and disturbed patterns of feeling. Then the person lives out neurotic ways of expressing sexually and socially. They may for instance express anti social behaviour in violence or destruction. They may express in destructive sexual behaviour, or be even more introverted into deep depression.

But the normal human behaviour is simply one of the ways we as mammals can express. The life process itself can be expressed in an infinite number of ways, as we see in the different creatures on the earth. The fact that we are as we are is simply the result of the global, environmental and social changes we have faced. What some of the ancient outcasts found was that there are possibilities beyond the normal and beyond the neurotic. They drew out of the potential in the power – shown in dreams as electricity or water – the possibility of what we call enlightenment, a life beyond the limitations of the ‘normal’, beyond the pain of everyday living. That is how the practices of yoga, Tai chi, and many of the other personal disciplines of mind and body arose – as methods of expanding the potential of the serpent power. See Archetype of the self

Example: I was kneeling on the floor in a house. I have worked as an electrician so was probably working in the house, but in some way I had hold of, or was connected with, a large electric cable. The cable was live with electricity, and it touched my right shoulder. The effect was excruciating and shocking pain. The most intense memory is of struggling to pull the cable away from myself, fighting to stay conscious against the terrible current lashing through me. I screamed out for my mother, who I was sure was in the building somewhere, to switch off the electricity. I knew I only had a little time because I could not survive that current long. I have a vague sense that the current stopped, then the current and struggle started again. T.B.

In exploring his dream T.B. first of all met feelings of great pleasure and strength about his ability to work, and that work and helping people with practical needs was the main way he shared love, the main way he expressed his energy, the main way he earned a wage. He says, “So the dream is not simply saying I am working, but that work, as an expression of myself, connects me with others and the world. In other words, this is an important part of my communication, socialising, and loving others.”

He goes on to say, “The electricity is the energy of my life. It is the energy of my emotions, of my connection with others. This had been, as it were, short-circuited by what I felt to be the criticism, the rejection, and non-understanding by my last two female partners. I felt that I had tried and tried, while preserving my own integrity, to live in the way they wanted me to. But this felt as if it was an enormous self-denial at times. It was a self-denial that created this almost death dealing introversion of energy. The anger I felt about this had in it the sense that there might even be an inherent attempt to kill out my manhood, my flow of positive male energy. That is how I felt, anyway. As I summarised this I felt I could stand up and smile, and say I’m not going to be killed.” See: example under blindness in dreams; energy sex dreams.

Body being electrocuted or given electric shock: This suggests emotional pain such as one might get on hearing ‘shocking news’ or perhaps a painful way of experiencing change. It can also depict any sort of shock or startling response to internal or external events, and may also be a dramatic way of symbolising the pain you feel physically from repressed emotions such as anger or desire. These may cause such psychosomatic but real suffering as lower back or chest pain.

The electrocution could also be a response to something happening to the body while asleep, such as lack of circulation in a limb causing pins and needles. In some dreams though it is clearly a response you have to your own enormous energy – i.e. you may be frightened of the enormity of your potential energy, or you may be relate to it in a painful way because of past experience. Such energy can of course be creative or destructive, as are most great natural energies such as fire or electricity.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What sudden shock have I experienced recently?

Am I aware of the enormous potential energy I have?

Is the dream depicting the way my energy is expressing or being held back – and is this creative or self destructive?

Has something really shocked or shaken me recently?

Is this about the way I relate to my own potential – if so what is indicated?

Does the dream show me relating to the electricity in a destructive way – if so what can I learn form that?

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams –  Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being Victims


 

Elephant

Although the elephant is much like any other animal in your dreams, it tends to represent the power and influence of the potent forces active in your body and mind, that if you relate to well bring about health and success, and if badly illness and ruin. For example the elephant can refer to the powerful responses in us such as fear, sex, survival, and the power of imagination to evoke great anxiety or great pleasure. Often our personality evokes these forces in a destructive and disorderly way. A person may have read an article about cancer for instance and develop a great fear they have the disease, causing much stress and actual physical illness in some degree.

So some elephant dreams revolve around how we relate to this power, and the attempt of the elephant to place us on its back to direct it. So in general it is your potential or energy. Also depicts your big self, or the power of the unconscious and your cosmic, eternal nature. The tremendous inner power of the unconscious, with a mahout, or conscious direc­tion or co-operation can achieve wonderful things. Ganesh, the Indian elephant god, represents the remover of all obstacles, the power of life manifesting. He is the god of good fortune.

So it is the totality of yourself rather than awareness of only the conscious ego. It is what is referred to in Christianity as the ‘spirit’, the influence that can heal or instruct, thus power from our unconscious; strength; unforgiveness from association of long memory; patience; fidelity; intelligence or wisdom of the unconscious. In some ways the elephant has similar qualities to the crocodile in its link with the collective unconscious. The difference is that the elephant does not usually in dreams seek to consume you like the crocodile or alligator. It therefore depicts a relationship with one’s incredible potential that can lead to directing or working with the potent forces of the unconscious. See: alligator.

If we run from the elephant: Being afraid of our own strength or inner power. The question is, can we meet this enormous energy in ourselves enough to direct it? Sometimes represents the collective unconscious.

Elephant’s trunk: Sometimes a sexual symbol, the penis. As such it is usually referring to how your sexual feelings are being influenced by the great spirit of Life acting on you – the cosmic power of the spirit. Also the trunk illustrates the ability to get or reach out for ones own needs – see example below.

Example: During an experience arising from the use of psilocybin, I had a very clear mental image of a baby elephant. It was like a bas-relief made out of clay, but mobile. I could see that the baby elephant had some problem with its trunk, and I wondered why my unconscious had produced this image so clearly and what it meant. Immediately the image disappeared and a series of associations arose unbidden. It was that the elephant actually ate with its mouth, but it had to reach out for everything with its trunk. As a baby the elephant would suckle, but as it matured it would have to learn to get its own needs with its trunk, therefore the problem was about me reaching out for my own needs. Danny.

Example: The I experienced the elephant as a powerful force which I intuitively sense and feel some anxiety about. I felt the elephant as a powerful influence which works below the level of normal consciousness, which acts upon masses, although it obviously influences individuals. But it influences individuals unconsciously, so they are inclined in a direction along with many others. As it enters my life I sense it seems to be an influence which might direct me into a communion with this deeper, more inclusive or integrative influence. Thus my personal activities might have added to them this influence which co-ordinates the processes of life, and adds to ones small endeavours the stamp or power of a grander life – the spirit. The life of the spirit I sensed here as the ‘company’ where I was accepted as a worker in this wider organisation behind life.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it. AT.

Example: I looked out of a window and noticed a wild elephant in full charge. It ran past the end of the building and I went to the opposite window, seeing it charge another elephant. After the impact it seemed to be a strange mixture, in my mind, of elephant and rhinoceros. It then stood shaking with sexual motions, until a great deal of sperm came out and its tension was released. AT.

The above two examples illustrate firstly the enormous power of the elephant and how it is not usually an attacking or destructive power, and in the second example it shows the link between that power and the sexual drive.

 

Idioms: White elephant; pink elephants; rogue elephant. See: the self under archetypes.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I imagine myself as the elephant what do I experience?

What powerful influence am I meeting or directing at the moment?

Am I aware in any way of the enormous impact the collective power of society and my own unconscious has on me?

What is my relationship with the elephant and what does this depict in my life?

See Do you imagine that is a real creature – Avoid Being VictimsYou are the Projector

 

Elevator Lift

Mood shifts or movement of attention – as when we move from being involved in physical sensation and shift to thinking. It can also suggest a rise or drop in status or work situation or our emotional highs and lows – the lift going out through the roof could show tendency toward being manic – or going underground would mean meeting influences from the unconscious. Perhaps being ‘uplifted’ or feeling ‘down’.

Going up in an elevator or lift: Movement toward waking or becoming more aware; the mental; or an escape from anxiety or being ‘down to earth’. Sexual pleasure, or mounting feelings of love and attraction. It can also indicate going up in the world, so may link with ambition or achievement. Overcoming difficulties such as anxiety to reach a goal. In some dreams there is a tremendous amount of anxiety and feeling of insecurity.

Basement: Going underground, meeting influences from within you that you may not identify with and so are strange or even alien. Sometimes you find or meet wonderful things her because it is an area of you that holds treasure as well as challenges. You might find a child, animals or even an angel down in the basement.

Descent, going down in a lift: Getting more down to earth or practical. A return to difficulties after living in our fantasies or escapism. It could sometimes signify the down feelings of depression or sexual restraint.

Falling down lift shaft: Although this may be very frightening, you cannot be hurt or die in your dreams. You can of course feel fear, but that is because you believe you will be hurt or killed by the fall.

The hole or shaft is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it, if you allow yourself to fall into it you, realise that it is the way to your own centre and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland and is a way to sink deep into yourself and discover what you really hold within you. But the hole and facing death are really gateways to discover who, or what, you are.

Example: I felt as if I were falling down a long hole, like Alice in Wonderland. The observing part of me understood that I was dropping backwards through my whole life. At times I seemed to bang into things, or bump off things, and these were the painful times in my history. At one point I wondered if I were experiencing some sort of healing regression, but I only touched the events of my life as I fell back. Eventually I came to rest. It was wonderfully peaceful and even my thinking had stopped. I didn’t have any feelings of having a body or shape. I simply existed. Again the observing part of me wondered if this was the womb, but it quickly became apparent, or I knew, that this wasn’t the womb, it was the basic level of my awareness, and how it felt to be before thinking and speech. I began to feel afraid as I realised that if I dropped any further back I would cease to exist. Then I knew the fear was unnecessary as every time we go to sleep we drop back into the condition where we lose any sense of personal existence, yet we emerge none the worse the next day. So I let myself drop. Suddenly I was aware that something held me. It was the process that had grown me from seed in the first place. My ego had not created me or grown me. But now this deep part of me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me. At least I understood from it that if I opened to it each day, if I surrendered to its action, then it would grow me to a fuller life and realise itself in me. This felt like a holy gift, that the mystery of life would live in me.

If the lift goes out the top of the roof, or the connection with base is missing: Can show a critical situation of the mind being split from body awareness; schizoid or manic.

Trapped in lift: Suggests that you are trapped in a particular attitude of expression on yourself. Also that you cannot or do not know how to move from one level of yourself to another – sexual to loving; thinking to intuition; depression to wonder.

For instance in some ways you can be likened to a car. You have a brake, a gas pedal, and a steering wheel. Most of the time these are applied unconsciously by external controls. Running, making love, drinking coffee or watching a powerful film, will cause your body and mind to become more excited. Your breathing and heart will speed up. This is like pressing the gas pedal. Drowsing in an armchair, drinking alcohol, is the opposite, and slows you down. This is the brake. As for the steering wheel, other people or events influence you and your direction. However, you can learn to press your own pedal, apply your own brake, and take more control of the steering wheel. Learning to use your own controls instead of them being constantly activated by other people or events is a life changing skill. So, for a start, if you recognise that breathing reflects excitation or quietness, learning to direct your breathing is one way of taking control. So, for a few minutes try slowing your breathing. Do not hold your breath, but simply make it as slow and smooth as you can without having to gasp for air. See Avoid Being Victims

 Example: ‘I was in a lift with a young woman. She intimated there was some difficulty about getting the lift to work. I felt this was not so and pushed the button. The doors closed and the lift began to ascend. As it did we moved close together and kissed. But the main feeling was of being accepted and liked. This moved my feelings so much I felt a great melting feeling in my abdomen, and a lot of body sensation against her body.’ Anthony F.

Here the lift shows Anthony ‘being moved’ emotionally and sexually – the lift can depict sex and the energy flowing up the trunk in love or meditation.

Example: That is the story, isn’t it?  You watch a young woman’s dance and enter into it.  At her final jump you enter into her and lift her to the transcendent moment.  You open her to that wonder and she experiences all she can dream, all that she is, in that moment.  Then you draw back.

Example: During one dream I saw myself getting off an elevator on the tenth floor. Not surprisingly, on the tenth of the month I received “uplifting” news by way of recognition for my professional work!

Example: I saw many little red devils who began to press me deep into the ground. Deep in the earth I met the king of the devils. He frightened me and in seeking to escape I noticed an elevator on the right.”

Dreams, said Edgar Cayce, may be interpreted on more than one level. In the dream, the earth is the boy’s own body, or his own unconscious. This is where he will meet both the king of the devils and his assistants. The boy’s being pressed deeper into the earth by the devils in order to meet the king of the devils symbolizes the pressures and temptations of life that force us to meet ourselves in order to develop latent abilities. The elevator to the right indicates that there is always a way of escape from temptations or devils—and that is the right way; for the only devil we have to fear is ourselves.

 

Idioms: a lift; get a lift; give me a lift; lift a finger; lift my spirits.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Am I experiencing a shifting of my mood or attitudes?

Can I direct this lift or am I just a passenger of life’s changes?

Who am I with in the lift and what is happening?

See Associations Working WithDreams are Like a Computer Game – IndividuationTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Eleven

11 The eleventh hour has represented last minute activity, last desperate efforts. It also represents strength to face and control animal nature or instincts, which gives us liberty from them. It is two on a higher level, or another level, symbolising a reflex of number ten, which is the dynamic directive to reincarnate, or re-express. Eleven is the matrix, or mould, within us, that receives and restores form after the pattern we have already created in the past; or on the basis of what we have experienced in the past. The astrological sign is Aquarius, the seeker or scientist. It governs ankles and nervous system, and the eleventh house rules long friendships. See: Numbers.

Elf

A force active in your unconscious.

An elf is a small part of S-elf and is a useful part of your abilities. Elf or elves seem generally to have been thought of as a group of beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. However, the precise character of beliefs in elves across the Germanic-speaking world has varied considerably across time, space, and different cultures. See: prominently associated with sexual threats, seducing people and causing them harm. For example, a number of early modern ballads in the British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe human encounters with elves. Dwarf.

From point of view seen from dream study, they are obviously repressed or shadows part of our own nature that are best integrated into consciousness. See Integrate Integrating; Digest

Elk Moose

Like horse but wilder, less tamed – so the force of drives or emotions that carry us along or trample us. The moose or elk sometimes appears as a magical animal that brings a feeling of loving connection with the world. Generally a natural and instinctive urge you are meeting in yourself or others.

 Example: The horse stopped and I put my face close to its muzzle. In some way I felt connected, and as I looked up I saw it was a female moose not a horse. It lifted its head and because of my connection lifted me too. It felt very pleasant.  

Example: I see a bunch of these high school kids teasing a moose. The moose is laying down in a corner like it is hiding, or sick. I yell and run across the road to save the moose. I get it up, by petting and pulling at its rack. I begin to walk away from the field to the woods fuming about the stupidity of people and how dangerous these animals can be. A second larger moose comes from the woods to ask me what I was doing, and I explained it to her. That he was not a thing to be picked at and how dangerous his rack is, he bumped me in the back with his rack. Not to hurt me, but to show he was listening. I reached up and petted his cheek like you would a horse. I walked him to a bridge, still standing next to his head, petting his cheek, speaking to him like I was soothing him. Just as I was going to cross the bridge I woke up.  

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I learn anything about what urges or feelings I am meeting from my interaction with the moose?

Is there conflict or harmony shown in my dream?

In my description of the dream what key words do I use. See: key words.

See Levels of the brainAnimalsBeing the Person or Thing

 

 

Email

Principally about communication, or connection. This connection may be through ones thoughts or intuition, not only through physical links such as the telephone line. So what you remember in the email is worth considering.  See: letter.

If the email is from someone you know it will usually carry a message relevant either to the way you relate to that person or how you see them – i.e. business, love, shared interest, etc.


Useful questions and hints:

What is communicated and what relevance does that have to me?

If this is junk mail who is it from?

Am I intuitively having insights that I am not recognizing or really aware of?

See – Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Life’s Little Secrets

Embalm

The attempt to prolong the present form of beliefs and feelings, despite the fact that life has moved on, and is attempting to express in new ways. Fear of death. Desire for physical immortality.

Sometimes we hold onto a past part of our life or memories instead of surrendering them up to the process of Life. See Life’s Little Secrets

Useful questions and hints:

What am I trying to preserve that is dead in me?

Is it something I believe in or are convinced of?

Am I scared of facing death?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingDreaming of Death

Emblem

This probably relates to what you deeply, but perhaps unconsciously identify with, or have links with. For instance you might identify with the culture of your parents if you are en immigrant, or you might identify with a certain type of person. So the emblem in your dream would show you where strong psychic strengths are. It could be a link with your inner confidence. See: badge; medallion; symbol.

The image of the tree has been see as the natural emblem of the female, to whom through sex man’s worship is ever drawn? But other things can be seen as emblems.

Useful questions and hints:

What is an emblem that is full of life and feelings for you?

Is there anything yougive a tlot of time and energy too (such as sport or children) that has an emblem?

Do you feel somethings are holy?

See Processing DreamsSettings in Dreams Life’s Little Secrets

Embrace

See: Cuddle.

Embryo

Something developing in the unconscious. Something growing within which we are not yet aware of and not yet sufficiently developed to express outwardly, and that is vulnerable. Or a regression to early levels of consciousness. A desire to live in womb-consciousness.

An extremely vulnerable part of us. It can refer to our own prenatal experience or our feelings connected with our prenatal life – for instance we may have been told our mother tried to abort us. Even if this is not so, the idea acts as a focus for our feelings of rejection and infantile pain. The embryo or foetus would therefore symbolise such feelings. See: baby.

From conception until birth the growing organism increases its weight alone up to 27 million times. So it is an energetic urge, but also one which brings detailed control over the miracle of forming a living human body. This comes about by stage after stage of formative forces acting in the construction of our being. As an egg and sperm we are tiny single celled creatures. The next two stages of development as the cells increase in size and number resembles the activities found in many simple living things such as plants. The twenty day old embryo develops four brachial grooves, which in the embryo of a fish grow into gills. At this point the formative forces which produce a fish are active, as were the formative forces of a plant at an earlier stage. These are then supplanted by forces which bring about features of the mammalian upright animal we can be. See Programmed

The embryo can also depict a fragile and new part of you growing. It could even be an indication of pregnancy. In some dreams the embryo links with feelings of great peace in which you experience your core self. See Your Core Self

Example: She  kept saying ‘Larisa, your ship is going to leave’, urging me to leave her and get on the (apparently ) my ship. Finally I said ‘one last kiss’ and I kissed her and reached for the pole? to get on my ship. But it slipped through my fingers and I get into the sea. I went down to the bottom of the sea and I lay on the floor of the sea for a million years – aeons or so it seemed. There was no sense of time. I lay all covered up like in a shell or a flower or a womb – but it felt very embryo like.

Useful questions and hints:

Do I sense this as expressing my own uterine life, or as a fragile growing part of me?

Have I been thinking about pregnancy – do I need to check to see?

Am I at the beginning of a new project or way of life that is still at the embryo stage?

See Creative DreamingProgrammedTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Emerald

Unless you have personal associations with this jewel, it suggests growth and connection with living things. See: Jewels.

Emergency

Something you are feeling anxious or stressed about. The dream might even be a warning, but check out the anxiety aspect first.

If this is an emergency call to the police or ambulance, then it is an important call for help or support, and you need to ask yourself what it is you are trying to get help or support for.

Emigration

The changing of habits, ideas. The search for self. A change of direction in life.

Perhaps a search for a better life, or the hope for a change in the future. See airplane


Useful questions and hints:

Have I been feeling restless and in need of change?

Are there signs of a life change at the moment?

Have my family got a history or immigration, and if so what has that left in me as lifestyle or viewpoints?

What is it you hope for?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions Characters and People in Dreams

Emperor

Sometimes this figure, like king, represents feelings about your father. It may indicate your need for approval or parental blessing, or what feelings or needs you are ‘ruled’ by.

A ruling figure like this also can represent the whole, the will of collective humanity. See: king.

Father and mother are symbolized as king and queen or emperor and empress, children as little animals, death as a journey.


Useful questions and hints:

What is your relationship with the emperor or empress in your dream/

Do I relate to them in a childlike way?

Do you need approval or parental blessing for your decisions?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsBeing in Control

Empty

Lack of something or a receptive condition.   Lack of  pleasure, enthusiasm, good feelings or it can fear of loneliness or lack of relationship. Sometimes it indicate a sense of isolation. Or it can be  one’s potential; opportunity; space to be oneself. Depends on feeling quality in the dream.

Empty can refer to so many things such as empty or boastful talk, and empty house, empty of any feelings, life will appear empty and meaningless, empty room, empty periods, empty chair, empty fuel tank, empty plate, empty trivialities, in the end all is void and empty – and so on.

Emptiness can sometimes show how you limit yourself in your thinking or feeling. Feeling destitute and empty with no visible means of support or help can be changed into a place of rare beauty, depending on your associations. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

There is an inner emptiness that is often thought of as nothingness. But that nothing is everything; if it were something it would be some-thing and therefore could not be everything. As such it is your core self.

When people think of emptiness they usually see it as a destruction of everything – a death of self. But the nothingness of the void is part of the paradox of existence – for the nothingness is at the same time everything. But everything is all inclusive. As such it cannot have any defined characteristics or shape, otherwise it wouldn’t be everything. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the Nothing is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of your life.  The Next Step.

Empty bottle: Resources you have used up, or that you are feeling empty or have nothing to offer others.

Empty house, buildings, shell: Outgrown habits or ways of life; old attitudes; death; depression or/and potential. See house.

Example: I was down in a low bit of a village, trying to get to a road high up on a hill where the sun was shining and was walking through dark, empty houses. Heather.

The use of empty in this dream can be understood by the comparisons existing between the ‘down low, empty houses’ feeling, and the ‘high up sunny hill’ feeling.

Emptying bag: Getting rid of attitudes or feelings one has been carrying about; unloading or looking at the thoughts and memories one has been ‘carrying’; leaving or dumping a lover.

Useful questions and hints:

What is it that is empty, and what loss, absence or potential does this suggest?

What do I feel about the emptiness?

How am I responding to the situation?

See Avoid Being VictimsEmotions and Mood in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Enclosed Enclosure

The defences we use, such as pride, beliefs, anger, to protect ourselves from deeply feeling the impact of the world, relationship, love, anxiety or pain. These are often presented in dreams as traps or restraints, even though they are parts of our own personality. For instance one may feel trapped by one’s own feelings of dependence upon family.

Example: ‘I am trapped in a bricked room with no way out and I shout for somebody to help me. Then either a big bird or a creature with long arms tries to catch me, and I scream.’ Karen S.

Karen had previously lost a baby, been divorced, had an unsatisfying relationship with a man. She feels trapped by the defences she has herself built ‘brick by brick’, but is frightened of the opportunity of change represented by the bird. What encloses or traps us in our dream gives a clue to what constrains us in waking.

Example: ‘As I go through a tunnel it either gets smaller so I can’t get through, or it goes on so far there is no end to it. I am trapped and terrified.’ Don M.

This sort of enclosed dream is typical of trauma relating to a difficult birth. In fact Don’s mother was in labour for four days, and never had another child because of the pain.

An enclosure can be the way we preserve our own identity from the influences of the world. Or if it is an enclosure with animals in, it might show how you keep your own natural life processes protected or separated from the social and commercial influences surrounding you. But if we search with enough courage, trust in our inner process, then we will find a way as in the following dream.

Example: One person, “looking for herself, came upon a tightly closed box. Tearing it open she found inside a lovely rose, and realised that she had been enclosed in a box of Puritanism, of self denial and physical shame. The outer petals of the rose, pink and mauve, seemed to whirl and dance; they sent her fancy spinning off like a ballerina into flowered landscapes of delicious femininity. The inner petals were shaded from the light, obscure and mysterious. Here the colours darkened to deep crimson and velvet purple. They reflected her deep animality. These she avoided, until she realised that it took both the light and the dark to make a lovely rose. She could not have one without the other. Gradually the rose became a nourishing symbol in her life and growth.”

Sometimes we can be trapped and made ill by the very things we felt would free us.

Example: I was like Atlas, supporting a world upon my shoulders and arms. It was so heavy I swayed and stumbled, and eventually was crushed – falling over – lying on my back, arms and legs wide. My hands went back and tried to lift up this world but failed. Then they went into a prayerful position, high up, and afterwards seemed to spin the world up above my chest, then take it upon my shoulders again and gradually rise. I seem to remember that flickers of strength or energy had gradually arisen from within me to enable me to lift the world. Now my right hand began to swing round and round, fast and faster. My left hand joined in and I understood that I was whirling this world faster and faster. Suddenly, and with a mighty effort, out rushing breath, and a sense of finality, I let go and the world swung into space – in orbit. It was here that I saw it as a creation drama, and felt from within that all such dramas have great inner meaning.

It took me months to realise the truth behind that wonderful experience I had in LifeStream. The world was what I had created by my religious, beliefs I had inherited and that I now saw caused me years of illness. Then I had stood before a wonderful light. But I still felt I had manacles and chains of my wrists, and said with great passion, “Please take these chains off me!” And the Light replied, “Tony, I love you. I would never put chains on you, you put them on yourself.”


Useful questions:

What type of enclosure is it – a trap, a fence, a wall, a prison – and how does that reflect my life?

If I am enclosed by people, in what way am I held?

What do I feel about the situation?

Am I trapping myself through my own attitudes or beliefs?

See Avoid Being VictimsHabitsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Encrust

Things, ideas, habits, that have collected around, or overlaid whatever the symbol represents. A dirt encrusted mirror would represent the lack of ability to look at self, or to see yourself as you are, due to material or earthly desires and values.

Something encrusted with rust suggests not only age but also lack of use. An ornament encrusted with jewels indicates a very rich source of wisdom and connection with your core self.

Example: As the cleansing programme begins I become aware of a fibre glass or man-made structure, something like a Michelin man, riveted together.  There seems to be encrusted material caked on in places, rather like temporary dental filling or Polyfilla.  As it has been there for quite some time it is quite hard to remove and I become aware that to do so could mean the whole structure will fall apart.  My friend assures me that it is safe to let it die.   As the water continues to jet onto the filler I become aware of a new born life form which has been protected by the structure.  Its skin is slightly mottled and I become acutely aware of its breathing and the strong sense of magic pervading from and all around the creature.  The creature lies in a crib in the centre of a room, alert, curious, enchanted and I am fascinated by this incredible discovery.  From death new life miraculously arises!  Beneath the man made structure behold a faery child!  I reconnected with the magic that lies at my very core; the newness, the freshness, the playfulness and innocence. I am renewed!


Useful questions and hints:

What is it that is encrusted and what does that suggest or relate to in my life?

What do I feel about what is encrusted?

Is this something I owned and got left?

See HabitsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsDreams are Like a Computer Game

Encyclopaedia Encyclopedia

Memory, inner knowledge; collective human wisdom, so may depict connection with the collective unconscious. See: Book; collective unconscious.

Sometimes we use encyclopedia or records in dreams to reference past life memories, or memories from long past. Here are a series showing this.

Example: I was walking by a riverbank near a cemetery. As I walked and drew near to the cemetery, I saw submerged in the river a record player – in fact my record player. I walked into the river and pulled it out.

Prior to this I had experienced several dreams showing the river being blocked, or silted up, or made sluggish with reeds and weeds, and in this dream he was walking in the direction the river flowed, it being clear and free flowing. The river is the flow of his life, showing the energies of growth and creativity, the energies underlying emotions, thinking and sexuality. The dream shows him as consciously following their flow. The cemetery is the many past lives buried with him. The record player is the faculty of memory covered up by the emotions or flow of his inner life, but now he is bringing this faculty to the surface. He felt this dream had something to do with past lives, but was far from being sure.

Dream 2. About two weeks later I had the following dream: A friend and I entered an old empty house which had not been lived in for a long time, and we explored its rooms. In an upstairs room we came upon what looked at first like a baby grand-piano. When I opened the lid, however, it was seen to be a record player with a very large turntable, and I noticed behind the piano, stacked against the wall, a large number of records. They were as huge as the turntable, at least two feet across. I put one on; it was Cheiro (the palmist and prophet) speaking about prophecy. My friend was fascinated with the record player, and said he was going to renovate it, clean it up and use it.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What was I reading or seeing in connection with the encyclopedia?

Can I remember any associations with encylopedias?

Did I learn anything from my dream or  the encyclopedia?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working WithSecrets of Power Dreaming


End

Used in many different ways, depending on context. It can indicate reaching a goal, or the end of something pointing to change. It can be a release or death.

End of path or road: The end of one’s life; the boundary of what one already knows or has done; end of a relationship especially if walking with person.

End of tunnel or cave: Finding the way out of a difficult or depressed stage of life.

End of table or queue: Feeling left out, unconsidered, forgotten; putting oneself last.

End of garden, room, tunnel or road: Can be used to show polarity or opposites, as in following example in which the end of the tunnel suggests and opposite to the fear she is experiencing.

Example: I’m trapped in a long passageway or corridor. I can’t get out. I’m feeling my way along the wall – there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t get to it. I’m very frightened. I wake up before I get to the end. Then I feel afraid to go back to sleep. Margaret C.

Many people dream this ‘end of life’ theme. In virtually every one of these dreams, there is a highlighting of ‘things to do’. Such dreams are a way of deciding what is of most value in the dreamer’s life.

Example: ‘I found myself alone in the garden at the far end of the house near the stables.’ M.M.

Here ‘the end’ relates to being alone, as opposed to being in the house with people.

Example: We were flying over a big lake. I saw two ladies who trying to end their life. One was in casuals wearing red t-shirt n blue jeans and another one in grey Indian attire.

Idioms: At an end; end of one’s tether; wits end; end of the day; be the end of; a sticky end; dead end; the deep end; end it all; end of the line; both ends meet; not the end of the world; loose ends; to no end; light at the end of the tunnel. See: cul-de-sac.


Useful questions and hints:

What is it that is ending in my life?

Have I gone as far as I can go in this particular direction?

What am I at the end of?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working WithSecrets of Power Dreaming


End Of World Apocalypse

Certainties that the world was ending have been experienced by humans since the beginnings of their history. It is still a theme that frequently appears in dreams and in the way many people live their life today. Many sects have predicted precise dates for the end of the world. All of them so far have been victims of their own fears and hopes. Looked at from the point of view that dream images represent our own life and feelings in some way, the end of the world, and the fears that go with it, depict the powerful and threatening inner and outer changes that accompany major transitions.

The transition from childhood to adolescence for instance is the end of the world that existed for the whole lifetime of the individual up until that point. Such points of transition occur several times in the life of anyone who dares to grow and adapt. Menopause for women, the leaving home of children, the loss of a job, retirement, can all be represented by the end of the world – or a world.Social changes also bring enormous stress and the ending of a way of life to many individuals. Supposing an individual had grown up in a welfare system and had, as many do, spent their entire life being supported by social welfare, never working. If the social welfare finished, it would be the end of the world for that individual.So inward and exterior changes can produce the feeling or dream of our world ending.

This can usually be met and passed through, although it does require a sort of death, a letting go of old traits and responses built in connection with the old way of life. This can produce anxiety. A new personality, one suited to present needs or situation can gradually emerge – be born – if we can pass through the anxiety and meet the experiences of the new world we are living in.

Several religions lived with the conviction that unless certain rites were performed with zeal, the end of the world would occur. The end was only delayed by the efforts of the devout. Peoples living in the uncertainty of seasonal changes and unreliable harvests, may have expressed their deep fears and hopes through such rituals and beliefs. Underlying such beliefs was the frequent idea that the gods or God had frequently destroyed the world in the past, to cleanse it of error. Such destructions had always been followed with a new world. Therefore rebirth always followed destruction. In the New Testament Peter reports Christ as saying – The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up’ (2 Peter 3.10) The parable of the separation of the goats and the sheep, the wheat from the tares, also suggests an ending and a time of change or judgement.

Considering that the early Christians were sure the end of the world was to happen in their own times, we can be certain it does not refer to the actual physical world, or that perhaps it depicts a constant fear that lives in humans concerning death or social insecurity. Research carried out by Ostow and Mortimer into the dreams and fantasies of schizophrenics suggests that the apocalyptic theme is common to the illness, and is almost exactly a reflection of the theme found in some religious teachings.

That people still frequently dream this theme show it is still a significant issue. Strangely enough, sometimes the dreams are not threatening, or there is a great deal of beauty involved. These are examples of the religious theme that at the end of the world there will be resurrection and a wonderful new life. Ostow and Mortimer see these as a hope that radical healing or change can come from an external and perhaps miraculous source, rather than from personal growth. These dreams are obviously not about anxiety, but show a feeling of wonder and pleasure at the dramatic changes. In both cases God, or a power other than that of the dreamer is included in the dream. We can see this as a realisation of the dreamers that the changes are beneficent, and arise from activities wider than the individual influence of the individual. See: First example under alien, and the example below.

Example: It was the end of the world. I was at work when we received the first signs; my computer suddenly showed beautiful pictures – but in the usual computer colour – all green. I said, ‘Oh God, if only we had colour!’ and immediately the pictures started flowing through the screen in beautiful breathtaking colours. I could hardly bear to leave their beauty. Then I was climbing down a steep hill. Arriving at the foot I found rippling sparkling water. I stopped and looked around and found everything incredibly beautiful – the green fields and the pebbles in the water, the soft fresh air; then I looked up and the sky was a glorious picture, the sun so warm and the clouds fluffy and soft and pretty. I felt at peace and so happy, and thanked God with all my heart for giving us so much beauty. Mrs. R. E.

In trying to make sense of end of the world dreams at a personal level, this account from a man in his fifties helps to clarify what happens in connection with such dreams.

Example: About three years ago I experienced a number of dreams about catastrophic events such as earthquakes and the destruction of cities. In such dreams I was trying to find my way through the dangers. For instance in one dream I was walking up a hill in rocky country. Looking to my right I could see that a huge river of earth and boulders was flowing. I realised it was due to earthquakes and earth changes, and although I didn’t feel frightened, I did feel I must keep an eye on what was happening. During that period I also went through a powerful death experience. I wanted to die. It wasn’t that I felt suicidal, but the sources of satisfaction and pleasure in my life had dried up, leaving me feeling there was little to live for. This led to a real inner awareness of dying, and I realised this was really what religion was referring to in talking about dying and being reborn. It was difficult at the time to know exactly what this was about in terms of my normal life, but through the passage of time I have a clearer view of it, although it is still emerging. So I can be fairly sure that the changes and the sense of dying arose out of my having reached my middle fifties. At that time my children had all left home, and my sexual relationship with my wife was almost non-existent. I had never realised it before, but those two things had given me most of my satisfaction in life, my reason for living. Without them I felt empty of any motive to live as I couldn’t find things that were anywhere near as fulfilling. Around that time too, after I had actually felt a real sense of having died, I managed to make some big changes in my life. I moved with my wife from a house we had lived in for 17 years. In leaving it I also stepped out of roles that had provided me with a livelihood, social contact, and feelings of social value. This was difficult to do as I had a lot of dependent feelings about the house and the income involved.

The change was sometimes very painful, but overall the changes led me to feel more independent than I had ever been previously. In essence I would say I have gradually learned not to be so dependent on others – my wife and children – for my own feeling of well-being. And although the dreams and the death experience happened nearly three years ago, I believe I am still going through the process. I had thought at the time of the death that the birth would follow quickly. This doesn’t seem to be part of my own experience. It is a long process. So if someone who was going through such a process asked me how to meet it, I would say that you have to learn some measure of trust in ones own capability to emerge as a new person. Or one must have a view of life as being more than ones small concerns and inclinations, and that one is learning to integrate what is MORE than oneself. Nigel A.

Example: I looked to my right through the doors of the large room and saw strange alien type creatures. I felt a bit anxious. They were like skinless creatures. Now I was walking out of the town. It felt like the end of the world, or the end of society. I was walking through lots of churches standing on a hillside, surrounded by grass. They were of all types, strongly built but empty now. I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD. Peter M.

Peter’s dream represent the coat of many colours in the Bible story.

Useful questions and hints:

What is it that is ending in my life, or that I fear is ending?

Do the events of the dream give me further insights into what I feel or fear?

What events or relationship situations in my life suggest radical change?

See ApocalypseTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working WithSecrets of Power Dreaming

Enema

May be a memory of infant experiences that has left terrors within. Inner cleansing of unnecessary material and outworn habits.

Enemy

The person or group you are pitted against represent something, probably within yourself, that you are in conflict with. Such dreams show us parts of ourselves we struggle with. Jung called this the Shadow, the aspects of oneself we are frightened of, or repress for one reason or another. Enemies in dreams usually refer to some facet of this. Though it may simply depict something you are struggling with, a relationship for instance, or feelings about work.

Example: When my husband was a child of about 8 years he often used to have an abstract nightmare. It consisted of him (a soft wavy line) being attacked by the enemy (a pointed zigzag line). As the enemy (zigzag) overcame him (soft waves) he would wake up in terror. The nightmares ended when his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack.

The enemy are nearly always the almost unseen horde of darkness we carry with us from the past; the depressed feelings; the feelings of failure amd hopelessness. The enemy are the many doubts and fears and conflicts that block you from knowing and using your real abilities. These are usually unknown a  nd in the unconscious. Of course it is a battle, and the threat is death of pain, which your supra conscious knows are empty threats. The battle is between the false beliefs, the pains and fears that have been grown as truths in our lives, and our own real self masked by such beliefs and experiences. It is a real battle.

If we face the facts of our dream life in which our usual morals are lost, we may dream of being a cannibal, for cannibalism is an attempt to take in the power of another. Cannibals eat their fallen enemies in an attempt to assume their virtues. They eat their enemies’ genitals to gain virility, their hearts to gain courage. It is a symbolic attempt to destroy their enemy and take on their power. The child or child aspect of self may dream of eating their mother. It reveals a desire to take in the mother, the source of all nourishment and life; it is an attempt by the infant to gain the source of power himself.

An inner or outer enemy can put massive obstacles in the way of what you what to achieve or the way you wish to live. With an outer enemy the attack can be very subtle. Because the unconscious will use any belief system or cultural symbols we have absorbed to express a theme, the powerful images of witches or evil characters we see This ‘cross wiring’ of associations could meaningfully be portrayed as a ‘spell’ which makes one feel frightened in the apparently loving situation. See: Victims; Dream Like a Computer Game; self hypnosis; spell.

I had two very powerful examples of outer enemies and their power. My wife and I were visiting my wife’s sister and her husband. Her husband’s brother visited and sat and talked to us and afterwards I felt strangely ill at ease. Being able to ask my unconscious – inner self – for help I was shown that in fact the brother had wanted to ‘have’ my wife and wanted me out of the way. He had said things to me that didn’t seem bad, but the hidden feelings in his words had caused me to react badly. When he came again I was watching and listening for any signs. He immediately said, “What is that silly hat you are wearing”? A simple enough remark, except I recognised it was his way of making me look stupid in my wife’s eyes.

So it is wise to recognise that someone is an enemy and take care how you react to them. An inner enemy is often harder to recognise than an outer one. See Defence Mechanisms and Resistances

Useful questions and hints:

Do you actually feel under attack by your emotions, evil or someone?

Is the dream giving any advice as to deal with the enemy?

You are important, and any enemy is an idiot, and can be conquered – no matter who it is – by love.

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingPrisonAvoid Being Victims

Energy

See: Electricityenergy sex and dreamssnake .

Engagement

An engagement can either be an agreement to get married; a commitment to attend an event; a job that only last for a short time; or anencounter between hostile forces.

Menstruation is the assurance of true femininity and the sign of womanhood. At such a time women often dream of receiving an engagement ring or married to strangers.

Example: A young woman, engaged to be married, dreamed that her fiance came to her and told her to break off the engagement. He said he would make her life miserable because he was presently untrue to her, and would continue to be unfaithful even after marriage. His answers to her subsequent interrogation proved the dream accurate, and the engagement was duly broken. Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist.

Engagement ring: The state of the relationship, as in example below, where Mary is ‘choking’ on or ‘can’t swallow’ her relationship.

Example: ‘If I swallow I am going to swallow and choke on my engagement ring. I seem to be trying to stop a ring going down my throat.’ Mary S.

The dreams show the state of feelings about getting married. In promising ourselves to another it may be a time of great joy, but it can also face you with problems you haven’t realised you had before. One of those is dependence on mother or father – for all manner of things such as support. It might be that you have a difficult time actually giving yourself to another person fully. Most such problems arise from difficult trauma from early life. There is an attempt on the part of our dream process to release and deal with early traumas or situations that occurred and led to blocking or trapping our potential energy and creativity. Without this clearance much of our energy to express and achieve is tied up in the past, or in non productive habits. At this time too our dreams explore the challenges and difficulties we face in outer life.   See Ages of LoveAvoid Being Victims


For engagement in battle or work see war and work

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does your dream reveal any difficulties?

Am I just seeing my anxieties in the dream?

What do I feel about being engaged?

See Plot of the DreamMan in your DreamSecrets of Power Dreaming


Engine

One’s motivating drive or energy; the body’s energy and mechanical or automatic functioning; the sexual or natural urges; sometimes the heart.

For instance a strong anxiety can be a power, an engine, which motivates us to do or avoid certain things, such as taking risks, entering a relationship. So too can love, dependence, desire for wealth, loneliness, and the struggle to survive.

There is far more that goes on in the hidden places of our being than ever goes on in an engine. But dreams perform the same function as the gauges on the dashboard. They illustrate processes that are going on in the depths of our body and mind — and in fact often in the very deepest places of the unconscious. As with the gauges, we are not directly experiencing the processes displayed in images and drama. What we are witnessing is a process that puts into imagery, into emotions and drama, things that in themselves may be quite formless, that may never previously have come near to verbal definition or conscious conceptualisation. The word imagine has its root in the word image. We literally put into images those things that lie beyond our usual senses in the formless and timeless regions of our being.

If the car engine will not work, or is damaged, it doesn’t mean the driver does not exist, or that he or she does not know perfectly well where they want to go or what they want to do.

Car engine: This often represents your heart or your ability to motivate yourself. It therefore links with your personal energy or drive.

Because ones energy, courage and drive are so linked with how confident and expressive we feel, the engine, its size and performance are often indications of this. See: machine.

Train engine: The energy that takes us through life and carries us with other people, but usually to set destinations – unless the rails are missing. Also libido.

Example: I dreamt a dream that was a surprise. I was standing and viewing a massive railway area. I front of me were many tracks going across my view. Then suddenly there was an almighty great train coming toward me, cutting through and destroying all the tracks going crossways. It wasn’t running on any tracks. I wasn’t sure if it would explode and kill me, although I didn’t feel scared, in fact I stood wondering what it was all about.

This shows that the dreamer has broken free of the restrictions – the rails – and with tremendous force can direct his energy where he wants.

Example: In England, it was discovered that a couple of bolts in the engine were loose. An engineer came and tightened them, then discovered that the engine was “red hot” with radiation. This meant Graham and I were also a danger to others. Graham pushed the idea aside, choosing to ignore it, but I did not wish to endanger others


In this dream the man realises that he is giving of harmful emotions and must distance himself.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream saying about my ability to motivate myself and get to where I want to go?

Do I feel adequate as a person, sexually or as a man/woman?

Does the dream suggest anything needs to be done to the engine – if so what is that pointing to?

See Processing Dreams Techniques for Exploring your DreamsEnergy Sex and Dreams


Enter Entering Entrance

New experience or new area of experience.

Some disciplines of mind, and the use of certain drugs, enables people to explore areas of experience that do not occur “naturally”. Through these it enables the practitioner to enter the condition of sleep while maintaining a certain amount of critical awareness.

People can enter into all manner of things such as – fantasies, sexual longing, illusions, insight, psositve experience, a new stage of growth, we can enter a dream and explore it, entering a hole or cave, we might avoid entering into contact with someone, or find entrance into the house of the ancestors.

You can enter into anything in this way, whether it is an animal, a tree, the sea, a house, or even conditions or dimensions of mind and emotion. As you explore your dream in this way you can ask questions and your intuition will play its responses on the monitor of your body and emotions. It is important not to get lost in the symbols, but explore your associations.

A secret entrance: An attitude or psychological ‘stance’ which opens a new experience of self, or allows access to parts of oneself usually inaccessible. See: door.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What new or strange experience is entering my life or trying to claim my attention?

Have I been led into a shifted awareness – an entrance into my unconscious?

Does love, caring or affection enter my dream?

Is something entering my life from an ocean of possibilities.

What is happening with the entrance – am I going into something or someone else coming in?

Where does the entrance lead to and from?

What is the issue connected with the entrance?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Envelope

The body, surroundings, protection or a means of hiding something.

If you have not yet opened the envelope, then it holds a message you are not yet aware of, except perhaps intuitively. The envelope could also suggest contact with someone, or news of something. If envelope remain unopened, it may indicate that you have missed or are missing an opportunity.

Envelopes usually are about feelings of anticipation or opportunity in your dream. If you are eagerly anticipating an envelope’s contents, it could mean that the dream is telling you that you are expecting something wonderful.

Envelopes are great signifiers of information. For instance the handwriting, whether it is from abroad, from a loved person, or even a business envelope.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel when I saw the envelope?

Did I recognise it as from someone I knew?

What part did the envelope plau in the dream?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Environment

See: place.

Envy Envious

It is wanting what others have, desiring to possess what they possess. You can be envious of tangible and intangible things, including their wealth, their good looks and their innate intelligence.

 Envy is often an ‘identity’ thing, as the underlying dynamic is not so much about wanting the things they have as wanting to be like them. Envy in such cases becomes generalized, from thing to the whole person.

 Envy can sometimes be moderately positive, such as when you grudgingly admire what a friend has achieved, but do not like them any less as a result.

 The most common form of coping with envy is, after recognizing it, taking a philosophical approach that says something like ‘This is silly. Life is too short to waste my energy on this thing’. See Identity and dreamsIdentity and SexWant Wanted Wanting

Erotic Dreams

See: sex in dreams.

Escape

If you escaped in the dream, then you know of some way to emerge from the restrictions of fears, attitudes, ignorance or beliefs, that have been holding you back in some way. There is a negative aspect of this however, as sometimes we escape from something to run from difficulties or avoid growing.

Fear is a natural instinct to warn us of actual danger or of old memories of past fears. Some people say you should either trample ones fear underfoot, or face them. But in doing either you are dealing with you own mind and feelings, trampling them does not get rid of something that is a part of you, it simply pushes them into your own dark self ready to haunt in other ways. Facing them can work but in doing so you need to be able to meet your own fearful emotions.

Have you got hold of your fear – or has it got you? Firstly, we cannot let go of something and offer it to our action if it has hold of us. Nearly all of us are addicts, addictions we cannot let go of. But addictions are not just for drugs or alcohol, we have addictions to sex, to eating, to fighting, to loneliness, to depression – yes, we are trapped by many things. I was addicted to depression. Such addictions are like having a hungry tiger running around your house, and if you had such a beast in your home you would avoid it at all costs; unless you had a way of immediately being in control of it. Being in control is a huge step to being at ease with the many urges and emotions we all face. So it is with your own fears and pains. Unless you can stop their attack, you avoid them, run from them, and in fact let them unconsciously control your decisions and actions.

Fear is fundamental to life, but for humans, because of our ability to think and hold images of things we are not actually meeting at the moment, fear can become a constant threat. Therefore the facing of fear, the meeting and dealing with the many images of fear we meet, is extraordinarily transformative. The Ox Herding Pictures describes a way of gaining strength to meet yourself.

Finding a way of moving beyond restrictions, perhaps caused by anxiety or past pain. We often use ‘escape’, as in the example below ‘to avoid difficult feelings’. This is like reading an exciting novel because it distracts our attention. The problems remain.

Example: ‘ I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.’ M.C

Example: ‘I dreamt I was a prisoner with many others. Myself and other men were outside the prison working. Then a tremendous explosion blew a hole in the prison wall. I knew prisoners were trying to escape. I saw some wardens and shouted or signalled to the prisoners to be careful.’ Terry D.

Terry worked as a therapist without scholastic qualification. He represents his attitudes to authority as the prison, because he had felt second rate due to his lack of scholarship. The escapees are his potential that had been trapped by those attitudes.

The images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of deny any fear or repressing anything that threatens you. See Martial Art of the Mind

Example; A young man dreamed that he was about five or six years old and was faced by a river he must cross. He looked for a bridge but found none. He thought of swimming but then realized he could not swim. (In the waking state he actually could swim). He then sees a tall, dark man who indicates he will carry him across the river in his arms. He is greatly relieved and allows the stranger to pick him up and begin. But then he is seized with panic. He suddenly realizes that if he does not escape from this man he will die!

They are already in the river, he in the man’s arms, but he gathers his courage and makes a desperate leap into the river. He is sure he will drown but suddenly finds that he can swim and soon reaches the other side. The frightening man disappears.

Crossing the river is seen as the need, and the difficulty, of moving from childhood toward adult independence. The young man was an only child, who had been cosseted by overprotective parents, and was finding it difficult to face life without their support.The man is all the support he gets from parents and other people such as teachers and friends – excellent while he was a child, but something he must learn to do without if he is to develop his own innate strengths. If he doesn’t escape from their support then he will die – i.e. not carry on growing in an alive way. When the dreamer takes the risk of daring the river, he finds he has the ability to survive.

Something escaping from us: A realisation, emotion or opportunity eluding awareness. See: enclosed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I escaping from or to in the dream?

Are the details of the dream informative about the ways I try to escape?

What is it that escapes from me and what does that suggest?

See Facing Fear – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Associations Working With

 

 

Eunuch

Without sexual feelings. Sexuality has been cut off.

Euthanasia

I say this having faced death several times and come to terms with it. I have also touched the depths of my being and speak from there. I experienced a sense of being in the presence of Life, and understanding human relations with it. I saw once more that all life is holy. It is the inner attitude that abuses animal and human life that is wrong. I saw that there is only one temple to God, and it is the body, the holy of holies being the genitals, where life creates. I also saw that a lot of sexual activity has no regard for the fact that at base sex is about procreation, and this is out of harmony with life. Attitudes that see sex as lust, or manipulation, or purely a pleasure, are unwhole.

I saw that fundamental to all living or cosmic processes is interrelationship and the building of dynamic networks. In a human sense the most basic of these is that between the two sex cells. In a relationship of mutual trust they split their boundaries and risk death to merge and share – that is real love. At the next level of sharing, two people give of themselves in sexual relationship. Out of this a family group can grow, with its kinships and interdependence. At base, it only works well when a deep trust and mutual self-giving occurs. The trust and dynamic cooperativeness not only build bonds and a sort of organism of the group at a physical level, but I saw it builds then into an integral spiritual organism for survival in eternity.

What I saw next was what has happened to these basic relationships in our present times. There is still an element of caring for babies, but the recognition of their eternal nature is lost. Lost too is the realisation that we are co-creator’s with life. With poor mutual relationships, the quality of identities we create drops, until we create a society full of pained, twisted souls.

But the most potent of thing that was proved to me beyond doubt was a dream my wife had. In the dream Brenda saw the baby and a voice from behind her told her the child was ill. Its illness, she was given to understand, was serious, and would need to be treated with a drug taken every day of the child’s life. The reason for this illness and the drug use, she was told, was because in a past life the being now born as the baby had committed suicide using a drug.

I didn’t take the dream seriously, thinking it was some sort of personally symbolic dream. But we couldn’t seem to extract any personal meaning for Brenda, so just in case I sent an account of the dream to Jane and Bob. About a week later we had a letter from them saying that the letter and dream had crystallised their already existing anxiety about the baby. It had not been feeding well and was fretful. On taking it to the doctor nothing definite could be found but special tests were made in hospital. From these it was discovered the baby was dying. It lacked an enzyme that was needed to digest calcium. To compensate it was given a drug, which it has had to take every day of its life to make up for the lacking enzyme.

I use the example because it is not hearsay. It didn’t happen to somebody else who reported it to me. I witnessed every step of it. Recently I met the baby of that dream again. He is now a man of 35, and still needing the daily drug. I feel that pain people meet, and the pain I have met, is the working out of our own lives and does not mean we should kill people or commit suicide.

You may feel that you are unique and have only a physical life that started when you were conceived.  Yet any growing thing has a tremendous message. Any seed we plant doesn’t grow completely new, it doesn’t start from the beginning again but from the millions of years of the plants existence. So the seed is a sort of summary of the plants whole history. And the tree or plant that grows from a seed is a summary of the whole history of it, but it would feel unique and new if it were conscious. In fact it is new, but it carries within it the whole experience of its past, and will pass this on to seeds it produces. Obviously if you were a seed and planted you would feel you are completely new and unique; so it is with us humans, we carry our whole past within us unconsciously. And we touch that unconscious history if we are open to it.


Eve

The power of sensual seduction. Eve stands for the soul or personality. Also feelings, femininity, or the receptiveness of your feelings to sensations and thus to temptations. She can also represent a man’s wife; or in another sense his emotional sexual relationships with her.

But they are our usual associations, and Aisha/Eve actual means ‘individual will’. The first thought or will that was outside the impulse of instincts/God; that impulse was the first start of a human soul with its free will. See: Creation of Aisha/Eve Adam and Eve

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you associate with Eve?

Does the dream show Eve in any particular way?

Do you relate to her in any way?

See The Secret BibleAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Evening

Relaxation; quiet peace; time for oneself; nearness to the ‘shadows’ of the unconscious, the parts of self we do not usually have awreness of. Sometimes: The last years of life; old age.

It can also link with feelings of the need of a days work ending and time for pleasure.

The theme of ascent is an important part of many ancient religious rituals and beliefs. In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however, whereas the ancient belies saw it as a continuing cycle. So the evening can indicate the sinking life force leading to death and new life.

Many dreams show this as depicting relaxation, of quiet peacefulness. It may also suggest your choices made when you give yourself personal space for self chosen events.

In the evening we get near to the time of shadows, the parts of your nature and exterior life that are less noticed or lived. Dreams show this as an indication of ageing, the evening of ones life. See: Autumn.

Example: Dreamt I was a monk or clergy with a small group of other monks. We lived in a large church or cathedral. Each evening there was a ritual we had to do which consisted of ‘blessing the doors’. This meant that we all went to each external door and blessed it. I was a little sceptical of this procedure, feeling that it was purely ritual, but another monk assured me it was necessary. In fact as we went around the doors I witnessed invisible forces or spirits closing the doors after we blessed the door. At one door there was a negative or ‘contrary’ force or spirit. I felt at this point that my blessing was a real force which had power. I went to the door and blessed it and this counteracted the powerful counter force.

The feelings displayed in this dream are about making our ‘house’ secure, indicating our self. It is a way of guarding against negative influences and keeping them out. See


Useful questions and hints:

What am I doing in the dream, and does it suggest a winding down or a personal time of leisure?

If I am middle aged, does the dream suggest this is about this period of my life?

What feelings does the dream deal with?

See Every 7 Years You ChangeMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Evergreen

Symbolises the eternal as it expresses through matter with its quality of constant change.

Evil

Evil is ‘live’ spelt backwards. In dreams the sense or presence of evil is often depicting those things you have so repressed that they are no longer properly alive and healthy. Repression has turned them back upon you making them an internal evil. They therefore need meeting and being brought into proper recognition and expression. Usually refers to some of our own urges which we have judged as wrong because of moral or social values, and thus denied expression. Charles in the example below, probably feels that what he identifies with as himself – his established values and beliefs – is threatened by what he senses beyond the door. Whatever threatens our ‘I’ or ego, is often felt to be evil, even if it is natural urges. The unbalanced and real evils in the world, such as terrorising of individuals and minority groups, can of course be shown as the feeling of evil.

“All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.” EC

Example: ‘At the top of the stairs is a small door, half opened as if inviting me to go up. I get an overpowering sense of something evil beyond the door just waiting for me.’ Charles M.

Example: ‘I am lying on the floor in my bedroom with a towel over me. I am trying to hide and protect myself because I am terrified. There are four devils trying to get into my body and take over. My bedroom is going like a whirlpool around me, like evil all around me. I wake in a hot sweat and am terrified to go back to sleep.’ Joanna. LBC.

Joanna is most likely in conflict with her sexuality – the bedroom. When we fight with our own urges they often feel like external agencies – evil forces – attacking us. See:  archetype of the devil; black magic; active/passive. While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will.

The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive. When we meet the inner urge to grow as it expresses from our Life Will, it feels like a hugeness which they are usually unaware if. It feels like something alien or attacking, it is a shock. The Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic or as something evil. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. The Hugeness is part of our totality. It is the enormous potential you have within you, it is Life you are frightened of.

Example: I was destroyed a long time ago, and now I go about destroying my own. So full of hate for ourselves are we, that we hate our own children.

But I was destroyed a long time ago. Yet somehow I am not quite dead, and must needs go on destroying my own until I destroy myself. I must snatch my children from supposed harm and hurt them, and then blame the buggered life not onto myself, but upon the supposed. I must take him out of my neighbour’s house because their boy is dirty, and swears, because he calls me a silly sod, and because my wife says so. I choose to believe that there is evil in dirt, in swearing, in loud voices and talk. It is easier to believe that than to see the evil as the lack of interest and of my own absence of love. So I shut him in his room, not wanting to accept that it was too many shut doors, averted lips, closed hearts, that opened the neighbour’s soul to their own sorrow.

Example: It developed into an idiot like babbling. There were no formed words, and the chattering on and shouting in a mindless way, with saliva dripping from the mouth. I thought at first this was expressing madness or idiocy, but it went on from there. The body posture was slightly crouched, the babbling and grunting developing.

After a long time it became more intense. My left hand covered my face, and my eyes looked through my fingers at the group. With idiot and leering laughs, the quality of a mindless and evil desire was manifested in. It was the desire for power over people and things. The right-hand pointed at the group, expressing manipulation. Now the spirit began to feel threatened and callout, “Oh. Oh. Oh.” Its crouching leering postures slowly changed into one of being bent double, hands touching the floor. It called out a number of things – Satan, Durga, and other words I cannot recall.

It seemed to be calling for help, but was gradually being “cast out”. As this happened my body crumpled up and eventually fell on the floor. There was more crying out and a little thrashing about. The words, “Over. Over. Over” was said a number of times. Then the body relaxed.

The man who experienced this went on to say, “I lay there for quite some time, then was led to stand up. As I stood, inner realisations came to me. What had been cast out was a creature I had myself brought into being by my own desire for power expressed in my life. It was a hidden or unconscious thought, or desire, which was created out of my own energies, and then fed on them. It also, in subtle and hidden ways, manipulated my actions to fulfil its own mindless and base impulses. I realised there was no external evil or devil. It is what we create with our own fears, our own desires and plans to grab money or sex that have awful effects within us. 

Evil spirit or spirits: The idea of evil spirits started early in human experience, for anything that caused people to experience any awful thing was was seen as evil – i.e a hidden or invisible influence that could cause harm or fear. So what we now call germs or viruses was called evil spirits. But today we tend to see anything that we cannot understand or account for can be represented in dreams as an evil spirit as in above example.

Useful questions and hints:

What of my own urges do I struggle with most?

Do any part of the dream suggest what the evil feelings emerge from – bedroom/sex; bank/money – food/gluttony?

What do I try to avoid or pull back from?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being Victims

Evolution

Many people deny that they are the products of an evolving natural system. Maybe we haven’t fully understood it, but just look at these things we have found about ourselves.

During the last century an enormously expanded understanding of the human mind and consciousness has arisen. In other cultures much of what our own scientifically oriented culture has arrived at had already been stated. However, it is important for the western individual to gain insight from their own perspective, as much from past cultures is stated in language that is often not properly understood, and we often fail to really grasp what is being presented.

You, and most people, are probably not aware of it, but you already have gone through unbelievable evolutionary changes, but our education and beliefs have covered it up. For example it is now known that in the womb we start off at the very primitive level of cellular production. Then our forming body goes through a fish stage and has gills. Slowly it moves toward an air breathing body. And all these evolutionary changes leave their mark, for we have at least four levels of brain – the spinal – the reptilian – the mammalian and then the human.

But it is now understood that our brain developed its sections over the long span of evolutionary history. Because of this it has, within and also separate from the two hemispheres, a number of levels. As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991). Each new level, as it developed, elaborated on and extended the function of the preceding levels. So, from the spinal cord the hindbrain and midbrain developed. The first level of brain that developed beyond the spinal cord has been called the Reptilian Brain. This is because what we carry within our human brain is still found in reptiles. This ‘brain’ often encompasses several parts of the physical brain.

Most important, one must be able to differentiate between these two simultaneous streams in oneself. The stream of thinking cognition is always retrogressive: it begins in the present and strives toward an understanding of the causes and conditions of what has come into being. At the same time, one longs to grasp what is in the process of becoming. One tends to think about the future by extrapolating from the present and thus all too often projections are the mere representation of a naive causal construction. One forms a mental image of one stream of development, forgetting that this is but a reflection of a thought process.

The neurologist Paul MacLean gave a definition of these physiological and psychological facts of our brain in 1990. He said that these levels of the brain work like “three interconnected biological computers, [each] with its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own memory”. See Animals in your Brain

Most of us think or say, “So what! We are not aware of those things so do not bother us.” But they do! Because we as a person did not simply grow into being Joan or Mahmoud because we were born as such. We were programmed into being less than our potential.

There are many records of children/babies that were lost and raised by animals such as wolves and recovered from the wild, girls as well as boys. In India two girls were found in the century, and some in America, a child that was shut in a chicken house and never spoken to. They, like Victor who were discovered in France, never learnt to speak, and became trained but trapped animals. They died quite young, unable to adapt to their life with humans. Speech appears to be like a computer program which when loaded into the human brain changes the way the brain works. The life of Helen Keller throws an enormous light into such childrens ability to learn. Helen was struck dumb and blind at an early age through an illness when she had only learnt one word. She lived like an animal without self awareness until the age of eleven. Then she was taught by a deaf and dumb teacher and remembered the first word and quickly began the climb back to being human. See Helen Keller; Feral Children

The stories of these children’s lives shows us the enormous influence the early years of learning has on our mind, and how language is like a huge computer program that alters our natural awareness. Isn’t it strange then that if in early childhood we can learn to be a wolf, a bear, or  a human, that we don’t recognise this and train babies to be more than human? Perhaps such training would be a step toward reducing the murder, aggression and mental poverty amongst so many humans. See The Conjuring Trick

It is such an interesting subject, that a human being does not have any sense of identity, or develop what we call a personality by simply growing. If left they are nothing much unless raised by an animal that passes on millions of years of experience to the baby. Then it is a wolf or bear and not a human being. So we do not simply exist as a human being unless we are taught the amazing program of speech and human thoughts and social responses. Many of us believe we are ourselves because we were born human. Not so. We are carefully fed programs and we are what we are by being taught it. We are programmed – and of course we can learn to recognise that programming and hopefully grow beyond it. See Genius  and Habits

We can however learn to change the habits and programming we are usually trapped in. See Archetype of the ParadigmMeeting yourselfInstincts

Ex-relationship

So it is not your ex you are dreaming of, but your dreams are showing you your inner feelings about the past relationship and all the memories needing to be digested and learned from. Remember that because you were together for a while there is no way you can ‘have nothing to do’ with someone you have been intimately involved with. It doesn’t work like that. Most people are often totally unaware of the massive experience they take in during a relationship and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. See An experience of a person’s influence

So if you are troubled by dreams of your ex, the best way to deal with them is to work on integrating the influence left in you from the relationship. You can do this by thinking about the dreams about your ex and drawing on all you got from him or her. So I would suggest you integrate all the good and bad things. Try doing this by taking the dream images of your ex and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from you inner world onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what we learned, bad or good, from the relationship. Think of it like digesting something. In a relationship, whether a feeling relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in. See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Exams Examined Examining

If your dream relates to exams or being examined, it usually points to some uncertainty in yourself, or perhaps some sort of search for deeper understanding if it is a positive experience. If there is anxiety in the dream it may relate to a way of feeling about yourself that you learned at school, due to exams and their results.

Being examined can also show you examining yourself to see who you are.

Self criticism or attempts to live up to moral or intellectual standards or habits of concern over accomplishments. Also worry about some coming test of self value, such as a new job or new sexual partner.

Exams can also be about feelings of competition, or even fear of failure. Exams can mean so much because of all the hopes and the future you hang on passing. Do you regard exams as a kill-or-be-killed competition: if you are slow you go under?

Example: I gave birth to a healthy, happy, and smiling baby boy (even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream and gave birth at home with no pain). I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal. Then I was led away by a strange nurse through a sea of people (apparently in a shopping mall) for some sort of bogus medical exam. When I returned to my room, my baby was gone and no one would tell me where he had been taken. My mother had been in the room and other people I trusted. I woke up feeling very sad with a sinking feeling in my chest /stomach.

I believe this dream is about love that you gave birth to easily. Then you trusted others to care for it as you did yourself – but they were not, and probably are not to be trusted.  As the dream says, the examination was bogus. Love, like a new born baby, is such a precious gift you need to protect it with all you can. Your inner baby is not lost forever, so reclaim it.

Example: I am back at the college at which I took my degree in English in 1942. 1 wander between the four floors and along the lengthy corridors, searching for my old room. I feel panicky when I can’t find it. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m about to take an exam and I’m terrified of failing. I’m a retired teacher, still doing private coaching. I am a childless divorcee. I live alone with my cat but have a devoted male friend who is an artist. My hobby is writing. I’ve had some success but desperately want more before it’s too late. At present nothing has been accepted, I suffer writer’s block and am losing heart.

I have come across similar dreams so many times. What happens is that the years in University or school and the taking of exams sets up a pattern of feeling. It can be a feeling of uncertainty, of fear of not succeeding, or failure – or other responses to facing the course. Once this pattern is set up it will be repeated every time you feel stressed – or whatever you felt during exams. So you dream it to remind you that you are feeling the same response. It is an instinctive way of warning you, but it is only a reminder.

What you can do that might be helpful is to sit quietly and remember as clearly as you can the feelings that occurred at university. Then talk to your self and the instincts within you saying something like, “Okay, you and I met some difficult situations back then, and we have developed a conditioned response. Now I know it was made a habit by repeated exposure, but understanding it we can change it. So we do not need to feel the feelings we felt then every time we meet them. That only makes us worse and feel at a low. So every time those feelings emerge we will change it to feeling good about ourselves.” See Conditioned Reflexes

It is also worthwhile to sit and visualise yourself back in the dream and change the ending so you get out of the building. You may need to repeat it for it to establish a new way. See Secrets of Power Dreaming


Examined by doctor: Concern over health; desire for attention. See: Test.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the exam about, and how do I feel about it?

Is this about a coming situation in which I feel I will be judged?

Am I examining my own ability in some way?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldLife’s Little SecretsThe Slow Breath


Excrement

Very often expresses feelings of repulsion or distaste, or emotions or parts of experience that need to be released or let go of. Like digested food, faeces can represent experience that was relevant and enjoyable at the time of consumption, but needs to be let go of to release tension or internal discomfort.

But very often it shows the shit we carry around in us – our emotional attitudes and views that are so much rubbish that we need to clear up and admit.

Example: As I write this an inner realisation has come to me which I cannot yet explain intellectually. It is that holding onto my faeces in this way is a holding on to one’s creativeness or outgoingness. It would block one’s ability to express oneself in the world. I didn’t see why or how, but the idea certainly links with some of the dreams and then gives an interpretation later. The dream of looking for the toilet; the block of capable outer expression, etc, due to a problem in connection with the abdomen.

Also in connection with the above meaning, some dreams about faeces link with the body being clogged with toxins. This might show in dreams where faeces are everywhere and interfering with normal activities. Toxins might arise in the body through poor food, or through an allergy to something like wheat. So these dreams might be suggesting the physical need to have a healthy bowel. See: kasatkin.

Because babies often play with their faeces, and have a feeling connection with this to do with their self expression and self-giving, in dreams that show this it could refer to an infant level of exploration or self expression.

From infancy we gradually learn to consciously control our bowel movements, and so excrement can depict either how we are controlling what we hold within us, or the need to release it. Control, flowing, or lack of control are therefore very linked with excrement dreams, and often with the way we deal with money or how we give of ourselves. The Incan description of gold was ‘excrement of the gods’! See: toilet.

Sometimes: Personal creativity; being able to let go of what you don’t need – so can link with money and generosity; the primal level of our being; sensuality, intense pleasure and infant sexuality. Shit can of course produce wonderfully rich fertiliser.

If shitting on someone or something: Expressing desire to belittle them or to feel one’s superiority; heaping unjust accusations on someone; bringing something which appeared powerful into perspective.

Idioms: In the shit; feeling shitty; talking a lot of shit/crap; being shat on; being a shit; sometimes life is a bucket of shit and the handle is inside; a pinch of coon shit; up shit creek; that’s a crock (of shit); in deep shit; dump on; take a dump; the shit hit the fan; wouldn’t say shit if her mouth was full of it; get your shit together; shit or get off the pot; happy as a pig in shit; shitting bricks; shit list.


Useful questions and hints:

Are there feelings I need to let go of?

Am I living in a way suggestive of being in a pig pen?

Does the dream suggest I am over controlling what comes out of me?

See Learning to Allow Yourself Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Execution

See: Death.

Exhibition

Intimate self revelation or what is appreciated and honoured. There may also be a suggestion of choice, or looking for something.

An exhibition is also about exposure to what is being exhibited, and therefore a fuller consciousness of it.

Example: Later, I go to a zoo. It is a place I have been before. This time though when I look at the monkeys, I find they have all been changed to human beings; that the monkeys are outside, looking at the human beings inside. I am startled and stare at the human beings – especially a girl with a low cut dress – and someone outside with me asks what I am looking at. He seems insulted that I am staring at these people. I start to walk away and he follows me. He is an Australian and when he finds out that I am an American and that I have been to the zoo before and I tell him that I think the exhibit is very clever, he becomes very friendly. We walk back to the exhibit together.

Useful questions and hints:

Is this an exhibition of my own work, or a revealing of my inner life?

What do I feel about what is exhibited?

Am I involved other than an observer, and if so in what way?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams Avoid Being Victims

Exit

A way out of a situation; a way to escape or moving toward death. See: door.

An exit such as on a freeway/motorway suggests either branching off from a main flow in the direction you were taking in life, or perhaps a nearness to a goal you have been ‘driving’ toward.

An exit from a subway/underground is an emergence from being involved in unconscious habits and directions toward more awareness of what you are doing and where you are going. Above ground you can look around and choose direction – below ground you going to wherever the train is headed.

An exit can also be an entrance as in the example, or an exit from one situation into another

Example: I have come across a cave dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found treasure in the cave.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.

Example: Whilst walking home with a boy we reached the end of the path. However there was an exit leading to an empty dark fairground. My friend ran off, leaving me frightened. I ran away and found a church. Inside a service was underway and I sat down. I realised though that everyone around me were zombies. A man pointed a gun at me and I somehow escaped.

It seems the dreamer may have had a difficulty with a boyfriend leaving her, or the fear of it. This has made her doubt the ready made images about love and marriage. The dark fairground has in it the sense of looking behind the bright lights to see the reality back of the glamour of things. I don’t know what age she is, but she is wondering what life has to offer you without a male. Because of those feelings she wonders if there is comfort in traditional religion. But the people she sees using this approach are, in her mind, doing things automatically without questioning. But the end of the dream is important though. It suggests the whole dream arose out of her hidden fears of being hurt in a relationship.


Useful questions and hints:

What am I exiting from and what to?

Do I manage to find and make an exit?

Where am I heading when I take the exit?

Am I trying to escape from someone of something?

See The Dream as a CodeTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming


Exorcise Exorcism

Having spent most of my adult life exploring the far out reaches of the mind, the unconscious and the superconscious, having experienced psychic attacks and exorcism, I feel it needs understanding of some of the basic mental functions to really see it for what it is. And it is not how it is dramatised on films to scare people.

First of all the dream process produces much more than dreams at night. The same process also produces visions and waking lucid dreams. See Visions and waking dreams

Another thing that can arise from the dream process is spontaneous or unwilled movement and emotions. These are exactly the things shown in films about possession, where a person is apparently controlled by unknown or ‘evil’ forces or spirits. To begin to understand the workings of this you will need to read We are Paralyzed and the sections following it.

Something also that many people fail to realise about dreaming is virtually every drama and image in dreams, visions and spontaneous movement and experience, is a projection form the dreamer themselves and is not even about the people they dream about. See Dreams and Symbols

The following examples will explain this further. The next example is given by a man who was experiencing spontaneous movement and emotion.

Example: It developed into an idiot like babbling. There were no formed words, and chattering on and shouting in a mindless way, with saliva dripping from the mouth. I thought at first this was expressing madness or idiocy, but it went on from there.

The body posture was slightly crouched, the babbling and grunting developing. After a long time it became more intense. My left hand covered my face, and my eyes looked through my fingers at the group. With idiot and leering laughs, the quality of a mindless and evil desire was manifesting. It was the desire for power over people and things. The right-hand pointed at the group, expressing manipulation.

Now the spirit began to feel threatened and called out, “Oh. Oh. Oh.” Its crouching leering postures slowly changed into one of being bent double, hands touching the floor. It called out a number of things – Satan, Durga, and other words I cannot recall. It seemed to be calling for help, but was gradually being “cast out”. As this happened my body crumpled up and eventually fell to the floor. There was more crying out and a little thrashing about. The words, “Over. Over. Over” was said a number of times. Then the body relaxed.

The man who experienced this went on to say, “I lay there for quite some time, then was led to stand up by allowing the spontaneous movement I had learned in LifeStream to continue. As I stood, inner realisations came to me. What had been cast out was a creature I had myself brought into being by my own desire for power expressed in my life. It was a thought form, or desire form, which was created out of my own energies, and then fed on them. It also, in subtle and hidden ways, manipulated my actions to fulfil its own mindless and base impulses. I realised there was no external evil or devil. It is what we create with our own fears, our own desires and plans to grab money or sex that have awful effects within us.

What usually happens when a person experiences such things is that are either terribly fearful that the devil itself has got hold of them, or else interpret it as possession as seen by an ancient viewpoint developed by religious thinking. So they either stop the – dream – process happening or else their view of it, exactly as with the dream process, acts as a mirror of their inner world.

Example: Had a very unusual dream last night. I was in an outdoor environment. It seemed a bit dark, or maybe morbid is the right word. I was with other people but none of them stood out to remain in memory. There was a definite awareness though of being near to a place that was haunted, and that a man was in trouble in the haunted place.

I decided to go and see if I could sort out the problem. I walked down a slope to where the centre of the haunting existed. It was an open space with an old double-decker bus in it. The only person on the bus was a middle-aged man who was sitting on the top deck leaning out of a window on the right hand side of the bus. I stood beneath him and looked up. He was staring in a glazed way and didn’t see me. I could see and feel that he was being hit by fantasies or hallucinations by whatever was the source of the haunting. This invasion of his mind was grabbing his attention so fully that he wasn’t aware of his surrounding or of me. I was sure that if he went any deeper into this mind stuff he wouldn’t be able to pull out. I waved my hand in his line of vision and banged my hand on the bus to make a noise and get his attention. At first it didn’t seem as if I would bring him out of it, but after a while he looked at me.

I shouted at him to pull out. I said that he had a wife and some more years of his life to live, so why lose himself into this entrancement. This didn’t seem to grab him so I shouted again and said that he would eventually slip into this empty mind world anyway – at death – so why not live with his wife the remaining years of his life. I was sure that if he lost awareness he would let himself starve.

I was aware that what he desired was to slip away into the void, into the awareness of the one life in which he lost any awareness of self. But I banged and shouted and he became more ‘present’. I then felt I had to confront whatever was the source of the powerful ‘haunting’ that was pulling him into the inner mind. I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type – a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out.

This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body. The creature ripped out my throat again and then dived into my body to eat it. I woke at this point and went for a pee. When I went back to sleep I carried on with the dream. The only way that felt as if I might deal with the creature was to have the meditative state of not having any goals, and not feeling panic at it’s attacks. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.

The man started exploring his dream as in Techniques for Exploring your Dreams and says: I had been wondering about the significance of the above dream. For some reason I had not seen it as representing my own inner condition, and after the long silence a strange thing started erupting in the session.

It started with primitive sounds along with a feeling that something organic and alive yet buried was moving and trying to be recognised. It was a strange feeling because I sensed that this thing had deep connections, and as it began to move in me I felt it was linked with strands in my body and mind.

The sounds of struggle came from me – an animal struggling to be released. Then slowly the sounds of struggle became a torrent of curses and swearing. To sum it all up I was saying and feeling and recognising how my mother had raised me in such a way that had caused me ears of pain and confusion I reacted to it by becoming alone, a loner who struggled to be independent. That wasn’t news to me, but the connections with the wanting to be lost in a form of Buddhistic trance were. There was hatred pouring out of me particularly towards women partners. But it was deeply buried, and a form of long term anger. I said that I had never really given myself to any woman, but always remained separate inside. Then I would leave them as a vengeance against my mother /any lover instead of staying to sort out the difficulty. Of course there was always a valid excuse for doing it.

Gradually the outburst ended and I sought to see if I could ask that part of me to learn to love women more fully. I felt that the first step would be honesty in any relationship. I would need to say that my background of experience makes me very independent – I can come and go easily.

But I feel as if the thing that I released was a part of me, not a dominating part of me, but something that has been causing mischief in me. I had buried it because of the pain I felt and also because I unconsciously didn’t want people to know what that part of me could do if a woman related warmly to me.

The above are the usually hidden causes of possession and exorcism.

Exploring Exploration

You can explore the land/the world, an idea, a question or a project, you can explore yourself or your dreams, you can explore sex. Or you can explore the effects of medecines or drugs, and of course your imagination and creativity. You can explore different ways of looking or behaviour, even your gender.

This is usually about seeking more information or trying to understand a personal situation, your response to things, or your history.  Often it is seen in your dreams when you are involved in self examination in any way. But it could equally come from intellectual or passionate researching of a subject.

In particular exploring a cave or cellar shows you getting deeply into your previously unconscious life.

Exploring a wilderness, desert or countryside is more about finding your way through the many possible choices in your life, or finding how to move through or from a situation you are in. Exploring the unknown is about creativity and fearlessness.


Useful questions:

What am I exploring and what feelings or life situation do I associate with it?

If I find anything what is it and what do I feel?

Am I alone in this or with others, and in what way?

See Life ChangesLife’s Little SecretsSecrets of Power Dreaming



Exploring a dream

Mostly we hear about analysing dreams, as if they are something we could penetrate by thinking about, or being analytical about a dream. In writing about this elsewhere I have said this is rather like thinking that you understand what the experience of swimming is like simply by thinking about it, but never having being in the water. Being in the water is a very powerful physical sensation, it is an emotional experience and it requires the learning of a skill to move around in that element and survive. Dreams are very much like that. If you enter the emotional and sensory aspects of dreams rather than simply think about them, it is often a very deeply felt experience. There are certain skills you need to learn to be able to do that, to move around in dreams, and learn from them. For further information about this subject first see Peer Dream Work which is the very best method.

Then see Interpretation passion core experiencesand Techniques for Exploring your Dreams also Exploring a Dream By Brenda Blake

Exploring your dreams You can find a number of ways to can gain further insight into your dreams through the following features. They have been placed in order to give graded instruction.

 

Being the Person or Thing – Practical Techniques to explore their meaning – Secrets of Power Dreaming  Dream ProcessingPeer Dream Exploration – InterpretationAnimals As Dream FiguresCharacters and People in Your DreamsHouse in Your Dreams – Peer Dreamwork – Power DreamingA Master Class in Dreams.

ArchetypesBirth dreams during pregnancyBrain hemispheresBrain levelsCarrying the dream forward –– Dream lovers –– ESP and dreamsHealing action within dreamsHypnosis and dreamsIncubating dreamsIntuition in dreams –– Lucidity the new frontierThe man in your dreamsMeeting in dreamsMenstruation and dreamsMovements during sleepMyths legends and fairy talesNear death experiencesNightmaresNight terrorsNutrition and dreams Out of body experiencesParalysis while asleepPast lives in dreams –- People in your dreamsPhilosophy of dreamsPlace or environmentPlot of the dreamPossession and dreamsPrecognitionPregnancy dreamsPremenstrual tension and dreamsProphetic dreamsReincarnation and dreamsRelationship and dreamsRocking during sleep Secret of the universe dreamsSecrets Learned From DreamsSelf regulation and fantasySequential dreams Serial dreamsSeries of dreamsSex and dreamsSex while asleepSleep apnea Sleep walking –– Spiritual life in dreamsSub personalitiesSleep talking Teenage girls love dreamsTeenage male dreamsTelepathyTime and dreamsUnconsciousVirtual reality and dreamsWord analysis of dreamsYoga and dreams.

 

 

Exploring your dreams – Steps in Deeper Understanding

Many people see dreams as nothing more than fanciful, but dreams are more than dreams. If you think of dreams as similar to an icon on your computer desktop, you can arrive at a fuller insight. This is because each dream image holds enormous data, emotional response, and created patterns of behaviour. So in considering any dream image you need to remember you are in touch with a full surround databank of fantastic information about you, your past and your possibilities through the dimension of dreams. You can interact with this information by exploring it in the right way.

As an example I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me very full memories of being abroad, and that the shirt was part of those memories, and he wasn’t prepared to say what they were as they were so personal.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with every thing, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

This is why Dream Dictionary, a revolutionary new app that is something I hope can help you unravel that wonderful background of information in your dreams. Dream Dictionary contains an entire library of searchable terms that you’ll be able to reference anywhere you have your cell phone with you.  A world where we know more about ourselves through our dreams would undoubtedly bring a better life-skills to us all

Dream Dictionary contains an entire library of searchable terms that you’ll be able to reference anywhere you have your cell/mobile phone with you.

You can find a number of ways to can gain further insight into your dreams through the following features. Firstly by typing in what you what to find in the search. Then you can search the incredible riches of the Dream Encylopedia. Some suggestions have been placed in order to give graded instruction.

Dream ProcessingPeer Dream ExplorationTalking As Acting on Your DreamAnimals As Dream Figures Characters and People in Your Dreams House in Your Dreams Power DreamingYour Guru the DreamHere is an audio example of Tony exploring a dream: Conversation.

The many things dreams are can show you

Archetypes – pregnancy and dreamsBrain hemispheresBrain levels – Dream lovers –– ESP and dreamsHealing action within dreamsHypnosis and dreamsIncubating dreamsIntuition in dreams –– Lucidity the new frontierThe man in your dreams Meeting in dreamsMenstruation and dreamsMovements during sleepMyths legends and fairy talesNear death experiencesNightmaresNight terrorsNutrition and dreams Out of body experiencesParalysis while asleepPast lives in dreams –- People in your dreamsPhilosophy of dreamsPlace or environmentPlot of the dreamPossession and dreamsPrecognitionPregnancy dreamsPremenstrual tension and dreamsReincarnation and dreamsRelationship and dreamsRocking during sleep Secret of the universe dreamsSecrets Learned From DreamsSelf regulation and fantasySequential dreams Serial dreamsSeries of dreamsSex and dreamsSex while asleepSleep apnea Sleep walking –– Spiritual life in dreamsSub personalitiesSleep talking

Explosion

Anger; dramatic release of energy in making changes in self expression; social upheaval; fear; orgasm.

Because our ego is only a small thing compared with the immense uncosicious forces of life that are underlying it, an explosion of growth or destruction can occur from the unconscious which may destroy all we have built in our conscious self as Life readies us for change and growth.

Example: I watched an insect emerging from what appeared to be its chrysalis – shaped a little like a mermaid’s purse. As it emerged it was vibrant with life, movement and colour. In fact it shifted its shape so quickly I was amazed at how it moved in and out of shapes as it adjusted to its final form. It had a beautiful gold barred design on its back, like a symbol – perhaps a bit like one of the zodiacal symbols. I watched another insect doing the same thing, and began to realise how life was bursting forth in the garden. Looking up in the hedge I noticed a large pod expanding on top of a stalk. Its was visibly getting larger, like a balloon. Suddenly it opened, forming many stalks with leaves and small rose like buds. Another pod was doing the same. As I watched I noticed a young woman nearby. I called to her to witness this extraordinary explosion of growth and life – a dynamic extravagant springtime of activity. She didn’t appear to really see. I was very moved though, and stood leaning against what felt like a wall, perhaps the wall of a house, and wept at the beauty. I started to restrain my emotions, as the woman did not share them, but then thought I wouldn’t hold back because of her. Andrew.

Here is an example of destructive forces at work as one gets ready for change.

Example: We could hear bombs dropping and exploding. We were just carrying on with our normal activities though. Then I was standing near a big floor to ceiling glass window. I heard a bomb whistling down and it landed just outside. It exploded and the whole house disintegrated, glass was flying around and I was flying through the air from the explosion. I felt like the explosion had taken place in my head and blasted my brains, and I thought although the people near me had got it pretty badly too, that the children, being nearer to the ground, would have avoided the worst of the blast. It was a horrific mess and I knew I had been killed. This didn’t seem to worry me though. At this point I was waking from sleep and found myself thinking I had kept awareness through the whole situation, so there was part of me – an awareness – which did not or had not died. I was left wondering – is that what happens after death, and can one communicate with others in that state? H. C.

This interesting bomb dream occurred just as HC was entering menopause and great changes occurred in herself and her life. A break-up began to occur with her husband as well as external changes in work. So the death suggests the end of the life she knew up till then. The awareness that did not die shows HC experiencing her central self, her core self, that does not die and is not the external personality or body that constantly changes and can die – in other words undergo massive change.

Another side of explosive force in ones life is given below.

Example: Dreamt I was on a bomb site. I found old shells from the war. I was interested in them and dug them up, but felt that they might explode. Throwing them to one-sided I crawled away sheltering from expected explosions. None came, only smoke. Then a friend offered a basement to Chinese restaurant owner. It was enormous, with great possibilities. I began to work in the basement. Brian.

As Brian explores his inner life through his dreams he comes across damage that occurred in his childhood and youth. The war was the personal inner conflicts he experienced. Meeting these was not as difficult as he had expected. Then, in doing this a whole new area of possibility opened up – the basement, an area of himself that had previously remained unconscious.


Useful questions and hints:

What is my reaction to the threatened or actual explosion?

Have I felt inwardly under pressure lately or near to emotional release?

Can I allow this explosion by letting my body and feelings express it?

See  Interpretation and the passionExploring Dreams -Techniques to use –  Life’s Little Secrets

Ex’s

Ex’s play an enormous part in many people’s dreams. The reason is that dreams about ex’s are very tricky for several reasons. To start with most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love or interact with someone. In other words because we memorise the feelings and responses we felt; and because we learn through our experiences, we are changed by them. The memories and the learning are part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences, along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship.

Example: The details behind this were that I recognise that my telling my partner frequently that I don’t need her, that I am independent, that I don’t really want to live with her, was the way of hitting at her to test her response. I realise that I am so frightened that the person I love will betray me or leave me, that in a way I challenge them to leave me to see if it is going to happen. Of course this can actually cause the breakup to happen. I know this is a classic pattern in relationships but that doesn’t mean to say I am free of it.

A very beautiful and deep dream (Love was written in blood) can be seen at least in two ways. The usual one is to see it as about a physical partner that is there for you to find. Another more likely view is to see it as the you that you lost without warning – the being that will make you whole and let you know what real love is. But love is learnt and becomes habits at the early experiences – as a baby – of being loved, abandoned, left of abused. All those are very real ways leading you to painful emotions in the present relationship.

Traditions from the past and our own dreams if explored, show that we inhabit a body which is polarised as one expression of gender – male or female. But the ‘we’ that experiences life in a body is a whole being, female and male. Being in a body leads us to long for wholeness which we feel we do not have, and so long for a partner of the opposite sex to feel whole. But of course it is only an illusion of wholeness and has to be sought again and again by having sex. But that is natures or the instinctive way to procreation. See Archetype of the Animus and Archetype of the Anima

This search for wholeness in many cases. Sets up a bloody conflict between the sense of being in a body and the longing for the real love of wholeness. Look around you at the bloody mess that comes for such deep longing for a partner –  amount of ex’s you see, even in those who have ‘everything’.

One of the great and often self-defeating identifications is that with our body. If we accept that dreams portray in images our conception of self, then dreams suggest that our identity largely depends upon having a body, its gender, health, quality, skin colour, the social position we are born into, and our relationship with others. In fact, we know that if a person loses their legs, becomes paralysed, loses childbearing ability, becomes blind or is made redundant, they face an identity crisis. Yet despite all of that they still exist as a person, and if we realise that early we can avoid all the pain and distress caused by a complete identification with our body and our ex’s.

Even an absent parent is a huge figure in our inner life. In dreams we meet them again and again in ex’s, in lovers lost or in the figure of parents. For we are not dreaming about them but the memories, hurts, lessons and experiences stored within us. Everyone we have known are in fact figures of our inner world. To become whole, to love ourselves we must meet, acknowledge and integrate the people we carry within us.

Example: I am not pregnant, but dreamt I was at my ex’s place, with whom I spent a night together 3 months ago (1.5 yrs after our breakup), and he’s cold/avoiding me ever since (claiming he’s seeing someone). In the dream, I was not pregnant with him, and was convinced I was about to deliver around that day.

Example:  It started from a month ago, things started to change. Not so bad, but it’s just only the dream that he has been having lately. He has been having the same dream this past a month! He talks in his sleep. He says his EX’s name over and over again, and then some words too. I love him to death, and he loves me too! I have no other problem with him. Ohh well, few months ago, we had few, but we got through it.

Sometimes we get stuck, unable to move on, because of pains linked with the Ex. Here is a way a man found to freedom.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So, the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

But that led me to think about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother, a relationship he never escaped from. Then I realised that I was also linked with Ros, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Ros – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the Star Beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything.”

See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Eyes

This is about How we SEE the world and ourselves. Although eyes are not mentioned much in the collection of dreams used for data in this book, SAW, SEE, SEEING, LOOK and LOOKING, constitute the highest number of mentions. In a computer word count of 1000 dreams, these words were mentioned 1077 times. Feel, feeling, felt, came second with 855 hits. So dreams are predominantly a looking at and seeing activity, in the sense of insight and awareness.

Fundamentally eyes are about awareness – seeing and being seen. These aspects of relating to the world and others have enormous impact in our life. What we see, and how we are seen, leave great depths of feeling. Someone I know of saw his mother kill his father. That image will never ever leave him.

In many dreams the eyes represent our understanding, or how we ‘see’ the world, our view of things or other people. This is very personal. Also, they depict intelligence, our ability to give attention, and where we focus that attention, along with our boundaries of awareness.

Eyes are used in many ways in dreams. As these quotes from people’s dream descriptions show, eyes can represent the soul or psyche in its many moods – ‘dark deep eyes’; ‘desperation in its eyes’; ‘shining eyes’; ‘impersonal eyes’; ‘staring eyes’; ‘eye to eye’. So in most dreams the eyes display the inner feelings or situation of the person or yourself.

Here is another description of eyes that tells so much.

She looked at me quickly. Her eyes were very brown, but quite round. “I was very much in love with somebody, ” she said. Her eyes were wide open looking at me, and her mouth was trying to carry on speaking, but the weight of emotion behind what she wanted to say carried the words to her eyes, where they began to come out as tears.

Blindness: Not being aware, not wanting to see something – usually about oneself.

Eye Lashes: I have only seen a few dreams that mention eye lashed, and these either show a woman’s sense of her own good looks, or the loss of an attractive feature.

Example: This guy in a TV audience is telling how exciting his life is living with this black girl sitting next to him. As he is talking excitedly all this fake hair – side burns, eyebrows, eye lashes, etc. – falls off. She is laughing, embarrassed. He goes on talking without noticing.

Loss of sight or difficulty in right eye: Not seeing what is going on in the outside world.

Loss of sight or difficulty in left eye: Not seeing what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives, behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

Lack of eye contact: Avoidance of intimacy; feeling ashamed or bowed.

Closed eyes: Introversion or avoidance of contact; not wanting to see. It is a huge step into your inner world because you have shut out a major sense organ for sensing the physical world.

In the Sixties Donovan sang a song called ‘There is an Ocean’.  To quote some of the words, he says the ocean is, “The abode of Angels, the mystical Promised Land, The one and only Heaven, the God of man, Is but the closing of an eyelid away.”

That ocean is just an eye blink away.  When you close your eyes you are in the huge ocean of consciousness.  Of course you are never out of it.  But with open eyes and ears, you may be completely unaware of its enormous depths and dimensions.  Even with eyes closed you may be lost in the choppy ocean surface waves of thought and emotions.  So many impressions claim awareness, apparently of enormous importance.  Urges gusting from hormones, from deeply etched habits, claim attention.

But if we you can find your way through those surface influences, as important or potent as they may be, we you discover another dimension of our experience.  It is one we all know when we surrender our desires and thoughts, our conscious motivations and urges in sleep.  Then that other dimension speaks to us in dreams and visions.  And in it there are depths or heights, forms of experience beyond the images and emotions even of dreams.  And to go consciously and willingly into that realm is to transform it.

Hair in eye: This suggests some sort of irritant or irritation connected with what you can see or have seen. If it is the right eye it means something interfering with what is going on in the outside world. If the left eye it is an interference with what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives or behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

The following example shows how eye contact can change a relationship, as if the eyes are in themselves a form of contact and touching.

Example: ‘ I saw a young soldier with a gun, but as our eyes met we were attracted to each other, and he put his arm round me.’ Pauline B.

Example: ‘I was dimly aware of a biggish black bird that came down close beside us on the step and pecked at the baby’s eye, then it flew off. The eye was gone completely.’ Heather C.

Heather’s dream shows the eye depicting the ‘I’ or identity. In fact her sense of self was damaged in infancy. Therefore ‘eye’ can often be a play on words meaning ‘I’.

Many eyes: This is usually about feeling watched or noticed, often by a god like awareness, either that or an audience or crowd looking at you.

Example: So I stood and watched the bubbles rise, and saw in each one of them an ‘I’, watching me like many eyes – a reflection of me looking back at me. All the lonely bubbles separated from each other, individual I’s, looking at me only because I was looking at them. They existed only because I existed, and knowing that I was their God, suddenly I loved them. Then suddenly, and with some shock I realised that I was a bubble, and only existed because a godlike awareness had caused my existence and was looking at me.

Example: The image was of a smart very confident and aggressive young woman. She was attractive and attracted but her approach was one of attack, so to have a relationship I needed to fight her. What I appear to be facing is that I have the sex drive, but what I am facing is a monster. In fact I had the image of a huge spider that could come out from hiding and drag you helpless into its lair, its many eyes shining.

Opening the eyes: If you have had your eyes closed for a long period, opening them in dreams represent opening them to a new realisation or experience, especially if you woke from sleep. It shows you have woken to new realisations and abilities.

Winking: A wink can suggest a communication that is hidden or only meant for a particular person or group.

Idioms: All eyes; an eye for an eye; apple of his eye; bat an eye; beauty in the eye of; believe my eyes; black eye; bright eyed; catch your eye; can’t you see; cry your eyes out; eyeball this; eagle eyed; evil eye; eye of the storm; eye opener; eyes glazed over; eyes peeled; evil eye; feast your eyes on; fresh pair of eyes; give her the eye; got my eye on; I see; I saw it with my own eyes; sheep eyes; keep an eye open; keep an eye out for; lay eyes on; one in the eye; meet eye to eye; more than meets the eye; out of the corner of my eye; turn a blind eye; keep your eyes open; easy on the eyes; right before my eyes; turn a blind eye; sight for sore eyes; wink of an eye; you must be blind; your mind’s eye.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am ‘seeing’ or understanding in my dream – can I define it?

In what way are eyes shown in this dream, and what idiom or life situation does that suggest?

What feelings or unspoken words are being expressed here?

Try Exploring Dreams -Techniques to useSecrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

 

Letter F

Facade

In some house dreams, great stress is given to the front or façade of the house. Sometimes it crumbles away revealing what is within; sometimes it is painted or changed, and so on. The façade thus represents your front shown to the world, your social self that may hide quite a different interior. See: house.

This is the more public or expressed part of your nature, or attitudes you use to meet ‘the world’; a ‘front’ or façade, used to create an impression, or the point of stress where you as a person contact others and meet impacts, and so are more vulnerable. For instance the back of a house or building would be a  more private area. So a front door would be where you meet and decide whether to allow someone into your life.  Your social self or face.

Dropping the façade is about the attitudes or feelings we may mask our real emotions with in everyday life – for instance a child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure.

A great secret is that behind the façade we may erect to tell people who we are, each of us want to be capable of loving and supporting at least one other human being. We want at least one other person to be glad we exist.

Example: We’re curious, so one of us goes up and opens the door and steps through. Then says, “What a joke! There’s nothing over here at all, it’s just a door to nothing!” See, the door isn’t set in part of the building, as if multiple stories, it’s just somewhat more than door-high, maybe 1 story, and then sky. But you can’t see there’s no roof. And there’s a space nearby, a break in the wall, and the one who went through the door steps through that, showing it’s just a façade. We all find this curious and funny, so we go through and find a big stadium-like space between office buildings.

Example: I dreamt I was in a place far from home, yet it seemed to be where I was staying.  A small room. My brother (who I’ve been estranged from since childhood except for unavoidable family holidays, at which time we “act” pleasant enough and put on a normal exterior façade of “family”) and his girlfriend showed up in the room with me.  They point to writing on the wall which shows I’ve let 17 days pass after his birthday and didn’t send any acknowledgement in that time.  They feel I’m bad and point to this as evidence.  This is funny becuase I feel he’s doing this to point the finger back at me and deflect away the reason I’ve avoided him all these years.

Example: There was the one side where everything was wonderful as my mother told me it was. This was a sort of façade, a superficial façade where I loved my mother, she loved me, she was wonderful and everything was happy. The other side, the side which I couldn’t face in my conscious mind, was this unhappiness underneath, which my conscious mind under the drug told me was so.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What impression do I have of this façade – or what impression might other people have?

Is any change going on – and if so does that express my personal situation or feelings?

Do I connect or feel repulsed by the façade?

See Processing DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingDefence Mechanisms and Resistances

Face

How your face appears in a dream points to how you see yourself, your self image, the fears or feelings, even anxieties you have about how you appear to others and yourself. It can also show the expression of or hiding of inner feelings and attitudes. It can be defined in two words – ‘identity’ and ‘communication’. This is because not only do most of us believe we are how we look, but also through our face we communicate to others what we feel and think. See Dreams are Virtual Realities

The face, especially if you are looking at yourself in a mirror, can also mean that you are facing yourself – facing up to yourself, or need to, ‘face yourself’. This dream often occurs when you are ready to really look at who you are and what facets of yourself you might be ignoring or even hiding. It is a sort of seld assessment or self analysis; but it might only be reflecting an aspect of you that needs attention and is usually about your inner world. See Inner World

Someone else’s face: How you see them and how you relate to them. What you feel and think suggest what your opinion of them is, and how you relate to them inwardly. The face could also point to what feelings and memories of them you carry within you. See Characters and People in Dreams

Blushing: Unconscious response to things. Feelings that you usually keep hidden, or are not usually aware of yourself. Often about strong feelings about another person you really like but are not showing, except for blushing. Something wrong with face: Sense of not being adequate; fear of how others see you. If it is someone else’s face it probably depicts how you feel about them, or your intuitions about them.

Changing ones face or head: Changing ones attitudes or decision about something; being uncertain or ‘two faced’. Having different aspects of your personality or seeing another side of yourself. Change the wording to fit seeing someone else with changing face – your to their.

Hiding ones face: Being ashamed of something; low confidence or uncertainty; being afraid of how others see you; hiding motives or feelings.

No face: This is probably what is called a shadow figure if you see it on another person – parts of your nature or behaviour that you usually keep hidden or do not admit to. If you are faceless then it could suggest either that you realise your real self is pure potential without particular characteristics, or you feel a fear of about loss of identity or uncertainty about who you are.

Example: Was looking in a mirror. Suddenly a shadow appeared on it. At first the shadow seemed threatening or frightening. Then I saw it was only a directive, a face,  figure with its arm and hand extended as if pointing. Looking behind me I saw that the shadow was cast by a featureless cat or animal. That is, its head was completely smooth, without eyes or ears. At first I thought it could not see or hear, but then realised it must be able to, as it was pointing to a man out in the rough sea. The man had a lifejacket on, so was in no immediate danger. But the sea was very rough. I went out and brought him in, dried him off, put him in my house to recover, then phoned the police in case they needed to know.

Here the dreamer was looking at himself in the mirror, and was directed to realise that although there wasn’t any immediate danger, he was fighting against heavy emotional forces. The dream tends to not directly tell us about ourselves, but uses another person of event to point things out to us. See Characters and People in Dreams and Exploring Dreams -Techniques to use

But being faceless in the role of a helper, guide or nurse can have a much deeper meaning. It suggests that it is an aspect of you that has given up its egotistic state of being important, a leader or even a saint. As such it becomes a Christ like figure who becomes a servant of Life – washing peoples feet. Such a dream figure is worth listening to.

Idioms: Blue in the face; egg on my face; face down; face the facts; face the music; face up to; face value; fill your face; flat on one’s face; face lift; fly in the face of; get out of my face; in your face; keep a straight face; long face; poker face; pull a face; save face; shut your face; two faced; wipe that smile off your face; written all over your face. See: head.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being expressed or felt here?

If there is change what is the change moving toward or expressing?

What character, qualities, or lack of them does the face depict?

See Secrets of Power DreamingEmotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working With

Factory

If you work in a factory, then it probably reflects feelings or issues to do with your work. But is also suggests things you do or the way you have lived that are by rote, habitual working attitudes, conformity or cooperation with the group or society. Your habitual, ‘mass produced’ reactions to life that might lack individuality. The factory might also refer to your body, its productiveness, industry, and its activities such as digestion.

The factory can at times indicate your productiveness, what you are creating with your life energy. Or sometimes how you are working hard and in fact you need to tear down what you have done and start again because it is not productive. So see the feeling of the dream to get its message.

In some dreams the theme is about the difference and choices one makes between being someone mass producing other peoples ideas, and being creative and with ones own initiative.

Factory workers are the active energies in you that support you daily tasks and are maybe creative in their supportive action. These creative processes emerge as outward productivity if healthy.

Example: I dreamt that I had been asked to run a sort of mission hall. It was a bare tin hall, wood on the inside. It seemed to be mostly black people I had to speak to. At first I simply stood up one end of the hall and spoke to them. I felt it was hardly worth the effort. I believe I suggested they work as a team and produce a book. Again I felt it was not worth the effort.

The next week I spoke, changes had already been made in the hall. An orderly notice board was on one side of the hall. There was now a sort of rostrum to speak from, with a microphone and amplifying system that Bob Miller had made.

A black woman of middle age, who was probably half African, half Indian, came to me at the table. She had with her two books they had produced between them. They were all workers in the factories, and worked at all basic industries such as steel making, engineering etc. The book was a series of absolutely beautiful pictures showing their place in industry and society. They were wonderful made, and I could see in every page the effort and loving care, along with teamwork and the appreciation and love and respect for myself and what I was trying to do with them, that I was overcome with humility and love for them. So much so I took the woman in my arms and held her close while I wept. It was a most ecstatic moment of love between us. Then she felt slightly embarrassed and turned away.


Useful questions and hints:

Is my relationship with the factory productive or destructive?

What is being produced or worked at – and does that relate to my activities or projects?

What condition are the workers in?

See Associations Working WithSecrets of Power DreamingEmotions and Mood in Dreams


Faeces Feces Shit Poop

Considering that passing faeces is a natural function, in dreams it can suggest getting rid of emotions or toxins that need to be released or let go of. Like digested food, faeces can represent experience that was relevant but now needs to be let go of. Very often expresses feelings of repulsion or distaste.

Sometimes this indicates something you have produced and created; something visible that has come out of you. Apart from the meaning mentioned under Cesspool, that is, the corruptible parts of human nature that become manure for new growth, faeces can also represent money or riches, fertility.

In another sense, to pass faeces with feelings of relief means to be rid of worrying burdensome feelings, of tension, or sexual repression. While to be covered in faeces may suggest a fear of being outwardly repulsive, or to harbour self destructive thoughts and feelings.

To play with faeces is a return to infantile behaviour; but it may develop in the dream into a question of what to do with them, or how to use them. This is the beginning of using our basic, earthly nature, to creative ends and the shaping of self. Because babies often play with their faeces, and have a feeling connection with them to do with their self expression and self-giving, in dreams showing this it could refer to an infant level of exploration or self expression.

Example: One such memory that was a dream I experienced. I must have been very young because I had no feelings about it other than joy and pleasure. I was lying on my back cradled in my auntie Flo’s knickers and she was wearing them. Then she did a crap all over my body and that felt like a most wonderful and orgasmic feeling. I cannot remember anything beyond that wonderful feeling. As an adult I wonder whether the child mind does not have so many feelings about being dirty but revelled in the close physical contact and the shit.

Some dreams about faeces link with the body being clogged with toxins. This might show in dreams where faeces are everywhere and interfering with normal activities. Toxins might arise in the body through poor food, or through an allergy to something like wheat. So these dreams might be suggesting the physical need to have a healthy bowel.

From infancy we gradually learn to consciously control our bowel movements, and so excrement can depict either how we are controlling or the need to let go. This can link with the way we deal with money or how we give of ourselves. This is very important because we are told or taught how to control everything from our bowels, urine, anger, sexual feelings and ourselves, but we are not taught how to really let go of control and learn from life. See control; LifeStream

The Inca description of gold was ‘excrement of the gods’! Shit can of course produce wonderfully rich fertiliser.

If shitting on someone or something: Expressing desire to belittle them or to feel one’s superiority; heaping unjust accusations on someone; bringing something which appeared powerful into perspective.

Idioms: In the shit; feeling shitty; talking a lot of shit/crap; being shat on; being a shit. See: Toilet.

Useful questions:

Are there feelings I need to let go of?

Am I living in a way suggestive of being in a pig pen?

Does the dream suggest I am over controlling what comes out of me?

See: excrementAssociations Working WithExploring Dreams -Techniques to use

Failure

The feeling of failure could arise because of comparison with others; competitiveness; or because of ones high aim missing its mark. Failure is the alternative to success. So the failure might be ‘because’. See: falling; or the Because Factor described in processing dreams.

 Example: ‘I was in a race riding a horse but couldn’t get to the starting gate in time. The others were way ahead of me jumping the fences. I couldn’t catch up, and one fence I came to grew to a huge height and was like a steel barrier. I couldn’t get over it and felt a failure.’ Ron S.

Ron had not done well at school; had not taken any particular training; no steady relationship or children. In his late twenties Ron looked at his friends with steady job, married with family, and felt a failure. From the dream he realised he was viewing life as a competitive race to succeed. This was stopping him from following his real interest, psychotherapy, which his family viewed as playing games. He could ride his horse into the fields and explore. He did, by going to America, training, raising a family.

Example: Dreamt I was driving to work in my car. Just as I was opposite our house a lorry – bread – hurtled out past a parked car, didn’t seem to see me, and smashed straight over me. I was left standing by the roadside, the car smashed away from me to about the size of a bike. My right leg was slightly encased in the smashed car. I thought I had lost my leg, but it was not smashed off, only bloody and perhaps broken.  I remained standing by the road and shouted for my wife to call the ambulance. I thought I would have to be in hospital for some time and quite liked the idea, and decided to meditate while there. I seemed to have an inner realisation about the crash. I knew that my karma had led me to death at that moment, but because of the work I had done at ashram over the past eight months, this had been escaped.  Now I asked my wife to phone my emplore and tell him I would not be going to work that day.

The man who dreamt this explore it and came to this view of  his dream. Going to work is the steady, persevering work on myself – the daily facing of difficulties and patiently pressing on.

The car is, because it keeps going wrong, my sense of failure (when I dreamt this the car was in the garage for repair). It is all the past things that have driven me, or carried me along out of a sense of failure.

The bread van was a connection with work. It was the great power which had been released by the persistent facing of myself, and which now smashed away the failure drives. This left me standing on my own feet, but outwardly insecure. The injured leg was the causes of the failure drives being revealed – my psychological inability to stand strongly on my own feet – my lack of confidence.

Going to hospital meant that in the healing of these causes or root problems, much more inner peace, or chance to enter deeply into self would arise. I would have died as a person, not being able to progress beyond this point, this problem, if it hadn’t been for the many things learned in giving myself to others and teaching LifeStream. If I had not followed the inner drive to start activities at Ashram, during which I learned to open up the whole inner mess of my life. I might not in this life have gained, developed or being given the necessary qualities  and tools to melt and pass beyond the problem. Not going to work is not having to work any longer in that way. It was now my choice.

Example: As I looked at my present situation, as I was wondering how to come to terms with being a second-class sort of person in a second-class life situation. I started thinking about all the potential and mental possibilities I have touched in the past. How could it be that I had come through so many things, grown beyond myself in so many ways, and yet at the moment I am locked in this apparent decay and decline? Has all the past been an illusion? Have I declined so much that all the power and wonder of my previous life is now lost to me?

I realised I had got into a negative feedback loop. I tried to find the way out of the loop. The only way out I could find was the realisation that the loop has no end. There is only one thing to do – stop it playing. Grab it and stop the crazy record. To help with this, to help grab the thing and kill it, I obviously would have to realise it as untrue. If I still believe the loop to be playing a truth, then I only strengthen the action. So for its cessation I need to realise that my sense of self is a constantly moving fragile thing that has no stable reality. I am not ANY ONE THING – so how can I be a failure, or a success, or great, or of no account, or any thought or feeling? No one thought or feeling can represent my reality. No feeling, or sense of myself, is anything more than a sense, a feeling, it is not ME. So how could this feeling represent some sort of permanent personal reality?

 

Useful questions and hints:

What do I feel I have failed at – compared with whom?

Who has told me in the past that I have not performed well enough?

In what way is failure shown in the dream, and can I recognise that in feelings?

See Associations Working With Exploring Dreams Techniques to useLife’s Little Secrets – Martial Art of the Mind


Faint

Fainting in dreams can indicate stress great enough to produce the faint response – a way of avoiding too much emotional pain, shock, great fear or avoidance. Some esoteric techniques cause a fainting if consciousness enabling the person to be aware in the world of the dead, the unconscious, and visions. This causes the rational mind to faint, and so brings about a condition in which one can contact one source, perhaps having a profound vision. This was the method of Jalal ad-Dīn Rumi.

In the ‘Bardo Thodol’ it says, ‘The common people call this the state wherein the consciousness principle (object knowing principle) hath fainted away.’ These teachings declare that if we cannot hold onto this condition, we drop into the next level, which is experiencing the effect of the Clear Light. If this is not possible to maintain, we drop into our karmic matrix. If this is not maintained, we become lost in images and ‘dreams’ arising from the karma we have gathered, i.e. our loves, hates, fears, and aspirations.

But you can have a faint marking, a faint sound, his presence was faint, be faint of heart, faint praise or faint recall.

See: Dizzy.

Fair Hair

Your conscious thoughts, awareness, light headed. See: Hair.

Fairground

What is happening to you at the fairground often shows your feelings about the enormous range of differences and activities you observe in human society. It therefore depicts the range of human fate – rich to poor, midgets to giants; the ‘swings and roundabouts’ of life. So you may be finding your way through the many things facing you, and it is wise to keep a certain amount of suspicions of others motives.

It could also suggest you want some fun and release in your life. See Amusement Park or Arcade

Example: For the past year I have had recurring dreams about fairground rides. Occasionally members of my family, including my father have died on the rides. When I’m on the ride I’ve survived, but I can sense danger all around me. This dream is beginning to bother me. I am 15 years old.

As we try to become independent of parents we dream of seeing them dead. If it is not murder, then the dreamer sees the parent or parents die. In either case, the child still faces life without them, and this seems to be the point of such dreams. So the example illustrates the quieter form of getting rid of a parent.

The fairground can also be a testing oneself to define self image. This because some rides need a certain amount of courage or ability to face new experiences. There is also great variety here, and so might point to the varied experiences we are meeting and trying to find our way through or understand.

The fairground also represents the ups and downs of life, its variety and uncertainties. There IS danger in almost everything we do in life. But there is also opportunity and the possibility of deep satisfaction. The challenge is what YOU will make of it? How will you play your part? Will you forever feel surrounded by danger, and thereby not fully express yourself? Or can you laugh and love while the ride goes on? The following example clearly shows the difficulties we face. See also: amusement park; Market.

Example: Whilst walking home with a boy we reached the end of the path. However there was an exit leading to an empty dark fairground. My friend ran off, leaving me frightened. I ran away and found a church. Inside a service was underway and I sat down. I realised though that everyone around me were zombies. A man pointed a gun at me and I somehow escaped.

It seems the dreamer may have had a difficulty with a boyfriend leaving her, or the fear of it. This has made her doubt the ready made images about love and marriage. The dark fairground has in it the sense of looking behind the bright lights to see the reality back of the glamour of things. I don’t know what age she is, but she is wondering what life has to offer you without a male. Because of those feelings you wonder if there is comfort in traditional religion. But the people you see using this approach are, in your mind, doing things automatically without questioning. But the end of the dream is important though. It suggests the whole dream arose out of her hidden fears of being hurt in a relationship.

Useful Questions and Hints

Where there parts of the dream you had intense feelings?

Did you feel fear or pleasure in the fairground?

Were you alone or with someone?

See Processing DreamsBeing in ControlExploring Dreams Techniques to use

Fairies Fairy

Natural forces or processes, such as electricity, gravity, cohesion, magnetism. The unconscious tends to express such forces pictorially as ideas are portrayed in most dreams. But the fairy might also be a process or realisation within yourself. It can also refer to something that is completely impractical or a fantasy.

The fairy can represent the desire to believe in the magical despite a feeling of its loss. There is an overall sense in the Western mind and psyche that God does not exist – ‘God is dead’. For many people this leads either to a dry intellectual relationship with life, or a feeling of something missing. And as a society we may attempt to deal with the dryness or sense of loss with alcohol, meaningless social rituals, drugs, excessive ambition to grasp money, mental illness or breakdown between self and society. Aniela Jaffe says this is a retreat of consciousness. The ‘magic’ of a living contact with our own core self is dead. See Core

Fairy tales: Are the language of the unconscious and dreams. The meaning of them has been forgotten by modern humans, yet it is an important language because it reveals secrets of the inner life of humans that they ignore to their detriment. To quote from Dreams the forgotten Language by Erich Fromm, “For the people of the past, living in the great cultures of both East and West, there was no doubt as to the answer to this question. For them myths and dreams were among the most significant expressions of the mind, and failure to understand them would have amounted to illiteracy. It is only in the past few hundred years of Western culture that this attitude has changed. At best, myths were supposed to be naïve fabrications of the pre-scientific mind, created long before man had made his great discoveries about nature and had learned some of the secrets of its mastery.”

Unfortunately this forgetfulness has led to the crazy world we live in today, in which countless thousands are constantly on anti depressants and do not know how to cope with life.

Useful questions and hints:

In what way does the fairy exist in the dream and how do I relate to it?

Is this some sort of wish for a magical thing to be real in my life?

If I imagine myself as the fairy what do I experience?

See Inner WorldSimple TruthsClicking On – Myths Legends and Fairy Tales in Dreams

Fakir

The irrational rather than reasonable self. The part of you that does things for no logical reason. See: Guru.

Fall

Season See: Autumn.

Fall Fallen Falling Fell

Some dream researchers suggest falling is one of the main themes in dreams. In the sample used for this book, the words fall; falls; fell; falling, occur 72 times in a 1000 dreams. The words find; finds; finding; found, occur 297 times. Whereas the words connected with looking and seeing occur 1077 times.

Falling indicates a loss of confidence. a threat to usual sources of security such as relationship, source of money. Also falling can link with your social image such as loss of face or sustaining beliefs. It often involves tension, loss of social grace or moral failure – such as falling into temptation.

Sometimes it is about coming down to earth from a too lofty attitude or even sexual surrender. Apart from insecurity, falling might at times point to the dropping away from or pulling back from outer worldly activity. We can in fact ‘fall’ in love, with all its pleasures and pain, its ups and down. And as the idioms show at the end of this entry you can fall in many other ways.

During our development or growth we ‘fall’ from our mother’s womb when ripe; being dropped by a parent must be our earliest sense of insecurity and we fall many times as we learn to stand and walk. As we explore our boundaries in running, climbing, jumping and riding, falling is a big danger. At times it could mean death. Learning to walk down stairs is a great achievement for a baby, and has very real danger and fear of falling. See: stairs.

Out of this we create the ways falling is used in dreams. By learning to meet our insecurities, perhaps by using Secrets of Power Dreaming we can dare more in life. This is in essence the same as meeting the fear of falling off our bike as we learn to ride. If we never master the fear we cannot ride.

Example: ‘I am sitting in a high window box facing outwards, with my son and a friend of his on my left. I feel very scared of falling and ask my son and his friend to climb back into the building. I feel too scared to move until they shift.’ Trevor N.

At the time of the dream, for the first time in his life, Trevor was working as a full time freelance journalist. His wife was out of work and his frequency of sales low enough to cause them to be running out of money. The building behind felt like a place he had worked in on a nine to five basis, so associated it with security. Falling was fear of failure, getting in debt, dropping into the feelings of self doubt and being incapable and feeling inadequate. In fact it was just a fear, and he went on to develop secure work.

Example: ‘I was on a road which led up to the hospital I was put in at three. I felt a sense of an awful past as I looked at the road. Then I was standing on the edge of a precipice or cliff. My wife was about four yards away near the road. I stepped in an area of soft earth. It gave beneath my weight and I sank up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable and the whole area would fall. I was sinking and shouting to my wife to help me. She was gaily walking about and made light of my call for help. I cried out again. Still she ignored me. I shouted again for her help. She took no notice and I sank deeper, the ground gave way and I fell to my death.’ Barry I.

Through being put in a hospital at three without his mother, Barry had a deep seated fear that any woman he loved could desert him. The cliff edge depicts the edge upon which a lot of his life is lived – a point of insecurity about relationship. His fall is the loss of any sense of bonding between him and his wife out of this fear. His death is the dying of his feeling of love and relationship, and the pain it causes. Understanding these fears Barry was able to leave them behind in later dreams and in life.

Example: I am falling down a cliff. In the dream, I know if I hit the bottom I will die. (I’ve been told by dream ‘experts’ that this is so.) I hit the bottom – my body is splattered on the ground, but ‘I’ am floating through the air thinking ‘How strange! I’m supposed to be dead! But I’m alive and free.’ Ingmar Bergman.

Example: ‘Near where I stood in the school gymnasium was a diving board, about 20ft. off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling backwards standing up.’ Barry I.

The school is a learning situation. Once we learn to fall ‘flat on our back’ – i.e. fail – without being devastated or ‘hurt’ by it, we can be more creative. Dreams like this take falling into realms beyond fear. The following examples illustrate this.

Example: ‘As I prayed I realised I could fly. I lifted off the ground about three feet and found I could completely relax while going higher or falling back down. So it was like free fall. I went into a wonderful surrendered relaxation. My whole body sagging, floating in space. It was a very deep meditative experience.’ Sarah D.

Sarah has found an attitude which enables her to soar/dare or fall/fail without being so afraid of being hurt or dying emotionally. This gives a form of freedom many people never experience. This does not arise from denying or suppressing fears.

Example: ‘I was standing outside my mother’s house to the right. The ground in front had fallen away. The house was about to cave in. I felt no fear or horror. Instead I was thinking about new beginnings and the possibility of a new house.’ Helen B.

Helen is here becoming more independent and leaving behind attitudes and dependency.

Example: I saw that I was lying on a bed. … Observing my bed, I saw I was lying on plaited string supports attached to its sides: my feet were resting on one such support, my calves on another, and my legs felt uncomfortable. I seemed to know that those supports were movable, and with a movement of my foot I pushed away the furthest of them at my feet – it seemed to me that it would be more comfortable so. But I pushed it away too far and wished to reach it again with my foot, and that movement caused the next support under my calves to slip away also, so that my legs hung in the air. I made a movement with my whole body to adjust myself, fully convinced that I could do so at once; but the movement caused the other supports under me to slip and to become entangled, and I saw that matters were going quite wrong: the whole of the lower part of my body slipped and hung down, though my feet did not reach the ground. I was holding on only by the upper part of my back, and not only did it become uncomfortable but I was even frightened. And then only did I ask myself about something that had not before occurred to me. I asked myself: Where am I and what am I lying on? and I began to look around, and first of all to look down in the direction in which my body was hanging and whither I felt I must soon fall. I looked down and did not believe my eyes. I was not only at a height comparable to the height of the highest towers or mountains, but at a height such as I could never have imagined.

… I thought of what would happen to me directly I fell from my last support. And I felt that from fear I was losing my last supports, and that my back was slowly slipping lower and lower. Another moment and I should drop off. And then it occurred to me that this cannot be real. It is a dream. Wake up! I try to arouse myself but cannot do so. What am I to do? What am I to do? I ask myself, and look upwards. Above, there is also an infinite space. I look into the immensity of sky and try to forget about the immensity below, and I really do forget it. The immensity below repels and frightens me; the immensity above attracts and strengthens me. I am still supported above the abyss by the last supports that I have not yet slipped from under me; I know that I am hanging, but I look only upwards and my fear passes. As happens in dreams, a voice says: ‘Notice this, this is it!’ And I look more and more into the infinite above me and feel that I am becoming calm. . . .I see that I no longer hang as if about to fall, but am firmly held. I ask myself how I am held: I feel about, look round, and see that under me, under the middle of my body, there is one support, and that when I look upwards I lie on it in the position of securest balance, and that it alone gave me support before. And then, as happens in dreams, I imagined the mechanism by means of which I was held; a very natural, intelligible, and sure means, though to one awake that mechanism has no sense. I was even surprised in my dream that I had not understood it sooner. It appeared that at my head there was a pillar, and the security of that slender pillar was undoubted though there was nothing to support it. From the pillar a loop hung very ingeniously and yet simply, and if one lay with the middle of one’s body in that loop and looked up, there could be no question of falling. This was all clear to me, and I was glad and tranquil. And it seemed as if someone said to me: ‘See that you remember.’ And I awoke. Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 1879

Tolstoy’s dream is a wonderful example of the subtle balance between fear and confidence that goes on in each of us constantly. Not only does it illustrate the loss of confidence, but also how it is regained – by fixing on a different mental image. The strange and fascinating thing is that the immensity above and the immensity below are equally awe-full. Perhaps the difference between fear and confidence is that although we may be faced by the same situation, when there is a movement from the feeling of falling, or being out of control, to the feeling of rising or flying and therefore being more in control, our relationship with the world totally alters.

Example: I am walking along a road with my family. There is a large pit ahead and my mother falls into it. I wake feeling very disturbed. A few weeks later my mother died. Sarah B.

Here the pit obviously deals with Sarah’s sense of her mother’s impending death. This enabled her to face the event with greater balance when it happened.

Example: If I but let go, and let the moan of pleasure cry out, and fall, and fall, and fall, into that immensity and fall until there is no more falling – for we fall only in space in moving from one place to another; but here there is no beginning or end, no landmarks to pass or space to cover – then I will have gone wonderfully, ecstatically mad. I would be so mad I could love you; so mad I could give everything; so damn blissfully crazy I need never again hold on to anything, to anyone, to any moment, any past, any future – any – any – anything!

Occasionally: If we use fantasy and thought to get away from the ‘real’ world’ or if we use entertainment, alcohol, socialising, to escape from inner pain and conflict, when these distractions are taken away and reality breaks through again there is a sense of falling and threat. So falling may depict this fear of being faced with our own inner feelings.

 

A person falling: Wish to be rid of them; or anxiety in regard to what they represent.

A child or son falling: See: baby; son.

Falling into an abyss or pit: Fear of failure; fear of meeting ones own depths of feeling and the hidden side of oneself; anxiety about some form of death. It can often be a way of facing fears involved in falling, and can be met by imagining yourself falling into the pit or abyss. See FallingSecrets of Power Dreaming

Fear of falling: This may refer to anxiety about falling into old patterns of behaviour or past depression and difficult feelings. But of course it can still link with the other definitions of falling such as failure or lack of confidence.

House falling down: Personal stress; illness; personal change and growth due to letting old habits and attitudes crumble. Sometimes it is about leaving an old way of life behind and starting a new one.

Going fast to an edge and falling: Could mean overwork and danger of breakdown of health.

Seeing things falling or falling on you: Sense of danger or change in regard to what is represented.

If you imagine things falling at you, your instinct is to feel careful or suspicious that you might get hit. This suggests you feel anxious about ideas or events that you feel will badly influence you – maybe public attitudes or opinions.

See: house; abyss; chasm. See also: flying.

Idioms: break your fall; fall apart (at the seams); fall asleep; fall behind; fall between the cracks; fall between two stools; fall flat on my face; fall for; fall for that; fall head over heels; fall ill; fall in line; fall in love; fall into a trap; fall into my lap; fall off the wagon; fall on deaf ears; fall on your sword; fall short; fall through; fall through the cracks; fall to pieces; let the chips fall where they may; pride goeth before a fall; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; the bigger they are the harder they fall; the wheels fall off; wheels fall off; fall-out.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I actually fall in my dream, and if so what did I feel?

Was I near a hole or an abyss, or at a great height, and what was the outsome?

Did someone else fall?

Where you hurt in a fall?

See Avoid Being Victims –  Characters and People in DreamsExploring Dreams Techniques to use Facing Fear


Family and family relationships

Family represent values, attitudes and emotional or social responses we have absorbed from our family; the acceptance or tensions we feel in relationship with family contact; the support or pain we feel from parents and siblings.

When you think about your family or any member of it,  you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner family equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and they change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or family. Such an inner family or member can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

Even if that family is damaged and hurt we are still a part of it. It still satisfies us and our need for connection. As blasted and tormented as our family life may be, that is a whole family. Our attempts to make that good are our spiritual life. Our attempts to make that good or to contribute towards it in some way, also are our spiritual life. It is an initiation as an individual person into the fact that ones life is a part of a larger life and a larger community.

From our family we learn most of the positive and negative patterns of relationship and attitudes towards living, which we carry into daily events. Father’s uncertainty in dealing with people, or his anxiety in meeting change, may be the roots of our own difficulties in those areas. If our mother is unable to develop a feeling contact with us, we will lack the experience of being able to love unless we learn it in other relationships.

Example: They curse and cry until all their disillusionment and rage and heartbreak is dispelled. But then finally they see their parents as they really were.  One patient looked back at her domineering neurotic mother and for an instant she saw her surrounded by all her flaws and all her virtues. And for the first time she found forgiveness and understanding for the flaws, and gratitude for the virtues. Her mother was not a goddess, not even a very good mother, but she was the woman who had borne and nourished her. Without denying the pain she had suffered at her mother’s hands, the patient could now say, “Yes, that woman is really my mother, and I am really her daughter.” And in accepting this reality which neither she nor anyone else could change, she discovered an almost mystical joy. Then she looked at her incompetent, rather befuddled father and thought, “This is my father; I shall never have another,” and again the radiant warmth and gratitude surrounded her. For the first time, her psyche, done with its wandering to the far lands of illusion and denial, had come home to accept the real terms of its existence, and had found peace in them. Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by Caldwell.

Our maturing process calls us to in some way meet and integrate our childhood desire, which includes sexual desire, for our parent of the opposite sex, and rivalry mingled with dependence, with parent of the same sex. Even a missing parent, the mother or father who died or left, is a potent figure internally. An absence of a father or mother’s love or presence can be as traumatic as any powerfully injuring event. Our parents in our dreams are an image, full of power and feeling, of the formative forces and experiences that created our identity. They are the ground, the soil, the bloody carnage, out of which our sense of self emerged. But our identity cannot gain any real independence while still dominated by these internal forces of our creation. Heraclitus said we cannot swim in the same river twice. Attempting to repeat or compete with the virtues of a parent is a misapprehension of the true nature of our own personality. See: individuation.

family group: This indicates the whole background of experience which makes up our values and views. This background is made of thousands of different obvious and subtle things such as social status; amount of books in the home; how parents feel about themselves; how they relate to life outside the family; whether dominant roles are encouraged; what nationality parents are; what unconscious social attitudes surround the family i.e. the master and servant, or dominating employer and subservient employee roles which typified England at the turn of the century. All these things still colour many attitudes we carry in us perhaps unconsciously.

Simply put: Our internal ‘family’ of urges and values; the overall feeling tone of our family life – security, domination, whatever it was; the unconscious coping patterns of the family.

Parents together in dream: Our general wisdom; background of information and experience from which we make important decisions or gain intuitive insights – negative or positive. Parents also depict the rules and often irrational disciplinary codes we learned as a child which still speak to us from within, and perhaps pass on to our own children without reassessment. These include everything from DON’T SPEAK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL to MASTURBATION WILL KILL YOU.

Hurting, burying or killing parent: In the example below Audrey’s height shows her as a child. She is releasing anger about the attitudes and situations her father forced ‘down her throat’. To be free of the introverted restraints and ready made values gathered from our parents, at some time in our growth we may kill or bury them in our dreams. Although some people are shocked by such dreams, they are healthy signs of emerging independence. Old myths of killing the chief so the tribe can have a new leader, depict this process. When father or mother is ‘dead’ in our dream, we can inherit all the power gained from whatever was positive in the relationship.

Seeing parent drunk, incapable or foolish: Another means of gaining independence from internalised values, or stultifying drives to ‘honour’ or admire father or mother.

Dead parent in dream: Either the beginning of independence from parent; repression of the emotions they engendered in us. It can be our emotions regarding our parent’s death. To see them dead faces you with being without them, something you need to do at some time in your growth toward independence. Facing feelings about death. See: dead people.

Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.’ Audrey V.

Sometimes a dream about our family is a literal statement in symbols, of what we sense is happening in the family.

Example: I was on a train with my family – wife, and two daughters. The train was derailed but nobody was hurt and we got off the train. I was walking in a field near the train. I thought my wife and daughters had got back on the train. Then suddenly another train smashed into the rear of the derailed train making it concertina into a heap. I wasn’t sure if my family were still on the train.’

Roger associated the theme of derailing with a change in direction – the change that was coming about through his children becoming independent. Some months later his wife and daughters left him. Divorce followed.

Father dad daddy General positive: Your father is often the authority in your early life, and may represent this influence or power in you as an adult. He also depicts the ability to be productive in the external workaday world. Depending upon what level of relationship you have developed with him, your dream father is the power of creative life in you, the power to do, to create, to transform; the power in you to grow and unfold your potential. It has to be remembered that the dream father is not an image of your external father, but of what you carry of him inside you; what you have managed to develop of a working relationship with the power he represents. So you may, because of difficulties with your external father, be in conflict with your internal father, and so be lacking your full power to transform and create.

The dream father may depict family or social conventions along with physical strength and protectiveness; the will to be and to do, and so your outgoing energies. As such he represent your confidence as you go out the door of your home into the arena of public life. A poor relationship with your external or internal father leaves you somewhat crippled in that area. But by working with your dreams on your relationship with your internal father this can be changed. See: using symbols to change habitual life problems; working with dreams.

Father General negative: Introverted aggression; dominance by fear of other people’s authority; uncaring sexual drive; feelings of not being loved, inability to be creative in the world, in your outer activity. See: archetype of father; man.

Dad’s Curse and Mum’s Curse:

mother She depicts all that you have grown from and inherit in the way of what you express or deny in yourself. She is the problems and strength you have or face in life, so, your fate or karma.

General positive: Feelings; being given to, looked after, and fed; protection; feelings of dependence; ability in relationships; uniting spirit of family; how we relate to feelings in a relationship; strength to give of self and nurture; intuition.

General negative: Will based on irrational likes and dislikes; opinion generated by anxiety or jealousy; domination by emotions; lack of bonding; misery and pain resulting from the bad relationship with mother or the psychological injuries she promoted.

Each of us have a fundamental, perhaps instinctive, drive to bond with a woman at birth. This has generated from millions of years of survival strategy. If that bonding does not take place, much of what would have been natural unfoldment and growth, cannot, or does not, take place. So mother sometimes represents this whole difficult issue of survival and what happened in those early years of trying to become independent of such extraordinary needs.

Explaining something to mother: In our relationship with our parents we unconsciously absorb an enormous amount of ethical and social ways of responding to life and people. So the dream explanation might be a way of trying to move beyond one of the conditioned influences. This is shown in the example.

Example: I dreamt I was in the house in London talking with my mother. At first there was an overall feeling of not being good enough. I think this surrounded the fact that I had been sitting around reading, and not apparently working. This is in fact what I have been doing the last few days, and in my waking life it has been very refreshing. But in the dream I was trying to explain to my mother that this was not being lazy or good for nothing. That day, Friday, I had done fairly well on the stock market. On one of the sales, with a small investment, I had earned £80/ $160. In the dream I told this to my mother, and began to feel more positive.  Des.

Des has obviously been raised in a family environment in which hard work in a physically active way is seen to be a mark of character, and being unproductive a mark of laziness. In his dream he is dealing with the inner impulse to judge himself as lazy that arises from his upbringing. See: archetype of the great mother; woman.

Whether brother, sister, daughter or son, the most general use in our dreams is to depict an aspect of ourselves! It is almost universal to believe with great conviction that our dream is about the person in our dream. A mother seeing a son die in her dream often goes through great anxiety because there lurks in her a sense of it being a precognitive dream. Virtually everyone at some time dreams about members of close family dying or being killed. Lots of mother’s dream this and their children live till eighty. But occasionally children do die. Is the dream then precognitive, or is it coincidental? See Characters and People in Dreams

Example: ‘I was walking along a rather dusty track carrying my younger son who would be around 10 months old and I was feeling rather tired. Suddenly I met a man who stopped to talk to me and commented I looked rather weary carrying the baby. He said, come with me and look over this wall and you will see such a sight that will gladden your heart. By standing on tiptoe I could just see over the wall and the sight I beheld took my breath away, it was so beautiful.’ E.

Here J son depicts the weight of responsibility she feels. The beauty is her own resources of strength in motherhood.

Example: ‘I have just given birth to twins and they lay on the floor. We started to care for them. My mother took them to the Doctor for his advice while I went to see my married sister who has two children. I met them there with the twins so that my sister could give her opinion on the babies. She had recent experience of childbirth and could tell us if the babies were good specimens.’ Miss E.

Miss E. has no children of her own, so she is uncertain of her own capacity to have and raise them. The mother depicts her own mothering abilities, which seek confidence from an authority figure. Her sister is her own nearest experience of childbirth. So out of what she has learned from observing her sister, she is assessing her own qualities.

Most often the family member depicts the qualities in ourselves which we feel are part of the character of the person dreamt of. So the passionate one in the family would depict our passions; the intellectual one our own mind; the anxious one our hesitations. Having done this, can you observe what the dream depicts? For Miss E. it would be questions regarding motherhood.

Example: ‘My daughter told me the only positive part of my work in a helping profession was with a woman who had turned from it to religion. There followed a long and powerful interchange in which I said she had as yet no mind of her own. She was dominated by her mother’s anxiety, and the medical rationalism of her training. When she had dared to step beyond her own anxieties to integrate the lessons of her own life, then I would listen again.’ Desmond S.

Desmond was divorced and struggling with his own pain and guilt about leaving his daughter while still a teenager. His daughter depicts this conflict between his feelings and his rational self.

ancestors The intricate web of cultural and family influences, physically and psychologically, that your body and personality arose from. If it is a particular ancestor, then the personal associations with that person need to be explored. For instance an uncle may have been renowned for womanising, so would represent that tendency.

Ancestors can also link with deeply buried tendencies we have unconsciously inherited from the long past. Sometimes they point to the karma we are dealing with – the difficulties or traits that arise in our life, that we cannot honestly see have been developed or collected in this lifetime.

Example: While on a post-doctoral fellowship, I had the opportunity to study the dreams of families in therapy. To my surprise, we discovered that recurrent patterns of interaction and behavior are reflected in the dreams of each family member. This was especially true when the family was going through a crisis or some intense situation.

We noted the simple fact that families are often living in the same place, including the same house and rooms for decades and sometimes for generations. They are often in similar sleep and dream cycles at the same time of the night. Certain coordinating tendencies could be seen. It became very clear to us that the major emotional issues in the family were each reflected in slightly different ways in each family member’s inner landscape. In a certain sense, each family member’s dream life reflected the dream life of each other family member. Edward Bruce Taub-Bynum, Ph.D

Any seed we plant doesn’t grow completely new, it doesn’t start from the beginning again but from the millions of years of the plants existence. So the seed is a sort of summary of the plants whole history. And the tree or plant that grows from a seed is a summary of the whole history of it, but it would feel unique and new if it were conscious. In fact it is new, but it carries within it the whole experience of its past, and will pass this on to seeds it produces. Obviously if you were a seed and planted you would feel you are completely new and unique; so it is with us humans, we carry our whole past within us unconsciously. And we touch that unconscious history if we are open to it. See: dweller on the threshold.

aunt To some extent an aunt is a role model. We gather from their success or failure strategies for our own life. Whatever feelings we have about them, whatever we think of them, the dream will use this to illustrate something for you. So consider how you would describe your aunt, what sort of person she is, and how you feel about her. The dream will be using her image to illustrate the role you see her in. If she is a success, ask yourself what in yourself you are facing regarding success. If you feel she is a failure, ask yourself what of your own feelings about failure you are facing.

boy See boy

brother Oneself, or the denied part of self, meeting whatever is met in the dream. These may include rivalry, anger, feelings of persecution, love and admiration, authority, or an outgoing ability to deal with the world.

If you don’t have a brother, it most likely depicts an aspect of your personality illustrated by the dream character, or your male characteristics.

In woman’s dream – younger brother: Outgoing but vulnerable self; rivalry.

Older brother: Authority; one’s capable outgoing self; or feelings of persecution.

In man’s dream – if younger brother: Vulnerable feelings; oneself at that age. See: boy; man.

Idioms: Big brother; brothers in arms; blood brother.

cousin Probably represents your opinions or feelings about that person. See Characters and People in Dreams

Cousins are often an easy way to try out sex or love with, as in the examples. This is because we have often shared a lot of time with them, they are family and we feel easy with them.

Example: It came to me how badly I had wanted my cousin Sylvia sexually when I was a teenager. Yet I could not but feel guilty about my desire, for being a cousin. But the guilt was easily relinquished, and I saw myself as I had so badly wanted, going in that little patch of hair. I got a lot of sexual pleasure out of the experience, and it passed. Something interesting I learned from it was that the taboos in regard to the family are built into us, even to the point of me not even allowing a fantasy for all those years.

Example: Down a steep hill. In a house. I had to give a man (cousin Abner or Nate) a shot. A two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage. He yelled in mock anger. He grabbed me. We tumbled to the floor. He started to make love, wildly, lovingly. Later at the table, an ugly woman with horrible eyes, glazed, hazy, and blue, came in. Said to him, “So there’s the louse.” I gave her a straight look. I said, “Just leave him alone!” Anger. She steadily looked at me. Another woman, possibly my mother watched the tense scene.

Of course it could go the other way of feeling hatred, not love.

Example: I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin’s hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenceless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Charles Kingsley – from Alton Locke, 1850.

Being with or following a cousin can mean you identify with the way they are and are copying or learning their style. We all are actually all the time learning from or absorbing things form other people or even animals – that is how we learn and grow.

Dreaming of a dead cousin can be an actual communication with them. In which case see Dreaming of Death. But it can be a way of showing an aspect of you, symbolised by your cousin. As already mentioned see Characters and People in Dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my last interaction with my cousin, and what feelings or attitudes do I have about that?

Do I have sexual feelings about this cousin, and if so how do I handle them?

What is the character, strengths and weaknesses of this cousin, and how do they apply to me?

See The Dream as a CodeEmotions and Mood in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

daughter One’s relationship with the daughter. The daughter, or son, can represent what happens in a marriage between husband and wife. The child is what has arisen from the bonding, however momentary, of two people. In dreams the child therefore is sometimes used to depict how the relationship is faring. So a sick daughter might show the feelings in the relationship being ‘ill’.

In a mother’s dream: Often feelings of support or companionship; feelings of not being alone in the area of emotional bonds; or one’s feeling area. Responsibility; the ties of parenthood or oneself at that age. Your own youthful urges, difficulties, hurts, which may still be operative.

A comparison. The mother might see the daughter’s youth, opportunity, and have feelings about that. So the daughter may represent her sense of lost opportunity and youth – even envy; competition in getting the desire of a man.

In a father’s dream: The state of the marriage. One’s feeling self; the feelings or difficulties about the relationship with daughter; the struggles one’s own feeling self goes through to mature. How the sexual feelings are dealt with in a family situation – occurs especially when she starts courting. Can represent ones sister; parental responsibility; one’s wife when younger.

Someone else’s daughter: Feelings about one’s own daughter or feelings about younger women.

Death of daughter: This can sometimes suggest you are losing your daughter because she is becoming independent. But it can signify feelings of great loss, or the end of something such as a relationship.

Example: ‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F.

Such dreams of the daughter becoming independent can occur as soon as the child starts school, persisting until the mother finds a new attitude. See: child; woman.

girl See girl

 

grandparents Personal feelings connected with the grandparent; family traditions, such as established values or unconscious attitudes; spiritual values; old age; death.

The grandparent can also represent what you have come to know, what you have built into you of the divine spark of life, the radiant potential that is at your core. So you might say that the grandparent is the divine or infinite you know because of what you have drawn out of the infinite possibilities of everyday life.

husband Depicts how you see the relationship with your husband; your relationship with your sexuality; sexual and emotional desire and pleasure; how you relate to intimacy in body, mind and spirit or habits of relationship developed with one’s father.

Example: ‘My recurring dream – some disaster is happening. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep.’ Mrs G. S.

The husband here depicts Mrs S’s feelings of not being able to ‘get through’ to her man. This is a common female dream theme, possibly arising from the husband not daring to express emotion or meet his partner with his own feelings. For Mrs S. this is an emergency. Although the dream dramatises it, there is still real frustration, anger, and a break in marital communications.

Cannot find husband or husband dying: Many middle aged women dream of ‘losing’ their husband while out with him, perhaps shopping, or walking in a town somewhere. Sometimes the dream portrays him actually killed. Mrs A. D. wonders if her dream was a premonition. It is more likely a form of practising the loss, so it does not come as such a shock. The greatest shocks occur when we have never even considered the event – such as a young child losing it’s mother – an event it has never practised, not even in fantasy, so has no inbuilt shock absorbers. As most of us know, men tend to die before women, and this information is in the mind of middle aged married women. Mrs A. D. may have unconsciously observed slight changes in her husband’s body and behaviour, and therefore readied herself.

Example: ‘I dreamt many times I lost my husband, such as not being able to find the car park where he was waiting, and seeing him go off in the distance. I wake in a panic to find him next to me in bed. These dreams persisted, and then he died quite suddenly. He was perfectly healthy at the time of the dreams and I wonder if it was a premonition of me REALLY losing him.’ Mrs A. D.

Dead husband: Your memories and remaining emotions about your husband. Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship.

The example below illustrates the ‘psychic’ meeting some women experience. In anything of an apparently psychic nature, we must ALWAYS remember the unconscious is the great dramatist. It can create the drama of a dream in moments. In doing so it makes our inner feelings into apparently real people and objects OUTSIDE OF US. While asleep we lightly dismiss this amazing process as ‘a dream’. When it happens while our eyes are open or we are near waking, for some reason we call it a ghost or psychic event. Yet the dream process is obviously capable of creating total body sensations, emotions, full visual impressions, vocalisation – what else is a dream? On the other hand, the dream process is not dealing in pointless imaginations. Many women tend to believe they have little sexual drive, so it is easier for G. L. to see her drive in the form of her husband. But of course, her husband may also depict how she felt about sex in connection with his ‘sexual appetites’. It is a general rule however, that our dream process will dramatise into a past life, or a ‘psychic’ experience, emotions linked with trauma, or sexual drive, which we find difficult to meet in the present.

Example: ‘My dead husband came into my bedroom and got into bed with me to make love to me. I was not afraid. But owing to his sexual appetites during my married life with him I was horrified, and resisted him with all my might. On waking I felt weak and exhausted. The last time he came to me I responded to him and he never came back again. This happened three times. The last time I don’t think it was a dream. I was not asleep. I think it was his ghost.’ G. L.

Other woman’s husband: One’s own husband; feelings about that man or desire for a non committed relationship with less responsibility.

Sex with husband: One can fairly safely say that our dreams are not so much about how the world and other people actually ARE, but rather how we see or passionately FEEL people or the world are. Of course our feelings and views may be very accurate, but one must always be aware of the variance between what one has created out of ones own inner life and vision, and how others people see themselves or events actually are.

Therefore the sexual dream at best is a wonderful indicator of how you, the dreamer, are feeling about your sexual and emotional relationship, or what one longs for, at the time of the dream. At worst it depicts all one fears might happen or be happening.

Example: I dreamt I was laying in bed with my husband. I felt a sexual attraction and flow, something I hadn’t felt for a while in our relationship. I reached out to him expressing this but there wasn’t any response from him. So I talked to him saying that I had reached out to him sexually and in his body response I had felt there was no attempt to meet me. He replied that in fact that was the situation as far as he was concerned – that he was indeed saying no. Jo K.

 

Jo and her husband had lived for a year without any sex at all prior to the time of this dream. This had not been an unhappy time. Far from it, they had achieved a lot of peace and warmth without tension. On talking about her dream with her husband, he felt that he wasn’t saying no to her sexually. Indeed, his stated reason for not reaching out to her was that for years it had always been him making the approach to her. This had led to his feeling he was imposing something on her and as this was unpleasant he had stopped any attempt at sexual relationship. So Jo’s dream was really about how she saw her husband rather than what was actually happening.

relatives Including uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, niece etc. Usually an aspect of oneself relevant to the character of the person dreamt about. Sometimes represents one’s family traditions – unconscious attitudes, conventions, or even talents, which are part of the unique psychological and social environment a family provides. See Characters and People in Dreams

sister Feeling self, or the lesser expressed part of self; rival or feelings of kinship.

In man’s dream – younger sister: Vulnerable emotions; rival for love of parents.

Older sister: Capable feeling self.

In woman’s dream – younger sister: One’s experiences at that age; vulnerable feelings; rival for parents love.

Older sister: Capable feeling self; feelings of persecution.

See: girl; woman.

Idioms: Sisters under the skin.

son The condition of the marriage. Extroverted self; desires connected with self expression; feelings connected with son; parental responsibility.

Mothers dream: One’s ambitions or hopes for his potential. Hopes. State of your marriage – see first example below.

Father’s dream: Yourself at that age; what qualities you see in your son; your own possibilities; envy of youth and opportunities; rivalry.

Someone else’s son: Feelings about one’s own son; feelings about younger men.

If dreaming of dead son: see dead people.

Death of son: A mother often kills off her son in her dreams as she sees him make moves toward independence. This can happen from first day of school on. But the death of a son also signifies feelings of great loss, or the end of something, perhaps a relationship, or something that meant a great deal to you. See second example below. See: boy; man; first example in falling.

Example: ‘My wife and I were walking out in the countryside. I looked around suddenly and saw my four year old son near a hole. He fell in and I raced back. The hole was narrow but very deep. I could see water at the bottom but no sign of my son. I didn’t know whether I could leap down and save him or whether it was too narrow. Then somehow he was out. His heart was just beating.’ Richard H.

Richard had argued with his wife in such a way he feared the stability of their marriage. The son represents what they had created together – a child – a marriage. The marriage survived, as his dream self assessed it would.

Example: ‘I am on a very high bridge over an extremely wide and deep river with steep banks. My son does a double somersault over the railing and falls into the water. I think he is showing off. I am unable to save him. My son is eighteen and has started a Structural Engineering Course at University.’ Joyce H.

The showing-off suggests Joyce feels her son is doing daring things with his life, and the relationship in its old form is dying. It is about being able to let go of her son as he becomes independent – which she may face as early as play school. A daughter may not pose this problem as women often feel a daughter will remain a friend, whereas their son may find someone else to love. The dream is therefore a way of either feeling the shock or learning to make the break emotionally.

the triangle The example shows typical flow of feeling toward another male. The other male here depicts Joan’s desire to be attractive to other men. This is a danger signal unless one fully acknowledges the impulse.

Example: ‘ There were three of us. My husband, a male friend and I, all riding small white enamel bikes. My husband proceeded slowly, first, with his back to us. Then my friend followed. Suddenly my friend ahead of me turned and gazed fully at me. He gave a glorious smile which lit up the whole of his face. I felt a great sense of well being surge through me.’ Joan B.

uncle To some extent an uncle is a role model. From their success or failure you gather strategies for your own life. Whatever feelings you have about him, whatever you think of him, the dream will use this to illustrate something for you. So consider how you would describe your uncle, what sort of person he is, and how you feel about him. The dream will be using his image to illustrate the role you see him in. If he is a success, ask yourself what in yourself you are facing regarding success. If you feel he is a failure, ask yourself what of your own feelings about failure you are facing. See Characters and People in Dreams

 

widow See: widow.

wife Depicts how you see the relationship with your wife; your relationship with your sexuality; sexual and emotional desire and pleasure or how you relate to intimacy in body, mind and spirit. I could also indicate your feeling, intuitive nature or habits of relationship developed with one’s mother.

Example: ‘My wife was trying to get me out of her life, and out of the house. It was as if she were attempting to push me into a feeling of tension and rejection which would make me leave.’ David P.

Out of childhood experiences in which his mother repeatedly threatened to give him away, David was finding it difficult to emotionally commit himself to his wife. In the dream his wife represents these feelings, so he sees her – his anxiety and pain – pushing him to break up the marriage. David ‘broke up’ the relationship with his mother by breaking his emotional bond with her.

Example: ‘I was standing with my wife at the end of the garden of the house I lived in as a child. We were looking over the fence to the rising meadow beyond. She said, ‘Look at that bird in the tree there.’ On our right, in a small ash tree, an enormous owl perched. It was at least four feet high, the biggest bird I have ever seen. I recognised it in the dream as a greater hooded owl, which was not native to our country. I was so excited I ran into the house to telephone someone – zoo, police, newspapers? – to tell them about the bird. I cannot remember contacting anyone, but felt the bird was there in some way to meet me. Also it was hungry and looking at next door’s bantams. So I wondered what I could give it to eat.’ David P.

This shows the positive side of David’s relationship with his wife. The garden represents the behaviour boundaries which arose from his childhood. But he is growing – the garden – and looking beyond them through his marriage. The amazing bird is the deep feelings he touches because he has a mate like any other natural creature. Out of his mating he becomes aware of drives to build a home – nest – and give himself to his mate. These are natural and are a part of his unconscious or spiritual nature. The bird is a hooded owl which can see in the dark – the unconscious – meaning David is realising things he had never ‘seen’ before. The bird is masked, because David through loving is learning to put his ego aside, which is a necessity for touching the wider dimension of life or the unconscious. The hunger of the bird shows an intimate detail of what David has learned from his wife. She had been working as a waitress and bringing home pieces of chicken for him, saved from her own meal. The spiritual side of David wants to develop this quality of self-giving, which his wife’s love had helped him see.

Example: ‘I have been a widower since Jan. 1979, having married in Oct. 1941. I continually dream I am in London where my business was. I am walking the streets with my wife and suddenly I see her ahead of me in a yellow rain coat and hat. I call her and try to catch up, but suddenly she vanishes. In spite of calling and searching I cannot find her.’ Douglas G.

This is a common theme dreamt by widowers or widows – disappearance of spouse. Douglas has ‘lost’ his wife. His dream shows the paradox of love after death of partner. His love is still there years after her death. He is possibly still trying to love his wife as an externally real person, so his feelings can make no connection. To meet what actually remains of his wife, within himself, he would need to face his own internal grieving, emotions, and ALL THE FEELINGS, MEMORIES, ANGERS AND BEAUTY, which make up the living remains of his wife within him.

the first wife or ex wife This may be dealing with the things you met or learned in that relationship, but it can also represent a past way of life, something you have left behind or are leaving behind. The dreamer in the example below is now feeling easier about her husband’s first relationship. The first wife represents her sense of competing for her husband’s affections, even though his ‘first woman’ was dead.

Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship.

Example: ‘I was with my husband and our three children. About two or three yards to our right stood my husbands first wife – she died about a year before I first met him. I remember feeling she no longer minded me being with him, so I put my arms around him from the back, and felt more secure and comfortable with him.’ Mrs N. S.

See: Brother; Father; Mother; Sister.

Famous People

Dreaming of famous people may indicate desire to be noticed and acclaimed.It can poin to one’s own potential, often unacknowledged, and projected onto dream character or a parent; depending on how you relate to the famous person – your own ability to accept yourself as respected. Your desire ambitions and efforts to become successful.

Because the person you are dreaming about represent qualities in you, the person may, because of their life or role, represent a particular quality such as courage, love, ‘ruling’ drives in life, authority, etc. If you think of the person in a particular role or scene, this will probably be the major clue to what they represent – such as the lover who leaves – the father who sacrifices, etc. See Characters and People in Dreams

Famous people can be seen as social guinea pigs. Collectively we expose them to enormous amounts of money, sexual opportunity, drugs, alcohol, and tremendous social and commercial pressures. Then we examine every part of their life to see how well they cope. Millions then identify with the image they portray of how to deal with reality at its best and worst. The famous person in our dream might therefore represent our coping mechanism.

Example: ‘A film star I admire came and lay beside me in the night. He told me he loved me and would stay with me. I knew he was living with a woman who had borne his child, but he told me he was going to tell her he was leaving her. In the morning we walked along the road where I live, to tell the woman.’ Sharon.

Sharon processed her dream and saw the film star as her own strength and determination to further her career as a dancer. Being 18 she was faced with the decision of whether to become a wife and mother – the other woman – or put those urges into her work. In her dream she chose to be fully involved in her dancing.

Actor/actress: One is acting a role; wanting attention; deception.

Film/stage/TV star: May be what is described above under famous people, but if the star has a particular quality, the dream may use them to denote this characteristic, such as love, treachery, courage, etc.

King: Father; thinking; authority; power to command.

Pop star: Similar to what has been said about famous people, but might also carry feelings to do with intense teenage sexuality or need; what you hold as an ideal or idol; a role model; egomania.

Queen: Often one’s mother; a feeling or drive ruling your life; wanting approval, or even sex.

See: king; queen; actor/actress/acting; theatre.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I feeling or doing in relation to the famous person?

Was I the famous person – if so how did I feel?

What do I associate with the famous person?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming


Fan

This may be about trying to stay cool – emotionally or socially. But a fan also clears the air and so might be suggesting wether that the atmosphere you are in is unhealthy, or that you are taking in too much smoke.

You can also be a fan in connection with sport, films etc, and this is to do with wanting some of the strength, fame or adoration to rub off on you. It might also be to do with the excitement and energy that surrounds fame and is perhaps lacking in your life.

The fan belt on a car is a great driving force which if broken leaves the car un-usable. See Car-Fan belt

Folding-fans are associated with the changing phases of the moon, and hence represent the feminine principle’s instinct, imagination and intuition.

There is a language of held hand fans:

To hold the fan with the right hand in front of the face / Follow me

To hold it in the left ear / I want you to leave me alone

To let slide it on the forehead / You have changed

To move it with the left hand / They are watching us

To change it to the right hand / You are imprudent

To throw the fan / I hate you

To move it with the right hand / I love another

To let slide it on the cheek / I want you

To hold it closed / Do you love me?

To let slide it on the eyes / Go away, please

To touch the edge of the hand fan with the fingers / I want to talk to you

To hold it on the right cheek / Yes

To hold it on the left cheek / No

To open and close it / You are cruel

To leave it hanging / We will continue being friends

To fan slowly / I am married

To fan quickly / I am engaged

To hold the fan in the lips / Kiss me

To open it slowly / Wait for me

To open the hand fan with the left hand / Come and talk to me

To strike it, closed, on the left hand / Write me

To semiclose it in the right and on the left / I cant

To hold it opened, covering the mouth / I am single.

Waving a fan can mean a warding off of negative feelings.

This was taken from The language of the hand fan

Idioms: when the crap hits the fan

Useful questions:

Is this a health dream about being over heated?

What do I feel about the fan?

What is it I get in connection with being a fan?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsHabits

Fare

What happens in the dream shows the price you are willing to pay, or avoid, to reach your goal. So the fare often involves getting the right attitude or stance. See: Ticket.

Farm Farmer Farmyard

This usually has to do with your relationship with your natural urges, the basic drives, such as sex, survival, social hierarchy, parenthood, the down to earth side of yourself; the area of your animal propensities where – territorial fighting, fighting over mate, etc. – are expressed. Being in a farmyard usually represents efforts to deal with the sensual, aggressive, or animalistic urges.

Care or expression of our natural drives such as sexuality, parenthood, love of fellowship; the down to earth side of self; area of our animal propensities where – territorial fighting, fighting over mate, etc. – are expressed. 

Or you may sowing and cultivating something in your life that you should become more aware of. It provides and opportunity to cultivate and transform the “earthy” part of your nature into the higher impulses.

 The farm may also be about what is cared for or grown in your life and activities – what care you take of your own natural energies and abilities. Problems on the farm can point out difficulties at the basic level of your life, such as troubles.

A farm is a place where one can work with the earth, where seeds/ideas can be planted. It can be place of peace and quiet or hard work depending on your feelings and associations. One can relax there because you do not have to dress up, and you are with animals and their natural expression

Farmhand: Can represent the hard work put into caring for your animal self. Also to tending to what is growing in your life – also the richness of the soil, meaning the basic work on oneself.

Useful questions and hints:

What is happening with my basic down-to-earth feelings and urges?    

Does this include cultivation or husbandry in any way – if so what?  

Are there any signs in the dream of not looking after my basic needs?

Farmer: This indicates feeling easy with your sexuality and the material world. The farmer depicts the practical down to earth feelings, the care of the ‘animal’ side of you, also what makes use of them, works them. This includes earthy wisdom, the sort arising from understanding what drives us as human animals. It might also indicate an easy reversion to earthy or instinctive behaviour, such as hunting to kill or unrefined sex. In terms of higher and lower nature – the sexual, digestive and motor muscles, and the mental, creative and imaginative self –  the farmer is the controller or regulator of lower energies. The sensory impressions help to satisfy these forces. 

Example: I was standing in the back garden of a house – one of a row of terraced houses. Each garden was fenced and ran down to a large drainage ditch. It seemed to be raining and water was filling the drainage ditch. The water was backing up into the gardens because something was blocking the ditch. It started rising up my legs. It was quite hot. I realised this was because hot water was running out of the baths and sinks in the houses. I felt I must get out of the gardens. Not only because of the water, but because of how people might feel if they saw me in their garden. I managed to find a way into a farm yard where I felt relaxed.” Ted F.  

When Ted added his own associations to this the dream became fully understandable to him and read like this: I am going through a lot of changes at the moment – the garden. These are to do with allowing myself to have a warm but non sexual relationship with women. I have always been too dragged along by my sexuality in the past. Just a few days before the dream I was in a ‘growth’ group. I had made friends with a woman there, Susan, who I was warm with, but not sexually. The group work required some close physical contact, and I and another man worked with Susan. It seemed to me to go without complications. A while afterwards a woman in the group came to me and with evident emotion, said I had made love publicly to my lover, meaning Susan. I had certainly been physically close to her and had felt at ease, but the viewpoint and feelings of the woman’s accusations, coupled with her threat to expose me to the authority figure in the group, bowled me over. This is the hot water in the dream. The fences are the boundaries people erect between their personal life and what is socially acceptable. For some days, up until understanding the dream, I felt really blocked up emotionally – the blocked drainage ditch. I cut off any friendship toward Susan. When I realised that in the Farmyard – the acceptance of natural feelings without neat little boundaries – I could feel at peace, I was able to allow my natural warmth again.

Idioms: buy the farm; the day of the family farm; sell the farm.

Useful questions and hints:

Is the farmer shown as critical of me or am I in a good relationship with the earthy side of myself?  

Do I have any sense of the needs of the ‘animal’ that carries me about each day?  

What is the farmer doing, and what do I understand from that?  

See –   Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsReptilian Brain

Fasting

To refrain from eating in a dream is to refrain from taking into yourself material opinions, ideas, ways of life. It is to concentrate your attention upon your own personal inner life and its growth. To refrain from acting from your desires, hungers, greed, ambition, sensuousness, and to allow Life to direct these faculties and harmonise your energies and cleanse you of mistakes and sickness.  Withdrawal or turning away from natural urges such as hunger or sex. Not taking in what society, the world is offering.

Can symbolise living in a state of purity, rejecting negative thoughts. It could also be a way to allow new ideas. If you have a belief that fasting spiritualises you or cleanses your body and mind, then the dream is probably an examination of this.

Fasting can also be a discipline in which the dreamer has stopped their natural, and sometimes unnatural desire to eat, and can be a way of developing a better relationship with their instincts. Because fasting has the effect of lowering ones emotional and physical energy, and because some form or psychological difficulties such as depression are the massive use of energy, fasting for a week or a fortnight can cause the person to regain their balance emotionally.

It was, and still is, a way of silencing the mind and experiencing how the mind in its crazy thinking can cause anxiety, restlessness and mental breakdowns. The profound silence which is achieved can shown the person that the despair and restlessness they usually experience is the result of misdirection of their enormous energy.

Such fasting was a way to gain personal initiation. Individuals, through prayer, fasting and lonely vigils, sought from their dreams, a vision of their destiny as an individual, and an image to aid a personal link with the Spirit pervading all life.

A Native American dream the following:

Example: At the age of about sixteen a youth went alone to a place there he fasted for sixteen days. At the end of this time he suddenly heard a voice in the sky saying, “Take care of this man and let him end his fast.” Then he saw an old man of great beauty come down from the sky. The old man came to him, and looking at him kindly said, “Have courage, I will take care of your life. It is a fortunate thing for you to have taken me for your master. None of the demons who haunt these countries will have any power to harm you. One day you will see your own hair as white as mine. You will have four children, the first two and last will be males, and the third will be a girl. After that your wife will hold the relation of a sister to you.” As he finished speaking the old man offered him a raw piece of human flesh to eat. When the boy turned his head away in horror, the old man then offered him a piece of bear’s fat, saying, “Eat this then.” after eating it, the old man disappeared, but came again at crucial periods in the person’s life. At manhood he did have four children as described. After his fourth, “a certain infirmity compelled him to continence” and so had a brother and sister relationship wit his wife. He also lived to old age, thus having white hair, and as the eating of the bear fat symbolised, became a gifted hunter with second sight for finding game. The man himself felt that had he eaten the human flesh in the vision, he would have been a warrior instead of a hunter.

Fasting can also indicate a discipline in which the dreamer has stopped their natural, and sometimes unnatural desire to eat, and can be a way of developing a better relationship with their instincts. Because fasting has the effect of lowering one’s emotional and physical energy, and because some form or psychological difficulties such as depression are the massive use of energy, fasting for a week or a fortnight can cause the person to regain their balance emotionally. Fasting for one or two days a week can be healthy and is a way to keep trim.

A test-tube study showed that exposing cancer cells to several cycles of fasting was as effective as chemotherapy in delaying tumor growth and increased the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs on cancer formation. In one study, rats that fasted every other day experienced a delayed rate of aging and lived 83% longer than rats that didn’t fast.

Research shows that inflammation may be involved in the development of chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis (4Trusted Source). Some studies have found that fasting can help decrease levels of inflammation and help promote better health.

One study in which 50 healthy adults showed that intermittent fasting for one month significantly decreased levels of inflammatory markers (5Trusted Source). Another small study discovered the same effect when people fasted for 12 hours a day for one month (6Trusted Source).

After about 8 hours of fasting, the liver will use the last of its glucose reserves. At this point, the body enters into a state called gluconeogenesis, marking the body’s transition into fasting mode. Studies have shown that gluconeogenesis increases the number of calories the body burns. With no carbohydrates coming in, the body creates its own glucose using mainly fat.

Eventually, the body runs out of these energy sources as well. Fasting mode then becomes the more serious starvation mode. At this point, a person’s metabolism slows down, and their body begins burning muscle tissue for energy. Although it is a well-known term in dieting culture, true starvation mode only occurs after several consecutive days or even weeks without food. So, for those breaking their fast after 24 hours, it is generally safe to go without eating for a day unless other health conditions are present. See this excellent video – https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-20122013-3-eat-fast-and-live-longer It gives full instructions.

I read somewhere that the Islamic festival of Ramadan was started to get the populace ready to fight and defend themselves during the daylight hours. The Islamic fasting is simply delayed eating.

But a straightforward way to fast effectively is to have a breakfast and then do not eat or drink alcohol or milk or caffeine drinks such as tea and coffee until breakfast the next day, which is a 24 hour fast. It is usually suggested the fast is best done for two separate days.

Useful questions and hints:

Am I consciously turning away from the material world and experiences?

If I am trying to delve more fully into my subtle nature, what is my dream commenting on that??

If this is about self-denial, what am I struggling with or against??

Is this about an eating disorder?

See Avoid Being VictimsProcessing DreamsLife’s Little SecretsDream Yoga

Fat Person

See obese

Father Dad

General positive: Your father is often the authority figure in your early life, and may represent this influence or power in you as an adult.  Your dream father is a link with the patterns of survival behaviour passed on for generations. It was the attitudes of how to cope with social activity or work – the external world. But he is part of your creation.

He therefore also depicts the ability to be productive in the external workaday world. Depending upon what level of relationship you have developed with him, your dream father is the power of creative life in you, the power to do, to create, to transform; the power in you to grow and unfold your potential. It has to be remembered that the dream father is not an image of your external father, but of what you carry of him inside you; what you have managed to develop of a working relationship with the power he represents. So you may, because of difficulties with your external father, be in conflict with your internal father, and so be lacking your full power to transform and create. See Integrating Parent of Ex; Power DreamingFamily.

The dream father may depict family or social conventions along with physical strength and protectiveness; the will to be and to do, and so your outgoing energies. As such he represent your confidence as you go out the door of your home into the arena of public life. A poor relationship with your external or internal father leaves you somewhat crippled in that area. But by working with your dreams on your relationship with your internal father this can be changed. See: Using Symbols to Change Life Problems; working with dreams.

General negative: Introverted aggression; dominance by fear of other people’s authority; uncaring sexual drive; feelings of not being loved, inability to be creative in the world, in your outer activity; inability to relate well to men. See: archetype of the father; man.

If there are feelings of abandonment then it can feel very emotional. Please see abandoned

Either represents the feelings you have about your father, or the characteristics in your nature that have arisen from this relationship; or can represent an authority figure. Can also stand for a teacher, or person by whom you are much influenced. Or else your own positive, protective qualities. How you relate to the ‘doer’ in you; physical strength and protectiveness; the will to be.

Example: Began to go into the back pain again. Words came about carrying feelings about on my back all these years. Get of my back. It’s my father. I wanted my father to be perfect like God. I wanted a strong, perfect father, not a human being.

Then I saw how I was trying to be the perfect father with my own children, instead of the human me. “It’s too much of a bloody burden being a perfect father.” I could see how this idea of drive to be the perfect father has directed a lot of my relationship with my children. In the early days I hated them at times because they showed me so often how human I was. Recently I still planned things out of that desire instead of letting what I want. Although lately there has been a swing to the human me. Yesterday I took them for a walk instead of a sauna. I do want to take them to a sauna some time, but yesterday I did not have enough cash, and to go would have been out of the perfect drive. Instead we went for a walk.  

Hurting, burying or killing parent: In the example below Audrey’s height shows her as a child. She is releasing anger about the attitudes and situations her father forced ‘down her throat’.

To be free of the introverted restraints and ready made values gathered from our parents, at some time in our growth we may kill or bury them in our dreams. Although some people are shocked by such dreams, they are healthy signs of emerging independence. Old myths of killing the chief so the tribe can have a new leader, depict this process. When father or mother is ‘dead’ in our dream, we can inherit all the power gained from whatever was positive in the relationship.

Seeing parent drunk, incapable or foolish: Another means of gaining independence from internalised values, or stultifying drives to ‘honour’ or admire father or mother.

Dead parent in dream: Either the beginning of independence from parent; repression of the emotions they engendered in us; our emotions regarding our parent’s death; feelings about death. See: dead people.

Example: Dreamt that while talking with my wife I remembered that my son and I had murdered someone years before, and buried the body under a great slab of cement. After the murder the guilt – or rather the fear of being found out – was awful, but as each period of time passed, we gradually managed to lose memory of what we had done. But now I had remembered and felt the anguish of the guilt and fear of discovery. C.R.

When exploring his dream, he says: “I was led to a direct feeling link with my mother as the dead body. I saw, or felt, that when I cut off from her at 5 and attempted independence of my need for her, because of the pain she brought about in me, I had killed her as an inward figure in my life, and buried my feelings of need for her. The cement represented the energy I had used, the decisiveness, to bury her, to get her out on my life. I went on to recognise that killing and burying my mother, or my relationship with my mother, in that way was not in my own best interests. It was really an expression of my own lack of love and awareness of my best survival direction. So imagined I took the bone’s and carefully and reverently buried them, along with my father.”

Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.’ Audrey V.

Sometimes a dream about our family is a literal statement in symbols, of what we sense is happening in the family.

Example: I was on a train with my family – wife, and two daughters. The train was derailed but nobody was hurt and we got off the train. I was walking in a field near the train. I thought my wife and daughters had got back on the train. Then suddenly another train smashed into the rear of the derailed train making it concertina into a heap. I wasn’t sure if my family were still on the train.’

Roger associated the theme of derailing with a change in direction – the change that was coming about through his children becoming independent. Some months later his wife and daughters left him. Divorce followed.

Example: The movements gradually led to feelings. These expressed a living connection existing between my ancestors and myself. This surprised me because I had years ago gone through the realisations of what I carried from my father and his fathers – the subjugation by church and state. But this was different. It was not that I was still carrying the attitudes and fears, rather that because I dared to step out of dependence and subjugation by authorities, deeper levels of influence of a transpersonal nature were being called out of my body. I experienced the sense of our family having lived for generations under fear – fear of death – fear of what people would do to us if we didn’t conform. My breaking away from such conformity was the activity that was squeezing it out of my body. It felt like changes had occurred in my body to adapt to that way of life. 

Inner Father: Many people do not realise that they have an inner father equally as powerful as an external father. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your father, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your father was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘Father’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner father can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

The inner father can also signify what has been received via genes passed on or ancestral influences. See ancestorsparent integration

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot more, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’ or accept as part of our own experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or space to live in.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

Most of this was spontaneous thoughts and movement through the experience, so that was how I was led to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother even after he died. Then I realised that I was linked with Rita, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Rita – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the alien beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything, because their life pattern was now part of me. Then with a rush of wonder, I realised that the more people and creatures I loved, the bigger I became. See Digest

Useful questions and hints:

How is my father portrayed in the dream – dominating – caring – distant?

What does this say about the ‘father’ influences I carry inside me?

Does my dream show what impact on my present life my father has?

You can go back into the dream and become your father, and have a conversation with him.

See Life’s Little Secrets – Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams

 

Faucet

See: Tap.

Faun

See: Fairy.

Fax Machine

May represent things, ideas, a message, imagery, emerging out of the unconscious; the previously unexpected arising out of one’s contact with other people and society; communication with someone. See: telephone.


Useful questions and hints:

What was received or communicated with the fax?

What part does the fax/communication play in the dream?

Am I thinking or realising things that I have not taken enough notice of?

See Processing DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingUsing Symbols to Change Life Problems

Fear Frightened

To feel fear in a dream means that you have not yet developed abilities to cope with what is symbolised as causing the fear. One of the wonderful things about dreams if you work with them, is that they gradually show you how to deal with the parts of your nature that need to grow or to be healed. They show how to meet the parts of yourself that need release, or to be understood or healed. If it takes courage to meet these buried or painful parts of yourself, then your dreams will gradually take you on a journey that helps you to unfold your resources of courage. You will be enabled to face your fears, and in fact gain power and instruction from them.

Fear of something is usually an unconscious reaction like the action of pulling your hand away when you touch something hot. But that does not apply to the inner world of dreams, for nothing can actually hurt you in dreams, as they are like the virtual reality of computer games.

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said.

I explored this dream and realised that through my internal digging into myself I had uncovered some feelings I had never met consciously before. The dinosaur speaking, I understood as my awareness of instinctive feelings, such as the anxiety, which I had suffered from a lot, and about the anger I felt toward my step children for not appreciating the work I was putting into building them a home and working to provide. Seeing these things helped me understand what was behind my difficult feelings and fears. For instance, I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience, and I needed to meet it and help it to enter into the modern world instead of being repressed and remain in a primitive state where people cannot cope with it.

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Inner WorldNothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

See: facing fear; Avoid Being Victims; Martial Art of the Mind; emotions and mood; autonomous complex; wolf; pre-menstrual tension; processing dreams; Example under falling; Example under night journey – archetypes; Archetypes of Fear.

Fear-Dealing With

Whatever it is that scares you, here are 10 ways to help you cope with your day-to-day fears and anxieties.

It feels impossible to think clearly when you’re flooded with fear or anxiety. A racing heart, sweating palms and feeling panicky and confused are the result of adrenalin. So, the first thing to do is take time out so you can physically calm down.

When you’re anxious about something – be it work, a relationship or an exam – it can help to think through what the worst end result could be. Even if a presentation, a call or a conversation goes horribly wrong, chances are that you and the world will survive. Sometimes the worst that can happen is a panic attack.

If you start to get a faster heartbeat or sweating palms, the best thing is not to fight it. Stay where you are and simply feel the panic without trying to distract yourself. Placing the palm of your hand on your stomach and breathing slowly and deeply (no more than 12 breaths a minute) helps soothe the body.

It may take up to an hour, but eventually the panic will go away on its own. The goal is to help the mind get used to coping with panic, which takes the fear of fear away.

Avoiding fears only makes them scarier. If you panic one day getting into a lift, it’s best to get back into a lift the next day. Stand in the lift and feel the fear until it goes away. Whatever your fear, if you face it, it should start to fade.

Each time fears are embraced, it makes them easier to cope with the next time they strike, until in the end they are no longer a problem. Try imagining the worst thing that can happen – perhaps it’s panicking and having a heart attack. Then try to think yourself into having a heart attack. It’s just not possible. The fear will run away the more you chase it.

These tips are designed for people who are coping with day-to-day fears and anxieties. If you have been diagnosed with an anxiety-related condition, see our page on generalised anxiety disorder.

Fears tend to be much worse than reality. Often, people who have been attacked can’t help thinking they’re going to be attacked again every time they walk down a dark alley. But the chance that an attack will happen again is actually very low.

Similarly, people sometimes tell themselves they’re a failure because they blush when they feel self-conscious. This then makes them more upset. But blushing in stressful situations is normal. By remembering this, the anxiety goes away.

Black-and-white perfectionist thinking such as, “If I’m not the best mum in the world, I’m a failure,” or, “My DVDs aren’t all facing in the same direction, so my life is a mess,” are unrealistic and only set us up for anxiety.

Life is full of stresses, yet many of us feel that our lives must be perfect. Bad days and setbacks will always happen, and it’s essential to remember that life is messy.

Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine a place of safety and calm – it could be a picture of you walking on a beautiful beach, or snuggled up in bed with the cat next to you, or a happy memory from childhood. Let the positive feelings soothe you until you feel more relaxed.

Sharing fears takes away a lot of their scariness. If you can’t talk to a partner, friend or family member, call a helpline such as the Samaritans (08457 90 90 90, open 24 hours a day). And if your fears aren’t going away, ask your GP for help. GPs can refer people for counselling, psychotherapy or online help through an online service called FearFighter.

A good sleep, a wholesome meal and a walk are often the best cures for anxiety. The easiest way to fall asleep when worries are spiralling through the mind can be to stop trying to nod off. Instead, try to stay awake.

Many people turn to alcohol or drugs to self-treat anxiety with the idea that it will make them feel better, but these only make nervousness worse. On the other hand, eating well will make you feel great physically and mentally.

Finally, give yourself a treat. When you’ve picked up that spider or made that call you’ve been dreading, reinforce your success by treating yourself to a candlelit bath, a massage, a country walk, a concert, a meal out, a book, a DVD, or whatever little gift makes you happy.

Feast

See: Food.

Feather

This may associate with the bird from which it came. It would therefore be different if it were a chicken feather or an eagle feather. In which case look up the bird of origin. In general however, a feather suggests a thought, an aspiration or ideal. Or an incrimination, white feather. Sometimes it is a symbol of achievement as a feather in your cap, or as used by Indian chiefs to represent courageous deeds or help given to the tribe. But a feather may also suggest something that is moved by every tiny puff of wind, every passing change – a feather blowing in the wind. See Birds; Eagle

In many cultures feathers represent the quality or beauty of the bird from which they come. So an eagle feather would represent strength, pride, fierce protectiveness, spiritual insight etc.; a peacock might represent beauty, self aggrandisement. So a feather might mean you have achieved the quality it depicts. In India they symbolise spiritual awareness; a black feather might depict the unconscious, or ability to explore it; a white feather in the past was associated with cowardice, but might also represent purity and wider awareness. Feathers also represent the ability to fly, to aspire, to lift up ones life from beliefs or fears that limit you; something easily blown by the wind – so non resistance, insubstantial.

White feather: During the two world wars, white feathers were given to men suggesting they were cowards because they were not fighting in the war. See colours for possible meanings for other colours.

In Britain during the First World War it was often given to men out of uniform by women to shame them publicly into signing up. In the United States armed forces, however, it is used to signify extraordinary bravery and excellence in combat marksmanship

The meaning obviously depends upon how the feather or feathers appear in the dream. Other associations might be suggested by the way feather is used in common language.

The wearing of feathers – other than in ladies hats – lets others know what qualities you have, what skills you have, or what remarkable deeds you have done. So the feathers of an American Indian brave would have a similar significance.

Because the peacock could shed all its beautiful feathers and then grow them again, early Christians saw it as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.

Example: Margaret dreamt there was a whole lot of downy little feathers falling from the sky and covering her, like snow. The sky was full of them. She had been watching a baby eagle very high up in tree tops flying from tree to tree. She felt it was looking for it’s mother/ parents. Then a man had caught the baby eagle by a string around it’s leg and Margaret was appalled and said to him, ‘You can’t do that. You must let it go.’ Then the feathers started to fall and Margaret felt that any moment now the irate parent eagles would arrive. They didn’t but she was with her back to a wall sheltering as best she could.

While we explored Margaret’s feelings and memories connected with the dream symbols, she told me that her man friend prodded an old childhood pain which he didn’t know about. Margaret and her son had been with him and his mother for a good weekend camping. She told her son he could go play in the park while they packed the car and they would pick him up on the way out. They were all in the car and drove to where the son was and called him, he saw them and started to run towards them and then the man friend drove the car forward as if to make out they were leaving him behind. Margaret burst with pain and anger.

Example: I had a strong fantasy of the human head that had been cut off coming alive. It was me and what I had done to myself, torn my body and head apart trying to find a solution to my pain. Then I saw flesh on its cheeks. Then it was like a native mask made of various things, and feathers. The feathers predominated in the fantasy. The mask kept breaking up, leaving only a few feathers, as if it or I were all nothing. I remember saying – “There is not even a mask, it’s just a few feathers!”

With enormous certainty I realised that there was no cure for my sickness and I had struggled in vain. It was a tremendous blow – and I gave up. I mean I gave up hope, everything, and simple lay there and my whole body and mind became still.

Then I had a vision of one feather tied to a twig by piece of wool, blowing in the wind – a feather blowing in the wind. This was very stable and persistent in the fantasy. Everything resolved back to the feather blowing in the wind. It seemed like a Red Indian symbol, perhaps tied to the suspended body of the dead, but I could not understand.

Then it came to me that I had to listen in deep stillness – not think, not seek to understand, not struggle, just listen. My whole being entered into silence, gently listening as one might listen to the rain falling on a lake. Then suddenly it was known – the feather blowing in the wind – the sound of one hand clapping – the essence of human existence. Open against the sky – emptiness – enormity. I was healed.

 

Feather blowing in the wind: Suggests the caprices of fate; the strange contradiction of human life with its helplessness, and yet at the same time the wind and space the feather moves in suggests the infinity of the cosmos which is fundamental to our existence.

Feathers flying or falling: Possibly refers to a fight situation – feathers were flying.

Growing new feathers: Becoming a new person; undergoing great personal change; growth; in the past this was seen as a sign of resurrection or new birth.

Idioms: ‘feather in ones cap’; light as a feather; feather blowing in the wind; feather bed; feather ones own nest; birds of a feather flock together.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What do I feel about this feather and what does it suggest to me?

Do I connect this to a special talent or skill in my dream?

Does it indicate an achievement, as in ‘feather in my cap’?

Am I feeling blown about like a feather in the wind?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; Questions; Life’s Little Secrets

 

Fee

The price to be paid. For instance, the price of maturity is greater responsibility. Or the price we have to pay for not living in-harmony with our innate nature is sickness or unhappiness. There is a Spanish saying, Take what you want in life, and pay for it. The fee can therefore symbolise what you will have to pay for your desires, aims and activities. See: Fare; Ticket.

Feelings

See: Emotions and Mood in Dreams.

Feet Foot

Your basic psychological support system, therefore the attitudes and ideals you use to get around in the world. Feet are also your ability to balance. Where you place your feet in the dream can also indicate whether you feel secure in your present life situation, or whether you are finding conditions, ‘footholds’, to advance or make changes.

 In the bible it says, “The feet are symbols of desire. They must be bare: drawn out of everything temporal and mortal.” This suggests that our feet can represent our desire or motivation, and to take our shoes off means we are willing to drop our own purpose and follow the urge from our core instead of desires for things that pass away. The feet may therefore indicate your involvement in all things physical, and all the beliefs and viewpoints that are dependent upon it. (The Bible can be seen as collected folk wisdom that is venerated, and so can be disconnected with any religious organisation).

 To dream of feet might also suggest your sensitivity to your present life situation, whether it is rough going or not.

 Our feet can sometimes be linked with roots, in that we stand upon the earth with them. As such they are the way the lowest or most primitive in us is transformed, just as roots lift up earth in the process of transforming it into living cells.

 As the idioms below suggest, we mention feet a lot in our everyday language to indicate attitudes, motivation or lack of it, and how well or badly we are coping in life and relationships.

 Barefooted; To be in contact with reality, your real life situation. Might also suggest rough going if walking is hard. Of course, in some cultures it could mean poverty.

Loss of foot or feet: Incapacitated in making moves, or in being independent or self-motivated; in the Oneirocritica, c.AD 350, it says that to lose ones feet points to a barrier in regard to a planned journey.

Muddy feet: This suggests that you are mired in attitudes that are very material or very practical and have lost sight of your other dimension of being.

Washing feet: Is not only a sign of caring for yourself or being cared for, but is also a statement offering you a new life that is free of the worries and fears of the everyday physical world.

Example: When I asked how it could be possible that such love could be a part of my life I wept as I received the response. It was that we must learn to wash somebody’s feet. I felt this very deeply. I saw that it wasn’t simply a case of taking a flannel, a piece of soap and washing off the dirt from someone’s feet. That is not what it is about. That is not what it’s supposed to be.

To touch such love is painful and I was weeping as if in agony.  What is it to wash somebody’s feet? I don’t understand. I am listening but I don’t understand. I feel it but I cannot grasp clearly what is meant.

Then I was told that the person who washes somebody’s feet is the servant. You have to realise, first of all, that you are a servant. You are nothing more. You are not proud, you are not above somebody else. You are a simple servant of life. And yet you are life – that grand mystery of life. Like the grass, life can be trodden under foot. You have to realise that before you can really touch anybody with that great love.

Idioms: back on your feet; caught flatfooted; cold feet; drag your feet; fancy footwork; feet of clay; footloose; grass grow under; itchy feet; jump in with both feet; heavy foot; land on your feet; put my foot down; put your foot in it; pussy-foot around; put your best foot forward; put your foot in your mouth; set foot in; shoot yourself in the foot; sweep you off your feet; take a load of your feet; two left feet.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do any of the idioms suit the situation in the dream – if so what does it suggest?

If my foot or feet are damaged, in what way is my ability to progress or ‘stand’ in waking life difficult?

Am I in good or difficult ‘standing’ in my life – if difficult can I imagine changing it?

See  Associations Working With; Inner World; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Fellowship

Unity between varying parts of yourself such as intellect, emotions, senses, sex. For often our reason does not agree with our passions, and our emotions lead us differently to our spirit.

Female

A female in dreams often represents the more feeling, intuitive, irrational part of self. If it is someone you know, she probably symbolises your opinion and feelings about her, or what she has led you to feel. See: Girl; Woman.

But a female is not simply a human being, but can be the very essence of the female principle, merging with the male principle. So the dream female holds in it all that experience, all those patterns of behaviour, whether of the mother wolf with her cubs, or the eagle rearing its young. To touch such enormous wealth of experience is to be penetrated by the holy; something so beyond the limitations of our own small personality enters us and leaves its imprint.

Example: I had the experience of finding myself sinking deep beyond my personality, my conscious self, and facing enormous forces or beings I had never been aware of. It started with a feeling of dying, and after experiencing that I felt the presence of my dead mother. I saw her face as a young woman, my mother. But then with fascination I saw her face was one face amongst countless others. I began to realise that I was confronting something difficult to explain, something that was a reality at a level or a dimension I had not met or experienced before. It was a huge being which I began to see was capable of taking in and holding every mothers experience and person, and was itself a complete synthesis of all mothers, in fact She was The Mother of everything. It was difficult for me as a human being to grasp its magnificence. I realised in my own small way why people in every culture kneel before the images of this Mother. In some wonderful way She was my mother and yet behind and working through my mother was The Female. I saw too that every woman I had loved or dreamed of was a meeting with this Great Mother. Then, because I saw and felt in the presence of this Figure, hurts I had done to the nature of women, I wept and asked forgiveness. I was shown that it wasn’t what I had done to any woman, but the hurt I had given to the nature of womanhood, with its great drives and energies that make women want a child and love from a man. Then in forgiveness She took me into herself and I felt and still feel AWE.

“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter [the kingdom].” Quoted from The Gnostic Gospel of Apostle Thomas

 

Fence Barrier

A barrier. Difficulty in yourself. It is either something which bars your progress or expression, or is used as a protection from things outside yourself, or from things getting at you. If you are sitting on the fence, it shows you attempting to avoid decision or action.

In many dreams a fence or wall also suggests social barriers, the attitudes and feelings people express to keep others at a distance, to keep a separation between those of different social, religious or economic class. This sort of fence may also depict tension or conflict, as was expressed by the Berlin wall between two opposing powers. It can indicate the natural barrier we have separating our personality, our awake self, and the huge forces that keep us alive and stand behind our existence. See The Tree of Life – The Spine

The fence often depicts our fear, which is an enormous barrier to progress in our life, also our sense of social barriers, class barriers, or the attitudes we use to segregate the sexes, races or classes in work, opportunity or relationship. It can represent the need for privacy; territorial feelings; the social rules we use to give each other respect, or the de-fences we erect to ward off what we fear as danger of hurt.

Also our boundaries or fears in relationship or society which might prevent us daring to express ourselves or be creative.

Stretched wire mesh fence: May represent the tension or stress that is holding one, or trapping one in anxiety – see third example. See: wall.

In the first example the fence depicts the social boundaries we feel in approaching each other, especially if there is a class, wealth or authority difference. In the second dream, Arthur relates to the fence as a protection, in just the same way one might if a feared bull were loose in a field. In this case the fence is used to depict the things we do to avoid what frightens or threatens us.

Example: ‘I saw that we had got into a fenced off area where the gentry landowners parked their cars while they went shooting. I could see the landowner in his car beyond the fence, looking angry that I was in his property. I thought I would break through the fence with the elephant I was riding, but then saw a low area which the elephant easily stepped over.’ Arthur P.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Arthur P.

Example: We have then been caught and are in a sort of prisoner of war camp. At some point I see my sister and her boyfriend -Tony – going in and out of the camp through the wire fence. Tony has cut a slit in the wire and bent it back on either side so that they can slip in and out as they choose. Although they are seen nobody actually seems to be able to stop them. They ignore the words as if they aren’t directed at them (like you can’t go out, or stop). Louise W.

Louise comments on the dream, saying ‘One of the things I found when working on the dream was that when I was the wire fence I was stress itself. An image that went with it was that I was spread and stretched over the fence.’

Example: I dreamt last night that a black Spanish fighting bull charged me. I climbed a high wire mesh fence, like that surrounding tennis courts. There I was safe, as the Bull charged again. It charged people. I came down from the fence trying to help divert the bull’s destructiveness.

Here the dreamer is meeting sexual feelings that he had always avoided in the past and still feels threatened by. As the dream shows, he tries to avoid facing these feelings, but in the end has to deal with them because they had been destructive in his life.

Idioms: Rush one’s fences; wrong side of the fence; sit on the fence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this fence presented in the dream, and how am I relating to it?

Am I ‘sitting on the fence’ about a decision or to avoid something?

Is this fence a barrier or protection against something getting at me, or keeping me away from a situation?

Do I feel offended about something, as in someone ‘crossed the line’?

See Secrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working WithHabits


Ferret Ermine Polecat

Inquisitiveness, sexual forcefulness that can injure another person’s feelings; the ability to ferret out things from the unconscious, but usually through force or fear or by denying other feelings. The ferret is a ferocious carnivore and so could easily be used to represent aggressiveness or forceful seeking of ones needs. It is also a great survivor, so can represent survival. The ermine was traditionally linked with virgin saints and thus purity.

The ferret is often kept as a pet, and is popular as such in USA. They are wonderfully inquisitive and playfull, so depending upon your associations with them can represent many things. See Being the Person or Thing

Example: I am standing in my wife’s garden. A ferret (one we had set free after trouble over them with neighbours – the ferrets belonged to my son) came down the garden to me. It was plump and healthy. I picked it up to look at it, and saw an enormous scar running the full length of its left side. I realised that although it had survived, and was well, it had been an incredible struggle, and was scarred for life. Then I realised that my son had hid the other ferrets somewhere. Patrick.

This example shows another side to the dream ferret entirely, and also illustrates how we personalise dream images. Patrick’s son had kept a female ferret as a pet and mated it so it had pups. The ferret, Blanche, was a very playful and loving animal, though prone to get excited and aggressive if food was around. One day Blanche and her babies escaped from their cage and attacked the neighbours chickens so Patrick hid them in his large building. They once more escaped from their enclosure and got under the floorboards of the multi-storey house. All but one of them were retrieved. But that one lived under the floorboards for six months, managing to survive somehow with water and food without being fed by Patrick. Patrick tried to humanly catch it in a cage, but although it entered the cage until it triggered the trap, it fought so enormously to get out it managed to escape from the metal cage. Patrick had to eventually poison it as it was beginning to gnaw electric cables. The ferret therefore became for Patrick a symbol of survival against enormous odds, so represented the great injuries he had sustained in his childhood and his survival of them. But also it showed his loving relationship and care for the natural and instinctive level existing in him during babyhood. It shows how, as an adult, he had listened to and cared for that instinctive life in him through working with his dreams. The hiding of the other ferrets expressed how Patrick hid this sensitive caring side of himself from others because he had been hurt enough in childhood, and was now suspicious of how others would deal with that side of himself.

Useful questions are:

What characteristics is your dream ferret displaying and how do they relate to your life?

In what context does the ferret appear? See: context.

What does the ferret communicate to you by its actions or behaviour?

What arises out of your relationship with the ferret?

See AnimalsAssociations Working WithSecrets of Power DreamingEdgar Cayce

 

Ferry

Movement toward change; connections in a relationship; often associated with ferry across Styx and death. If across a river, end of a relationship or a transition from one phase of life to another or one life situation to another. It can also signify the emotional connections in a relationship. Sometimes links with death of or the loss of someone.

The link can be with work, with your desire to get somewhere and your ability to overcome a barrier. If so the ferry suggests the skill you have in going beyond difficulties or the money/energy you expend to get there.

Remember that on a ferry you are leaving one thing or place and arriving at another. So it can point to the end of something – a relationship or way of life – and the beginning of something else.

Example: I keep dreaming about ferries, always crossing an area I don’t recognise. I am sometimes with my ex-boyfriend – we split 11 months ago – or I may be with my dad, but generally alone. I usually just make the ferry, and sometimes have to jump or swim for it. I always get on it again to come back from wherever.

The interesting thing here is that you include both ex-boyfriend and Dad. The ferry suggests your need to be connected or ‘with’ a man. Sometimes you feel you make that connection, but you still have a sense of yourself as alone. So I wonder if the relationship with your father left you without the feeling of being close or loved. Jumping for the ferry shows you making a real effort. You make this effort in relationships, possibly because you carry a feeling you are never quite good enough to be loved. That is a deadening emotion, and you need to develop another conviction about yourself. It is worth frequently looking directly at yourself in a mirror and saying – “Celia, I really love you!” This may promote emotions, but persist until you can feel strong in appreciating yourself.

Example: My granny appeared before me with the face she probably had as a young woman. It was like the visual version of her essence. She wasn’t old and wrinkly but smooth and radiating. We spoke to each other in thoughts and she was unhappy and sort of crabby (like how she had been most of her life), In response to her emotional state, I tried to impart some wisdom to her about letting go of anger and accepting things as they are and feeling peace. Then she told me she had to go on a flight away and that she wouldn’t be back. I grabbed onto her legs and said that I wasn’t ready to let her go. We talked some more and then she began to get worried that she had missed her flight. I told her not to worry and led her to a meadow where my brother was. He said goodbye to her and we both led her into a small boat so she could ferry herself to the other side. I intuitively understood in the dream that my brother and I could not go with her. Anyways, I told my husband about the dream and that I thought I should find an internet cafe somewhere to contact the family back home to see if Granny was all right. The next morning we arrived in Havana and found internet to check our emails and I found a message in my inbox from my Mom telling me that my Granny had passed away the previous night.

If ferry you know: Consider why you use the ferry, what you associate with it. See: Associations Working With; bridge

Useful questions and hints:

Why am I on the ferry and where am I going?

What am I moving away from or toward in the dream?

What am I observing or feeling about the ferry?

Do I know where I am going or want to go?

See Dreaming of Death Edgar CayceTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions


Fertiliser Fertilizer

The soil, which is the basis of all life, for plants are fundamental to the feed chain, comes from death and decay. We all need to compost what is dying or dead, and even our human body or waste is valuable, for in dreams as in life, nothing is wasted but is transformed into fertiliser for new growth.

The Inca description of gold was ‘excrement of the gods’! Shit can of course produce wonderfully rich fertiliser.

To really understand fertiliser, we have to be able to see that what we throw away, see as disgusting or filthy, as we often do with our body wastes, often is vital to the growth and understanding of our personality our conscious self.

The area of our nervous system around the anus and genitals is highly sensitive in babyhood. So, it may link with the self expression, the pleasure, and the feelings of deep connection the baby feels in this area. As it also links with the huge experience of learning self control, and how one’s parents dealt with you going to the toilet, it can also connect with holding on or letting go; control or relaxation; pleasure or guilt. This in turn could involve feelings of success or failure. Therefore, it associates with your WILL. Feeling punished and treated like a child, to feelings or arousal and sexual pleasure.

Example: The therapist encouraged him in the fantasy, and soon he was joyously lost in the slime-and the mussels had turned to excrement. No longer repelled, he abandoned himself to a search for a treasure he felt must lie within the darkness. When he came up, he held in his hand a pink pearl that glowed like the clouds of dawn. Then he remembered how he and his brother had fought over a pink pearl which was to be given to their mother. The pearl stood for her. Those children, wallowing in the mud beside the willows in the hot summer sun, had been performing an ancient and sacred rite, returning to the source of life and their beginnings under the sun.

These things help to explain the great importance of the anus and its products to the growth towards a full and healthy human being.

The anus also deals with what we get rid of that our body does not use. So, it can link with the experiences or the attitudes that we want to or need to get rid of. These are the waste products of our life. But our dreams often see what we pass out of our body as ‘waste’ is a wonderful enriched gift we are giving the earth – our great mother.

Festival

In historical times festivals were always a celebration of great natural events – such as birth, death and renewal/rebirth. It is only in our own times because of the influence of Christianity saying that the birth, death and resurrection were a one time and historical event that the festival lost its eternal all time meaning.

In dreams we often recapture this sense of its very personal meaning. There is an ancient picture of three leaping hares. The symbol is from old English churches in Devon and Cornwall, but the image was also linked with the Moon Goddess. The gestation period of the hare is 28 days, and so there has always been a link with the moon and human menstrual cycles. Easter was originally a festival celebrating the period of fertility.

In modern festivals it is usually a mixture of things we are involved in; the search for a sexual partner, entertainment, stealing, or making money in some way.

Example: I had a dream that I was at a festival and while I was in a time share that was near the festival. A white man brought a Native American man and a white man handcuffed to each other in the home. The white man tried to escape by taking me hostage but the Native American male refuse to do it and fell on me to protect me. Then I looked at the Native American male whom was young and attractive and there was a mutual attraction. He then began to connect with the spirit world by chanting and after he chanted he gained the knowledge to take the handcuff off and run to the back yard to get away.

The festival in the dream is a place of where great inner.spiritual work can be done. The white man and the Native American man handcuffed represent an attempt to being the two races together. But it is a forced attempt and doesn’t work. The Native American male and you find a non forced connection and through his spiritual power takes the handcuffs off.

Example: Eventually we get out of the water and then we end up at a festival where I met a person on the boat and we talked and ate for a while and he asks me what am I looking for and I say love and we just stare at each other and we are very happy and I meet his son and were just running around on the streets feeling the wind on our faces and feeling happy. Then I wake up from the dream and yet that’s it and it felt very really but a bit wired because I’m only 18.

Example: In my dream a girl asked whether I had ever been to a “flower festival” as there was so much love, freedom and nakedness, such an environment would release my friend. I replied that Ashram is often like that. I said this with a smile because I felt the girl was underestimating the amount and variety of my experience. I hugged her lovingly, and smiled at Su.


Useful questions and hints:

What is being celebrated or experienced in the festival?

Were there any emotions felt?

Did anything holy or spiritual occur?

See Inner WorldSecrets of Power DreamingEmotions and Mood in DreamsEdgar Cayce


Fever

May be a sign of bad health, or symbol of great stress and emotion that in its intensity is burning out its own causes, and thus ridding you of the worries or insecurities that produced it. Fever is like fire in the body and can relate to being hot blooded, burning up with desire, or ‘having the hots’

During a fever we sometimes break through the barriers between waking and sleep and even death. Our conscious self is only a tiny thing compared with the immense unconscious processes that give us life. We can break through into this immensity when ill. Then we might get lost in delirious images, or know ourselves in bodiless awareness which can be frightening if you are not experienced in exploring ones inner world. In this wider world you may experience a wider awareness and abilities such as described below.

Example: I entered into a place – a void of nothingness – it was space with only limitless pulsating black. It would not end and time had no meaning there. I was aware of this and desperate for it to stop and to awaken. It was a physical place-a somewhere else. After an eternity that was probably an hour I awoke from this sleep. I did have a fever – this much is true. Once I fell asleep I went straight back to this place. It was terrifying. It continued all night. Some years later I was recounting this dream to a very close friend. This moment confirms to me that this was no ordinary dream. I have not told you a small section of the dream. I was telling my friend of the blackness and the pulsating black – his eyes widened (sorry to be dramatic) – I was about to tell him the next part but he finished it for me. All of a sudden from the blackness did you see a cottage in the background with a basket and rose clippers with some roses in. I was stunned. I had never told anyone of this. My friend had had a fever at the time as well some years after mine. I have experienced the feeling of the void a couple of times since.


Useful questions:

Do I have a burning desire about something?

Is this a sign of great stress or emotion, burning itself out?

Am I concerned, or should I be concerned about my health?

See Going BeyondLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsJesse Watkins EnlightenmentReaction to the unconscious


Fiddle

As this is associated with music, or skill as a musician, it probably shows you expressing your innate potential with skill – or otherwise if the fiddle is not being played well. It might also relate to ‘ fiddling about’ and so suggest you are doing nothing constructive. Or you can be ‘on the fiddle’ and so be attempting to cheat. You can ‘play second fiddle’ or ‘first fiddle’ and thus realise how you feel about a relationship or situation in which you are second best, or in the limelight. It can also represent sexual intercourse, or even masturbation. See: music; musical instrument; violin.

Useful questions and hints:

Is a piece of music being played – if so see associations?

Do you play the fiddle – if so what are your associations?

What happened in the dream and what did you feel?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Field

Field’s often appear with animals, and suggest the dreamer’s contact with what is natural in themselves. It can also suggest freedom from social pressure; one’s sense of oneself when away from other people, with one’s own natural inclinations; field of activity or study; feeling states – depending on condition of field, cloudy, bright, overgrown.

It can therefore indicate room to grow or to explore, space to expand and opportunity to explore new aspects of yourself. The natural field might also show your inner condition, what work you have done on your ‘nature’ – things growing and a good harvest, or a wild unkempt situation.

It might suggest a field of activity or study or feeling states – depending on the condition of the field – cloudy, bright, overgrown, etc. This type of field can also often reveal things if you dig below the surface – treasure, ancient artifacts or even bombs or difficulties.

A field can be place of safety; a place in which you are an obvious target; a place of opportunity because of its space, like a football field; a place to keep animals in and to act out ones drama in – sexual, fighting, hiding etc. or you can be conained in or held back by fences. You can live in a field in a tent or a caravan. You can be in a force field. You can grow or harvest things in a field, and be in various roles in it – farmer, hunter, lover, soldier and so on. See Characters and People in Dreams.

Field across river or very green fields: Death or the dreamers concept of spiritual realm. See: landscapes.

Example: Example: I saw a dark brown fertile field in which a plough was cutting large furrows. Suddenly I myself became the field and the sharp steel plough went easily through the length of my body and cut me into two halves. Although it hurt, it was indescribably beautiful. I experienced myself as the ploughed-up field, and the furrow as my own flesh, but it was not bleeding.

Medard Boss reports this dream of a woman who though experienced in sex, had not previously felt deep love. He says the richness and depth of her sexual feelings when in love, are depicted by the dream and being joyfully cut open.

Idioms: A level playing field; have a field day; lead the field; out in left field; play the field.


Useful questions and hints:

Does this show a particular area or activity and what I have done in it?

Am I feeling an opportunity to grow or explore my potential?

Could this represent ‘the playing field’ or staging of a situation in my life?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams


Fiesta

See: Carnival.

Fifth

See Five

Fight Fighting

Most often this expresses feelings of anger you may have been holding back during waking. But it can also, like a war scene in a dream, point to an area of conflicting feelings or interests.

Occasionally a fight can express feelings not so much of aggression, but of struggle for what is right for you; a fight for your ‘space’, a fight against urges in yourself, or influence from other people. This could be a fight for independence. See: War.

Usually, as in the example below, the dreamer’s anger or frustration. A fight may express difficulties in regard to independence or self confidence or desire to hurt another person, or damage their reputation.

A fight also depict, as in the second example, fighting for our space; our values or honour. We may fight for survival – for our health or fight crime, resist criminal impulses. We may also feel attacked by another persons opinions, or be assaulted by sexual desire; fight against depression; have a conflict over moral issues. See: attack.

Example: ‘Some three years ago I had constant dreams with my mother. We were nearly always in some sort of argument or fight.’ Marjorie B.

This is about the way a person ‘fights’ for their independence, not because the mother is preventing them, but because to be independent needs a lot of skill; such as financial independence, ones own opinions not controlled by parents, and ability to meet ones parents without fighting them

Example: ‘I realised a door had been left open that should have been locked and I felt very vulnerable. Suddenly a sword of light appeared in my hand and a voice told me that it was my weapon to fight the evil.’ Mrs D. B.

But something many people overlook is that we are all life-forms, and so are created by the process of Life, and because life has a flow or current which carries you forward all the time, through babyhood, childhood, adolescence, and onwards, you could be trying to fight the current. See Opening to Life

Fight or flight response: See flight or fight

Idioms: Fight it out; fight like cat and dog; look for a fight.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the fight about, or what am I fighting for?

What inner conflict or turmoil am I experiencing and what does this dream say about it?

Am I struggling toward independence or to stand my ground in a relationship?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in DreamsBeing in ControlProgrammedConflicts

 

 

Film

Sometimes a way of looking at a part of your behaviour, or experimenting with feelings, as something outside of you, rather than confronting them as part of yourself. Therefore it might be a part your own past or character which you do not wish to acknowledge. The theme of the film is usually important, because it will illustrate something relevant to your own life. In some cases it a urge to escape from what is pressing in your life. See: cinema.

Example: When I looked at the film it was a carnival going on in the street, people with gay clothing and crowds watching. Two girls were going to sit in an old model type car, but someone said it would be better if they sat on the back of the car as they could been seen in the parade. Then I was looking into the crowd to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd. H. K.

Here the main feature in the dream is the effort to ‘find me’. So the dreamer is watching the film in order to clarify their own self image, or find out who they are and how they relate to other people – the crowd.

The film might be an attempt to view yourself objectively, so images of your behavior and character projected from your intuitions about yourself.

Films are one of our means of escaping from reality but also an expression of creativity. We often watch a film in company and so it could be saying something about a relationship. See: Cinema.

Example: Our house on top of a hill was flooded. I went to a building in town and had to say a password to get in. I met friends of mine who are in my favourite band. Buddhist monks were in the room. We watched a short animated film. An attractive male pop star started touching my thigh. I felt very happy and relaxed. I am 18 and a virgin.

Starting with the last scene, I think you would like to lose your virginity to a man who wasn’t a run of the mill type – someone who has some public recognition – recognition you also want for yourself. The rest of the dream is about your personality, an interesting mixture of creativity, music, Eastern philosophy, powerful emotional urges and sexuality; each aspect seeking expression and balance with the others. But this special blend that is you, keeps hidden. Maybe you haven’t recognised it yourself – thus the secret password. If so, take time to acknowledge your real interests and let them shape what you do in the external world. Here lies your power.

Example: In my dream I felt like a character from a film, changing my image to become a new character. I felt very sexy and attractive, but knew I was in disguise. My husbands relatives tried to get in but I slammed the door. I felt embarrassed and frightened they might see the clothes and wig. A comfortable presence was behind me. I’m single, early twenties.

A fascinating dream weaving together thoughts about future marriage, how you feel others might see you, and an emerging and attractive side to your personality.  Anything new feels strange. Established character traits are more like habits than essential aspects of yourself. Underneath the make-up we are all shape shifters. But you feel the new things you are trying out might be seen as outrageous or false. But looking at the vast range of character traits in people throughout the world, which ones are RIGHT or TRUE? Of course you might be seen as outrageous by some people. So will you risk developing the sexy and attractive facet of yourself? Or will you let your inner wisdom – the shadowy character – guide you? From being a she/he your wholeness comes. See Archetype of the Shapeshifter

Film characters: These often depict particular characteristics or feelings such as fear, love, practical efficiency etc. So it would be useful to define how you feel about the character. See Characters and People in Dreams

Film from camera: Mostly to do with memories or dreams. The old films were very sensitive to light and can be ruined; digital photos can be deleted by a magnet and suggests things you have been impressed by, perhaps almost unconsciously, that are still awaiting development but could be lost. Or if the film is developed or saved then they are memories.


Useful questions and hints:

What is the subject or theme of the film? See: plot.

If I am in the film what part am I playing?

When I describe the dream what words do I use?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With


Film Star

See: FamousPeople

Filth

See: Cesspool and Faeces.

Find Finding Found

Usually, as in the first example, to discover, realise, become aware of some aspect of oneself and gain access to or use of. One might be living with constant resentments about one’s past or present situation, and then ‘find’ release from this for a day, yet not be conscious how it was achieved. The dream might attempt to define this. Or it might be a new idea you realise unconsciously in sleep.

Example: ‘I went into a cellar. It was rather cave like. I had to scramble to get into it. The entrance was difficult to find, but I had discovered it many years before and been in lots of times. I found objects in the cellar and was looking for something.’ Tony C.

Example: ‘Then I was with my dead father and was showing him a handful of exotic bank notes I had found in the building. They were £100 notes. I wasn’t sure if the money was legal tender or not. The notes had unusual design.’ Andy LBC

Andy has found a sense of his own value – the money – but is not sure if other people also value him. The dream illustrates the attempt to ‘find a place’ in society. The effort to search and find is frequently to do with one’s own identity, and what one is searching through is one’s experience or inner sense of life, as in Tony’s cellar above, or the example below.

Example: ‘I was looking into the crowd in the film to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd.’ Trudy K.

See: diggingseeing-see-sight.

Idioms: Find oneself; find fault; find out; find one’s bearings.


Useful questions and hints:

What did you find – was it of value?

Did you succeed in finding what was sought?

What have you been looking for in life or  yourself?

See Inner WorldAssociations Working With Secrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets


Finger Fingering

More than anything else it is through the fingers you feel and explore the things around you . Although your eyes allow you to see the world, it is with your fingers you take hold of it, work with it, create or destroy.

Fingers can be expressive of your feelings. It can be the finger of scorn; accusing finger; finger of suspicion; beckoning finger, or to put your finger on something and therefore know something about it.

Fingers represent your grasp on things, your method of materialising yourself, or leaving your mark upon the world; therefore your personal skills. The finger print also denotes your uniqueness.

The finger can represent the penis, as is common use in sex-play: or your means of sensing. or fingering things.

Fingers can, as the wedding ring finger, suggest something like marriage. The finger print also denotes your uniqueness.

Fingernails: These depict your ability to effect or change something, to grasp small things. They also reflect your way of life such as rough physical work or otherwise, suggesting whether life has been hard or kind – perhaps also your state of health. They might be weapons, or reflect your personal condition – i.e. dirty or cared for, whether you are ready to really use your hands, or whether, as with painted fingernails, you use them in a social sense.

Thumb: Indicates your identity, your uniqueness and what you have achieved in the world. The thumb sticks out from the other fingers and indicates independence. Means of identification or of getting a grip on things. Indicaates power and holding ability. You can express approval (thumbs up) or disapproval (thumbs down.

Index or first finger: This is a finger that indicates or points at things, so might be directing your attention or accusative in some way. It is an extension of the energy of your personality. It is The finger of authority, and giving direction. It can also often be judgemental. Can either make a point or point to solution.

Second finger: This may depict things that are where you have grown from as a person – your origins. It also links with the responsibilities you take on and your relationship with the law of the land.

Third or ring finger: This concerns your creativity, what talents you have and whether you are an artistic intellectual or physical type. In the west it has obvious connections with marriage and relationships. Can represent the finger of success, popularity or creativity, and art. It is obviously the finger indicating marriage.

Ring finger, Left Hand: Symbol of marriage, vows, promises, and commitments.

Rash Under Ring: Shows problems with commitment or the relationship in general.

Fourth finger Little Finger: This is about social interactions and communication. If it is damaged or very small it could suggest a childlike or immature manner. Sometimes seen to represent mental power, intellect, memory, diplomacy. Also power of communication, and expression of words. A power or lack of in communication, and expression of words in speaking or writing.

Example: In my childhood, aged between about five or ten, I used to dream about being on a roof with an archetypal witch figure bending over me. Pointing a very long finger-nailed hand at me – giving me an ‘I’m going to get you’ feeling. Simon.

Idioms: butter fingers; can’t put my finger on it; cross your fingers; fickle finger of fate; fingers the size of bananas; fucked by the fickle finger of fate; get the finger; get the bird; keep your fingers crossed; lift a finger; point a finger at; put my finger on it; work my fingers to the bone; wrap around her/his finger; get fingered; at your fingertips; finger; finger of suspicion; beckoning finger; green fingers; sticky fingers; burnt fingers; can’t put my finger on it; snapping his fingers; tapping fingers; intrusive fingers; slip through my fingers.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What is being done with the finger(s) and what can I gather from that?

What is being expressed in the dream?

What interaction between people is taking place with the fingers?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingDreams are Virtual Realities

Fire Fire station

More than anything else fire represents the process of life. Just as all living things do, fire needs to be fed to remain alive. So a fire burning low could show your life process at a low ebb.

A fire in dreams represent destroying the old, what was alive or lived in the past, and releasing their energy. The fire is the growing power within you consuming old forms of living.

Fire can also represent passion; sexuality; anger; desire; burning feelings such as resentment or frustration; our desire to destroy.

Fire can show the process of growth or change in us that radically alters our old dependencies and viewpoints. Fire completely alters much of what it touches, so can depict big changes. Beacon fires were also signs of warning or of something important happening.

It can indicate, depending on the rest of the dream, an emergency or calamitous change.

Our life process, often described as a flame which burns forever through different generations but leaves only ash behind. Like the fire, to exist our being burns other life forms as its fuel. Thus it destroys yet gives life, so is linked with our vital energy. We have the fire of life within us, we eat and feed the fire that consumes what we eat. It is the warmth of our body, the warmth, even passion, of our emotions and that is life – continuous through death.

Fire occasionally refers to physical illness or a warning of it.

House burnt down: Big changes in yourself and your attitudes; leaving old standards or dependencies behind or a sign of sickness.

The fireplace: Homeliness; the womb.

Underground flames: Unconscious emotions or desires which one may need to face for real growth. Illness that has not come to awareness yet.

Fire in the sky: Great changes in viewpoint; meeting the next step in maturity. Artemidorus said fire in the sky meant war or famine. For the Africans a bush fire meant war.

Fire going out or a cold burnt out fire: Suggests your life is low or showing illness. A fire out can indicate either a love or relationship that no longer has any warmth in it, or a life that was lived and is now only ashes.

Fire Station:  The central ability to deal with deal with destructive influences in you; and the power of using the life energy that can either injure or uplift.

Firewood: Gathering firewood may be to light the inner fire. More than anything else fire represents the process of life. Just as all living things do, fire needs to be fed to remain alive. We eat and breath to keep the fire alive – and if a huge part of you is only just waking up it needs feeding. Fire can also show the process of growth or change in us that radically alters our old dependencies and viewpoints. Fire completely alters much of what it touches, so can depict big changes.

Example: ‘I was in a small terraced house with a friend I had known years earlier. It was her house, there were two or three children in it. Suddenly, it caught fire, I wanted to stay and put the fire out but she did not. She dragged me outside and down the street. We saw the house burn down. I had this dream the day I got home from hospital, after undergoing a hysterectomy.’ Mrs G.

Here the fire depicts the consuming feelings of loss regarding Mrs G’s child bearing function. Also the loss of an area or era of her life.

Example: ‘I found quite a large old fire place. I asked my husband if he would like a fire. I thought it would be cosy if we both enjoyed the fire together. Woke up with warm feeling towards my husband, he reached out to me.’ Dinah Y.

Here fire is not only home making and human warmth, but also sexuality.

Idioms: Too hot to handle; you burn me up; old flame; the burning bush.

 

Useful questions and hints:

How is the fire portrayed in the dream?

Does it represent passion, burning love or consuming emotional fever of some kind?

Is it about purifying past hurts or mistakes?

Could this imply transformation of something?

Is this possibly a warning of illness?

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Facing FearProcessing Dreams

Fireflies

The fireflies are a very beautiful symbol. They represent the glimmers of light we see in the darkest times; the intuitions that come to us in need or to guide us and throw light on our life situation. There is life even in the dark.

Example: There is a swarm of fireflies flying all about the backyard and I’m taken back by how beautiful they are, but no-one else seems to notice them. They fly further into the distance and light up an area of the garden which reveals a stranger standing there and no-one notices him either.

Useful questions and hints:

What is it I feel when I see the fireflies?

Am I aware of new insights in connection with them?

What was I doing when I saw them?

What glimmers of insight am I aware of in connection with the fireflies?

See BackgroundSecrets of Power DreamingUsing Your Intuition

Fireman Firemen

The ability to deal with our passions or outbursts of emotion or anger; dealing with misplaced energy or personal emergencies involving passion, burning pain or fiery feelings.

Firemen can also deal with personal difficulties, like a person’s cat up a tree, or people trapped somewhere. So it suggests help when you need it.

Useful questions and hints:

What pain, anger or passionate responses am I dealing with at present?

Is this about my own feelings or that I am dealing with a ‘fire’ in someone else?

What is burning, and what does this suggest is being consumed or cleansed?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With

Fish Sea Creatures

When we decide to speak or move, unconscious physical and psychological impulses and processes occur to produce the response. These deeply unconscious processes are often depicted by fish. The fish can therefore depict something arising from within us that could be nourishing or threatening, depending on ones dream. For instance a person might allow feelings from within to emerge that had been held back. As the feelings flow a new sense of self might emerge, and be depicted as a fish.

It can also show the attitudes and urges we have in common with humanity – the collective unconscious – and the impulses or insights arising therefrom – can therefore represent the Self or Christ – the collective unconscious. Also the sexual drive in connection with reproduction, the many little fishes being sperm. In this sense we are the fish which swam the incredible journey and grew into a human, but is still on the odyssey of life and death. The fish may be the wisdom we have not yet brought to consciousness, regarding our personal journey in time and eternity.

Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.

The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy.

Example: Dreamt I was standing in a location by the bench where the carpet begins. The carpeted area and the hall was nearly a foot deep in water. (I had seen the kitchen as cold and uninviting and had bought some carpet and put it down to make it a softer area for my children.) I had bought all three fish. They were wrapped up. I unwrapped them and dropped them in the water. They immediately revived and swam away making a threshing noise in the water.

We had guests in the sitting-room, and after a while I went to look for the fish. The guests were just leaving the sitting-room to go upstairs. I found the fish and a carpet near the sitting-room door. It looked like the fish had been pushed there like rubbish. The scales were worn off and I felt upset by seeing them in that condition. I picked them up and wash them. Their heads were cut off and I was going to put them in the freezer.

This extraordinary dream was explored by the dreamer. He said of it, “I worked on the fish dream alone for a while, and nothing at all came for ages. Then suddenly I remembered how I had been thinking about fish during the day. I had seen how I stood out for my desire for fish despite my wife’s protestations. This was something I had not done before. The fish were my statement of strength in my own home. The carpeted area I had already seen as my putting a carpet down as giving of self to family and home. I had remembered talking to a friend about this the day before. After this I couldn’t get anything. But in the evening I was listening to a record – John Denver –  and I thought of my impressions of self when I went to Mr. Markham’s house. I realised myself as a very unimportant, middle-aged, not very successful man. I felt very humbled, and also the deeply gentle love for others that comes from such humility.

Then the words in the songs said, “The fish in the water,” and like a flash I realised what the water meant. Throughout the weekend I had been saying to the group, “The fish in the water doesn’t know it’s in the water. We are often so immersed in an attitude or state of consciousness we don’t even know we are in it.” My growing strength and self giving is so immersed in some sort of attitude I am unable as yet even to know I am in it.

A lot of emotion came. I cried with a feeling of humility and love for my wife. But I cried about something the crying didn’t make clear. Yet in a certain sense I felt the crying was like a breaking down, dying process.

Then I realised that was probably what the fish dream meant. The thing I was immersed in is my home that I don’t want to see. “The waters of Life. Self giving. All that which flows out of a man into his family, his sperm, his care, his strength, flowing out to his family. That’s the waters. That’s the dream. In the dream I gave my fish into my family, and I swam away. They said to me, “What is this fear underneath your pride? What is the strength underneath your fear?”

“They swam. Then they were under the mat, broken. That’s what life is. A proud, beautiful flowing out of strength, and then, it’s just swept under the mat. Life just builds bodies and then breaks them. Broken bodies on the sea of life. Life once flowed through them, now they are just so much waste on the flow of life, just like empty tins discarded.”

Here I had pictures of a group of monkeys all children. I saw how the fear or shock felt was usually only if their parent or comrades felt that falling over, shouting, fighting, was something to cry about instead of enjoy, that they started feeling apprehensive about the tumble of life.

“They don’t care if they are a part of it, a part of the group, not excluded. If they are loved it doesn’t matter that a foot occasionally comes out of the wrestling match and hits you in the ear. We are just these animals, who look in on the fight, the shouting, the loving, and say, is it all right? What’s going on? Is it something to be frightened of or to enjoy? If we go up to them and say, “It’s OK. We love you.” We are like those monkeys in the book, The Shadow of Man, who hold each other’s hand if something frightening happens. Then we look at each other. “Is this something we’ve got to be frightened of? You don’t look as frightened as you were, so I’m not frightened.”

The little ones are looking to as for clues all the time. All the time looking. They’re asking, “Is it okay? Is it okay if I get knocked over? Is it okay if someone shouts?” “Yes, sure it okay. It’s all part of living and being human.”

“Oh that’s OK then. “Sure, roll about a bit.”

Then I began to shout, “Let me out please. Let me out of here,” banging my chest. As I cried out my head turned to the left and I felt I was a fish. The position was appropriate because my head had an eye each side of my body. I remembered my two fish dreams, one with the dead fish covered in flies.

“Stinking dead fish. Something really rotten. Something really stinking, right in their (in my left chest).” Suddenly I took on a very nose in the air, supercilious attitude toward this rotten thing in my chest. “Quite horrible. It’s a stinking thing. A stinking thing. It’s a stinking fish. Take it away.”

Now my superciliousness of voice and face went. “It’s a fish, like the fish under the carpet in the dream. It’s a bit of me. The wreckage of life. I am a bit of the wreckage of life. Dead fish – out of water – how does it all link up? Such a huge thing this dead fish.” Its fear of death – fish out of water – teenage – the pain in the chest – the weak? There’s something missing so I can’t link it all up.”

My father who had a all this bloody muck on top of him from our culture about tits and brassieres, and pictures of women with their legs open, as if that was womanhood. That’s not womanhood. It’s a part of a woman’s equipment, but a woman is something so different. Womanhood is a lovely thing. Why picture it as all those things? It’s not just a fairytale thing. A woman is a real animal who feels, behind all that from her body. There’s a real human being, with fears, hopes, love, weakness, strength, and we give our youngsters this bloody stupid image – of men too – part of the deadness.

As I held my wife and touched her body I wept at the depth of feeling between us. I also saw my hands upon her, and observed their strength. I felt the strength of my manhood.

“I have all my life fought and worked hard to gain strength, unconsciously fearing I was weak. Yet now I can see that I am a strong man. I am strong just through being myself. I am strong in my own right, not through doing anything to make me strong.”

After a long time of looking and touching and drawing closer, we got into bed and lay close together. There was no attempt to make love. My body at this point did not seek this and there was no direction. We talked about this. I felt that Life or God married/united couples through flowing through them, and we must wait for that. Gradually it happened and a very satisfying coming together occurred.

As we lay together afterwards many things arose into my awareness. I wondered what power intercourse had to do with a timeless or eternal, and a completely new (for me) view of our union and the eternal arose. Before we had come upstairs I had seen how mankind exteriorise everything. They exteriorise God, the Church, the eternal. Yet the altar, the Church, God, are our own being, our own everyday experience, and the act of love is the act of Creation, birth and death, the void, everything. Yet our union, after all, had been unspectacular. How was worship, sacrifice, God, all involved in it?

I saw that if we approached each other in reverence, care, gentleness, then we approached Life itself. There is no imagination needed to understand that. Our partner, our own being, is Life incarnate. It is only an attitude that causes us to approach without care, prayerfulness or reverence.”

The following was an inner insight the man received about a dream in which, “I seemed to be also see inside the tunnel looking down on the river and seeing many fish or fish shapes in the water flowing or moving to the tunnel end.”

Example: The river really lives within your soul; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.

Dead fish: Non expression of basic urges. Non giving of self. No loving sexual giving.

Eaten by fish: Feeling threatened by irrational urges or emotions; threat of losing conscious or rational direction of life. It is an example of fear of Life in us and so repressing its urges.

Eating fish: Integrating our inner realisations. Partaking of Christ – i.e. feeling connected with society and the world, as in communion. Being a part of everyday life in giving and receiving.

Fishing: Creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the deep insights or processes to become known; trying to find spiritual nourishment; ‘fishing’ for ideas; compliments or information; seeking intuition.

Many little fish in round container: Could be sperm or depict becoming, or wanting to become pregnant.

crab The shell of brittle emotions we guard ourselves with grasping or hurtful attitudes. Being nipped by crab: Physical or psychosomatic pain or even illness caused by being too tight or self protective.

Dolphin and porpoise Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things.

Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.

I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.

jellyfish – Feelings arising from the unconscious which might be painful / sting the dreamer, bring a sense of helplessness / spineless, or are from a non verbal level of memory.

octopus Feeling trapped by the influence of one’s mother; dependence upon mother; one’s own possessiveness or desire to cling to someone in a relationship. Hadfield in Dreams and Nightmares, says that a baby often seizes upon its mother’s breast with this feeling, so it may represent the desire to posses or devour others. The octopus can also symbolise any unconscious fear which may drag us into its realm of irrational terror, or any influence you fear will engulf you.

sea lion It is similar to seal described below, but has also the male has the charcter of a bull type creature, who has a tremendous fight to get a mate and to produce offspring. The female sea lion is seeing who is the more dominat male to mate with and produce her child. So it is very much about our own primal instinct to mate and carry on the next generation.

 Example: I was standing on top of a small mound or rock, about fifteen feet high. At the base of this mound my wife was bending down looking at something. Nearby was a buffalo which was a smooth skinned blue bull. It had the rounded body lines of a sea lion. I sensed that it was going to charge at my wife’s behind. I called to her. The bull was walking toward her, speeding up as it approached. Then she was on the rock beside me. The bull was now excited and running around. I was anxious it might get at us somehow. On my left, I could see the mound connected with a flat area of higher ground, and I hoped the bull would not get onto the higher level and attack us.

The dreamer, who had a habit of not having regular sex with his wife, realised that his standing on the rock represented his being independent from his wife. But the bull/sea lion in him saw his wife’s attractive behind was an excitement to his own instinctive urges. He was anxious that the animals side of him would get to him, which he felt as an attack.

seal As the seal can emerge from the water entirely and live on land, the seal is sometimes used to represent the emergence from the womb and the pleasures or difficulties of life as a ‘land animal’ physically independent of our mother. This is especially so if it is a baby seal. It can also depict the emergence into your conscious life of your deepest instincts and life energies – in Eastern terminology the kundalini. Otherwise the possible meanings are much the same as dolphin – see above.

shark Fear of death; fear of the collective unconscious, or loss of self in the impersonal Whole or All; the power of the unconscious – so its protectiveness; someone who is a ‘shark’ or unscrupulous.

shell fish Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Clam: Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Oyster: A defensive shell, but may link with sexuality through common association of eating oysters as an aphrodisiac; tight lipped; secretive; frigidity. See: crab; pearl under jewels.

Lacking shell: Our naked vulnerability.

swordfish The same as fish but with the fear of being hurt by our realisations.

turtle There are so many different sizes of turtles it is difficult to be specific, but turtles are creatures that can live under water and also on land. They also have a protective shell they can withdraw into, and these are probably the main points your dream uses to depict something of yourself. So this part of your dream may link with feelings of deeply inner feelings or even vulnerabilities that are surfacing or being felt at present.

In other words you may feel vulnerable and withdraw into a protective shell – or are emerging from such vulnerability. It may be referring to a time in the past you did one or the other.

For women the turtle can appear in dreams about pregnancy, so you may dream this if you are, or are trying to become pregnant. See: Pregnancy and Dreams.

The turtle is a slow mover, but nevertheless is a survivor and can live easily in different environments. So the turtle might reflect a need for you to acknowledge these aspects of your own behaviour or character.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling vulnerable at the moment, and if so what about?

Are there ways I withdraw sometimes, and in what way do I do that?

What am I feeling from deep within me?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsEdgar Cayce

whale The powerful evolutionary drive involved in reproduction, which lies behind individual male or femaleness; the beneficent power of the collective unconscious. Also the ability to dive deeply into ones unconscious life process and awareness.

Example: ‘I was leaning over the settee with my hands cupped under my chin looking out of the window. The view was spectacular, in that it was as if the house was situated on top of a cliff overlooking a huge bay, shaped like a horseshoe, with the house in the middle. From the sea suddenly, coming into the bay I could see three enormous whales making their way toward me. As I was staring in amazement they began to transform themselves and come up out of the water as three giant Viking like figures. They were so huge, that the water came up only to their knees and everything was moving so slowly, as they waded towards me. It was the most awe inspiring thing I had ever seen in my life.’ Sue B.

The bay, the beautiful sea, the sperm? whales / men, show Sue touching the most primordial yet inspiring aspects of her own womanhood and urge to love.

See: Christ under archetypes; religion and dreams; sea. Idioms: Big fish; big fish in a small pond; cold fish; fish for compliments; fish out of water; queer fish; smell something fishy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

Am I meeting a deeper awareness of my relationship with the fundamental drives in me?

Has a change occurred where I am starting the inner journey into who I am beyond the surface personality?

Have I recently felt a wider awareness of what I am?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsEdgar Cayce

Fishing

Creating a receptive state of consciousness which allows the deep insights or processes to become known; trying to find spiritual nourishment; ‘fishing’ for ideas; compliments or information; seeking intuition.

Fishing rod: Male sexuality; personal power, or feelings of impotence. Getting a new fishing rod: In a man’s dream might mean feeling anxious about his ability to ‘hook’ a woman. For a woman it could mean a desire to ‘catch’ a new man. In general the rod suggests the means of pulling something out of the unknown of life or your mind. So it could suggest intuition of skill in acquiring the new, or something that nourishes.

Fist

Graspingness, selfishness, anger, arrogance, aggressiveness. tension. See Hand

Fit Fits

Seeing or having a fit in a dream is usually an indication of releasing deep tensions often caused by fear or not being able to meet deep or powerful emotions or stress.

In life and sleep we have two powerful actions working in us. The first is our waking experience based on having a body, its limitations, vulnerabilities and a particular gender. Our second is the power that gives us life and continues to express as dreams, in our breathing and heartbeat – our life energy. This I have given the description as the Life Will.

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. See LifeStreamPeople’s Experience of LifeStream– Life’s Little Secrets – Arm Circling Meditation

Example: For some considerable time now I have been troubled by a nightmarish dream which is so realistic sometimes I think I am going to die. In my dream, which sometimes comes within three quarters of an hour of falling asleep, I have swallowed something which is literally choking me or is going to poison me. I wake up and rush down the stairs to the kitchen spitting and choking, holding my throat and making all sorts of disturbing noises which frighten my wife. I have had this dream as many as five or six times a night. My doctor says it could be to do with the last war. I was a child then and my dad had to constantly wake me up to take us down to the shelter, sometimes as many as four times a night, and we were bombed out twice. I cannot recall having any fears about this at the time.

Here is a typical example of trauma trying to be released.

 

Five Fifth

The alchemists called this quintessence, because it arises from the other four elements. It symbolises the human, due to two arms, two legs and head, as in a five pointed star. It is the unity that arises from the four elements, or aspects of self. Five may also represent your hand or foot. Mostly the symbol of man incarnated in a physical body, and functioning therein. Here, all four aspects of being are expressing in a fifth quality, physical life and consciousness.

The astrological sign is Leo, the king. The fifth house of the horoscope relates to children or offspring, and Leo rules the heart. See: Numbers.

Because the five pointed star looks like the human body five is sometimes used to depict yourself or your body – either that or personal consciousness in your body. It might also link with the hand. Five is sometimes called the number of marriage because it unites all the previous numbers – 1+4 and 2+3. It could also refer to the five senses, which might appear in some form in your dreams.

Five may at times represent an immediate change in your situation, or something divided by five. Because it connects with our fingers and toes, five may be associated with expression of yourself into activity or movement.

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance you may have had three children, so the number three in a dream about children could be connected with your feelings or fears about them. So a number may refer to a particular year of your life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event or relationship; your family group – or it could have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

Idioms: a fifth wheel; as useless as a fifth wheel; fifth business; fifth column; bat five hundred; five o’clock shadow; Group of Five; high five; in the pipe five by five; take five; The Group of Five/The Reginal; five star hotel; nine to five life

Useful questions:

What memories or associations do I have with five?

Are there memories of importance from my fifth year or fifth grade?

The pentacle usually has a circle around it, and this depicts separation – the human sense of isolation – do I feel this?

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams Life’s Little Secrets


Flag

This can represent pride, either as ones connection with the group as in nationalism, or as an individual. The flag is also used to depict occasions of rejoicing such as marriage or victory, or mourning as with someone’s death.

Flags can be used to signal a message or an event, and a white flag says ‘surrender’. But it depends what the flag is and what you associate with it.

Flag at half mast definitely has a connection with death or a project that doesn’t work well – but it can be the death of a project or hope as well as a person.

Flags are planted to show success as when reaching the top of Everest, or in claiming and occupying land, so this might suggest your experience of entering new territory in yourself or life, or succeeding in reaching a difficult goal. Flags are also used to give signals or when joining in a celebration.


Useful questions and hints:

What is the flag being used for or signifying in the dream?

What feelings do I experience or are suggested in the dream?

Do any events such as a gathering or celebration suggest the significance?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions Edgar Cayce

Flames

Life itself – our life as it moves through experience leaving only memories; the mystery of consciousness underlying our personality. Flames can also indicate passion or anger. See: fire; candle; fireman.

Although a flame is very real you cannot grasp it. In a similar way you can’t grasp your own life or consciousness. So flames sometimes show the burning flame of personal awareness that leaves only ashes behind. Flames can also be an expression of love, passion or anger.

Sometimes a flame, a passion, a love, is passed on through the generations.

Flames can be warming or destructive, as can be your life. So a flame thrower could indicate destructive emotions directed at someone.

People like Victor, the young boy raised by animals in France, and studied by Dr. Itard, never attain self-awareness. Lacking human contact in childhood they do not develop a human personality. They have never been handed that mysterious gift that transforms them from an animal lacking self-awareness into a person. The absence of human contact meant they were never given that precious mystery that constitutes the human soul – i.e. conscious decision making and self-awareness..

This mysterious gift from one human to another is often symbolised by a flame or light. We are given a soul by those who share themselves with us. Perhaps through their act of accepting us a fellow human. This divine spark, like the flame from another lit candle, becomes ours personally as we live our life. We can pass that gift on to others by letting our light, or flame, fall into their lives. The Christian mystery of baptism is when we are ritually given a name and are accepted as a human person in the society of our birth. Of course this is a formalised dramatisation of the mysterious process of passing on the flame of self awareness – the soul. But the lit candle, lighting others is a beautiful symbol of this. The flame itself may represent the life, the mystery which, although we make it ours by living it, is beyond us, is universal, like the flame that can light a thousand other candles. It remains individual and collective all at the same time.

That mysterious flame is as old as human beings. It is a mystery no one really understands yet. So we represent it in religion with various symbols. Nevertheless it is the common daily bread of our life experience. If some care not to acknowledge that flame and its strangeness that is their loss. They never kneel before it and bathe in its depths, and gain from it the sharing in its eternal life. For beyond our personal colouring of the flame, it has a universal life, touching all beings, gathering them into itself. Without some wonder in us we never share, through it, the community with all other beings. This is the meaning of the sacrament of communion using the bread and wine.

Example: Now we are very close. His shirt is off. He has beautiful golden soft skin. I want to caress it. I’m laying very close to him. He says, “I see your candle. Is it the one I gave you?” I look at it. It’s a beautiful candle, a soft fragrance, pretty color, with lovely colored flames. I say, “No I burned your candle. It’s all gone. But I got this one because it’s like your candle and I liked it.” I am embarrassed because I am indirectly telling him I like him.

Flames coming from the head: We all have areas of the brain that are seldom developed – you know the old story of only 10% of our brain is used. The flames show that in some way you are awakening those higher brain functions. You may at times while awake feel a tickling or tingling feeling on the top of your head, and that may be a sign of the awakening.

Idioms: Baptism of fire; between two fires; fire up; go through fire and water; play with fire; under fire; add fuel to the flames; old flame; the old illness/love flared up.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Is this flame acting as light, as warmth or destruction?

In what was is the flame being used?

How am I responding to the flame?

See Colour and Energy in DreamsClicking OnThe Dream as a Code

Flashlight

See: Searchlight.

Fleas Lice Parasites Worms

These can depict thoughts or sexual habits which are purely selfish or carry a health risk. In some dreams if you catch the parasites from another person they indicate a feeling your relationship with someone is parasitic.

Fleas can also suggest thoughts or feelings that sap resolves, energy, or ambition, and that detract from your sociability. Or they can be attitudes or beliefs or worries that draw strength from you, or even cause illness. They may be attitudes or feelings you have ‘caught’ from someone else through relationship of one form or another – perhaps in childhood or through watching films with negative messages.

A parasite can also be a fear, such as anxiety about illness that saps your health and well-being. Or it can point to weakness in you that leads to dependence in connection with sex, drugs or alcohol.

Dreaming of fleas or lice on the body can also suggest unclean habits, or parasitical relationships.

Lice, fleas, bugs, worms: Things said, thought or things done that make you feel uncomfortable or ashamed, or feelings that one is, or someone else is a parasite in a relationship.

While relaxing, a man saw a dark and frightening shape leave the region of his heart. The man had suffered an illness, and now felt a fear of weakness concerning his heart. The dark shape was the way his unconscious made a graphic image of his fear, and showed it sapping his energies like a parasite. Such fears can appear in dreams as a demon or incubus, and represent your own terrors, fears, thoughts and desires that are out of harmony with your own well-being. See: Fleas.

 Example: ‘I was practising relaxation and went into a dream state. I saw a dark shape attached to my body near my heart. I felt very frightened as I saw it. But as I watched it broke away and left me.’ John W.

John had experienced a heart attack, and the dark shape was an embodiment of his fears about his heart, sucking at his energy and wellbeing. In relaxing he was able to let go of these feelings. Because the dream process shows such internal processes in imagery, the fears are shown as an incubus or dark parasite, which falls away.

Large parasites such as worms are something that has got into you somehow, and is living on your energy. It helps to get rid of them by recognising what it is.

 Example: Now the whole pointless maggot situation arose again. It didn’t disturb me as it did in past sessions, but it was, if anything, stronger than before. Humans are just another eating, growing, dying, life form. Their intelligence doesn’t alter one whit the fact that they are simply a big germ, a parasite living on other life forms. We are predators like every other life form. We live on other life, and are part and parcel of the whole critter eat critter. I remembered Pauline apologising about feeding meat to her cats. She was trying to avoid recognising she was in no way different to a cat, killing its food, scavenging – what is shopping? What is devouring and shitting? Okay I accept that, but I needed to accept it more deeply.

Hey, that is hard to accept, but I’ve got to let it come, actually say it and admit it – I am a parasite. Not just a predator but a fucking parasite. I felt low and mean. I am a parasite. How, in what way? The view of mankind seen in Bideford came back. Men and women hiding from their own pointlessness, their own featureless existences, their life without any real meaning. They lived and ate, fucked, slept, and died. They laughed wept, but all without any overall direction or point to life. It was like my wife and I talking about working towards something. If one is not working together for something, even if it is to school the children, or go on a cruise, life can feel like an empty drudge.

A parasite? What sort of parasite? Ah yes, by continually destroying my body so I can be looked after. A parasite. If I keep failing, being in pain, then I will be cared for. And anyway, look at the parasitic way humans relate. They have compulsive built in sexual, social and physical needs that they satisfy wherever they can. They take from each other what they want. If they didn’t have those needs they wouldn’t live together as man and wife, child and parent, boss man and employee. Maggots – Parasite. I am a parasite. Something started to come up that I didn’t want to see. To secure my ends as a parasite in my relationship with my wife I was surreptitiously setting her against her children. Weren’t we all sucking like baby blind animals, pushing each other out of the way to get what we need? I could see it. I could feel it in myself and all around me. Suck, suck, push, push, and shove out of the way. Blindly, stealthily seek one’s own interests. Some babies died, some are pushed out of the nest. Its survival isn’t it?

That is a very clear explanation of what some maggot or parasite dreams are about.

Useful questions and hints:

What is it I feel sapping my energy and resolve?

What attitudes that are depleting me have I picked up from someone else?

Am I in some way being like a parasite in taking all and giving nothing back in life?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of HabitsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Flesh

If this is human flesh it suggest the vital life, or processes that keep you alive. It is something that is essentially an expression of the person whose flesh it is. It might in some dreams suggest a part of yourself so linked with another person, that if they go, that part of you feels as if it is torn out. Flesh is the most sensitive part of you, so your feelings. It is also bodily life, so the urges of the body. See: BodyMeat.

Example: as I do so notice there is a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

The dreamer explored his dream and said about it: In looking at my hand I realised there was a hole in my life. Just prior to the dream I had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether my marriage was breaking up. The dream made me realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at my self confidence leading me to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived my usefulness.

Example: Have I known you? Then I have known Death. Have I betrayed any? Then I have betrayed Death. And its face is beauty for it is all things – naked, udressed of flesh, leafless, exposed, unclad Life – without the garment that our selfhood is. Bathing me in regret that I had to often forgotten my love for the Naked Beauty.

The message of the above is that at death we take of our flesh like clothes we have worn and are now naked and pristine. The Naked Beauty.

Example: I wonder whether you grew up in a rather orthodox or religious environment, because you seem to be still having a battle with it. You are trying to become independent from it, but that is difficult because it is the past pattern that is difficult to get out of your flesh. I put it in that language because past environments are in some way built into our body, and to change them takes work.

I have seen in several dreams that if we are born from parents who for generations have lived in a particular religious or political belief, it becomes a part of their structure. I liken it to the way that wasps were at one point in evolution independent creatures, but gradually became a colony and their bodies changed. So to some extent our bodies/flesh change through being exposed to certain beliefs or environments.

Example: Now the imagery gets more specific and I watch/experience an exquisite Japanese ritual of meeting, touch, massage, that is leading to sex. Several young women are with me in a large bath. They are not trying to be directly sexual, but are getting close, touching me, massaging, allowing me to feel their flesh near me. The beauty of it is in understanding how wise and artistic the whole approach is. I see it is to lead my awareness out of being bound by everyday affairs. It diffuses concentration on particulars of external life and gradually opens my senses to feel and allow pleasure. It helps the mind to drop fixation on externals and allow it to drop boundaries until one senses oneself as in a semi dream state. This allows sex to be not just a particular thing; not just a physical penetration or being entered, but something that connects you emotionally and mysteriously with another person, and to the huge mystery that is that person and oneself. Ones partner is not simply a human being, but the very essence of the female principle, merging with the male principle.

Example: I remember a dream told me by a friend who had been fasting for two weeks. She dreamt that she was eating the flesh of her thighs.

Condition of the flesh: We know a lot about a person by seeing their skin. So the flesh in your dream can suggest health or sickness, male or female, warm or cold, healthy or sicketc

Marks on the flesh: Because the flesh is what your life has created, your fate, or karma, any marks suggest something that you carry with you as your history, fate, or destiny. Some experience has marked you. The story of Cain and Able illustrates this.

Flesh eaten away: Feeling that life is draining you, or you are under great stress.

Bloody flesh: Sometimes during menstruatioin one dreams of seeing bloody flesh – not necessarily ones own.

Idioms: flesh out; in the flesh; pound of flesh

Useful questions and hints:

What does the flesh communicate to me – desire – repugnance – health?

Is there a particular sensation or desire connected to the flesh – is so what?

If the flesh is hut or injured, in what way and how does that refer to me?

See Emotions and Mood in Dreams –  Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Flies Fly

We usually see flies as something we do not want in our house. So it may suggest either an urge to kill them or get rid of them. Or it can suggest there is something unclean or even dead around. See flying

Flies are also the food of some creatures like lizards or bats and birds. So if you dream of this it suggests the natural order of things.

Example: I had the most disturbing dream the other night and I can’t stop thinking about it. Basically in the dream I was in my bedroom and there were flies everywhere, so I lifted up my mattress and under my bed there was a giant newborn dead babies and a coffin. I opened up the coffin and them inside was another dead baby.

The flies in this dream were a way of getting the dreamers attention to much bigger problem than the flies.

Example: I could see the spiders grow and trample over flies, only leaving lifeless corpses behind. They were sucking the blood right out of them. Then I saw a giant spider, more like a monster, taking a fly and eating it. After it was done, the spider had a human expression on its face.

This shows how we use dream images to show human situations or themes. The theme is how humans can trample over each other and misuse them for their own purposes. Think of the thousands killed in political wars or ethnic cleansing operations.

Irritating flies can suggest either someone else is interfering with your life, or you need to become aware of what is constantly calling for your attention. For instance a small irritation can take your attention away from something important.

Example: We have some marijuana to power the raft and push it into the driveway. There we begin waiting – meanwhile fighting off small scourges of rats and flies – while with a shovel waiting for a real big herd of rats to attack us.

The dreamers comment on this is, “After having sex with a stranger, I am afraid that my guilt feelings will attack me?”

Example: When I centred back on the dream I began to shout, “Let me out please. Let me out of here,” banging my chest. As I cried out my head turned to the left and I felt I was a fish. The position was appropriate because my head had an eye each side of my body. I remembered my two fish dreams, one with the dead fish covered in flies.

“Stinking dead fish. Something really rotten. Something really stinking, right in their (in my left chest).” Suddenly I took on a very nose in the air, supercilious attitude toward this rotten thing in my chest. “Quite horrible. It’s a stinking thing. A stinking thing. It’s a stinking fish. Take it away.”

Now my superciliousness of voice and face went. “It’s a fish, like the fish under the carpet in the dream. It’s a bit of me. The wreckage of life. I am a bit of the wreckage of life. Dead fish – I am a fish out of water. Then I remembered when I went home and looked at the house and saw how I neglected you all. I just broke down but I couldn’t let it out there and then. I can bear to see now how I had failed as a father and husband, how I couldn’t give myself to home, family, or a lover. I wouldn’t have been able to see it because there were so many other psychological problems in the way and I didn’t know how to resolve them – my failure, my lack of strength. It’s only because those are out of the way I can begin to see this now.

Idioms: as the crow flies; drop like flies; how time flies; time flies when you are having fun; you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.


Useful questions and hints:

Are the flies small irritations or signs of something I need to become aware of?

Is something buzzing around in my head and I am not understanding it?

Are there signs of something dead?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets


Flirt Flirting

I once flirted with a woman I was working with in a hotel. I was needed to help her make bed as as she was short staffed. She was wearing tight jeans which in my eyes made her rounded hips very attractive. So in flirting manner and semi humorous I said, “My goodness, you look so good in those dreams I want to chase you around the bed.” She immediately said in an angry voice, “What the hell are you talking about. You better stop that talk.”

I left it at that and got on helping make the beds. The next morning at breakfast – the early staff sat together – in front of everyone she came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders and said, “What we talked about yesterday – I am ready.”

It was an amazing turnaround and taught me that being humorous and jokey in a flirting way can be a way toward a relationship. So flirting is a way of saying something that you mean as humour. Being said in humour gives everyone a chance to back out.

Example: I am waiting around, flirting with the winner of a beauty contest. It is my ‘honor’ to pay her $5,000 hotel bill in order to take her our in the new sports car she won in the contest. Although I am flirting with other girls, she is a nice girl, honest, and waits for me. We have sex in her car, rather than spend a lot of money on another expensive hotel room. I like her a lot.

Useful questions and hints:

In what was was flirting involved in the dream?

Was I simply seeing if I could make it with them?

What did I learn from the dream?

See Being in ControlTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Float Floating

Often appears in dreams where the dreamer is getting close to someone of the opposite sex and some aspect of sexual feeling is present. At times it can be an experience of awareness expanding beyond the usual boundaries of the persons beliefs or of their physical senses. Also it often happens in flying dreams or in lucid dreaming.

Floating away from being practical or grounded, feeling light headed or ‘floaty’. Descent may show coming ‘down to earth’ or a feeling of setback.

On water: Relaxation; opening to power beyond the ego; being indecisive; being carried along by events. To be moved by passing feelings instead of by inner purpose. To be hopeful and buoyant. See: Flying

Earth floating off it: Losing connection with one’s roots of family or culture. This may also be occasionally shown as being on a high building.

Floating away: If you mysteriously and are perhaps white or glowing, it can represent feelings about a dead person who has ‘floated away’ from physical life.

Floating on air: This relate to your mind and mental attitude, idealism or lack of it. It may show how you manage to escape from ‘reality’, or painful things such as shyness, by thinking beautiful thoughts, or creating a mental world inside yourself through such things as reading or meditation. In a positive sense it shows an ability to change your state of mind at will.

Example: My boyfriend and I were at a local beach. I had been there before but he hadn’t. It was at a dam situated just up from the beach. I was floating in the air about ten feet above him, and he was dead. He had drowned. Since I had this dream we have broken-up. I still love him very much. T.H.

Example: ‘We were both shy of each other but as the dance went on I found I could move so well to his steps that we felt like one, it was so effortless that it felt like floating.’ Heather.

Example: After a transition that I don’t remember, I was floating in darkness wondering what was happening to me. I was going through some personal crisis I did not understand. Though I was not particularly aware of my (dreamed) body, I felt myself drift up. Sud-denly I entered the light, which I happily recognized. I knew then that I was again in the presence of God, and that this time I had died. The light was brilliant and filled my vision. There was a point above the level of my eyes from which the light appeared to radiate.  George Gillespie

Idioms: a pine float; float your boat; back teeth are floating


Useful questions and hints:

Am I experiencing hopeful and buoyant feelings, as in ‘floating on air’?

Am I floating through a situation without clear direction or purpose?

Does this indicate sexual involvement or feelings?

See Secrets of Power DreamingJesse Watkins EnlightenmentEdgar Cayce


Flocks

Any flock of animals or birds suggests the feelings of conformity or unconscious social drives that move you. Or to follow blindly. In Christianity the flock is said to be cared for by an abiding spirit of love. In some drams this is felt.

Flood

You can be flooded by water, by emotion, of fear, a flood of energy, flooded by sense impressions, by sexual feelings, hatred or anger, flooded with feelings and memories.

Depression could be seen as an inundation of negative emotions; anxiety a flood of fear; an overflow of usually unconscious or uncontrolled feelings and urges into consciousness. The flood can of course be of positive feelings like love. In any case, floods can be enriching to growth if handled well. In many flood dreams it is positive energy the dreamer is anxious about.

This usually indicates powerful and difficult emotions causing you to feel swamped and threatened by their intensity. One can also  be ‘flooded’ with anxiety, a flood of fear, or even an overflow of usually unconscious or uncontrolled feelings and urges into consciousness.

The flood can of course be a release of positive feelings like love. In any case, floods can be enriching to growth if handled well. In many flood dreams it is positive energy the dreamer is anxious about.

In any case, floods can be enriching to growth if handled well. In many flood dreams it is positive energy the dreamer is anxious about. See: Deluge; Avoid Being Victims

A flood dream for Artemidorus indicated misfortune in litigation or ill tempered masters; and it has virtually the same meaning for the Africans.

If you have a tendency toward fluid retention a flood dream could be showing that, so drop your salt intake and take some green tea which flushes you out. This often shows as strange feelings  in the head, headaches or even migraines.

Flooded house: This might indicate you have water retention or health problems or else that a tremendous emotional upset has happened.

Example: So when I imagine standing at that spot I am flooded with feelings and memories. I am aware of the changes that have gone on over the many years I have stood in that place.

Example: The family image would be tarnished if feelings trapped beneath the surface heated up and became visible. Mary was stunned by these comments but recognised their validity. Suddenly she found herself flooded with previously repressed memories about specific incidents of physical abuse and emotional trauma from her childhood. These were memories that had been totally blocked from awareness during the intervening years.

Useful questions and hints:

Do I feel as if I might be overwhelmed of late – if so what by and can I avert it?

If this is positive energy how am I expressing or sharing it?

What power of change is rising around and in me?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar CayceMartial Art of the Mind


Floor Floors

Your support, your physical life. You can be floored or overcome. Lying on the floor and finding it difficult to move represents being overpowered by gravity and life experiences. Basic things. Humility.

The floor also represents basic attitudes and confidence. The floor often appears without much emphasis in many dreams. This suggests it is depicting the present situation, attitudes, feelings or environment you are in that you barely notice. For instance first floor or second floor would suggest a different situation in which the events of the dream are taking place.

This points to your basic attitudes, principles and confidence; what supports you and you may take for granted, such as health, good will of others, the house you live in. The different floors of a house or building indicate different levels of your body or mind – such as physical sensation and process at the base; sexual and emotional level; thought and speech; intellectual understanding and thought; expanded awareness beyond the body senses. But the floors can also suggest different departments of your life. See: House.

In the US the first floor is the ground floor in the UK, and so on up.

Ground floor: Practical everyday life, sexuality; hips and legs.

First and other middle floors: Internal needs, rest, sleep, hungers; the trunk. Also the emotions and ‘heart’, so relates to feelings about other people and relationships.

Floor and floorboards: Basic attitudes and confidence; what supports you and you may take for granted, such as health, good will of others, the house you live in. The first floor or second floor would suggest a different situation in which the events of the dream are taking place.

Top floor or attic: Thinking; the conscious mind; memory; the head. Sometimes depicts higher awareness that sees beyond the limitations of our senses. Occasionally contains something frightening. See: Attic.

Example: I am in an unknown old building with unsafe floors. I vaguely feel it belongs to my long dead father. Around me are rats, which have young. I am hysterical because they keep multiplying. People with me, unknown, although my husband is there, don’t seem to care about them. I usually wake shouting because one of the rats touches me. I am not frightened of rats when awake. Dorothy C.

This clearly shows Dorothy’s feeling of lack of support. The dream goes on to say the connection is with the long dead father. This is unclear because Dorothy has not yet made it conscious what the fear is that arose in herself from her relationship with her father.   Useful questions and hints: Is the floor stable or sinking? What is my relationship with the floor in my dream? What ‘floor’ am I on and how des that relate to my life? See Avoid Being VictimsNothing Can Hurt You in Your DreamsProcessing Dreams

Flow – Up and Down

Apart from the flow of things like electricity, water, blood or urine, many dreams are particularly illustrating an up or down flow. Modern medicine doesn’t recognise this connection with mind and body, but ancient systems of health such as Acupuncture and Yoga particularly mention these energy flows. The flow upward is the unfolding of personal awareness from the basic levels of physical sensation up through the levels of awareness such as mutual attraction in sex; absorption of something other than self as in digestion; sympathy and empathy in emotions; communication of self in speech; understanding in mental activity; transcendence in going beyond the limitations of identity with your body.

The down flow is the entrance of an influence beyond the physical into your experience. The New Testament describes this in the image of the flame or light touching the head at Pentecost, of the dove descending. This touches, cleanses and enlivens the levels mentioned in the up flow.

Down flow and up flow: Are often shown in dreams when people are working on improving their inner life. There are two flows of energy in our being; the upflow is released potential from our physical body. The down flow is an opening to the universal existence and can bring new realisations, healing or speeded up evolution. See river

This nearly always deal with energy and how it is being dealt with – whether moving easily or blocked – or what it is doing in terms of creating or destroying. The flow may relate to emotions, sexual feelings, ideas, creativity, or any of the other things we connect with expressing or experiencing in life. This is where the phrase, ‘going with the flow’ originates from.

Below are some examples of this. 

 Example: I dreamt I am in a landscape and notice that everything is brown; the whole world is brown and lifeless. There is also a feeling of solemnity or dullness. I have enough lucidity to wonder why the world of my dream is so brown and dull. As I ask this I become more aware of what feeling the brownness expresses. It is seriousness – with no room for humour or fun. The feeling deepens, real enough and clear enough to look at and understand. I see it is my father’s attitude to life that I have unconsciously inherited. I realise how anxious he always felt about life, and how I took this in. That is how I became a ‘brown’ person. I see too that I do not need to be either brown or serious anymore.

Then the landscape changes. There are trees, plants and animals in brilliant colour. I wonder what this means, and the landscape begins to spin until the colours blend and shimmer. Suddenly my body seems to open to them, as if they are spinning inside of me, and with a most glorious feeling, a sensation of vibrating energy flows up my trunk to my head. With this comes realisation. I see how stupid I have been in my brown, anxious existence, how much life I have held back. The animals and plants are the different forces in my being that blend into energy and awareness. I feel I am capable of doing almost anything, like loving, writing a song, painting, telepathy, or speaking with the dead. This sparkling vibrating energy is life itself and can, if I learn to work with it, grow into any ability or direction I choose. I wake with a wonderful sense of my possibilities.

Example: I was in a house. I believe other people were in it too. From beyond sight in the sky a thin crystal clear column descended into the house. It looked like water but it had the consistency of a gel. Also it did not flow down in a torrent as water would, but flow slowly downward into the house. I felt it was the descent of some special influence or substance coming from dimension beyond our own, and connected with non physical beings. It was about three inches across and I stood underneath it at one point.

In exploring the dream I started by spontaneously calling out, “I am saying to the universe – I am open to you and I love you. I love you on and on.

This is a very powerful experience and I am very moved as this happens. I can feel this touching my life. It is touching my life. But I don’t know what it is. I don’t know.

Now I actually experience something touching my consciousness. It moves my feelings. “I struggled all my life. I struggled all my life to be open to the spiritual. Now my life is touched. And that is what is happening. I love you so much Life.” Now I cry out with incredible strength and fervour with the pleasure of what I feel.

Now a most extraordinary thing happened. I experience feelings of being made love to, but not through the genitals, but through my head right the way through my being down into my genitals. For a long time it felt as if I didn’t need to breathe, and in fact I seemed to exist without breathing for quite a long time. There was a feeling of tremendous quietness. Inside something gently moving through the openness in my head down my being, flowing to my genitals. Once there it was like it opened something. It changed something.”

Example: I dreamt the corridor comes out to my own front yard. My grandfather draws my attention to a cloud through which shines a beautiful golden sunbeam. My grandfather tells me that the sunbeam represents love, the greatest power in the Universe, and that I have to learn to love and accept the circumstances of my life, forgiving and understanding those who I feel short-changed me. If I can do this, he tells me, I can use this power to help others and I myself would develop more rapidly. His grandfather had died, but Herb had dearly loved and admired him. In reviewing this part of his dream, it was clear to Herb that his grandfather represented his higher self, his teacher and guide, and that he was indeed guiding Herb to the best that meditation could offer. “In my dream I was aware of my body in bed. The sunbeam came through the roof and hovered over me. I could let it enter my body if I wished. I allowed the beam to enter my being, and it did so at the base of my spine and moved up my back and came out the top of my head in a shower of sparkling golden light. I felt the soothing warmth of it and allowed it to enter again. I felt inspiration and joy and awakened with tears of happiness streaming down my cheeks.” Herb felt that he had experienced in his dream what he could obtain in meditation by applying the precepts in his dream to his everyday life.

Useful questions and hints:

Have I noticed any blockages in the movement of the flow?

The flow can also include things like a belt from a machine?

Have I felt any good feelings from the flow?

See Life’s Little SecretsEdgar CayceSecrets of Power DreamingAvoid Being Victims

 

Flower Flowers

Growing or growth, the opening out of abilities or feelings, as in flowering. Flowers can stand for a type of awareness, or faculty of the mind, like the Chakras of Indian philosophy. Also a sense of beauty, love, emotions. Flowers are used to express your feelings, as in giving red roses. And to lose virginity is called defloration. So the context of the dream is important.

Sense of beauty; flowering of a feeling quality or ability. Flowers are the sexual organs of plants and can indicate your own sexual feelings or organs, depending on shape. Flowers can also mean transitory beauty of life – or your youth, or the flowering of our ripeness to live, love and reproduce, and its passing.

So they can indicate a young woman’s sexual flowering – not just her sexual prowess, but her wonderful flowering to womanhood. Woman hood is to be a balancing and caring opposite to maleness. Being a woman means that she is more in touch with her emotions than many men because of her hormonal activity; she is more at home with caring professions such as nursing and social intervention, with children. She is the Great Mother whether she has born children or not, because she is the creator, who even if she does not bear her own children has the power to create. It is her innermost secret. See hysterectomy

Flowers have qualities too. Some are gaudy and showy, others shy and tiny. Some flowers call to you from a distance with their perfume, others repel in the same way. So your dream flower may be expressing subtle qualities.

Example: ‘So for the third time I held the woman and made love. The woman’s vagina was like a flower. I don’t mean to look at, but in physical sensation. My penis felt like it was penetrating petals of flesh and touching with great pleasure a central receptive area. I was left with the feeling of being able to make love again and again without any negative effects. It was a very positive and healthy feeling.’ John T.

John is feeling confident about his sexual drive. Although a powerful drive, subtle feelings and fears have an intense influence not only on the pleasure of sex, but also the response of the physical organs. The relationship with the penis and sex act in one’s dream shows what fears, hurts or attitudes are influencing the sexual flow.

Also: Feelings of pleasure; youthfulness; time of flowering.

Bud: Penis or vagina in the sense of growing male or female qualities.

Bloom: The bloom of a flower is usually either about the beauty of an opening heart, of feelings, of female sexuality and love, or about something coming into fullness, such as a creative idea, a creative work etc.

Flowering bulbs: Like a seed a bulb can point to a potential that can grow and flower in the right environment. But unlike seeds, a bulb carries a rich store of experience from the past. So it can depict things you have done in the past that still have potential for growth or fruition at the time of the dream. This suggests you have an enormous amount within you that has never been known before, just like a seed which has never produced all the potential of its growth, so appears to be a small dried up insignificant piece of matter. This potential needs the right environment and conditions to express. The conditions are now right for it, and it is emerging.

Giving flowers: Giving love and tenderness.

Many flowers growing: Feelings of well being and relaxation.

Dead flowers: Death or old age; dying love or abilities.

Giving dead flowers: Wishing someone dead or out of one’s life; dead feelings.

Lotus and Lily: As these grow from mud, through water to the air and light, they sometimes represent our wholeness and growth, showing our connection with the universal as we develop individually.

Rose: Love; the flowering of personal qualities, your soul or self. Sometimes the vagina. colours of roses

When the shape or number of petals is featured: A flowering of a new aspect of the Self. See: castrate; growth; plants; shapes.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Is it a particular flower – if so what do I associate with that flower?

What type of flower is this and what does it express?

What feelings do I experience in the dream and what does the context of the dream suggest about them?

Is this about sexual love or about the transitory nature of physical beauty?

See Using Symbols to Change Life ProblemsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind


Fluid

Water is the great solvent, so the meaning will depend just on what fluid is dreamt of – medicine – poison – cleansing fluid? Put a word to it to help understanding. But fluid is also the beginning of life – the sexual fluid.

Basic to fluid is that it can take any shape and can flow. So see: and Water. See: Flow; Water

As we try to grow and develop our inner self, the first thing we have to do is to build a shed/cabin in the inner world. That is our first stable thing in a very fluid and shape shifting world. From there we can start to enter into what are very strange surroundings when seen from our experience in the body. It means that our sense of identity of ego is a very fragile thing and one needs to have great ego strength to venture into worlds o fexperience that question everything we know.

Also we go through the whole of evolution in the womb, from simple cell growth, through a creature with gills living under water, to readiness for an air breathing mammal. We carry these changes in our brain. So the amniotic fluid is often met in out dreams, which are often about our life lived before we developed self awareness. See Levels of the Brain

The fluid in our dreams can have magic properties like healing or radically changing things.

Example: I had climbed through a whole bunch of metal tunnels and shafts with another girl. She kept messing up and putting us in danger. After we made it out my father applauded us on our success. Awhile later I was with the girl again and was talking about what happened when I noticed something strange. The miniature x-ray, which I conveniently held, showed that the girls’ heart was different then a humans. I immediately started to tell her it was okay, I wouldn’t tell anyone when she killed me. It happened mid sentence and I would feel my body being filled with something else (fluid, or maybe melted?). After my death the dream carried on and I could see my own body mutilated with the eyes melted out in almost a green acid. For some reason I woke up not upset over what had happened, but with understanding and indifference.

The dream shows a period in which you matured and grew up. The girl wasn’t messing up, but purposely putting you in danger to see how you handled it. Obviously you did well as you got approval from the father you carry in you. The x-ray was there because during the trials you had developed a whole new way of seeing life, and the girl was actually a part of your own self. I believe the acid effect was probably due to you having developed this new view of life and to know and feel a difference in your ‘heart’. And of course any real change in you kills the old you, eats it away because the new view cannot exist along side it. And death is usually a normal part of dream life. It happens several times in our development – the death of our child self as it becomes adolescent; the death of adolescent self as it merges into adulthood.

Example: I also remember the weird fact that there was a plastic tub full of water in the hospital room in which I had given birth. Inside the tub was a sealed plastic bag containing amniotic fluid. Its form kept changing between the fluid and the placenta. I’ve tried, with no luck, to make sense of these dreams. Any more insight would be greatly appreciated.

Example: I dreamt I step into fluid, fluid is warm, I lay in it, I can breath under it. . I am a seal (the baby who can emerge from the water). This is the way, of lightness. . I want out. . just fluid. Hold me here forever. The essence of life. You can live and dwell in this. . I want out. . . I ‘m still in the bubble, but standing up. . fairy land, sparkle & images. . uncertain. fluid stuck to me still attached. Reproductive organs.


Useful questions and hints:

What type of fluid is this and what might it do or be used for?

Is this a fluid I know – if so what do I use it for or associate with it?

What is happening to or in the fluid?

What do you do with the sexual fluid in your dream?

See Energy Sex and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of Habits

Flute

Harmony of the feelings. The expression of your best, or the spontaneous expression of your unconscious. Some folklore and mystics say that God plays us like a flute. The flute can also, due to its shape, have a sexual significance. So it could be the play of passion.

Fly

See: insects; flying; flies; airplane.

.

Flying Saucer

This suggests a change in yourself, or personal growth. It can also indicate becoming aware of something new, or some new aspect of yourself, one that you are not familiar with, and so seems strange or alien. For instance a change might be occurring in the way you relate to people or events.

Our mind has the ability to view our experience as a whole, rather than in parts. What we sense unconsciously in this way is presented to the conscious mind as images such as UFO’s or circles of light. Another way of explaining this is to realise that our conscious self is only a tiny part of the whole process of life active in us. There are amazing potentials in each of us that might only be glimpsed in stress situations. Occasionally this more powerful or bigger side of ourselves breaks through and is experienced as an alien, or great being. Because of the hallucinatory aspect of the dream process, and the fact that in dreaming we see exterior imagery as real, when this breaks through while we are awake, it is often difficult to accept the source of it as our own unconscious. See: Reaction to the unconscious;altered states of consciousness; space; spaceship.

The ball of light or fire: This is a common waking experience as well as dream image. It occurs when the person touches their sense of wholeness as described above. We see this mentioned in the description of Pentecost – the flame on top of the head – and may account for cases of people seeing flying saucers.

Example: ‘A flying saucer dropped a man on our lawn. He was seven feet tall and stood in a ring of light. The sky was vivid pink and a peculiar aeroplane flew over. It was the shape of a cross.’ Mrs A.

The circle, the light, the shape of the cross and the big man, are all symbols of the Self or the huge part of us usually unconscious. It shows an enormous amount of feelings and experiences are trying to surface from deep within you. They are shown as aliens because your present education and experiences are very different from what you are capable of and what you hold within you.

Willian James the famous writer on the mind wrote, “. . . our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. How to regard them is the question—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.”

Example: I was sitting in a deck chair on a beach, with a female partner on my left, also in a deck chair. Behind us were another couple in deck chairs, and behind them yet another couple. So, we were in a line of three sets of two deck chairs. As we were relaxing on the beach, I looked up and saw an astonishing sight. A line of flying saucers moved very quickly across the sky. They were two abreast, and probably about 20 of them. They moved toward me, high up in the sky, and then out of sight behind me.

So, I moved to the couple at the end of the line of a deck chairs. I said to them what a wonderful experience it had been. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen something like that. They shared this enthusiasm, and told me that now I had seen a UFO, I would have many other sightings, and perhaps even encounters. I realised that this couple were also speaking from a fixed attitude. They had somehow classified the event into an already existing opinion they held of UFO’s being some sort of mechanical spacecraft holding aliens. This did not fit my own observation of the event. The things that flew over my head did not appear to be made of any type of metal. They had more of the appearance of living creatures. Also, I had the impression of flagella at the rear, like many living cellular creatures.

Example: At the time a big wave comes crashing in, a flying saucer-like object comes down and skips down the beach and stops at the feet of some people sitting at a picnic table standing in the surf. I sort of walk over there and see a miniature tank emerge from the shallow sea water whose turret turns and begins spraying a liquid on everyone around. I get some of this liquid on me. Everyone listens to my story sort of silently, then they ask me how I feel. I say I feel all right, but I am worried about what was in the liquid. This is an unusually clear dream. It is like I am made to tell the story in the dream as well as experience the events so that I won’t forget any of the details. I feel okay, but different, as if something potentially life-changing has happened to me.

Example: We are doing the dream dance. As we begin to spin faster and faster, it is as if we turn into a flying saucer and whirl into outer space. We come into contact with an awesome source of intelligence. Then we realise that we have never left the ground. What is really happening is that dancing together we are ourselves the higher intelligence, with a power of consciousness that none of us individually can withstand. When we stop dancing, we are left with only a vague nostalgia for a being greater than ourselves.

The ridiculous thing is that here we are searching the heavens for signs of other life forms – all the time seeking physically – but our signals were received two thousand years ago, and sitting right here with us is an ET. But we are so puny minded we cannot even recognise it, or conceive of it. It has to be mechanical or technological (thus our picture of flying saucer is as some sort of mechanical contact between far distant minds) – but the Christ, the part of us that is in contact with a cosmic mind or a great power of love is so advanced in actual life skills – in the real technology of the Cosmos, there is not even a need for a body. See Meetings with Christ

As an example of how our dreams create images that cannot be taken at face value:

Example: This morning I woke up and as I opened my eyes and sat up there was this alien creature there in front of me. I was amazed and felt wonder because it was real and solid and was trying to communicate with me. I felt so much love for this strange creature and its attempts to communicate even though I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say.

Then suddenly a switch must have been tripped inside me and I understood and knew the alien. It was my wife, and she was saying, “Tony, turn over you’e snoring.” I must have been coming from a level where my language centre hadn’t  yet been switched on and I was seeing my wife as a delightful alien.

Example: I saw the creature that had triggered the light to come on, it was a female humanoid alien; she was covered in fur, maybe a greyish colour. As I saw her she knew I had seen her and was very nervous and started to run away. I had the feelings that she had stood at the door seeking shelter, so I called out to her not to be afraid and I would let her into the house.

I did that and she came in and she was a very timid creature, and I felt she needed care and love. I noticed that her face and hands were slightly different to human hands – she had three fingers rather than four. I reached out to touch her breasts and she did not back away.

The dream was very impressive and I felt showed how I had accepted parts of myself never uncovered before. The three fingers showed how a very ancient part of me had been recovered.

See: hallucinations and hallucinogens; satellite; spiritual life in dreams ; spiritual path and dreams; unconscious, the; UFO

Useful questions and hints:

Did I feel fear when confronted by aliens or a flying saucer?

Was there any experience of being lifted up or herded?

How would I describe the meeting with the saucer or aliens?

See Life ChangesMartial Art of the MindJesse Watkins EnlightenmentProcessing Dreams

 

Flying – not in airplane

This has many levels of significance, depending on the dream. It can mean you are flying or fleeing, from something you find difficult to face. This is usually something in your life you try to get away from by using distractions like social life, media entertainments, reading a book or watching a film, becoming over idealistic, religious, or living in the clouds of fantasy. See airplane

When flying we do not have our feet on the ground and so it can suggest either that you have found a positive expression to your energy, or that you have lost a practical grasp on what is happening. The positive flying when you are not fleeing from something, often indicates independence and the ability to deal well with your emotions or fears.

Example: I dream I was in my bed and had a magic carpet that I could fly on and I flew off with my dog.

Flying, in a plane, or without it, can also symbolise attempts to gain a view of what lies ahead of you in the future, or your potential. From the air we can see ahead, and back. We quickly review where we are heading, and the possibilities of our possible directions.

But flying does not necessarily mean movement, for in dreams flying indicates that you are in control of your fears and urges so you can hang in space.

Example: ‘I was floating atop a tree near houses and a rising walkway. I was saying to people around the tree that I had found something wonderful. Reaching out my hand I told them they could join me if they accepted this possibility in themselves. Some thought it was a publicity campaign, but were enjoying the spectacle. A few reached out and were immediately with me, until there were about six of us, men and women. We joined hands, experiencing a most amazing sense of well being. Then we slowly and effortlessly flew to a great height, leaving a trail of coloured smoke which could be seen for miles. It was to demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit. We then descended and were going somewhere else to show others.’ Margareta H.

There is a negative side to flying which depicts how we try to move away from internal trauma or fear by disassociating our feelings and mind from reality. We may do this by constantly reading books, watching television, or by internally deadening our feelings and body sensations. Thus some victims of sexual abuse dream of flying as an escape from their internal pain. Willa’s dream below expresses her own fear of her father who abused her, and shows how she attempted to escape this fear by ‘flying’.

The example below illustrates how much will, effort and learning can be involved in flying in dreams. This aspect of flying connects with the gaining of independence and the expression of one’s potential. Adler saw flying dreams suggestive of confidence and ability to solve present life problems. They portray the overcoming of obstacles and the people who have them are positively directing their life. The positive side of flying almost certainly depicts the ability to hold a steady state of mind against the difficulties of life. The negative side of flying shows a retreat from such difficulties.

 Example: I was held prisoner by an ‘evil scientist’ who appeared as an older white man, short, and wearing a white lab coat. We were in a room that looked like a laboratory high up in a tower. He seemed to want to conduct some kind of painful experiment on me. My fear was immense. I tried to escape by flying out of the only window in the room. I did fly out, but he came after me and pulled me back inside. Willa. Quoted from Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney published by Piatkus.

Example: ‘I was in a building with a group of people. I was being chased and suddenly fly up in the air to escape my pursuers.’ Michael O.

Example: I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away, sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer. M.C

Learning independence, and the ability to make decisions despite what others feel, may be done by ignoring our own feelings. This may be achieved by always keeping busy; never having quiet moments alone; filling empty periods with entertainment or company; smoking, drinking alcohol, taking sedatives or tranquillisers; rigid positive thinking. Then, as Michael does in his dream, we fly from issues we are pursued by instead of resolving them. This may lead us to the extremes of being either rigidly materialistic, or as rigidly ethereal. In either case we lose contact with everyday human issues, and may begin to have the ‘escape’ type flying dream, or out of body experiences. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

We are all born into a certain paradigm or ‘reality’. At one time, part of the ‘reality’ for most Britain’s was that anyone without a white skin was a heathen or savage. At other times the ‘reality’ has been that anything heavier than air could not fly. Meteors did not exist because theory discounted them – and so on. To break free of such paradigms and from the ‘gravity’ or hold our parental and social authority has on us, and to find a measure of emotional and intellectual freedom, takes the sort of will, effort and learning depicted in some flying dreams. See Archetype of the Paradigm 

‘During childhood I learned to fly in a long sequence of dreams. Each linked very clearly to the last. I would go to the nearby churchyard and in the beginning I would run along as fast as I could then jump and just manage to extend the jump by a great effort of will. In subsequent practices I managed to gradually extend the jump for many yards; and eventually I could skim along indefinitely. The next stage though was to extend my height, and this took enormous effort of will and body. I made active swimming motions and climbed, but only held altitude with great and constant concentration. With further practice still, this clumsy mode of flying was left behind as I learned to use pure motivation, decision or will to lift me into the air and carry me easily and gracefully wherever I wished. At this stage my flying was swift, mobile and without struggle.’

It is important to learn to fly because it is an excellent training for decision making, concentration, pure motivation and perseverance. You can train it first by imagination, by seeing if you can take of and not be afraid of falling/failing.

Flying expresses also the dealing with other internal influences which hold us down, such as self doubt, anxiety, depression.

Example: ‘I was flying. I felt nervous at first that I would fall down, but not afraid. I soon became confident and felt very happy and wanted the sensation to continue. I was flying over a building, could have been a small church, crematorium or graveyard but did not feel afraid or upset. When I woke I lay in bed and tried very hard to keep the feelings with me and, for reasons unknown, I do not wish to forget it.’ Mrs S. M.

In flying, Mrs. S. M. is finding a way to look at death – the graveyard – which gives her a different viewpoint, a different feeling reaction to it, and she doesn’t want to lose that precious newly learned view. In their maturing process, some people learn to see their thoughts and emotions as things they experience rather than what they are. For instance I might feel a failure and thus believe I am indeed a failure. Or I might recognise the feeling of failure as simply an emotion I sometimes have which I can choose a reaction to. This brings the sort of new viewpoint and freedom seen in the above example. See Avoid Being Victims

Flying alone occurs most frequently, showing the independent aspect of flying. But because it often involves our positive feelings of pleasure, flying may depict our sexuality as below, especially aspects of it expressing freedom from social norms and restraints.

Example: ‘I knew I could fly. I picked up one of the young women I felt love for and flew with her. Laughingly I felt like superman, and flew easily.’ Simon W.

Example: I miss my flights. I miss the feel of the wind. Soaring to the closeness of the earth and in full lightless speed into the high sky. Soaring down to touch the brim of the water below and seeing the flights reflections. I miss looking to my left and seeing my flight partner, a beautiful Hawk with beautiful yellow eyes. Never did the Hawk fly ahead nor behind or above nor below. I learned to see far below from high above. And when the flight was over I felt complete. I miss soaring!

Example: Particularly I miss coming alive for the first time – really alive and with a knowing and awareness that was like quicksilver and penetrating. I was flying – out of the heavy almost blind body still lying on the bed, and below me I could see great radiations coming from places on the surface of the earth. Was it prayers reaching out?

Transcendence is also depicted by flying. The tree is Margareta’s personal life. She is at the growing tip, transcending, leaving behind her past. Being high in flight, or on a hill or mountain also represents the action of seeing our life as a whole, having a sense of our overall direction and destiny, our essential self. This frequently gives rise to the drive to give of one’s best to others, as Margareta does in leaving behind a sign – the spire of colour.

Some researchers believe flying dreams often precede lucid dreams. See: lucid dreams; out of body experience. See also: hill; mountain.

Example: As this occurred I had a wonderful sense of being a lovely bird that has been in some way ill all its life. This meant it never flew when the flock took flight. Instead, to deal with its own difficulty it felt feelings of not wanting to fly like the others, of not wanting to be like them and do the meaningless things they do. But with the healing came the realisation I could fly, and I took wing and joined the flock. Now I am a creature of spirit, which I have always been, and I asked the Light to help me learn the ways of ‘flying’ in the spirit.

Another view of flying is that it is a way of exploring one’s own awareness and possibilities.

Example: That night I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.

Then I glided down and approached the field to land. It was near where I used to live near council houses, and was backed right onto the open hillside above two old elm trees. A young girl of about six was playing in the field. As I came in to land she saw me and ran away very frightened. I was gliding in the same direction she was running and called out to her not be frightened. She stopped and I landed. In amazement she looked at me and said, “How did you get to be up there?”

Flying in the clouds: This can either be about a sense of yourself free from the usual limitations of body, of concepts learned in a materialistic culture – or losing touch with your everyday life and escaping into imagination and longings. If it is the first it usually involves recognising that your essential self is not the body or the thoughts and emotions.

Idioms: Fly by night; flying high; send flying.

Useful questions and hints:

If I climbed above the clouds by flying, what sense of myself and the world did I arrive at?

Did I fly to escape from something or someone?

Are there difficulties in flying or is it easy?

Where did I fly to and what did I find?

See More than you Presently KnowTechniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams – Archetype of the Paradigm

 

Fog

Confusion; indecision; inability to see the real issues in yourself and your environment. The fog may also be an image of your state of mind – that you have a grey, lusterless mental view of things.

Another possibility is that the fog is an image of what is still unknown or hidden in you – your unconscious, and anything looming out of it is what is emerging into awareness.  People in a fog are often said to be trying to find their way home. Anxiety is a creator of confusion and fog.

Fear or anger starts is often seen in dreams as a fog that intiferes with our view of reality; it ends as something that can engulf you in its dark world. It suggests a strong need to clear the air mentally and emotionally.  Are you befogged by too many intellectual queries, doubts or objections. May also show your desire to hide your real motives behind a fog of self deceit.

However, this fragile thing we call self often builds powerful defences or boundaries to protect it from knowing its dependence upon the forces forming it. These defences often show themselves in rigid beliefs, in a fog of ignorance, in emotional outbursts against anything that might be felt to threaten, and also of course in the many ways in which we use drugs such as alcohol, medications and nicotine to deaden our sense perceptions of what is taking place around and within us.

Foghorn: warning of impending danger; fog-light – seeing better in a confusing situation; trying to improve perception. An obstacle or something confronting you that you have difficulty seeing.

Example: I am getting near to a place where the deads “live”; it is not a cemetery , it has big walls ( it is a place similar to the one I usually go to when I visit my grandparents in my dreams ) it is a   big space where a lot of people can be  . When at first  the gates open I am afraid by the thick fog which is everywhere, I can’t see anything, and I feel scared; I started running and I call for the livings; then the fog disappears and I am entering among the deads; there are all packed together , it’s a crowd of beings, I am looking for my grandfather, I see him and I recognize him, he is now a young  adolescent perhaps 12 or 13 . He doesn’t know who I am, and he doesn’t recognize me, I  don’t want to frighten him, I hug him and tell  him we belong to the same family, then I leave.

Example: I am in a grey fog. I am facing my mother, explaining that my father has been hitting me and maltreating me. I feel guilty. I turn to ask her if she knew what was happening. I began to think maybe she hadn’t known. She fades backwards into the mist.

Example: we were involved in some kind of change in time or shift in dimension or quality. There were difficulties involved but I had come through these. My son was doing it a different way to myself, entering into worlds of fantasy or images. I was worried about this, but in fact he came through the difficulties as easily as I did. It wasn’t that we changed our position in space at all, or even changed much as a person. I believe the main feeling was that the ‘dimensions’ were there, around us, in us, perhaps like a mysterious fog or barrier. Once we had passed through them they were no longer there to clear. There was also a sense of very real though intangible dangers. I see this as referring to such real dangers as loss of confidence, or loss of the hidden structures which make up sanity. At the end there was still a feeling that powerful forces were still to be met in an everyday sense – something like an opposing force – but 2000 baby carp fish had just joined us. At first I felt such tiny creatures couldn’t be any help. Then I realised these were forces in the unconscious which made a big difference.

Idioms: Not the foggiest.


Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling in the fog or about the fog, and can I connect that with my waking life?

If there is fear in the dream what am I afraid of?

Am I seeing or feeling other things in the fog, if so what am I becoming aware of?

See Processing DreamsQuestionsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Foliage

Ideas.

Follow Following Followed

You can follow orders, follow a leader; or follow an ideal or an idea; you can be followed and it can be threatening  or a good feeling. If you are following someone or an orderyou need to ask yourself why you are following and what is in it for you. If you are being followed wonder what or who is following you and what you feel about it. If you do not like it you can change it. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

If you are being followed, this might show who or what you are influencing, or what is coming into your life, perhaps what you are avoiding. To follow is to  have an attraction to, pursue, look for or seek something. It nearly always suggests you are being led by an attitude, hope or habit, and not consciously assessing present needs. In other words you may not be fully aware of what is leading you on in waking life.

Example: ‘The group I followed on the underground got off. I followed them. An elderly woman friend told me they were going home, not to my destination.’ Debbie T.

Debbie processed her dream and realised she was following old habits – the friend – which weren’t taking her where she wanted.

Example: A nazi officer got out. He looked at me and told me that I was under arrest. I was to report to headquarters. I asked, “Where is it?” He said, “Follow me.” So the kitten and I walked along. He went too fast (the officer), and I lose him. I didn’t know where headquarters was, so I asked directions!! It finally dawned on me that I could escape, that I was being really silly following orders.

Example: I then started to walk away from the tiger and I was afraid I would be attacked; in fact in my mind I was thinking “I hope the tiger doesn’t follow me”. However the tiger did follow me but it gave me a sense of protecting me and making sure I made it to my next destination.

To follow: Is to be influenced by; have an attraction to; pursue; seek something; look for. Nearly always suggests we are being led by an attitude, hope or habit, and not consciously assessing present needs.

Following animal: Led by basic drives, intuition or instinct.

Following opposite sex: Led by desire for satisfaction in love.

Being followed: Taking the initiative; pursued by memory, pain, guilt; ambition or a continuing sense of hope, doom, hunch, instinct.

Followed by opposite sex: Memories of old love.

Followed by animal: See: chased.

Idioms: a tough act to follow; do you follow; follow me; follow the rules; follow through; tough act to follow; follow the crowd


Useful questions and hints:

What am I being followed by and what does that link with in waking life?

What am I following and is this a habit or a desire?

What am I being urged on in my life by, and does it need re-evaluation?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsHabits Settings in Dreams


Food Fed Feeding

There is food for the mind; food for thought; food for the body; and spiritual nourishment. We can digest information or experience, the latter being food for our growth as an individual. Food can represent any of these. Something we might take or are taking into ourselves – such as experience of a relationship – qualities of another person – sexual pleasure – social pleasure, or warning about health in regard to what is eaten.

Taking in food is taking in the source of energy and life experience, and the action of Life within us desires as wide a range of food life experience as we can manage.

Begging for food can also represent the personal “hold” on people and relationships. This is holding onto people, because one “feeds” on the security they bring. Not taking one’s own food is to let go of people and the warmth and support they give.

A meal: Taking in life experience. Absorbing something of life and the world, being enriched. If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to others. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others.

But a meal is often a way to take in or restore our energy.

Sharing a meal: Sharing sustenance with others. In the ritual of the mass, it shows the recognition of sharing life with all others – being sustained by the flow of life as substance and energy.

Being sick from eating something: See: vomit.

Eating too much: If you have a stomach or abdomen that protrudes it shows you are eating to much and it is not healthy.  Try not eating for one or two days a week. See fasting

Food in connection with a particular person: Being nourished by or hungry for relationship with them; enjoyment of sexuality with them.

Frequent dreams about eating: Suggesting a great hunger for something; perhaps a compensation for dieting or problems with eating.

Giving food: Giving of oneself, time, love, work, sex.

Stealing food: Dishonest about needs in a relationship; feelings of being a parasite.

Not having enough food: A real need for some sort of nourishment. It could be for mental, emotional or physical needs. It could relate to childhood needs of not getting enough – mother’s breast, attention, love.

apple Temptation and the Garden of Eden. This links it with the fruits of ones action, or the consequences of action, the fruit of ones labour; pleasure; food or sustenance. See Adam and Eve

biscuit Pleasure, perhaps connected with childhood. If you are making the biscuits, it might suggest caring for your own needs or those of other people.

bread Experience; everyday life.

Given slice of bread: Offering sex; generosity.

cake Sensual enjoyment or hunger for sweet things.

carrot Sometimes represents the penis. It can also depict what you have to pull out of yourself through hard work, or ‘digging’. Promise of reward, as used with Donkey.

fruits Fruits of experience or effort and what emerges from them.

Soft or luscious fruits such as fig or peach: May represent female genitals, something soft, sweet and luscious – an enjoyable sensation or experience.

Long fruit such as banana: See Banana

Apple: Temptation; breast; healthy food.

Grapes: Because grapes can be used to make alcohol, they often have a special significance, and are a very ancient cultural symbol. They depict fruitfulness, fertility, but perhaps fruitfulness of a spiritual kind. So a woman dreaming of them, especially near her belly can assume she is pregnant. But they also signify pleasures of the world, drinking, sex, wealth, and conversely, in Christianity they signify the blood of Christ. That means the essence of human experience. The collective human wisdom. See grapes

Lemon: Possibly symbolises the feelings of bitterness, sourness. In some nations the lemon also has strong associations with health, so it might show a suggestion to use for your health.

Pineapple: Fruitfulness of soul. Quality or royalty. Self confidence. Prickly exterior.

jam In a mess, a sticky situation. Conserved ideas. Fruits of labour. Pleasure, perhaps childhood pleasure or feelings.

jelly or jello Childhood pleasure/needs. Indecision through anxiety; feeling uncertain about oneself perhaps through lacking a firm identity; something difficult to grasp or feel certain about; potential that can be shaped by one motivations and decisions.

Jelly can also be associated with parties, fun, the jelly of breasts. Sometimes jelly  is used in scary or troubling dreams. Also your legs can turn to jelly, meaning that a shock has led you to lose strength and feel insecure.

Eating jelly: Taking in feelings of uncertainty or something that can be shaped, something that has potential. Enjoying a party feeling.

Example: There is silence so deep it is a physical presence – as though the room is filled with transparent jelly.

Example: I am seeking to know what is a man. I can’t deflate it, I can’t destroy it (what) Mum and Dad are. My heritage is felt as all my left side like jelly, (anxieties) how can I shape all of this, in my body?

meals Social pleasure; acceptance; social intercourse.

If alone: Independence; loss of family ties; lack of social relationships or outside stimulus.

meat – See meat

milk See milk

Nuts See nuts

olive See olive

 

salad See salad

 

sweets See sweets

vegetables Basic needs; material satisfaction.

If long as carrot: Male sexuality. If a woman’s dream – feelings about sex with male. If male dream – his own sexuality.

Onion: Something to cry about; also the different layers of oneself – inner self, outer self.

See: eating; restaurant; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Fool

See archetype of the fool-clown-trickster.

Football

In some football games there is real prizes, money, but in many there is the sense of success or feeling of defeat, so dreaming of football can indicate these. But in dreams, football is often used to represent life, where chances we take can have very direct connection with real events.

What we do in our dream game will indicate how we are playing the ‘game’ of life. We may be playing recklessly, by the rules, skilfully, caringly etc. These indications can be seen as comments on our real life activities.

With football in particular there is competition between teams. They represent for many people the strong drive to identify with a tribe, a group. They are therefore ways you might gain identity and a sense of connection with people around you. In growing internationalism, such games may be of vital importance to maintaining a sense of identity; otherwise you may feel lost in a multitude.


Useful questions and hints:

What does football represent for you?

Do I gain an identity and connection with others from it?

Do I have a feeling of win or lose about my life?

Is the game involving money?

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Martial Art of the Mind – Clicking On

Force Forcing

We can have the force of imagination, the internal forces, an alien force, a motivating force, a force in the world, a massive force of positive change, natural forces that create us, a restrictive force, forced to admit, force of the unconscious, cosmic forces, conflicting forces, brute force, habitual forces, sexual forcefulness, hidden forces, archetypal forces, forces of change – and many more.

So you need to define what force is acting on you in your dream. Is it electrical force; in that case look up electricity. Is it the force of water; in which case look up water, river and tsunami. Is it the power of your own emotion and fear? If it is look up avoid being victims, or secrets of power dreaming, or whatever the force is an expression of.

You can change the outcome of dreams using Secrets of Power Dreaming or Martial Art of the Mind

Ford

A practical way through emotions. What you are crossing here is a river, and a river is a flow of energy, usually referring to emotions or spontaneous urges. So the ease or difficulty with which you cross the ford in the dream shows how you are dealing with overcoming an obstacle, how well you are meeting things like lack of confidence, despair, uncertainty, etc. See: river.

The ford has certain features similar to bridge in that you are moving from one place to another. But in this case you are involved in the water, and this cannot help but have a cleansing effect or an influence from the flow. So the dream can be about a change you are making or is happening. Seeing someone else cross the river can also be about a change in relationship with them, or sometimes links with the ‘passing over’ – the death – of that person. The river can be a tremendous force you have to struggle with.

There is the biblical story of Jacob at the ford:

And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

It is a story of prevailing against all odds, and by doing blessed by God.

The ford is obviously a symbol of spiritual trails, for St. Christopher followed the advice of a priest who told him to wait for Christ at a ford. In the years that followed he carried any person who wanted help across the river. But on a dark, stormy night, a small child asked him to carry him across the river. Easily St. Christopher lifted the child onto his shoulders. But having started he had to go more slowly at every step. For the small child became heavier and heavier. When he arrived in midstream, he felt “as if he carried the whole universe.” He realised then that he had taken Christ upon his shoulders-and Christ gave him remission of his sins and eternal life.

The holy child represents the whole and wonderful person we could become if we can bear the burden of our life when seen from heavens viewpoint.


Useful questions and hints:

Is this ford a barrier I am facing or an easy way to make a change in my life?

In what way am I relating to the river – is it washing me or a struggle?

Is there any suggestion of a loss here?

See Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little Secrets

Foreign Countries

Different attitude; different mental or emotional ‘climate’ than one’s norm; sometimes represents meeting an aspect of oneself that was previously unconscious, so unknown or foreign; the unfamiliar a challenge. One’s personal associations or ideas about any particular country need to be explored. Use the questions in processing dreams.

For instance, if Italy is abroad for you, you might feel it is a warm and romantic place. It would therefore represent a situation in which you are feeling romance and warmth. But a country at war would represent conflict.

So in most cases, abroad suggests a change or a different feeling or life situation than you are presently in. The dream may be referring to the exploration of new interests, or new areas of yourself – or even of being in a situation you are not at home in, a different attitude or different mental or emotional ‘climate’ than your norm. Sometimes it represents meeting an aspect of yourself that was previously unconscious, so unknown or foreign, so the unfamiliar. Also your personal associations or ideas about any particular country need to be explored. Or even a running away from the reality of everyday life. Use the questions in Processing dreams.

Foreign can also refer to something or a situation as in the words foreign body – something that shouldn’t be there or is not fitting.


Useful questions and hints:

What am I meeting that is different to my usual experience or way of life?

Am I experiencing new areas of myself?

What do I feel or associate with this place?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming UpProcessing Dreams

Foreigner

Usually this shows you an aspect of your personality or skill that you were previously unaware of. Perhaps it was repressed or hidden and so now feels foreign or new. It is usually good to unfold the possibilities of this previously unknown part of you. So it represent something largely unknown to you.


Useful questions:

What is the character or skills of this person?

What is it that is foreign or unknown about this person?

How am I relating to this different part of my possibilities?

See Characters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

Forest

This is about your natural feelings, the self you are underneath what you may express in your daily life. It is the magical world of the unconscious, full as it is of strange forces, primeval creatures and miraculous people.

I dreamt I was walking in the streets of a tree-lined suburb. It was dark and I felt like a creature of the dark, and avoided the few people. I was now a dark skinned, nearly naked youth or man, and trotted down a forest track away from the houses, back to my “home”, the forest.

If you are in or exploring the forest it shows you becoming aware of the level of yourself that is usually drowned out by your daily life or civilized activities. You will be more aware of meeting your internal animals. This is the country of dreams and the unconscious. In the forest you are in touch with the forces and wisdom of Life.

In Dante’s Paradise, He describes the first scene as him being lost in a forest, and that is his entry into the  unconscious.

See: Animal; Brain levels; Jungle; Tree.


Useful questions:

Am I afraid or lost in meeting this natural part of me, or do I feel at home?

Do I meet anyone or anything in the forest, and if so what happens?

What am I learning or doing in connection with the forest?

Forest Woods

Our natural feelings; the self we are underneath what we express through our needs for social and physical survival; the magical world of the unconscious, full as it is of strange forces, primeval creatures and miraculous people.

If you are in or exploring the forest it shows you becoming aware of the level of yourself that is usually drowned out by your daily life or civilized activities. You will be more aware of meeting your internal animals. This is the country of dreams and the unconscious. In the forest you are in touch with the forces and wisdom of Life. See tree; animal; brain levels; jungle

Example: I had a dream last night that I was walking in a lush green tropical forest similar to a place I visited as a child with my family (one of the happy, adventurous family trips) and looked similar to a Dr. Seuss book (also a happy memory), walking alone along a wide dirt path.  Trees tall, hanging vines.  I realized that everywhere in trees, bushes were snakes of all kinds, hanging like vines and entwined within every bush.  They weren’t on the road, just enmeshed in the greenery, almost lazily and happily like playful energies.  I was stressed when I started to realize they were everywhere, like when you get caught in a spider web, not really so scared (there was a friendly air) but I knew that they could be dangerous.  I was more afraid of getting tangled up in them than I was of getting bitten.

I see the main message of your dream is stated in the words “clear, wide dirt road running through and the trees.” Also “doing what snakes do, enjoying the beautiful environment.” But you meet fears that you are infringing on their territory. So it sounds to me as if your future is assured because there is a clear road ahead of you. It is your fears of making a wrong move that leads to your uncertainty, but there is no sign of that in your dream, just your fears.  You say that nature is in charge; but you yourself are a product of nature, and are part of Life’s process. So walk with your head held high, even though you carry fears with you. That is what a forest means.

Example: I dreamt I was walking in the streets of a tree-lined suburb. It was dark and I felt like a creature of the dark, and avoided the few people. I was now a dark skinned, nearly naked youth or man, and trotted down a forest track away from the houses, back to my “home”, the forest.

As I went deeper and deeper, I saw on my right, a man dressed only in long underpants, hanging up animal skins to dry. We knew each other. I asked him why he had killed them. He said he needed clothes, that there was a shortage of animal skins, etc. But all of his arguments were to me futile and rationalisations of his pleasure in shooting. He said, “Anyway, what is wrong with shooting then?”  I replied that he was killing the forest. I pointed to a river behind him. Its banks were sterile and empty of growth and life. “Men” had done this to the river, and were killing the forest. I wept with emotion as I told him this.

Here the dreamer is entering his natural state, not his programmed civilised condition.

The forest and exploring it can be an intimate experience of our own background, our heritage. Here is a man’s meeting with it.

For the great beast I saw in the rocks, were an image behind which lay the realisation that the extraordinary process of life has struggled through unimaginable periods of time, and we are the expression of it. Although it appears like a great and ancient beast, it is full of mystery and magic. It has brought about living beings in incredible variety. It has possibilities we cannot even guess at. Within itself it holds the secrets of creation and destruction, of sleep and waking, of the intricacies of mind and spirit. It has unimaginable power and tenacity. It is beyond us and yet intimately of very core of self. We relate to it, we enliven it, we call it out or imprisonment by every act we do.

As I looked at this beast I noticed that its eyes were being hurt. Arrows were being fired at its eyes, and javelins thrown. I wondered who could be doing this, and stepped forward to take out the javelins and the arrows. I wondered what the arrows and javelins could be, and was it I throwing them, firing them? Gradually it clarified that we continually injure this wonderful process in us. Consciousness is a special state that acts in all manner of ways for this great ancient being or process is what lies behind our existence. Consciousness is its eyes and ears, its fingers and mouth, its means of experience, and its way of learning. And whatever we feed back to that fundamental part of us is deeply felt. Perhaps this is not a very accurate description, but it is like a loving and willing dog that out of its instinctive being tries to do all that we ask of it, tries to grow, tries to learn.

But it is so sensitive, so when we are angry with it, or frustrated, or direct criticism at it, it cowers, it feels failure, its exuberance diminishes. So also with this great wonderful beast within, this mysterious process of life that is at our core. It withdraws. But we can also call it out into further expression, enabling it to extend beyond its previous capabilities, by loving it, by acknowledging its wonder, by calling it forth.

Useful questions:

Am I afraid or lost in meeting this natural part of me, or do I feel at home?

Do I meet anyone or anything in the forest, and if so what happens?

What am I learning or doing in connection with the forest?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming UpThe Sacred Tree

Forgery

In some way you are either not being honest with yourself or others, or are being deceived in some way. If you are involved in a deal of some sort, look carefully at what is being presented.

There might also be the possibility that you are copying someone else’s work, or money is being got on false pretences. This is sometimes an attempt to achieve success by using a lie or someone else’s work.

Is it document such as a passport that is being forged? What is being achieved by what is dreamt of?

Useful questions:

What does the dream suggest results from the forgery and how does that link with my life?

Am I the forger or the victim of forgery?

What is it in my life that connects with this?

See Martial Art of the MindUsing Symbols to Change Life ProblemsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Fork

If this is a garden fork, it indicates your activity to change yourself, or your situation in some way. For instance when you dig a garden or fork it over you are working on it to improve its situation and to clear the weeds or ‘problems’. Such activity on yourself can often uncover things buried from your past, or allow things to now grow fruitfully. See: digging.

The fork appears in some dreams as an aggressive weapon, or certain an expression of irritated or defensive feelings. Also, like spade or shovel, it can be used as a way of burying something or someone as well as uncovering. As such it indicates anger or aggression that suppresses emotions connecting you with another person or thing.

Example: My father is sitting across the table from me, but a little way down the table to my left. There are some pieces of bread covered with grated cheese on the table for me to eat. I choose one and just before I pick this piece up, my father reaches across the table, takes it and very deliberately gives it to my mother. At first I am stunned, then I am enraged. I reach across the table and grab ahold of his tie and pull him forward. He pulls out a big meat fork and I grab it (by the horns!) and pull him across the table. I then sort of go unconscious and when I come to, I find myself pushing the fork into the ground. “You are never going to do this to me again,” I say and I drive the fork into the ground again and again. When I am finished stabbing the fork in the ground, everyone is sitting at the table silently eating. My father is gone. I have the feeling that I have killed him, but I don’t remember how. I was in a total rage at him. I just wasn’t going to put up with his shit anymore.

Fork for eating: A table fork is a way of satisfying your hunger or needs in a socially acceptable way. What you put on your fork is often an act of choosing or decision – of like and dislike. Cutlery can indicate poverty or riches in its quality, also social nicety through placing and using cutlery.

For a family a table has all the right knives and forks. It has all the correct glasses. Table has manners.

Fork in the road: Sometimes, if you are right handed, taking the left fork can mean a wrong thing, but not always. The left fork can also mean a turn into the hidden or inconscious part of you. Even a parting from accustomed way or relationship.

But fork in a road indicates a decision or conflict of interests, and so it is important to be aware of how and why you decide. What you are choosing between may be indicated by the dream, but it is often a choice between what you feel and what you believe or are led to believe by your cultural programming; between your deep down needs and your desires or what appears to be instant gratification; between what nature knows within you and what you believe to be true. Sometime this is experimental and you can – as in any dream – explore the different possibilities. See Secrets of Power Dreaming; Left-Right

Example: I go the left fork. My mother says, “The gravel looks different here.” I say, “You’re right.” I made the wrong turn and I go back to the fork to go down the right fork. I had intuitively felt it was the right way, even before my mother spoke.


Useful questions and hints:

Am I working at improving who I am – and if so in what way and what am I achieving?

Is something being uncovered or buried here, and what?

What choices am I facing at this time – or what is pulling me in different directions?

See Associations Working WithHabitsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Fork

Your activity to change yourself, or your situation in some way. For instance when you dig a garden or fork it over you are working on it to improve its situation and to clear the weeds or ‘problems’.

A fork is also what we use to feed ourselves.

See: digging.

Fortress

Feelings of security or insecurity. Our defensive attitudes and the way we defend ourselves against ‘attack’. Past attitudes which may have been necessary in childhood to defend ourselves while strengthening our identity; our way of defending against the remembering or experiencing of childhood pain. See: defencedefence mechanisms.

Example: I was inside a medieval style fortress – it felt as though this was my family home dominated by a male, father-like figure. I couldn’t get out; I desperately wanted to leave but he wouldn’t let me. I was standing at the huge wooden gate trying to escape when he found me. My only hope of escape was to curse him, which I did and so he let me go. Once free and in a better world, I admitted to my friends that I had had to curse him and that I knew the curse would come back on me but I had no other way to escape.

Here the fortress was the woman’s defence against the feeling stimulated by having no father. The fortress is also a prison because she is trapped by her own emotions.


Useful questions and hints:

What am I defending in myself, or defensive about?

Is there something I am seeking in the castle, if so what is it?

Does this express a desire for a secure and rich life?

See Avoid Being VictimsLife’s Little SecretsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Foundations

What is fundamental in us is often so deeply buried we are unaware of it. For instance babies raised by animals never learn to speak or to become self aware. They remain an animal with all the behaviour traits of the animal that reared them. (See: Animal Children). Their foundations, their fundamental concepts, response to environment, sensory impressions, are totally different to a person who was taught language and social relationships with humans. So your foundations of your personality are the family behaviour patterns you learned without language, the culture and language you grew up with, and the uncountable things you learned almost unconsciously.

But there are foundations that go deeper than that. Your body is the result of millions of years of life on this planet, and of processes in the universe older than that. So your deeper foundations rest in the universe and it unfolding. Without the universe you have no existence. It and its origins are your foundation. This is the most fundamental sense of self we have – does life uphold or seek to destroy?

The foundations are what everything else is built upon. So poor foundations indicate what you have built of yourself is not secure. The natural and spontaneous part of your nature is the foundation of what you have become now as an adult. Not only were you born with an enormous natural wisdom gained through millions of years of evolution, but your newborn self also carried protective responses such as fear, anger, and sexual longing. The human is built on the foundations of the reptile, and that is built upon the mammal in us. See Levels of the Brain

Our parents are the very foundation of our development, of what we learn about relationship, about love and anger, about meeting the world and opportunity, we cannot become mature and independent individuals until we sort out our own foundations. That is why there is the saying, “Honour you father and mother”. It is not about them as external figures, but what they leave in you. See my parents

The void or nothingness as people call it is the source of our dreams, and the incredible wisdom it gives us. That nothingness is the Source of Everything. If we invite it into our lives openly we are truly enriched. It is the very foundation of our existence. There is an ancient book titled The Cloud of Unknowing. The unknown author invites us to stand in the Cloud of Unknowing and be blessed. The state of unknowing is the nothingness – the foundation.

Example: Then the throat pain became unbearable. I investigated it and I became aware of doom. If I didn’t fight it, doom would take over. I was weary of fighting it so I let doom take over and sank into the doom and it was then that I found myself at the foot of the great being and total acceptance of my life. Spontaneously, before I knew it I was offering everything as a sacrifice, including past mistakes and cock-ups, and that I had to do this. And then there were the images again of clefts: the earth, female genitals, undersea-ocean crusts opening and something, as yet formless, emerging. This, I suspect, is my creativity in the world.

Here the woman reaches her foundatioin by letting her pain live in her instead of repressing it and she found herseld at the foot of a great being – her experience of her foundation – and reclaimed her creativity.


Useful questions and hints:

What of my own foundations is my dream indicating and what is their condition?

In what way am I relating to the foundations?

Can I gather information about my own deeper self from this dream?

See touching core selfTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEnlightenment

Fountain

The process of life; flow of consciousness into awareness; joy of collective life. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me.

A symbol of emotions and of the unconscious-water-and combined with the elements of air and light, symbolizing a highly controlled and intellectualized examination of the self. Fountains are also symbols of nourishment (the fountain of life) and eternal life (the fountain of youth).

Our emotions, especially joy or love, often feel as if they move through us, flowing, and the fountain in a dream can illustrate this. In this way the fountain shows how life flows from hidden or unconscious sources and arises into awareness and feelings such as joy.

Drinking from and bathing in: From unconsciousness we become self aware. That is a miraculous process that we see in all living forms around us, and bathing in the fountain or drinking from it shows you opening yourself to the influence of that wondrous flow of life and its mysteries. Because some fountains and spring have never ceased to flow, they are also linked with eternal life – the life that has brought you out of non-existence and wakes you each day. It points to the life that lies behind your personal existence, or is the essence of you. It I suggests health and happiness.

A broken or blocked fountain: This suggests you need to take care of your health as life is not flowing through you as it should.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling in connection with the fountain?

If I drink from it or bathe in it what happens?

Is the fountain clear or blocked?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsPeople’s Experience of LifeStreamEdgar Cayce

Four – 4

The symbol of four is the square or cube, representing stability, materialisation, earthiness, strength of a physical nature, permanency. It is the symbol of the four points of the compass; four elements, earth, air, fire and water; four functions, sensation, feeling, thinking, intuition. Four often, perhaps in the form of a square, depicts a sort of physical harmony, a wholeness. Astrologically it is Cancer, the prophet or teacher, realisation at a physical level, home and background, and the breasts. See: Numbers.

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance you may have had four children, so the number three in a dream about children could be connected with your feelings or fears about them. So a number may refer to a particular year of your life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event or relationship; your family group.

Physicality; the earth; stability and strength; the home or house; reality; down to earth – yet at the same time the spiritual within the physical; the four sides to human nature – sensation, feeling, thought, intuition; earth, air fire and water.

The symbolic meanings of the number four are linked to those of the cross and the square. “Almost from prehistoric times, the number four was employed to signify what was solid, what could be touched and felt. Its relationship to the cross (four points) made it an outstanding symbol of wholeness and universality, a symbol which drew all to itself”.

We have at least four levels of our brain See Levels of the Brain

The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter name of God.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride in the Book of Revelation.

The four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The four stages of Hindu life – Brahmacharya (student life), Grihastha (household life), Vanaprastha (retired life) and Sannyasa (renunciation).

The Four Arch Angels in Islam are: Jibraeel (Gabriel), Mikaeel (Michael), Izraeel (Azrael), and Israfil (Raphael)

The Chinese, Vietnamese, the Korean and the Japanese are superstitious about the number four because it is a homonym for “death” in their languages.

The heart consists of four chambers.

Represents the union of the three Persons of the Saint Trinity in only one Being. In this sense the number 4 symbolizes the family, being considered as another image of the number 1.

Symbolises the incarnation of the beings in the matter.

According to Edgar Cayce there are four main types of dreams: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—often represented in dreams by earth, air, fire, and water. There are four primary sources of dreams: (1) our own sub-conscious with its many levels; (2) the subconscious of another with which we may communicate; (3) the superconscious; and (4) God.

Four or more people: Feelings about meeting group decisions and feelings; someone’s opinion or will backed by others; supportive feelings.

Idioms: Four square; on all fours; four letter word.


Useful questions and hints:

What part does the number four play in my dream?

What do I immediately associate with the number?

Did anything memorable happen to me when I was four?

See Associations Working WithSecrets of Power DreamingJesse Watkins Enlightenment


Fox

Shrewdness in dealing with what faces you in life; a tricky person or relationship; street wise; trickiness in regard to events or self judgements. This usually relates to ones mistaken interpretation or attitudes to the situation. It also might depict shrewdness or wisdom gained from life experience; unpredictable behaviour or the ability not to conform. See: coyote; trickster under archetypes.

Getting close to the fox means you are getting close to the natural and responsive in you and around you – being at one with life in you. The fox is the shrewd part of you, in touch with nature and the world. This is probably because the fox, although a wild creature, lives equally well in forest and in towns. So it can give you great wisdom and adaptability.

Example: I was in a park and saw a fox carrying something in its mouth. As it got nearer to me I thought it was a bundle of rags it held. Then when it was alongside the bush it dropped the bundle and I saw it was a cub. The fox looked old and gaunt, not sleek or streamlined. It’s fur was coming out in places. It turned and fiercely went for the dogs to keep them from the cub. Then, as they all got behind the bush they dropped all aggression and sat down peacefully together. I realised this was because they were out of sight of the men. The fox was now sitting at arms length away from me next to the bush. We looked directly at each other and a powerful sense of connection pervaded me. It felt as if I and the fox were one being. I reached out and laid my hand on it. It made no attempt to move away, but I realised this was not a respect of its wildness, and took my hand away.

I worked on his dream with the dream group I organised recently. The park and the path connected with my sense of communicating a ‘way’ to people, an approach to their own being that is a link between humanness and nature. The dogs represent my view of the games that many people play to exist in the world. We think or believe we have to be aggressive and forceful to survive – the strong dominating the weak. In my dream I play this game for the sake of other people. As soon as there is an opportunity I drop this and find myself at peace with others. The fox is the shrewd, old me in touch with nature in myself and the world. I am getting rather gaunt, thin, and some of my hair is falling out. I still have the parental urge, but am learning to drop this. I found a deep sense of love, a non-grasping love, when working on the fox. And the bush I experienced as a sense of being at one with the Tree of Life – the power of radiant self-existent life in humans and nature.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I feeling about the fox in my dream, and how does this link with my waking life?

I what way am I relating to the fox, and does this say anything about my survival instincts?

If I am in conflict with the fox what is the underlying problem?

In what way are my ‘street wise’ responses to life involved at the moment?

See Brain Levels and Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAnimalMartial Art of the Mind


Freeze Frozen

This usually shows that you have been frightened of expressing your emotions, or that you have denied a part of your memories, feelings or sexuality. It might be that you emotional natures has no developed by being in a cold environment. You, or someone near you, has been or is cold emotionally. It can also mean you miss or need affection or warmth. So it is about being unfeeling, but sometimes painfully unfeeling. To become cold emotionally and perhaps sexually. To need affection or warmth. To be unfeeling, but sometimes painfully unfeeling. See: cold

It depicts what is meant by the term cold shoulder, where we shut off any display of warmth or compassion. It also therefore shows the dreamer as having ‘frozen assets’ in a personal sense.

But often it means that the dreamer has shut off a part of themselves in a sort of cold storage – a freezer. Something what is frozen can be thawed, and so the frozen things can depict potential, personal assets not yet used or brought to life.

Frozen can also mean stillness, a quietness of mind and emotions.

A freezer would depict either your ability to repress your feelings, or ability to store something for the future – like denying spending now so you can save for something in the future.

Icicle: Frozen male sexual feelings.

Iceberg: Similar to ice, but may suggest frozen potential.

Body locked in ice, perhaps dead: Deadening of all our feeling reactions and enjoyment or motivation.

Idioms: Break the ice; cut no ice; put on ice; tread on thin ice.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What am I unfeeling about at the moment?

Is there a part of me frozen in the past and unable to move on?

Is this about stillness and a sense of peace in me?

See Associations Working WithMartial Art of the MindSecrets of Power Dreaming

 

Frequency of dreams

See Science of dreams

Fridge

See Refrigerator

Friend

Your feelings or worries about this friend. If the dream friend is no one you know then usually represents the inner intuitive feelings that encourage and advise you. The character of this unknown person will tell you what aspect of yourself the friend displays. Or it may relate to your contact with friends. See Characters and People in Dreams

Good friend: Each person, object or even place in a dream should not be thought of as a symbol, such as a road sign that needs interpretation. A person or object is a living part of you, just as your hand is not a symbol it is a living part of you. As such a person is alive and responsive, with enormous depths. And a good friend is a wonderful aid in your life, an aid that can see you through the difficult times, and show you a new side of yourself.

To understand the friend you need to be that friend. I mean imagine yourself in their body and see how it feels, and describe yourself as them, even ask them questions. In doing so do not forget that this is a part of yourself you are making more real. Don’t get the silly idea this is someone else, even though they have the face and body of someone else. In this way you will discover an enormous amount about your own strength and ‘goodness’. But if you cannot do that, then at least imagine talking to them ask them questions and listening for their replies. Or if you cannot even do that, then remember that you have a good friend and treasure it.

Bad Friend: This is the opposite of what was said above. So take heed of what you learn and try to avoid repeating the mistakes.

Boyfriend: See boyfriend

Girlfriend: See girlfriend

Example: A male friend of mind had finally come back from his vacation and I was flirting with him and he turned me down. We were eating pancakes outside. I remember leaving the table and the pancakes no longer hungry. Then I came back wanting to eat the pancakes again. Then I got in my car and drove for a long period of time.

Example: Back in January, my boyfriend’s friend was murdered. The trial is going to start soon and recently I have been having a reoccurring dream about his friend. I knew his friend but we were not close. In each dream, he is wearing the same clothes and hat and he is talking but I can’t understand him. We had the same first name and the look on his face gives me a weird feeling. He looks as if he is worried about something and I can’t understand what he is saying. I asked if anyone else has dreamt about him and everyone says no. What does this mean? Why would he come to me of all people? Is he trying to communicate with me? Thanks.

Example: The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches. John P.

Useful questions:

Is this friend someone I know? If so, what do I think and feel about this person?

If I do not know the friend in the dream, what characteristics does she/he have that reflect my own life at the moment?

If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel or realise?

See Being the Person or ThingProcessing DreamsLearning to Love


Frog Frogs

Any amphibian and reptile depicts your basic spinal and lower brain reactions, such as fight or flight, reproduction, attraction or repulsion, sex drive, need for food and reaction to pain. This includes the fundamental evolutionary ability to change and the urge to survive – very powerful and ancient processes. Your relationship with the amphibian in your dreams depicts how you deal with such urges in you, and how you deal with the impulses from the ancient part of your brain – probably the spinal brain. (Thanks Melissa).

The deeply unconscious psychobiological life processes, that transformed us from a tadpole/sperm, into an air breathing frog/adult – therefore the process of life in general and its wisdom. The enormous information such symbols hold if we explore them gives them their power. It can also suggest a meeting with what we find difficult or repulsive in life and ourselves, that if we can accept it transforms into personal potential and power – the frog into the prince story. It is often a form of love that transforms the dark sides of oneself, the toad or beast, into something that is life enhancing. It can also be sub-personality, an aspect of ones character that is usually unconscious, but occasionally shows itself in behaviour.

The frog has also been associated with the power of resurrection and renewal.

Frogs spawn: Sperm, ovum and reproduction. It can also occasionally show as a doorway to another dimension. See: sub-personalityAutonomous Complex

Example: I felt close to a woman, and we were holding hands. Together we walked into a large building. I believe my woman companion had been in the place before. I say this because I was feeling slightly uncertain and she was feeling confident and supportive.

Inside the front door of the building was a wide passageway probably about 15 or 20 feet wide. Not far along this passage something completely filled the space ahead. It looked like frogs spawn, but much more ethereal, perhaps like patterns of energy with just a little material substance. With no real hesitation the woman and I walked into this wall of energy. I believe we knew more or less what would happen – that we would be absorbed and become wholly a part of this life form. As we walked into it I was trying to analyse what was happening and what it felt like. I lost all sense of my body as a dense form, but I could still feel my partner’s hand in mine in a very delicate way – again like energy playing upon energy

It can also relates to being a little frog in a big pond, or pointing our that like frogs, you are  jumping from one thing to another, or perhaps moving forward in leaps and bounds.

Frogs were linked with the Egyptian frog goddess Heket. It was associated with the flooding of the Nile. The association was made because when the Nile left its riverbed, millions of tiny frogs also appeared. So frogs represented abundant life and fertility to the Egyptians. An image of the goddess was worn by pregnant women as a talisman for a safe birth.

The frog and the princess who aids the frog to transform in a prince are about the power of transformation in our inner world. The things we despise or avoid are often – in our dream world – the things that have wonderful qualities of transformation.

Because frogs lay a mass of eggs they are symbols of fertility. This can represent the creativity you have unconsciously, or sometimes it is dreamt when a woman is pregnant.

We have a brain in us that is there because of our evolutionary history as a reptile.  See Reptilian Brain. Perhaps because of that Joseph Campbell felt that the frog is another example of the dragon and other frightening monsters whose role in mythology is to guard treasure. The reptile/dragon represents the dark and frightening aspects of ones own nature; the huge instinctive feelings we usually resist or repress. The treasure is your Core Self, which enables one to attain real womanhood or manhood. That is why the frog has also been associated with the power of resurrection and renewal.

Useful questions and hints:

What deeper levels of my life process or of survival drives am I becoming aware of?

Is there something of myself I am repulsed by and yet could be transformed?

Do I still need to emerge from dependence into a fuller maturity?

See Being the Person or Thing Avoid Being VictimsJesse Watkins Enlightenment


 

 

Front

This usually relates to what you are aware of, and what other people can see, about yourself or what you are doing. This is so whether it is the front of a house, a car, or yourself. It is the ‘front’ or facade you use to meet other people and events with. It is also the part of yourself that takes most of the impact of relationships and events.

When the term ‘the part of yourself’ is used, it means those personal traits, attitudes or skills you use. A person may be aggressive in business deals, but this might be something he or she has to use to cope with what is necessary in business. So it is only a ‘part’ of their nature, perhaps a ‘front’.

Front of body, house, etc.: The more public or expressed or exposed part of one’s nature, or attitudes used to meet ‘the world’. Also a ‘front’ or facade, used to create an impression; the point of stress where we as a person contact others and meet impacts, and so are more vulnerable.

Sometimes, as with the front of a car, or the front door of a house, especially if bonnet or door is being opened, it can link with sexual feelings. Something in front of you shows you being confronted by whatever it is, or it is becoming a more conscious part of your experience. See: Back.

But the front door if it is someone there is is probably about a new experience or person that is comng into your life.

Example: I was looking at my bookcase and remembered that Tim had commented that it didn’t look like I was a great reader. As I thought this I wanted him to know that what was seen on the bookcase was only the front row of books, and there were a lot more behind them.

This dream clearly shows how the woman has a lot more depth than her first impressions give. It is obviously telling her not to be put down by her man friends comment.

Example: I was on an unpaved road with an unseen companion. In front on my right was a steep hill road. It ascended through trees. As I looked I realised it was the road to the hospital where I had experienced such trauma as a three year old, and in which I had my tonsils out – both. I explained to my companion that the road used to be almost impassable, but it was now widened and tarmaced. I felt a sense of an awful past as I looked at the road. Then I was standing on the edge of a precipice or cliff. My wife was about four yards away near the road. I stepped in an area of soft earth. It gave beneath my weight and I sank up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable and the whole area would fall. I was sinking and shouting to her to help me. She was gaily walking about and made light of my call for help. I cried out again. Still she ignored me. I shouted again for her help. She took no notice and I sank deeper, the ground gave way and I fell to my death.

The front in this dream refers to what he is now facing, as is explained in the following: “I explored this dream with a friend. It was about the effects or attitudes of being left in the hospital by my mother. Mainly that I feel nobody – the woman I love – will come to my help in a crisis. So deep down, because my mother could apparently leave me in a hospital at three, I do not trust anybody – maybe not even myself. If you cannot trust your mother, who can you trust? I have transferred this mistrust to her also. Likewise, for reasons of her own, she doesn’t trust me.

I felt an area of hurt feelings in me to do with trusting nobody. Gradually the feelings melted into gentle feelings of need for others. I needed to be held sometimes. I need the stimulation and variety of other people’s company. I need some involvement from others in what I do with my life. I also feel the pleasure of having something that others wish to share. I realised how wonderful it is to have found something in myself that can contact and integrate the various aspects of my nature, such as my painful experiences, my sexuality, the highest in me, and so on. I want to share the ability to experience oneself so widely with others.”

Idioms: A lot of front; in front of; putting up a good front.


Useful questions and hints:

What is it that I am aware of that the dream brings more fully to my attention?

Whatever this front is, what is it expressing?

What is this the front of, and what does that suggest?

See Background and foregroundBackgroundTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Frontier

This suggests you are making great changes in life, moving from one set of values or way of life to another. You are probably meeting some sort of barrier or hesitation. It suggests a point in your growth where you may have to prove yourself or make changes. The change might involve experiencing different territory, a different way or life or relationship – and thus a new experience of life. Hesitations and uncertainties may prevent you making the crossing. See Border.

Borders also relate to decisions or moral questions of whether a particular direction you are taking is expressive of your true purposes or identity, or if it will harm others. Frontiers are an everyday part of our life in other ways too, such as the border between sleeping and waking; between what we feel is right and wrong; between advancing and pulling back; between limited awareness and expanded awareness.

A frontier town can mean that you are experiencing your much more basic, natural but perhaps challenging self. This reflects more ‘homespun’ beautiful, uncomplicated, innocent feelings about life and love. These attitudes offer enormous space and opportunity as the many restrictions of social and political life fall away.

Take time with this because it is about something amazing that we all share. In dreaming or becoming lucid you are experiencing something of the usually hidden world of our body, of your mind, of your whole biological past, and Life in you that lies beyond the frontier of your personal awareness.

Here are frontiers we may cross. Greater insight into the functioning and health of your body’s organs and cells, along with insights into what is necessary to maintain or improve health and well-being.

Awareness of your forgotten journey from conception, through birth and childhood. This enables you the possibility of clearing any difficulties of development that occurred in that unfolding.

Gradual awareness of the incredible ancestral journey you are the end product of.

Recognition and entrance into the level of awareness or consciousness out of which your personal self awareness has emerged and is immersed in.

Beginning the journey along what has been called in the past the spiritual path. In plain language this means the slow entrance of your personal awareness into what exists beyond the frontier of sleep. Taking the focussed light of self awareness into the darkness of the unconscious world of sleep and the body. If you take this path, at some point you will confront the fundamental consciousness of the universe and recognise your existence in it. It will need you to meet fear, anger and many strange things – strange to you. See Dweller of the Threshold

Example: So I let go of the searching, of the hoping to find what had been – my marriage. Then arose a wonderful feeling as if I were standing on the frontier of a new territory. It felt very welcoming, very uplifting to have so much space and so much opportunity. I felt quite deep emotions, not in a sad way, but certainly in a full sense of feeling. Kath, who I was with, was also moved by seeing me experience deeply.


Useful questions and hints:

What new area of experience am I trying to move into?

Are there hesitations, self examination or questions of identity to face here?

What new opportunities or experience offer themselves here?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsFeatures on Site

Frozen

See: Freeze.

Fruit

Fruits may represent experience or efforts and what emerges from them. Especially the ‘fuits’ of your life, your abilties and rewards from your actions. Sometimes it represents that you have arrives at your lifes goals.

Soft or luscious fruits such as fig or peach: May represent female genitals.

Long fruit such as banana: May depict a hunger for sweet things; male penis.

Apple:  Satisfaction of hunger. temptation; breast.

Fuel

Feeling drives; motivation; whatever has ‘fuelled one’s drive’. Petrol/gas is also a resource, something you know you can call upon to achieve something or ‘get somewhere’. So having an empty tank would suggest you have no such resources of energy, or motivation or ‘drive’ to achieve what you desire or need to do. It can sometimes indicate exhaustion and poor health. So it might indicate a change of diet or life style – getting more rest?

There is an interesting complexity here as you need resources – money – to get the resource of fuel. See Petrol

Function of Dreaming

1 –      An expression of what is happening in the physical body. Some doctors consider dreams to show signs of illness long before they are evident in other ways. Women frequently know they are pregnant very early on through sleep awareness in a dream. See: bodybody dreamsKasatkin_Vasilyconsciousness-mind body split.

2 –     A link between the sleeping mind and what is occurring externally. For instance, a person may be falling out of bed and dream of flying or falling.

3 –   A way of balancing the physiological and psychological activities in us. When a person is deprived of dreaming in experiments, a breakdown in mind and body quickly occurs. This type of dreaming can often be a safety valve releasing tension and emotion not dealt with in waking life. See: compensation theoryself-regulation dreams and fantasyscience and dreams.

4 –      An enormously original source of insight and information. Dreams tap our memory, our experience, and scan information held in our unconscious to form new insights from old experience. Dreams often present to us summaries or details of experience we have been unable to access consciously. Sometimes this is as early as life in the womb.

Are there any limitations to the inventiveness available to us when dreaming? The answer would be a resounding No! for Frederick Greenwood, the London editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. In his 1894 book, Imagination in Dreams and Their Study, he recognised that while dreaming, “we draw on a power of invention which it would puzzle us to equal with our eyes open.”’ He posited that “no conception of the sweep and force of imagination is too wide to be brought to the study of dreaming, and that its possibilities include what is now called miraculous power” Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert van de Castle. See: creativity and problem solving in dreams.

5 –      A dream image is an expression of a dimension or aspect of your mind or awareness. What this means is that we are not simply one thing. We have various ‘programs’ running at the same time. If you are standing you are using a ‘balance’ program that you learnt with difficulty as a child. At the same time you might be using a language program and also a vision program. A while ago I experienced a serious stroke and lost the ability to speak and write; so I have had to relearn much of that. Without them facets of me were missing. But there are so many subtle things that we might be missing; many of us live very much in their thoughts or emotions, or within the restrictions of a belief system, and dreams can illustrate dimensions that can leave those restrictions behind.

6 –     A means of compensating for failure or deprivation in everyday life, and as a means of expressing the otherwise unacknowledged aspects of oneself. Such dreams are a move toward wholeness. See: compensation theory.

7 –      In dreams we may be integrating new experience with what we have already gathered and digested. In this way our abilities, such as social skills, are gradually upgraded. See: computercomputer-dream process as aEvans, Christopher.

8 –      Dreams often stand in place of actual experience. So through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally. For instance many young women dream in detail of giving birth. This function of what might be called ‘imagination’ is tremendously undervalued, but is a foundation upon which human survival is built. See: imagination and dreaming.

9 –      An means of exercise for the psyche or soul. Just as the body will become sick if not moved and stressed, so the mind and emotions need stimulus and exercise. Dreams fulfil this need.

10 –      An expression of human supersenses. Humans have an unconscious ability to read body language – so they can assess other humans very quickly. Humans have an unimaginable ability to absorb information, not simply from books, but from everyday events. With it they constantly arrive at new insights and realisations. Humans frequently correctly predict the future – not out of a bizarre ability, but from the information gathered about the present. All these abilities and more show in our dreams. See: esp in dreams.

11 –      A means of solving problems, or formulating creative ideas, both in our personal life, and also in relationships and work. Many people have produced highly creative work directly from dreams.

12 –     A presentation in symbols of past traumatic experience. If met this can lead to deep psychological healing. Such dreams are therefore an attempt on the part of our spontaneous inner processes to bring about healing change. See: abreactioncompensation theorynightmares.

13 –      In the widest sense nearly all dreams act as a process of growth or a move toward maturing. Some dreams are very obviously presenting internal forces or dimensions of experience that might lead the conscious personality toward a greater balance and inclusiveness. See: individuationLifeStream.

14 –      A way of reaching beyond the known world of experience and presenting intimations from the unknown. Many people have dreams in which ESP, out of the body experiences, and knowledge transcending time and space occur. This type of dream may indicate a link between the present person and people who had lived in the distant past; or between the dreamer and all existing life. Some of these dreams present powerful insights into how the transitory human personality may arise out of an eternal consciousness. They thus deal with the spiritual aspects of human nature. See: Buddhism and dreamsCayce, Edgarcollective unconsciousChristianity and dreamsesp in dreamsoccultism and dreamshallucinationshistory of dream beliefsreligion and dreamsyoga and dreamsDream Yoga.

Funeral

This can reflect concerns about death, perhaps because someone close has died and confronted you with death. Death is an important aspect of your life, and dreams use such a dream to explore the subject, and find greater wholeness and healing. See: What Happens When I Die? Death.

Sometimes we dream of seeing someone we know buried when we want them out of our life. So this is a reminder that we want to make a break in a relationship.

Very occasionally we dream of the funeral of a close relative or friend, and this is because we have an intuitive realisation about their coming death.

People often dream of witnessing their own funeral. This is because we all wonder about death, and so sometimes practice it in our dreams. Seeing someone else buried might be a hidden wish to ‘get rid of them’. Very occasionally it is a premonition about the person’s health. A funeral may also represent the end of something in your life, like a relationship, or mourning for someone dead.  Feelings about one’s own death. Very occasionally a warning about health of person buried, or wanting the buried person out of one’s life.

Example: During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.

Dreaming about a funeral can also be saying that something that is now dead in your life needs to be laid to rest.

A funeral gathering can also be a time when people concentrate on the passing of the person, and it can be a wonderful experience of lifting them. See Babs

One’s own funeral: It is a common dream to watch one’s own funeral. It depicts your own philosophy about your end. May also remind of what you want to do while alive; desire for sympathy from family; retreat from world; a feeling of deadness in life.

Burying yourself: Leaving an old way of life or old self behind.

Someone else’s funeral: A wish they were dead; a wish to be rid of them. It is often unconsciously used as an easy way out of a relationship – to fantasy them dead. It avoids the responsibility of making your wishes known. See: Second example under death.

Parents funeral: Difficulties with or move toward independence; exploring the feeling of their loss; repressing or letting go of the painful past. See: burial; death; death and rebirth under archetypes; death and dreams; death is there life afterwards?

On witnessing and experiencing a friend (Chris’s) mothers funeral.

 In describing this I have to say first that I did not go to your mother’s funeral with any sense of seeking an experience or looking for some sort of insight into what was going on. I went to be with you as your friend. And, as you know, the service was far from inspiring. The priest was stumbling over what he was reading, didn’t remember your mother’s name, and so there was some level of irritation with most of us because of what was happening.

So I wasn’t moved by the ceremony. I was there involved in what was going on around me. But suddenly it seemed that something opened in me and I could see or sense that all the people there, although they were not attempting to do what I was now sensing, were producing something by their very presence as a group. The funeral itself, the fact that everybody was there to be part of your mother’s funeral, acted as some sort of focus. It focussed their attention, their feelings and their thoughts as a lens might do. It focused all their mental and emotional energy on your mother’s spirit. I saw her lifted, buoyed up by it because in life she was crippled by Alzheimer’s. I suppose it would be right to say it was almost like she was brought awake by it also. So she was energised and lifted up to be with her chosen spiritual love, who was Christ. And what I had thought to be a funeral became a wedding as she was united with her love. That was a very wonderful thing to see.

So I believe funerals should not be a time of sorrow, but a rejoicing in the new state of life the dead experience.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling in the dream, and where do those feelings appear in waking life?

Have I actually really confronted death with my feelings and seen it as part of life?

Is there a suggestion here of still trying to be, or failing to be, independent of parents or partner?

What do I want to achieve or do before I die?

See Secrets of Power DreamingDreaming of DeathTalking with the deadEdgar Cayce

 

Funfair

The fantasy or make-believe world you can enter to distract your attention from everyday life. It could also suggest a practice run at living or taking risks.

Going on a ride might indicate getting involved in something, perhaps a relationship, or the meeting a new level of development – child into teenager for instance. A ride can also link with sexual experience and indicate your feelings or reactions to it. It shows if you enjoy, are frightened of, or want to get away from the ‘ride’. See: Amusement park.

Example: I am in a fair or a funfair environment with someone who is both my ex wife and my wife. She is on a ‘ride’ in which one has a tray on ones lap, and at an unexpected moment the machine flips the tray upwards. If you can prevent this you win, and can keep what is on the tray – which I believe is food. My wives do not manage to do this. I start to look at the machine to see how this might be done, but now the whole ‘ride’ changes and become a cinema and a film is showing. I get up to go because I do not want to sit through a film. My wife is sitting in a seat near the back, on the aisle. As I get near she grabs my leg and holds it near her lap. She is shouting out in some sort of sexual excitement. I think she is saying something like – This is how it should be. I don’t think so and pull away. Doing so generates a powerful feeling in me of dissociation, of wanting to be away from Brenda/Hyone. This is very strong and leaves me feeling alone and apart from anyone. I have my son in my arms. He is about three and I am holding him under my coat against my chest protectively.

 

Useful questions and hints:

In what way am I involved with the funfair and how am I responding to it?

Am I with anybody else and what is the relationship?

What feelings am I dealing with, and is that like a practice run?

Are there things I fear in the dream, if so what are they?

See carry the dream forwardStand in RoleLife’s Little Secrets

Fungus

Feelings about decay or disease. Sick ideas, emotions. In a few dreams the fungus represents deeply unconscious and basic processes of your body or mind that have mysterious influences or possibilities.

It can be almost invisible things that can latch on to you and cause results that become observable. They are things that have a life of their own as far as you are concerned. The dream fungus can also mean that you are worried about something and what to do about it. Maybe the feeling that something grotty is in you.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling negative about or seeing as decaying in my life?

What is the fungus on, and what might that indicate?

Does the dream give me any other clues?

If this is a magic or mysterious fungus what can you get from it?

If I imagine myself as the fungus what do I feel or how do I describe myself?

See Avoid Being Victims Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Fur Furry

Your animal instincts breaking through into everyday life. These instincts are wholesome and strengthening, so needn’t be repressed in most cases. If you have feelings about animal hides, then the fur could relate to this. See: Animals.

The fur can also be about feeling attractive or soft – like ice skaters in fancy costumes. If you have feelings about animal hides, then the fur could relate to this.

The condition of the fur is also a sign of health or illness.  Another angle is seeing fur as the sign of a dead or injured animal. See Levels of the Brain


Useful questions:

Is this about being in touch with my own animalistic side?

Am I meeting with my natural feelings and instinctive wisdom?

Do I have strong feeling about using animal hides?

What feelings are in the dream? Explore them and see what associations they lead to.

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Furniture

Attitudes or habits developed from family or home life, especially if it is a piece of furniture from family home or a past dwelling. The beliefs or feelings we ‘furnish’ our mind with, perhaps from a past relationship. Domesticity – the disciplines and restraints we use in a relationship, or in our home life or notions about self, our self image.

Old furniture from family that has been inherited can mean things such as a karmic link that you are dealing with.

armchair Usually associated with rest or relaxation. A particular armchair might link with certain memories, such as courting or love-making. It might link with a person because of where a family member or friend sat. But any item or furniture can also associate with likes or dislikes, or a particular relationship or time of life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my memories or associations with the armchair?

If I don’t not know this armchair, what do I feel about it in the dream?

What would I say is the function of an armchair, what is it for, and does that define it in the dream?

bed This is an important symbol to understand. It often shows exactly what you are doing in the subtle areas of relationship. So can link with your close relationships, intimacy – an intimacy in which the qualities of the other can become part of you and a blending take place. Such a blending is not only that of you and another, but your known and presently formed self with what you hold within and latent.

But a bed is the place you sleep, so in a spiritual sense might be depicting your sleeping self, the parts of you still unconscious and not awake to who you really are and the issues needing attention in your life.

The bed also obviously relates to sexual pleasure; rest; the holy place in which we meet oneself and or another person deeply and passionately. But it can also suggest desire to get away from the world, to withdraw into oneself, to be passive.

It can depict sensual rather than sexual contact; sickness; privacy; the testing place of the relationship. Sometimes it represents sleep and meeting our unconscious – or torture – because in bed we may be tortured by insomnia, worries, physical pain.

Our life situation – made your bed, now lie on it. Bed is one of the commonest symbols in dreams.

In the example below the man is wrestling with his desire for pleasure and his sense of commitment; but also, whether he will keep his pleasure for himself, or share it with his wife. See: Example in contraceptive; bed wetting.

Example: ‘I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Jane. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Jane has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Jane is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so.’ Mr B. S.

Idioms: Bed of nails; bed of roses; go to bed with; make one’s bed and lie on it; test bed.

carpet Sometimes depicts one’s financial state, bare floorboards being poverty; can be the colour or design that are important; comfort or lack of it in life – do you feel satisfied with self; a cover up; feeling of being walked on.

A carpet in a much used room can also indicate, like a swimming pool, your shared experience with another person or family, or your own collective experience, as it is on the carpet that so much takes place in your life. It is difficult to create an image that summarises the mass of time and events you share with family or loved ones – or even your own lonely existence, but a carpet does that.

Idioms: Sweep something under the carpet; on the carpet; roll out red carpet; rug pulled out from under ones feet.

chair Passive, relaxed attitude; inactivity; receptivity or openness; escapism.

A chair can be placed in a workplace, outdoors, in a doctor’s surgery or in a thousand different environments. The different environments change the feelings associated with the dream chair. See environment

Placing of chair in group: Sense of status.

Wheelchair: An in-valid situation; a sense of weakness.

If pushing someone else: Seeing self as carrying an invalid.

cupboard or wardrobe Memory; resources; different roles you play or attitudes and emotions expressed in wardrobe; hidden memories and emotions – such as skeleton in the cupboard; womb.

Open or closed or trapped in cupboard: Whether we are ‘open or closed’ to other people; trapped in old feelings; sense of isolation.

mattress Similar to bed – the situation, comfortable or otherwise, one has created in life. You made your bed, now lie on it. Comfort; sexuality; relaxed feelings. See: bed.

Jung sees the mattresses as a marriage. A matrees can also be where we hide things such a money, books or magazines.

Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.’

Example: I lifted up my mattress and under my bed there was a giant newborn dead babies and a coffin. I opened up the coffin and there inside was another dead baby.

Rotting mattress: Something very wrong with your life situation.

Uncomfortable mattress: This suggest either a relationship difficulties or that something is troubling you while asleep.

rug See: carpet in this section above.

table Social connection with others; communal activity; everyday certainties that support your activities, such as confidence you will get paid at the end of the week; your attitude toward the inner and exterior community; an area of work or expression; an altar or self giving – if table is bare, perhaps not giving much of self.

Coffee table: Relaxed social connections. A centre for people to sit around and talk or discuss. Sometimes it isimprtant issues. A table for children to play on, so suggestst something connected with childhood. Can also be a work surface.

Dressing table: One’s attempts to create a good social image.

Place at table: Self image of your status.

Quality of table: The quality of your relationship with others.

Idioms: Lay your cards on the table; tabling a motion; table talk; table hopping.

Example: ‘Then I was in a place where we were having a staff party. Not very big but people were sitting at tables eating, a party mood. I sat with my child, maybe youngest son, no one else at the table. I felt I didn’t wish to get involved with the others, the feeling I often get at parties, just alone in a crowd.’ Simeon T.

Simeon’s dream table shows him not feeling inclined to connect with others. So it shows how he relates socially.

Example: Several people are sitting around a coffee table having a discussion.  Bitsy’s husband, Phil, and Kent’s father are the main talkers.  They are discussing something about love.  I can’t remember their exact words but their position was that one must maintain a marriage and make it work no matter what.  Love for another person doesn’t matter and should be ignored.  There is a book sitting on the coffee table.  The cover of the book is partially obscured.  Something is on top of the book.  Somehow the obscuring item is removed and I can see the title of the book.  I can’t remember the title but it totally disagreed with everything they were saying.


Useful questions and hints:

What is the table being used for?

Is it a table you know?

Has itbeen a part of you life for ages?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming Up

Fuse

An electrical fuse represents that part of your ideas, resolves or confidence that may break down if pressure is brought to bear. Or it can be a word play to indicate unity.

Sometimes a fuse is a signal or a sign of danger, as when a fuse is lit for a bomb, or  a fuse blows again and again without cause.  Sometimes the fuses can go in a house when a person has died.

The fuse is a connection between your body or yourself, and the energy flowing into the various ways you express yourself – movement, dance, sex, speech, thought, curiosity, etc. The example below how intense sexual feelings can be shown as dangerous.

A noise or light in the room sets off an orgasm as I’m sitting on a couch. I put a magazine up by my face, pretending to read it so no one will see my face and I try not to respond to the strong orgasm. I’m embarrassed. Then I hear electricity zapping in the next room. I am aware this is dangerous and am leaving the house so I’ll be safe, when I see a small girl child bend down to pick up the zapping cord. She’s standing in the water. I yell, “NO! NO! Don’t touch that.” She seems unharmed. I rush out of the house, carrying her, looking for the fuse box.

Dreams also use the idea of fusing one thing with another. Two people can be fused into one, or we can fuse with an animal as one being. But fusing if an everyday part of us. What we take into us mentally, psychologically or physically becomes one with us. When we eat for instance it become the living part of us. Also we take into us the many things learnt in a relationship and they are fused with us. How many people do we fuse with as we grow and mature?


Useful questions:

What is happening to the fuse, and what does this suggest about my energy flow?

Have I being stressed lately and ‘blown a fuse’?

What will be ignited or destroyed by the fuse.

What do I feel myself merging with or integrating?

See Summing UpSecrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets


Future

Humans frequently correctly predict the future – not out of a bizarre ability, but from the information gathered about the present.  Or we fear the future, or at least our thoughts and worries of what it can bring. Some women even fear the possibility of childbearing.

The dream about the future is ‘a tentative feeler toward the future’; ‘a dress-rehearsal for life,’ in which the dreamer reveals his hopes, fears, and plans for the future. This can be seen in any long journal of dreams, but only if the dreamer explores the dreams and reveals the core of what the dream is really about. You can become very aware of your present state of being and your possible future. It is only your possible future predicated from the time of the dream. It appears that what we do today casts shadows that are our future. But because we may change and act differently the shadows of the future change. See Using Your Intuition Answer to Critics

Therefore loving relationships in dreams are ways of exploring our own possibilities, not only within ourselves, but also in future relations. Some girls dream of becoming pregnant and giving birth even though they have no man in their life. Such dreams are ways of experimenting with the future. Through them the girl learns to deal with anxieties and become more confident in facing their own future as a mother.

For countless thousands of people, they have also been a time travel machine through which glimpses of the past and future were given – or a means of realising that consciousness can roam free of the physical body and witness events at a distance. I know many people question this so see Answer to Critics

Anxiety regarding external world, political forces, that you feel at the mercy of, are usually about fears for the future and what might develop in the external world through the immense forces of politics and national conflict. I remember a young man telling me he was not going to bring children into the world because of the comming atomic war. They were only fears arising from reading news reports, and his worries never happened. Most fears about the future are based on ideas and it is impossible except in a state of mind which transcends the limits of out body to predict the future.

There is a problem about so called predictive dreams, it is that many dreams felt to be predictive never come true. Often dreamers want to believe they have precognitive dreams, perhaps to feel they will do not want to be surprised by, and thereby anxious about, the future. When the baby son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, and before it was known he was murdered, 1300 people sent ‘precognitive’ dreams concerning his fate in response to newspaper headlines. Only seven of these dreams included the three vital factors – that he was dead, naked and in a ditch.

Out of 8000 dreams in his Registry For Prophetic Dreams, Robert Nelson, who was sent the dreams prior to what was predicted, has found only 48 which bear detailed and recognisable connection with later events. See: prophetic dreams.

Peering within yourself, because dreams do can sometimes see the future, your hopes, plans, and fate. It can also indicate your wholeness, indicating your ability to be aware of intuitive impressions and creative imagery. It is a window to the world of your inner feelings, passions, love and dreams – your soul, and your ability to look deeply into it. The following dream illustrates this.

Example: My beautiful friend looks into the crystal. It was not a thing made of glass, but a great dimension of mind which appears to open in the room, hanging in the centre of it, about eight feet across. She tells me I am already touching something that is beginning to happen in the world. My life will become involved in it. I will play a part – by no means a key role or leader, but one which I will gain great satisfaction and love from.

The man who dreamt this says that everything told him in the dream in 1991 has all come to pass in his life.

See esp in dreams; precognition

Letter G

Gale

See: Air; wind; tornado; whirlwind.

Games and Gambling

In some games there is real prizes like money, but in many there is the sense of success or feeling of defeat, so dreaming of games can indicate these. But in dreams, games are often used to represent life, where chances we take can have very direct connection with real events.

Such adult ‘games’ as making a record, developing a business, starting a job, bring us into direct interaction with the world, with an incredibly wide range of responses. Such games are extremely satisfying because of these interactions, but like racing driving, can be fatal because of their reality. What we do in our dream game will indicate how we are playing the ‘game’ of life. We may be playing recklessly, by the rules, skilfully, caringly etc. These indications can be seen as comments on our real life activities. Please read Dream as Computer Game.

Stances used to meet life; not taking life seriously – making a game of it; competitiveness; sense of winning or losing; team work; life skills. See: playing.

Particular games suggest different ‘stances’.

Ball games and athletics: Competitiveness; conflict within the dreamer – the two sides of oneself such as the winner or loser, the opposition and the home team. It could include a sense of win or lose, success failure, and of course the game of love.

Baseball: What we do in our dream game will indicate how we are playing the ‘game’ of life. We may be playing recklessly, by the rules, skillfully, caringly etc. These indications can be seen as comments on our real life activities. Professional players are also heroes for some people or a role model. If so what are you modelling your life on?

Cards and chess: Use of strategies and observation.

Computer games: In such games the person playing can get very involved in the game, so tha they feel as if they are facing real dangers, using real skill and facing awful odds. So in the dream you are exercising your life skills. Computer games as such that you can be killed or fail a thousand times and emerge none the worse. But if you learn the rules of the game of Life then you can go up the levels in this virtual reality world as well as in life.

Football matches, baseball, rugby: See football

These are generally the same as the above, but have another side to them. They also represent for many people the strong drive to identify with a tribe, a group. They are therefore ways the person gains identity and a sense of connection with people around them. In growing internationalism, such games may be of vital importance to maintaining a sense of identity within what may feel like being lost in a multitude.

Tennis Relationship and the sometimes battle for who is going to dominate that goes on in it; competition; the game people play in approaching sex, i.e. veiled remarks, casual telephone calls, verbal clues to readiness, etc.

Gambling: Taking risks with your life, health, family; work, money – whatever is indicated in dream.

Games like darts, billiards etc.: Your aims and ambitions; aiming at a goal and trying to achieve it; the difficulties of achievement.

Golf: Unless you are a caddy it suggest some sort of social level. It may suggest some skill and ability, and rewards if you are good at it.

Opponents: What you are meeting or in conflict with. This may be a part of your nature, such as self awareness, sexuality, even your body. You might be in conflict with life itself or ‘God’.

There are many games one can play like the  sexual game or the mating dance.

Example: Men in uniforms that are dresses, playing some game. Others just standing around. While I am watching, a man takes my arm, my hand and tells me what is going on. He then leads me back somewhere in the park and wrestles me to the ground trying to kiss me. I squirm away from him, saying I don’t want any of that homosexual junk. He is angry, thinking I had led him on, but he leaves. I also feel a little guilty, thinking that I should not have let him take my hand when he did so.

Idioms: Beat somebody at their own game; deep game; dirty game; fair game; game of chance; game to the end; give the game away; know what someone’s game is; mug’s game; name of the game; on the game; waiting game; game is up. See also: ball under shapes and symbols; doll; toy.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Am I a player or an observer?

What is the challenge here and how does that apply to my life situation?

What is happening here in regard to competition?

See Summing UpSecrets of Power DreamingConditioned Reflexes

Gang

A group of fears, aggressive tendencies, or parts of yourself. It may also suggest your need to conform to a group, or to follow a leader.

Gaol

See jail

Gap

Very often gaps suggests obstacles to get over, such as a gap, such as between something you must jump over. Or there are gaps that promise a way of escape, such as a gap in a fence. The gap in a boundary fence can indicate a way you can meet someone from the other side, or run through, or even defend the perimeter.

In some dreams the gap is a space you can look through to see beyond the wall or obstruction.

So in general a gap can represent a difficult or an opportunity, away through. See: Space.

There can be gaps between who you feel you are and what you are, usually caused by traumatic events in your life. See Body Images

Such gaps or bad structure in our psyche/personality can lead to difficulties in relationships and can bring about much agony in the person. Bridging such gaps can be a real building task and need work on oneself. See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being Victims


Example: ‘I climb a few flights of stairs. As I go up the stairs start wobbling and breaking up. At the top the last flight breaks away from the landing and I am left to cross a gaping hole with a few bits of debris to cling to. It is very frightening, but I see other people passing me on the caved in stairs and onto the landing as if nothing has happened.’ See: space

Example: Observer William: 023. Trends can be compacted into one word. . . GAP. Widening GAPs. GAP between 023 and those who can club seal cubs to death, set cats on fire, shoot out the eyes of lemurs with slingshots. (Oh sure, they are poor and hungry. From 023 they can get poorer and hungrier: 023 doesn’t care if they starve to death. There is no empathy, no common ground.) Those who say: “I think animals are a splendid tool for research.” . . , Most of it quite useless. But so it does save lives.

Human lives. Too many already . . .023 doesn’t care. He contributes to Greenpeace, the Primate Center at Duke University, to “nokill” animal shelters. Not a dime for cancer research!

GAP between 023 and antidrug hysterics like Daryl Gates, Chief of Police of Los Angeles, who says casual pot users should be taken out and shot, and someone named Davey in an article in SWAT: “All drug dealers, no matter how young, should be summarily executed. They are murderers many times over.” (Like cigarette companies?) In the same category are Paki bashers, queer bashers, and anyone with a “Kill a Queer for Christ” sticker on his heap.

Nigger killers, raw material for lynch mobs, the Bible Belt, the fundamental Muslims-023 feels nothing for these specimens. GAP.

World leaders catering to the stupid and the bigoted. Bush says the drug war has united us as a nation. Of finks and lunatics? What do they care what someone else does in his own room? No skin off them.

GAP. 023 don’t like liars. And lying comes natural as breathing to a politician.

The leaders are desperately trying to achieve a standard and malleable human product. But instead, by enforced proximity, the irreconcilable differences of interest and basic orientation are constantly reinforced and aggravated.

Fact is Homo Sap is fracturing into subspecies: 023 predicts that this trend of separation will continue and escalate and will be reflected in basic biological differences rather sooner than later.

The leaders, cut off from any intelligent and perceptive observers, will lose control. The motions they go through, the convergences and agreements, will have less and less relation to actual events. This is already happening in Russia. Another trend that will continue and escalate geometrically.

The violent bigots will become more and more bestial, degenerating into a hideous subspecies of vicious and graceless baboons.

“We know our duty.”  By William Burroughs

The gaps in Christy’s life are obvious, and the urge or need to compensate are also plain to see. In fact Christy has an experience which he describes as follows:

Example: I realised that because I had always felt inadequate in a certain degree, I had used religion as a means of compensation. Suddenly I saw the need for hero figures to use for compensatory purposes for individuals and groups. The person may not be able to live out some aspect of their life. They may not get a sexual partner; they may not get recognition in their work; perhaps people treat them as of no account. For some people an actual physical disability stops them from living out their life fully. So there are huge gaps in them/me. The hero/ine figure is then used as an image which has several functions.


For instance nuns in a convent will not live out their ability to get married or have a child. The figure of Christ is used as a compensatory symbol for this in that they marry Christ and their passion is through meditation on his being. In this way people use a hero/ine figure to compensate for what is missing in their own life. They can live their unlived soul through the passion of Christ for instance.

The figure such as Christ represents our own wholeness and complete potential. To compensate for our own unlived areas we look to this figure and have a taste of what we are not expressing outwardly through identifying with the hero/ine. Meditations on the figure might produce great feelings of love, pain, wonder, recognition – in fact whatever is missing in everyday relationships. The Christian festivals appear to be a way of living out via the image of Christ the passions of life that we might not meet in our everyday life. The birth, the struggle, the love, the death, can all be partaken of. We can share the passionate experience of living in this way, even though in our own actual life we might not be able to live such a passionate and eventful existence. And I suppose television does in some degree for many people today.

When I first met realisations in myself I had a strong feeling this sort of compensation was used by people who are inadequate in some way, a path for the weak, and a path that I had taken myself. This suggested by inference that I was less capable of living a full life than most. I had a sneering feeling about how people use this as a crutch, but then realised I was judging once more. ‘I need a kick in the arse. I’ve got an ability to see, but I put all these judgements on things.’

As I looked at the situation more fully though I saw that in fact nobody lives a complete life. No one is completely whole. Nobody is expressing every aspect of their potential. So in fact we all relate in some way to the Christ or other such figures who represents, or in some way ARE the total potential of human existence – a mighty example of what human life can achieve.

Idioms: Bridge the gap; fill the gap.


Useful questions and hints:

What part in the dream is the gap portraying, an obstacle, a way though, or a view?

If it is an obstacle, ask yourself what obstacles you are facing?

If it is a way through, what life situation are you seeing and opportunity to move out of or escape from?

Or if a view through the gap, what you can see beyond that is new or informative?

See CompensationPeople’s Experience of LifeStreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Garage Gas/Filling Station

Personal home garage: Depends how you see a garage. It may be a tool shed, workshop, frozen food store, storeroom, as well as a car park. So you need to define how you feel while in it. Is it a quiet place to go to; a functional store area; a place to create?

Car repair garage – gas station: Need for personal attention or ‘repairs’ to your ambition, drive, or ability to motivate yourself. Reserves of drive, energy, motivation; abilities, personal ‘tools’ to meet life; resources; things you do not need but can’t let go of. Often a See: car.

Can be about making decisions about where to go or what to do, also about a rest stop or dealing with hunger. Needing more vitality or energy. Or if you work there is might be about refuelling others energy.

Car park garage: This can be a place to wait, to hide what you are up to, or a shift from one mode to another in terms of your intentions or energy.

Car garage sale: In many dreams this is shown as a looking for something, or a sorting out memories or impressions.


Useful questions and hints:

If this a garage at home what are you using it for or what are you doing in it?

Is it a place you keep secrets or have things you build something?

If it is repair garage, what is being attended to, or experienced there?

Do I feel lacking in energy or vitality?

See Summing UpTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of Habits

Garbage Can

See: Dustbin.

Garbage Trash

Parts of your experience and feelings you, or society, no longer feel is useful. Occasionally one discards, or considers as useless, some aspect of self, or ability, which is actually valuable. We must realise, however, that all thought and feeling are expressions of our inner energy. As such, while we discard an expression of the energy, we must not discard the energy lest it leave us empty and unsatisfied. This is why garbage, or compost, must be thought of as material capable of being used in a new form. What do you associate with the things thrown away? See Fertiliser

 

Useful questions and hints:

Does this represent the ideas and opinions I want to drop, or already have?

Are there useful things in the garbage? If so can you consciously recycle your ‘garbage’.

Everything in your dreams are expressions of you emotional or mental energy – even if they are misspent energy. So your ‘dream garbage’ is real energy that can be re-used.

See Associations Working WithSecrets of Power DreamingSumming Up

Garden

Your garden dream often reveals what you are doing with your latent possibilities. It is pointing out whether you have cultivated your abilities, or buried them. Also such dreams often deal with problems we face or questions we ask ourself.

A garden is sometimes a place of love in a dream. In which case it can denote what is growing or dying in your relationship. Another garden theme is connected with activities we do in the garden, like pets we keep, or work done. This connects with what is growing in the area of your natural urges, the pets, and what you are doing that is socially visible, the work in the garden.

Your inner life or feelings; the real you, your memories and growing space, or the personal attributes, potential and characteristics. As such it may indicate your inner quality or problems, the conditions your attitudes and actions have created in your life. Can also indicate the area of growth or change in your life; what you are trying to cultivate in yourself.

It can be about a feelings of peace; being near to your natural self, a meditative attitude. In literature and songs, the garden has often been a place of courtship or love and sex.

The garden can also be a representation of an area of conflict when relatives or neighbours tend to do things that upset your feelings. It is also a private area and so could suggest your are entering someone else’s area.

A pool or swimming pool in the garden usually relates to shared experience, times when you felt at-one with people, or someone in particular. See: Digging; Pool.

One of the things I am seeing at that the moment about symbols and dreams is how beautifully they hold tremendous amounts of information and meaning. I am thinking at the moment about the soil, the garden – they are so rich in meaning. Whatever our forebears did, whether they were deceitful and lying or courageous and strong, whether they had honour or were cowards, whatever they did, and perhaps over time they did everything, their lives were the drama that brought us into being.

Their lives have given us the substance of our body and our personality. We are the heirs of that drama. What we grew from is what they left us. It was the heritage from the past. In dreams this is often represented as a piece of land, a garden. It was the piece of land – is the piece of land – that you inherited. Whatever that land might be, whatever its condition, that is what you have. Whether it is beautifully rich with orchards growing on it, or whether it is covered in rocks and brambles, that is your heritage. Bemoaning the condition or being proud of the condition doesn’t change it. The thing is to take up your tools and develop that land. Let us fertilise it. Let us honour it. We can make it rich. We can enrich it because it is the real stuff and has in it all the potentials of life. Because of that, as rocky or as thorny as it might be, we have all that we need. On that land we can let the tree of life grow.

Beautiful garden: Suggests satisfaction at time of dream; depicts the beauty and perhaps creativity or abundance of your inner feelings.

Overgrown or weeds in garden: Awareness of particular parts of your personality which need working on. Perhaps negative habits need ‘weeding out’.

Square or circular garden: Holds a lot of your gathered wisdom and insights which would be useful if made conscious.

Walled garden: This refers to a state of mind, or a state of being, in which you are aware of your innermost and fundamental self.

Garden pool: Childhood, or early stage in the evolution of ones self consciousness, during which there was a sense of communal awareness; sense of unity with life; ones feelings which may be observable if ones attention is turned inwards – one looks under the surface. See: the self under archetypes; digging; processing dreams. Idioms: Bear garden; up the garden path.

Example: ‘I was working in quite a large garden by my house. A part of the garden was like a little alcove by other buildings. The garden was kidney shaped. I had dug this small plot and was considering how I might relax and sunbathe there. My daughter said I should have worked harder on it – dug it better. I felt intense emotions of resentment and anger at her criticism. I started telling her what a bad time I had in the past. How difficult it was even to work, let alone work hard.’ Beatrice G.

This shows the garden as depicting what one has ‘worked on’ or produced in life. This could mean externally or ones own nature. The daughter is Beatrice’s own self criticism, which pushes her on, though she has a tendency to want to relax ‘in the sun’. This aspect of garden suggests how ‘fruitful’ ones life has been socially and spiritually.

Example: I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity.

Idioms: Beer garden; up the garden path.

 

Useful questions and hints:

How would you describe the garden? Is it tidy, beautiful, a mess, a place to grow and cultivate? Whatever it is, see if you can grasp what it says about your soul.

Do I cultivate or neglect the possibilities and potential in my life?

Does this represent love and other beautiful feelings?

What state of mind does this suggest – peaceful, dangerous, a place to get lost in?

See Summing Up Using Symbols to Change Life ProblemsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Gardener

The down to earth but wise aspect of self; the wisdom or insights gathered through life experience, from which we can direct our own growth and life to integrate the many parts of our nature. What are you growing or neglecting of your thinking, creative ideas, talents, and potentials. It can sometimes indicate a teacher or minister.

If you are a gardener it may also signify the many things you have perhaps unconsciously witnessed and learnt about the processes of growing, flowering, producing seed and life and death. You may also have learnt about your relationship with the earth and what it holds, also the feeling of satisfaction that comes from transforming an area of land and yourself. What grows can indicate the wealth or poverty of what you are harvesting in your life. Have you cleaned the rubbish, removed what is rotting, cared for seedlings?

If you are a keen gardener and see clay as a poor soil to grow things in, the clay can suggest difficult terrain or difficulty in changing yourself.

The process in each of us – the Christ – that synthesises our life experience, and considers what love, what resonance with all life there is in it. See: Compensation Theory; digging; garden.

Example: I look up and see her get up from a bench and walk away. I feel that I will never get her back. Then I am in a garden area at the side of the church, there is a young boy in a small green house and an old gardener and his wife. One of them comments on how the boy keeps mucking things up, thinks he knows what he’s doing but doesn’t. Then a woman like one of the old film stars like Jayne Mansfield sits on a bench that is in front of me at eye level and I find myself trying to look at her crotch as she cross’s and uncrosses her legs.

Example: I dreamt I was on a garden with an old man, a young boy and a young man in his thirties. The plot of land had something of the feeling of an allotment. It was well tended, and I had the sense the young man had been doing most of the work on it. The soil was rich but at the moment dry. A few shoots were just breaking the ground from hundreds of bulbs which had just started shooting.

The old man was kneeling at the edge of one end of the oblong plot of land. He was digging up bulbs one at a time and looking at them, then putting them back in the soil again. As the soil was dry he had to dig the hole a bit bigger to get them back. The bulbs had good roots and the shoots were firm. I was agitated about the old man digging them up though, and felt he should let them be. This seemed to link with my own propensity to dig up seeds when I was younger, to see if they had germinated.

The young boy was simply watching and was quite shadowy. The younger man was getting on with whatever work he was doing. I spoke to him after leaving the old man. Henry G.

Henry, the dreamer is a man in his late fifties. He explored his dream and summarised what he realised as follows: In connecting with the feelings in the dream the different aged males are all facets of myself. The old man is my own sense of ageing, and the feeling of dryness and being outside of the opportunities that I associate with those younger than myself. My feeling that nothing is growing in my life makes me want to dig under the surface of things to see if there are any new things that might arise. The younger man is the active and creative period of my life during which I did in fact ‘sow a lot of seeds’ which are now emerging into reality. The boy is my impatience but also the aspect of myself from which new ideas and directions can emerge. He is that part of me which is still growing, like the bulbs. The garden is my soul/soil. It is all the work I have done to cultivate skills and attributes in myself and create things in the world. What is important is that even though I am in my fifties, these younger parts were skills and attributes I developed in the past and are still active in me today.

Weeding the garden: Suggests removing the things that you have developed in your life that need removing so your own growth can go easier.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the gardener doing – weeding, planting, digging?

Is there something you are creating in the garden, or something cared for? If so, ask yourself what you are creating, or growing in your life?

The gardener often links with activities in your body, so what you are doing in the garden that directs energy into your body and the world, what is suggested by your activities?

The gardener brings thing to life, and helps them grow to a new dimension, emerging into the light. Are there any signs of this in your dream?

See Summing UpMartial Art of the MindClicking On

Gardens

See Garden

(as in public gardens) See: park.

Garret

See: Attic.

Gas

If referring to dangerous airy substance: Harmful thoughts, insinuated evil masquerading as ideas or refined feelings. Also as in the example it can be about something that causes you to lose awareness, not remember or even feeling you are dying.

It could at times lead to an explosive situation, indicating enormous energy release.

Example:  “At the eighth session I re-lived with great anxiety fighting against being anaesthetised for tonsillectomy. I fought with three doctors who tried to hold me down and I was anaesthetised in a state of acute terror. After the recall of these memories, I felt a great sense of relief from tension.”

If referring to car fuel: See: petrol

Example: The teacher leads the men to a river. He places the girl on the waves where she floats happily, still gurgling. He then pushes her under water. Here I become the baby. I can feel myself breathing water and my arms thrashing. It doesn’t hurt. Then everything goes black and I feel as if I’ve been given gas at the dentist’s. I am 17 and dreamt this while sitting exams.


Useful questions:

Is there a subtle or even poisonous influence in you life?

Is the gas explosive? If so be careful of ‘explosive’ life situations.

Gas can do so many things, everything from put you to sleep, to lighting, or lifting you up in an air balloon. So what is the gas doing in your dream, and what is its influence?

See Being the Person or ThingThe power of HabitsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Gas Pedal

See Accelerator

Gasoline

Emotional or sexual energy. See: Fuel

Gasping

See: Asthma.

Gate

Similar to door – entrance to something different – or to someone else’s life, as in marriage; change, depending on the dream. See: Door.

A threshold, like that between conscious self awareness and our total experience – such a gate needs to open and close. Open to allow selected memory – closed to prevent massive flooding of impressions; the gate can also portray the passage from one period of life, or level of maturity, to another. Therefore, to stand before adolescence, parenthood, death, might be shown as facing a gate in a dream.

But often a gate is an opening you can pass through into your own or other people’s private space. So it can be a way in or out of such private space or feelings, therefore a barrier. So closed gate can separate one part of your or feeling from another life from another, as happens when you enter someone else property. What are you shutting out or letting in?

The gate can also portray the passage from one period of life, or level of maturity, to another. Therefore, to stand before adolescence, parenthood, death, might be shown as facing a gate in a dream.  There is also the Guardian of the Gate or doorway. See the guardian

Going through the gate may be a change from one situation to another. Or if you are on one side and with someone else on the other side it can means there is still a barrier between you, or something you need to pass through. Therefore we are told there are gates to Heaven, and in some dreams there is passage throughthem. In mythology the dog has symbolised the guardian of the gates of death.

Example: ‘I continue on my path, and suddenly the nettles disappear and the path is clear. Ahead the wall has curved round to face me, but there is a gate in it, and I can see my dog waiting for me on the other side.’ Mrs M. G.

Example: I am very afraid that someone/ a part of the crowd wants to get ahold of me for something I or my friends wrote in the newspaper. I have a long pole which I use to keep them away to beat them, but it is a close call. There does not seem to be anyone from the police helping us/to protect us. Just someone closing the gate at the last moment. Some of the people really want to get their hands on us. I seem to be taunting them.

Example: I saw a man walking toward what looked a bit like a castle, but was a monastery or spiritual centre. I was both the observer and the man walking to the gated huge wall. As I watched I saw that a man was walking to the gate from within the monastery. So the scene was of a man approaching the gate from outside, and a man approaching the gate from inside. As they got near the gate I realised that the man seeking entrance was the same as the one who would let him in. They were reflections of each other.

The man who approached the gate reached into his coat or cloak for a gift to give as a sign of his desire to be admitted. As he did this the man inside reached into his pocket for the key to open the gate. Their movements were reflections of each other. The giving and receiving, the request and the opening, were one and the same. So the man met who he already was, though he had sought it so long.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Are you closing the gates of your life or love, or leaving them open?

If the gate is acting as a barrier what sort of barrier does it suggest?

What is the difference between the feelings or activity that is on the difference side of the gate and the side you are on?

See Talking with the deadTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce


Gay

See: Homosexual.

Gaze

Concentration, or an attempt to influence. Gazing into someone’s eyes can be a means of intimacy or an attempt to communicate something wordlessly.

Averting ones gaze can be a way of not seeing what is going on, or a protection against the power of what we might see or witness or what it might invite. Sometimes a gaze can lead you to depths of experience and insight that are missed in a casual glance.

Example: In my dream I was standing at the edge of the estuary looking across it. A terrible natural disaster had occurred. Before me uncountable bodies were strewn in the water. Children, women, men, all in disarray, so many of them, arms and legs were meshed into a huge web of death.

I stood with sorrow so deep it was without emotion. Although I had no sense of being responsible, I was nevertheless involved. I was witnessing and part of the event.

At this point I woke and remained in a semi-sleep state. I realised without attempting to do so that I must find my way through the awful imagery of this tragedy. As I stood and gazed upon the scene, I realised that this expanse of death was not a single occurrence. Each time the tide swept out it carried with it countless people in death. It happened daily, hourly, minute by minute. Each time the sun sets it does so on thousands of deaths. But equally, each time the tide comes in it brings with it births to all nations and social classes. Birth and death – the great tides of human experience. I had witnessed, am witnessing, the tide going out in my own life.

Useful questions:

Is this about taking in a new view, or an attempt at intimacy?

Am I attempting to influence or am being influence by someone, or a situation? If so can I define what?

If I am averting my gaze, what am I achieving by it?

See Characters and People in Dreamscarry the dream forwardTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Gazelle

See deer.

Geese Goose

A sense of freedom. If flying it suggests your essence as it moves with the forces of life and perhaps flies through many lives. It might also point to wanderlust. In some cases you might use the goose as a symbol for life long relationship.

Geese fly very high and can cover huge distances, suggesting that your inner life can achieve a wider awareness. and in doing so can incorporate masses if information. See Wider awareness

Because geese mate for life and seek out a partner, it can sometimes illustrate the way you are going about finding partner.

The goose can, in the dream world, lay the golden eggs. This indicates great fertility and wealth in life.

But like any animal, a goose also represents the complex behaviors that we see in a goose or a flock. So they can depict a part of you that is responding to fairly instinctive ways of doing things. For instance a goose will instinctively attack if frightened, and it finds security in a group. But such instinctive responses are rooted in a great depth of experiences.

We also use the word goose to indicate foolishness or group conformity.

Idioms: ones goose is cooked; silly goose; mother goose; flight of geese; wild goose.

 

Useful questions:

What is your dream describing about any desire to fly free?

Are you seeing yourself as a flock of fussing geese making a lot of noise?

What fixed behaviour or instinctive response is shown in your dream?

Am I a silly goose or wise with instinctive knowledge?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsMartial Art of the Mind

Gem

See: Jewels.

Gender

I feel that the male lays the eggs and leaves them. He can go to woman after woman and leave his eggs. There may be some connection, but not in the same way as with the woman. The woman doesn’t get rid of or leave her eggs. She holds them in her body and lets go with some measure of difficulty. But a difference of greater magnitude is that the woman gives herself deeply to her child, to the point of offering her body as sustenance. This seemed the major difference.

So although one might have a male body you could have a female psyche. Conversely though, someone might give birth to a child through having a female body, but they do not have a female psyche, so cannot or do not give themselves to their child in the way it instinctively wants or expects. This seemed to me an important factor in today’s world where the genders have become so muddled. Many people are claiming to be mothers who although they have a female body, are not actually women, and are no real mother.

There was a very definite realisation that taking on the role of the woman for a male has a negative influence on his sexuality. I felt the same would happen for a woman who took on the male role. The woman would care less about children and parenting. She would, as a male, be inclined to establish easy relationships for sex, without the drive to nurture in the same way she would as a female. For the man, loss of interest in sex cuts down drive to have genital contact with a woman. There might be problems over ejaculation also.

My feelings in writing this is that most of us are living an impoverished life, simple because we deny that we are, at base, male and femal/female and male. We are all dual creatures – and by this I do not mean dressing up as a female when you have a male body. It is about becoming whole, male and female in one body.

Example: I also felt confused because of my identification with being a female. At one point I suddenly said THIS IS YOUR FATHER SPEAKING. It was a way of being able to find my male self, still capable and strong. Although I had become a woman, I had never lost sight of my maleness, or what I had done.

I saw that I had learned to be my own mother since an early age. This had arisen out of being put in the convalescent home, and had deepened when I purposely cut off from my mother. I had been my own mother, and it was here the beginnings of my femaleness had begun. I felt this strongly and quietly but with anger cursed my mother for her part in my becoming a woman. ‘Fuck you mother. Why did you do it?’

I had a sense that my mother wanted always to be in control. She couldn’t dare to let me be a man. What with being an infant mother to myself, then bringing myself up from six, followed by being the mother to my children, my male life has been truly screwed up. ‘I feel sad about me. In fact I feel sad about all of us because of the injustice of life and the casualties we become. It’s called human life. Anyway this is the shape I am, part man, part woman, the love part of me twisted up. So I’ve been sad. Finished. Have a laugh. Join the human race, the multi gendered, many shaped, distorted human race.

Genes DNA

These can represent what experience and traits you carry with you from the past, and possibly what you are doing with your life now. The influence can be negative or positive depending on the dream. Or it could be a way of tracing your identity with DNA.

Genes or DNA does not create the person we are, they simple create a physical structure or organism that has certain abilities to express well or badly. They do not give us language, but they do give us the potential to learn it. See The Nature versus Nurture Debate

“Of course, we are each born different and inherit a different level of resilience or ‘adaptive capacity’. So, in this new model, our health is a result of the interaction between our inherited adaptive capacity and our circumstances. For example, on a physical level between our genes and our environment. If our environment is sufficiently hostile (bad diet, pollution, frequent infections, allergies etc.) we exceed our ability to adapt and get sick.

On a psychological level our ‘inheritance’ is our particular mind frame, the rules we apply to life, based on our upbringing and experiences in the past. Through this pair of glasses we view everything that comes in through our senses, and make our judgements. If what we see, hear, smell etc. ‘fits’ within our mind frame, we adapt to health and maintain psychological equilibrium and health. If it doesn’t fit we get upset and lose it. The more liberated is our mind frame, or in other words, the less limited is our view of the world, the more we can accommodate the experiences of life, the more we maintain mental health, and indeed, increase it with a greater feeling of well-being and expanded awareness.” Quotation from Nutrition and Mental Health

What we now call genes was represented by the blood, and this is still true in some dreams. The woman for instance links this feeling with love, or wanting to be loved.  She knows she has something splendid to give, but she confuses it with her personality, perhaps even with her body and its outer appearance.  But the treasure of course is her genes, her amazing and precious eggs.  With a man of course it is living seeds he carries as sperm.  These are unique treasures that we hold within us.

Example: Society, I felt, has a sort of labelling or measuring system. It has emerged out of biological criteria of survival and fitness, and is largely unconscious. People haven’t even acknowledged they are acting under such drives. ‘My genes are best, and everybody else’s are abnormal. But only the best of mine are going to get through’. Out of this I sensed that mothers who have children who are not ‘the best’ suffer a great internal struggle about their child. Part of them cries out, ‘That is no child of mine!’

Useful Questions and Hints:

Genitals

Direct reference to sexual aspect of self; often used to represent gender. In such dreams a man might dream of having female genitals, suggesting he is experiencing the female aspect of himself. See: gendervagina; penis; castrate; washing

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is the central thing this dream is presenting to me – is it about the way I feel about sex, about residues of my father’s influence in my life, or about my female power?

In a male dream – does my dream in any way indicate my fears or strengths in my relationship with a woman – or is it about residues of my mother’s influence?

Does this dream reveal anything about the way I am in an intimate relationship – if so what is it?

Are there any signs of me growing beyond old patterns of my sexual/emotional behaviour – if so can I enhance them?

Here some useful links – Easy Dream InterpretationSexually InadequateMan In Your DreamsDream Like a Computer Game

Genius

May represent feelings of inferiority or superiority, or even be similar to Guru, depending on dream.

Example: When I was 68 I took an opportunity to ‘get education’ because up till then I had not had the questionable advantages of being taught – except when I had to do national service in the RAF and was taught nursing. I got a pass at an Oxford college and while studying there wrote three books which were later published – all without education of the normal kind. My secret was, if it could be called that, I never waited for anyone to tell me what to do or give me permission or pieces of paper called diplomas, etc. I simply got on with what was burning inside me.

While I was being ‘educated’ I met a woman student who assured me that as a woman she was almost paralyzed by restrictions due to her sex. She told me she couldn’t get work. I then thought of my mother from an older generation who never ever had such thoughts and always got work, or created it.

See Genius – Releasing Your Inner Genius – From Black Slave to Genius 

Geometry

The balance, connection and relationship of things in your life and especially within your mind and memories. The unconscious particularly loves symbols to represent abstract and subtle realisations about yourself and life. Because nature forms many such patterns it can refer to the structure within yourself that gives you a sense of identity and existence amidst the many shifting forces of life.

Geometry Class: Learning about how things in your life relate or function together. If you have been in a geometry class it would link with how you felt about the class.

German Germany

The meaning of this in your dream depend upon what you think and feel about Germany and Germans. See Associations Working With

If you are travelling in germany in your dream see Foreign countries

Because of two world wars and the many war film that include Germany and other nations, we may use one or the other of them as enemies, and so this usually indicate an area of conflict you are facing. See battle

Example: I had a recurring dream from childhood to mid twenties. I’m a British soldier in WW1, sitting in trenches chatting, killing time before being ordered to go ‘over the top’. On one occasion we were ordered ‘over the top’. The usual ensued, then I encountered a German whom I shot before he managed to shoot me.

These battle scenes in adult or childhood dreams are usually about the internal conflicts that occasionally rage in most of us. For instance a woman struggling with her appetite in order to slim, might well have this battle with her hunger shown as warfare in her dreams. Common things we have such conflict with are anger, sexuality and of course the awfulness of some home environments, which are like battlegrounds.

Very occasionally such dreams show the connection  between our present life and past events. For instance each nation, out of its history develops certain characteristics. Our own character is shaped by these through our parents. Sometimes, the trauma left by things like war or religious persecution, are evident in a persons life born years after the event. This is popularly seen as evidence of past lives.

Example: I’m 18 and for the past two years I’ve had this repetitive dream. I am in a war zone during the second world war dressed in 40’s clothes. I see a German soldier with a rifle and before I can run away he shoots me in my left leg and I wake with a strange sensation in my leg. The dream occurs two or three times a month. Marcia

This is a clear example Marcia of how dreams describe your life situation in symbols. The 2nd world war was a time of huge struggle and combat. This says you are in a similar period in your life. You are experiencing great internal change and perhaps indecision. The clothes say this is even altering the way you express yourself outwardly. Your left leg represents the inner confidence that enables you to ‘stand on your own feet’. The injury shows how your internal conflict over the past two years has undermined your independence, but particularly your ability to boldly carve out a future for yourself. You distinctly feel the wound in your leg because, as well as their imagery and emotion, dreams are a very physical event.

The dream begs the question of what will you do with your situation. Obviously events have hurt you. Will you lie on the battlefield of life wounded? Your inner life is a magic place in which whatever you feel or believe becomes real. We then tend to make this externally real too. So don’t live in a battleground. Love yourself. Heal your wound. Then strive with the rest of us to create a caring world.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any areas of conflict in me I am aware of?

Conflict can be started at any age – even in babyhood.

What are my associations with Germany or Germans?

Have I travelled to Germany?

See Secrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the MindSumming Up

Germination

A part of yourself that has been quickened to life and growth by some influence, such as love, interest, change of heart, understanding or personal growth. Such germination usually arises from something small but alive within you, or as an outer influence, and expresses enormous potential.

It could refer to pregnancy where conception takes place.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there something new but small and even insignificant happening to you?

Can you feel an urge to grow or go beyond your usual bahaviour?

Do you have a sort of itch inside that leads you on or keep pushing for attention?

See Summing UpClicking OnTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Germs

A hidden worry, or something invisible weakening your health. The germs or virus may also represent a feeling that you may be absorbing a bad influence from another person – depending on the dream. It may be directly a fear about your health, or even an intuition about a viral or bacterial attack.

Gesture

Most gestures we make in dreams symbolise some inner state of being. To understand them it is best to imitate the gesture and thereby see what it expresses. For instance, there are the typical gestures of fear, anger, tenderness.

Gesture may also be a way of communicating something that is still not put into words, not clear. Or occasionally gesture or posture is a way of changing your inner condition. For example by taking a positive posture, or making a confident gesture, this might shift feelings of uncertainty. See Posture.

Gesture

See Postures movement and body  language

Gethsemane

The experience of anxiety and torment in regard to losing control, or giving up self in some degree as you grow toward greater awareness of your oneness with creation.

Example: Then I saw the Christ standing above me with a crown of thorns. A cup was in my hands, and I asked that it be taken from me, but if necessary, “Thy will be done.” Then the crown of thorns was lifted and placed upon my head. I was crucified, dead, and buried.

As I lay in the tomb I wondered when was Gethsemane and crucifixion in my life? When was death? The answers came from within quickly. Gethsemane was my recent fear of the irrational. It was the conflict I have felt about going further into the unknown. I had prayed – “God if this be illusion take it from me, for I want it not. But if this be what you wish for me, then I accept it.” This had been my Gethsemane. My death was in being willing for my ego to die and be absorbed or eaten by the Self. My crucifixion has been over the past many years.

Gradually there was an awakening. The crown of thorns was lifted off. I felt my pierced side. There were nail holes I felt in my hands. I understood I had suffered these by being willing to work at the common tasks necessity demanded. The nail holes in my feet I had suffered as the willingness to accept everyday life and earthbound consciousness, instead of struggling to raise my own consciousness. The binding clothes were the restrictions of sensual consciousness falling away.


Useful questions and hints:

Is there an area of torment or conflict in you life?

What is it you feel you face in life that is difficult?

What is being asked of you in this place of decision?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsJesse Watkins EnlightenmentBeing in Control

Getting at your Dream’s Meaning

People often look at the main word in their dream, look it up, and leave it at that. But usually a dream has a main theme and several other images, people, animals or things are mentioned. Our dreams usually tell a story, not in words but in images, drama and feelings.

I will give an example to show how to arrive at a dream’s meaning from use of the Dream Dictionary entries. It is important to first write the dream down as fully as possible. Don’t stint on the use of words. Be descriptive. Then take the very opening scene of the dream and look it up in the appropriate entry.

Example: I was standing in the back garden of a house – one of a row of terraced houses. Each garden was fenced and ran down to a large drainage ditch. It seemed to be raining and water was filling the drainage ditch. The water was backing up into the gardens because something was blocking the ditch. It started rising up my legs. It was quite hot. I realised this was because hot water was running out of the baths and sinks in the houses. I felt I must get out of the gardens. Not only because of the water, but because of how people might feel if they saw me in their garden. I managed to find a way into a farm yard where I felt relaxed.’ Ted F.

The first scene here is Garden. On a piece of paper separate to the dream, write Garden, with space for notes to be put beside it. The entry on Garden in the Dictionary says – ‘Your garden dream often reveals what you are doing with your latent possibilities. It is pointing out whether you have cultivated your abilities, or buried them. A garden is sometimes a place of love in a dream. In which case it can denote what is growing or dying in your relationship. Another garden theme is connected with activities we do in the garden, like pets we keep, or work done.’

The words Houses – Raining – Hot water – Fences – Farmyard need to be looked up and relevant comments written down next to each word. It is important to realise that the dream and its images are a story, not in words but in images with which we have personal associations with. So wrtite down by each word the basic meaning that appeals to you – i.e. makes sense to you.

Houses – Other people. Raining – emotions, release of feelings. Hot Water – Strong emotions or facing difficult situations, such as social criticism. fence or wall also suggests social barriers, the attitudes and feelings people express to keep others at a distance, to keep a separation between those of different social, religious or economic class. Framyard – This usually has to do with your relationship with your natural urges, the basic drives, such as sex, survival, social hierarchy, parenthood, the down to earth side of yourself.

If we put them together into a story form, we have: I was in an environment with other people and was in hot water facing a difficult situation such as social criticism. I was also in other people’s space and felt that their fences, their attitudes and social difference were there to keep me out. But in returning to my natural feelings I felt at ease again

Making a story of it is an important step, and through you will probably even see what the message of your dream is. But in doing this with his dream, Ted took it further by adding his own associations and ended up with the following. But it is important for you to see what your feelings are and whether any of what is said applies to you. It doesn’t matter if the entry on garden doesn’t contain what is said in your dream. Instead you can say, ‘None of those things apply, but the entry has made me remember my dream garden is a place of pain where a terrible incident happened to me.’ See Working with associations

Ted arrived at and wrote:

Garden – The growth and changes occurring in my life at present.

Row of Houses – Other people.

Raining – Depressed feelings or difficulties; emotions which take away enthusiasm and act as a barrier to action; tears and emotional release – an outpouring; other peoples emotions ‘raining’ on me.

Hot Water – Emotions. In the Idioms is ‘hot water’ suggesting I have got myself in trouble.

Fences – Social boundaries.

Farmyard – Where my natural drives such as sexuality, parenthood, love or fellowship, are cared for or expressed.

When Ted added his own associations to this the dream became fully understandable to him and read like this:

I am going through a lot of changes at the moment – the garden. These are to do with allowing myself to have a warm but non sexual relationship with women. I have always been too dragged along by my sexuality in the past. Just a few days before the dream I was in a ‘growth’ group. I had made friends with a woman there, Susan, who I was warm feelings with, but not sexually. The group work required some close physical contact, and I and another man worked with Susan.

It seemed to me to go without complications. But a while afterwards a woman in the group came to me and with evident emotion, said I had made love publicly to my lover, meaning Susan. I had certainly been physically close to her and had felt at ease, but the viewpoint and feelings of the woman’s accusations, coupled with her threat to expose me to the authority figure in the group, bowled me over.

This is the hot water in the dream. The fences are the boundaries people erect between their personal life and what is socially acceptable. For some days, up until understanding the dream, I felt really blocked up emotionally – the blocked drainage ditch. I cut off any friendship toward Susan. When I realised that in the Farmyard – the acceptance of natural feelings without neat little boundaries – I could feel at peace, I was able to allow my natural warmth again. I also realised the the woman who attempted to damage my reputation had probably never had love that was not directly sexual.

After writing the comments next to each dream image or setting, add any personal memories, feelings or associations, as Ted has. Put down anything which amplifies what has been dreamt. For instance, a car is said to be one’s drive and motivation in the entry on car. But it is helpful to add what personal feelings one has about one’s car. Try imagining what the absence in one’s life of the car, or house, or symbol etc., would mean.

A friend recently told me the absence of her car would mean loss of independence. So this was her personal association.

If you use this method on your dream it can lead to instant insight.

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Peer Dream Work

Geyser

Expression of emotions under pressure. A powerful energy arising from beyond your conscious self. Deep passions becoming known or expressed.

A geyser can usually indicate a fault line on which the geyser exists. If this is part of your dream it can show the possibility of enormous changes – earth changes – at a deep level of yourself.


Useful questions and hints:

Is there any sense of pressure in your life, and if there is can you say what it is?

Do you often feel as if you are holding onto what you feel and then it burst out under pressure?

Can you see the signs of enormous life changes at the moment? These would show as a different direction you are starting, or a change of mind or heart.

See Life’s Little SecretsPeople’s Experience of LifeStreamAvoid Being VictimsProcessing Dreams

Ghost

Memories, feelings, guilt, which haunt us, or parts of the wider awareness of the unconscious which attempt to communicate. What communicates can sometimes be the husks or influences from past traumas or events, which have been emptied of hurt and real influence, but still affect us as habit patterns. They can also be fantasies, hopes, longings we have given time to, and so filled with our life and sexual energy, and which now influence us.

But also they can indicate people we feel close to but have left us, like a son or daughter that has gone off to college or married. Their ghost then represents the feelings that are still alive in us as memories.

Ghost of a living person: A sense of their thoughts or presence influencing us. Many people communicate with the so called dead. We can also be haunted by desire for them, or a resentment or feeling about them.

Some people believe that in dreams the living haunt a place. This is possible because a living person may experience an OBE and be seen as a ghost by someone in the area of the experience. Seeing a ghost while awake can still be considered as connected with the dream process.

Robert Van de Castle points out that in his work with people, whenever he has helped them investigate a ghost dream, it has always led back to the childhood experience of a parent coming to the bedroom and lifting them or moving them to prevent bed wetting. He says the ghost is invariably the mother, and the robber figure is the father.

But some dreams suggest that ghost can be any appearance in your awareness of someone experience an out of body experience, or even as the next example says, contact from another level or reality.A ghost which feels solid: The dreamer is ‘touching’ aspects of their own mind or awareness existing beyond preconceived ideas and beliefs.

Example: Last night I had a strange nightmare. I was in an ancient room. It had the feeling of being an old church. Then my wife and I were in bed in the room. A middle-aged woman was in the room. She was a ghost. I felt afraid of her, but to meet the fear needed to confront her. I reached out my hand to her. I was crying out in my sleep from fear. As she took my hand I was amazed and shocked to feel it as physically real. I cried out, “I can feel you!” She also was surprised and said, “He is from the other level,” or some named level or dimension. I had the impression that this level or dimension was recognised by “them”. I then said I wanted to speak to her, as I needed to understand. I then woke up.

Example: There was an eerie atmosphere about the place. Then we heard footsteps upstairs, and knew it was a ghost. The eerie atmosphere increased and increased, and the footsteps could be heard coming down the steps of the stairs. We decided to go and have a look at the ghost, despite the fact we were somewhat scared. But when we looked up the stairs we saw it was a youngish woman who was dwarfed in stature, and very unhappy. This was why she haunted the place, and had materialised. I put my arm around her shoulder, and made her feel loved, and led her into the kitchen, where we talked to see if we could help her. The whole eeriness had disappeared.

Example: While I was engaged to be married I had a dream in which I was looking at thick velvet curtains, very rich in texture. The curtains parted and my dead mother walked through. She came to me with such a look of love and said, ‘My darling I am so sorry, but this marriage is not to be’. The dream then ended.

 I was due to meet my fiancé at a hotel, as he was working, travelling around the country, and this would be our last meeting before our wedding. I travelled to the hotel, and when I got there the manager took me to one side and told me my fiancé had been killed in a car accident. My mother’s warning had saved me from a terrible shock.

Example: J. A. Hadfield in his book Dreams And Nightmares tells the story of a young woman who was happily engaged but who suddenly became depressed. It was discovered that her depression started when her fiancé had greatly aroused her sexually. That night she had a nightmare in which she saw the ghost of a man to whom she had been previously engaged but had been killed in a war. He was looking at her reprovingly. She felt terribly ashamed and disloyal because of her passionate love for her present fiancé. The reason for such depth of feeling was that when her previous fiancé had died she swore to herself she would not marry again, although he had not asked this of her. So the ghost here represents not only the past relationship, but the woman’s deeply implanted decision not to marry again, raised from the dead as it were by her passionate love for her present man. See Dead Husband or Ex

Example: I was in an ancient room. It had the feeling of being an old church. Then my wife and I were in bed in the room. A middle aged woman was in the room. She was a ghost. I felt afraid of her, but to meet the fear needed to confront her. I reached out my hand to her. I was crying out in my sleep from fear. As she took my hand I was amazed and shocked to feel it as physically real. I cried out ‘I can feel you – I can feel you!’ She also was surprised and said, ‘He is from the other level,’ or some named level or dimension. I had the impression the level or dimension was recognised by ‘them’. I then said I wanted to understand.

Example: I always thought ghosts were the expression of fear as we meet the unknown; the anxiety of glimpses into realities so different to what we assume they should be, that we fall back. But today I am meeting ghosts that have been working silent fingers into my history. They are archaeologists of my heart, leading into the sacred burial grounds where my past love died and was buried. They are ghosts that so subtly lift up old bone’s, enter dried out skins, to make them parade across the theatre of my feelings. In their charade they pose as my lover to affright me. They act out old dramas as if enlightening me of today. And so silently and with craft have they done this, it takes me unawares. Time passes till I catch them at their awful game. I banish them as I banished their living form in the past, by remembering that the flower that grew and died last year, is not this year’s flower.

Example: I was in bed with Tony, my husband, but we weren’t close. I was awake and looking at him, our heads were quite close together. Then we were both looking at a candle alight and a big cork, one for a jar, was being lifted in the heat of the candle. The cork was moving in directions that I didn’t think the heat was but it still kept up, and moving. We both watched this for quite some time, then the cork suddenly shot across the room and I knew Pat, woman who worked with us, was sleeping on the floor next to us, the cork caught some thin material, then went thud onto the wall and fell into an armchair. Pat awoke, thought it was a ghost coming to get her, she rushed out of bed, in the dark, went wildly into the wall trying to find a door to escape. I thought it very funny and laughed to myself as I got up to go after Pat to tell her not to be afraid, it wasn’t after her at all.

 

Useful questions:

Does this represent a particular old memory, fear, or piece of the past that ‘haunts’, or keeps coming back to me?

Does it indicate dread of the unknown? If so what is it you dread?

Do I have doings from the past that I have tried to bury or forget about?

See: Spirits; Hallucination; Processing Dreams; Dreaming of Death

Ghoul

This is usually a repressed part of your childhood that haunts and terrifies you. Sometimes it is the memory of a parent in a frightening situation. When explored these ghouls usually turn out to be images describing a frightening event that happened in childhood, or in the past, or fears you are keeping unconscious in the present.

Example: my wife and I lived in a two-bedroom house. Our three young children slept in one bedroom, my wife and I in the other. At that time I was also running a part time book business. Because it was quite a small house with little cupboard space, I used a cupboard in the children’s bedroom to store new books. Much of the work I did with the books was done in the evenings when the children were in bed. Unfortunately this meant entering the children’s bedroom while they were asleep, and with a small torch searching for books I needed. Quite quickly it became apparent that one of my children showed signs of terror each time I entered the room. From his point of view all that was visible was a small light accompanied by shuffling sounds. I realised that he believed I was some sort of strange or ghostly creature coming into his bedroom. Of course, with this belief, he was terrified.

As soon as I understood this, I waited for darkness and entered the room with my torch. I could hear my small son’s sharp intake of breath and feel his sense his terror. Then I gently spoke, explaining that I was in the room looking for a book, and I switched the light on so he could assure himself of this truth. The terror never reappeared.

If you can let the ghoul approach you instead of running away or hiding you will get to know what is behind the frightening images. See ghost


Useful questions and hints:

Do I have a vivid memory of a parent or other important figure in a frightening situation?

Is this about a repressed part of childhood that still terrifies me?

This is just an image and emotions about fear, why am I running from them?

Is this similar to a ghost and I am frigthned of it?

See HallucinationsSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Giant

In many dreams the giant represent huge forces that are behind our own lives and existence. For example you are constantly moved in your body by forces that you do not control or even fully understand.

We often take for granted some of the most astounding facts about our everyday life. They seem so normal we barely notice them. But just think, the potatoes or rice you ate yesterday, is today capable of sitting and laughing at a television program. When you digested the food you ate, in some way that is truly astounding it transformed into your movements, and feelings, and being able to do maths and enjoy a video. Not even the brainiest person in the world has been able to make a robot or creature that can eat potatoes and change them into the ability to read this book. If we can already do that amazing thing, what else might we be able to do?

This giant in your dream is showing you face to face with

We are all subject to the forces of growth – it is one of the main functions of life. But because growth is a push toward change, change that we do not want to face, we often resist it, often without realising we are doing so. Psychiatrist say we have resistances to meeting the uncomfortable aspects of our self. A young woman who was anorexic dreamt of cutting off her breasts, suggesting trying to cut out the living process that was moving her into being a full woman. So such resistance can also relate to how we try to dissociate from our own process of growth and ageing.

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with the realisation that you as a person with  a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes, we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with this meeting with ourself. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of not facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness which shows us the reality of an enormous giant being.

Paul Levy writing about this says: “This process can be so extreme, so radical, that the ego experiences it as death …. This experience is related to the shaman’s descent to the underworld as well as the archetypal journey of the wounded healer. See Programmed

But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does.

Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on.

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk is about this meeting with the giant self we all are. One of my sons dreamt he climbed up the huge beanstalk and felt the presence of the Giant Being. He also felt sure they were aware of him and that they would kill him.

That is exactly what the story is about. There he finds himself exposed to many different views and opinions, one of which is that one can grow beyond the normal everyday experience of people and gain a much richer and extensive view – the magic beans, the power of personal growth.

People who never find this power of personal growth may remain stuck in life situations from which they may never emerge. The situation might be one of never establishing a full and satisfying sexual relationship; constantly feeling hurt by the actions of others; existing in a state of depression or anxiety; forever having to seek activity or company to deal with ones own inner emptiness; experiencing enormous jealousy or anxiety in a relationship; feeling you have never made it in life – the list could be endless.

This grows in him and he is enlightened by it because he is able to see a vaster view than those locked in chasing after financial riches or being lost in worldly cares or desires. But this brings him to the world of giants. As said, “The Life Will is an enormous activity, a giant in its abilities and coverage. Also, people meeting it fear they are dying or will killed. See Enlightenment

That is true, YES they will be killed, but not physically. It is a facing of the huge Life Will that seems threatening to the small and less powerful Conscious Will as the massive influx of information and experiences is released from the Life Will. See  Death of Ego

If you are the giant, then it might mean you have feelings of power over others, or you are a big person. On the other hand, it might suggest you feel inferior and are compensating. A giant in a dream can also depict feelings you had about parents who, in your childhood, were giants physically and emotionally.

If someone else is the giant. then it may symbolise your relationship with them, such as feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, fear. If you take the trouble to understand what the other person signifies, apart from their size, it is often found they represent one of your emotions, fears, or ambitions, that have become too big for you to handle and have grown to giant proportions.

Childhood feelings about grownups, especially the frightening side of parents. If you are the giant, then it means you have excessive feelings of power over others, and being a big person. If someone else is the giant. then it may symbolise your relationship with them, such as feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, fear. If you take the trouble to understand what the other person signifies, apart from their size, it is often found that they represent one of your emotions, fears, or ambitions, that have become too big for you to handle and has grown to giant proportions.

There are also giant insects and creatures, and again this says their size is magnification of normal fears and feelings.

But some giant figures of not awful or destructive. These are perceptions of something that is wonderful and beyond your understanding as the following dream describes:

Example: I see this great giant of a man, I feel I mustn’t look at him in case I offend him, but he has such beautiful eyes. It is Life. I look away because I’m so uncertain. They are looking at me, those eyes. Look, isn’t it beautiful. A different sort of a human being, can I come and look at you? It’s like something everyone always dreamed about; the love you always wanted but never dared ask for. I love you. I love you. It’s the eyes of my dog as it loves me, elephants, dolphins and people who have poured out to me – life itself.

Example: It was like the end of the world. The wave of destruction and fire rolled towards us. I grabbed the girl, almost carrying her, and ran. I felt if we ran far enough, we might escape, yet somehow felt there was no escape. Now a huge giant stood upon the earth. I believe he swallowed someone. Then he explained that he had been trapped beneath earth within the pylon, behind a barrier of water, and had now escaped. He was the father of all beings, but people had never realised it. His seed had gone into the waters, and somehow fertilised things and created people. At one time he had tried to escape by coming up through the water, holding his breath, but he had not quite made it. But he had grabbed a woman and taken her back down with him.

The dreamer appears to be meeting the giant forces that are behind our own lives and existence. He feels frightened because he had never come face to face with what was behind his own life.

Example: I needed to go to the toilet to pee, and this created many bubbles in the water. As I watched something caught my attention, for it seemed that each small bubble was an eye looking up at me. Wondering what this could mean I looked more closely, to see not eyes, but I’s. Each bubble had a tiny reflection of me in it. I was amused because there were dozens of tiny copies of me all looking up at me with their separate existence.

I felt how true it is that each of us are like little bubbles, all in our own small sphere of experience. Then it struck me that although all of these tiny individuals appeared to have a separate identity, a separate body in space; and although they all had eyes with which they were looking at the world, they only had awareness out of my own consciousness. In fact they had no existence outside of me. Unknowingly they were all reflections of me.

Suddenly, and with some apprehension, I realised the meaning of this interesting dream that my unconscious had been communicating. I am a bubble. My personal awareness, although it seems distinct and separate, is in fact the reflection of one great giant consciousness pervading the universe. So who am I when my bubble bursts, as it must, and I return to my source? The fear I first felt has long melted. It has been replaced by joy as I have explored what it means to burst and return home. The giant is now a part of my life.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Who is the giant… myself or someone else?

Is this about feelings of having power over others, or that I want to?

At the other end of the scale, are these feelings of inferiority, powerlessness or fear?

Has some situation become too big for me to handle?

Or is this something grand I am meeting?

See Reaction to the unconsciousThe Life Will The Life Will Secrets of Power Dreaming

Gift

This may be an intuition, unconscious knowledge, or what is received in a relationship – such as support, sense of worth, acceptance. Sometimes a dream reminds us of the gift of life, and shows us how we relate to it. Or fertility and the coming of a child is a wonderful gift.

A gift can also be like marking ones territory, as with a wedding ring; the forming of a connection.

In North American tribal traditions a gift is often seen as a feather or a dead animal found by the person. In such cases it is felt that Life, or the Great Spirit, has ‘gifted’ the person with the quality of the animal.

There can also be ‘gifts of the spirit’. These are listed as Wisdom; Knowledge; Discerning of spirits (Human, Angelic, Demonic); Speaking in tongues; Interpretation of tongues; Prophecy; Faith; Working of miracles; and Healing. These can be thought of as an entrance into a wider life, and the gifts are an extension of human knowledge and ability.

But in our dreams we are often shown or initiated into gifts other than those listed. One person dreamt he had received the gift of a quiet spirit, and the ability to care for others. But another dreamer dreamt this:

Example: Here I had the feeling of my being stretching back endlessly through my fathers. As I saw this I said, spontaneously, “Through what I have been given in my culture I have a soul. Without the self giving of men and women throughout the ages I would have no soul, no personal awareness of my own. Because of language, and the accumulation of knowledge, I have a soul. This is mankind’s gift to me. Without it I would be like an animal without self awareness.”

Some gifts are very personal however. This next dream shows this:

Example: Steve, my lover, gave me a copper kettle, same shape as the one John, my husband, took to bits and then never put back for me. I was very happy with the gift.  I saw the kettle was clean, with no dents, not highly polished, but with a homely glow.

Considering that a kettle can indicate a woman’s feeling of wanting to provide a good home for her lover, and also her ability to bear a child, the gift is a symbol of the deep feelings that create love.

Giving gift: Giving of self; hoping receiver accepts or likes you.

Receiving gift: Something that you have received or offered by someone or some aspect of yourself.

Receiving unwanted gift: Difficulties in accepting someone, or something from within; perhaps sometimes to do with pregnancy. See: Giving.

 

Useful questions and hints:

If I am giving the gift to someone, what do I see myself sharing?

Does the gift suggest what it is I am receiving or have any special associations for me?

If the gift is unwanted, what difficulty am I experiencing about accepting someone or something from within?

For subtle gifts, take time to explore the feelings you get when you imagine giving or receiving the gift.

See Life’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Questions


Gilgamesh

See analysis of dreams

Giraffe

Dreams containing giraffes are not common, and the few that do have these amazing creatures in are as children’s toys, so would need personal associations to understand. See soft toys; Associations Working With

The neck is a very vulnerable area and a long neck makes it difficult to get up easily. But some people see the neck as indicating the will, but I feel it is an expression of the desire to express oneself.  Another idea is that it can relate to the distance between the heart/feelings and the head/thought; suggesting that one may be out of touch with ones feelings.

It could appear as an ungainly comic character showing strange or funny aspects of the person’s inner life.

Useful questions and hints:

What feelings or associations do I have about the dream giraffe?

Was there anything the giraffe was doing?

Did I feel any connection with the giraffe and if so what was it?

See Being the Person or Thing – Associations Working WithAnimalTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Girdle Corset

Sexual restraint, or the restraint of pride or vanity that shows only as an outer facade, and does not bring about inner changes. Self inflicted restrictions, holding yourself back in some way. Or even presenting yourself as you think others want to see you, perhaps by using an external alteration instead of an internal change. The restriction may be connected with your sensual or sexual feelings.

Corsets and girdles in a male dream is often linked with a particular type of sexuality, as described in this following piece.

Example: Image after image of women flashed through consciousness. Pictures of women in black brassieres and black corset straps. Women with fags in their mouth with unfeeling hard faces. Women having a period. It was the cultural images I had been handed of women. See: armour.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What restrictions am I putting on myself?

Am I trying to fit into someone else’s idea of what I should look like?

Are sexual feeling appearing in this dream at all – if so what do they suggest?

See Processing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Girl Girls

Female under the age of thirteen: Feelings; emotional self; young sexuality; vulnerability.

In male’s dream: Emotions; sexual feelings; daughter. But a young girl can also be used to depict a new pattern, a new opportunity to relate to a female. In contrast to an old woman, the girl is a shift from old patterns of relationship you may have developed with your mother or a wife. So she could represent a development in you away from old and perhaps destructive patterns. See Anima

In a female’s dream: Oneself at that age – whether older of younger; feelings about sister or daughter; the aspect of oneself portrayed by the girl – as in following example. The young girl, depending on your age, could depict a new aspect of yourself emerging or being met. See Characters and People in Dreams

Another girl with your man: How you deal with your sense of being wanted; anxiety about not being attractive or loveable; suspicion; a side of yourself which relates you differently to your man.

Example: I had a very clear dream of seeing a young woman’s legs, slim, perfectly hairless and well shaped. Then I saw her again with very tight tights on. She had a very beautifully shaped vagina that was not flat but like a new bud, with the crack well defined.

The dreamer then explored his dream and says if it: As usual it seemed as if a voice explained it to me. I was told that the young girl’s legs were representing my feelings of beauty, and the shaped vagina was her developing womanhood. With it came feelings of seeing a young girl opening to womanhood, and how beautiful it is. I saw that it was a beauty for me without any sexual feelings, but was a wonderful act of nature or life in the development of a young woman. Previously such views always had sexual overtones for me. Such a development in a young woman was almost holy, and invited love not sex. Sure love could lead to sex, but not sex that is usually called love.

If you are the young girl in the dream: Take care to watch what your dreams tell you. Be sure always remember that you have the wonderful potential for life and growth, and handle it with care and reverence.

Another girl with your man: How you deal with your feelings of being wanted, or anxiety about not being attractive or lovable. Maybe your suspicion he wants another female, or this could indicate a side of yourself that relates you differently to your man. See: Adolescent; Teenage girls love dreams.

A young girl with a baby: This is often about a girls feeling about motherhood and practicing being a mother.

Example: ‘I was watching, and at the same time I was, a young girl sitting on a lawn.’ Honey

Teenage girl: Apart from what is said in the link about teenage in adolescent, there are a few more things.

Many many dreams sent to me by girls are about boyfriends. It is natural for many young girls to obsess about boyfriends. The ‘crush’ is largely a young persons hormonal flooding and needs to be handled with care otherwise there can be enormous emoiotnal hurts. So please read Ages of LoveSumming Up.

Also even when a boyfriend has been left there can be all manner of feelings, confusion and hurt to deal with.  Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship. Such things are you and you cannot escape from yourself. See crush

So I would suggest you integrate all the good and bad things from your relationship with them; because in your dreams about them you are  meeting your feelings. And if you do not do this the negative memories or desires for them will keep coming back. So try doing this by taking the dream images of your ex and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from us onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them.

Example: I dreamt of being with a woman who was desperately seeking a man. I was also with my own female companion. I believe the woman had been suddenly dropped by her man, and I and my partner were close and with her.

Still in the semi-awake state I tried ‘being’ the woman, and had a very clear response. I experienced being her, but was also me with experience of seeing into myself in some degree. I saw that the woman, like most of us, was a female creature whose instinctive drive was to find a mate. But she was not aware of this as an instinctive drive but as a personal feeling. As such she had become, like many women and men, lost in a huge web of personal ideas about whether they were attractive, sexy, with many complications about love, gender mixed with childhood unconscious traumas and the heartbreak all that brings.

Example: ‘I was away from home somewhere and was helping and encouraging a young Japanese girl, who was pregnant, to come back to England to have her baby here. I felt a lot of care for her.’ Dave L.

Dave explored his dream and discovered a lot of sexual pleasure in connection with the girl. He had held himself back in this area most of his life, and as he was learning to allow his sexual feelings not simply genital sex, he found a deepening in his caring also.

Example: Who is the spider?” He looked at it, and as his consciousness hurtled through walls of shattering glass, it turned into a hideous old crone who trembled with delight as she clawed at the lovely woman beneath her. The patient was now almost numb with horror. “It’s no one I know. I’ve never seen a witch like that. Who is she?” he moaned. Again the shattering walls of glass, and the old woman had turned into a girl. “It’s a girl!” he said, staring intently into the inner space of his psyche. “Oh, my God, it’s me! It’s a girl me! I was jealous of all of the women, of my mother and my grandmother and my sister. The girl is myself fighting a battle of supremacy with the other women, just as I fought the battle with the males. How could it be?”

Useful questions:

What aspects does this girl have or represent?

Do I have these same aspects within myself?

Consider how you are relating to the girl and what it shows?

Ask your self if the girl is a young you that is showing you something?

See Avoid Being VictimsQuestionsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsAnimus

Girlfriend

Your emotional feelings, attachment to, the girlfriend; the difficulties, struggles with feelings and sexuality felt in connection with girlfriend or other males; your insights into her behaviour.

A girlfriend can either be a negative feelings acting on your or a very positive guiding force.

Example: We went to the same restaurant. This time it was narrower. We drank red wine from large goblets. On reaching for my goblet I knocked it over. The wine spread rapidly and I thought it was blood. I felt fear and ran from the dining room. Next I was sitting on a camel, being led by another girlfriend of mine. It was down a street where I had worked. It is called Hope Street. H. B.

The dream shows the connection the unconscious often makes between wine and blood. It shows how the alcohol produces transformations that lead the dreamer to experience fear. But the positive influence of the girlfriend changes fear to hope.

Ex-girlfriend : Any feelings or hopes still connected with her; the ex-girlfriend or lover often becomes a symbol for all the hopes for love that are not being satisfied at the moment, or in the present relationship; occasionally the past. Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship.

Example: I had a dream that I had  the most beautiful girl  with long brown hair and beautiful blue eyes and  she was my girlfriend  and  in reality I have never met her and I don’t know who she is. Continuing, we  were at the mall and we were about to kiss but right when we kiss I wake up and dream is gone. Could this have a meaning?  cause  I  REALLY want to see  her again since we loved each other so much and is  it possible that she could  be real and be  having same dream as me? I am 15.

I doubt very much that you are having the same dream as this beautiful girl – the reason is that she is the feminine part of yourself. I know that doesn’t feel right, but having been through trying to find such a woman, it took me a long time to figure the truth. And the truth is, we are all mixed sexes. So you have nipples, and women have a tiny penis hidden usually out of sight – the clitoris.

The aim of dream is to lead you to inner wholeness. Remember the story of the Sleeping Beauty. The prince has to cut his way through brambles to get through. He sees that many others have died in the attempt. Then when he kisses the sleeping princes she wakes and they marry. In other words the dreamed of lover was woken from the unconscious and they become one.


Useful questionsand hints:

Do you feel that the dream girlfriend would complete you?

Is she a sexual conquest or a friendly lover?

Are there difficulties in relating to her fully?

Have you noticed things have improved over time?

See Ages of LoveAges of LoveTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Give Us Enough Information

You have not given enough information for me to understand your dream. Things to remember when writing to us with your dream:

The following example of a dream record shows two possibilities of recording the same dream:
‘I dreamt that a short slightly glowing bolt had entered into my side, and I knew in that moment I had become pregnant with my child. I turned and told my husband, but as he did not seem to hear I did not repeat it. It seemed only to matter to myself.

’If we analyse the feelings in the dream closely, however, the description of the dream might be enlarged as follows: ‘I dreamt that a short, slightly glowing bolt had entered my side. I felt great excitement at this, as if I had long awaited it, and was now fulfilled in my waiting. In the dream I knew that the bolt was something divine that had now entered my being. I also knew in that moment that I had become pregnant with my child, and it would change my life. I told my husband about this, but it was as if he couldn’t hear because I was speaking on a different wavelength or something. Then I realised that this should be kept to myself. That I was to give myself over to the child within, that it would grow strong.’

I am in a large house. It is very pleasant and interesting, being like an old “folly”. It has passages leading off all over the place that one could explore. I am being led up the stairs by a very wilful child. It wants to explore the house and is dragging me with it. As we go up the stairs, a man comes out of a door and walks down past us. He looks at me as if to say, “Don’t go up”; or, “if you go up, be prepared.” He looks like a caretaker, but is very indistinct and shadowy.

The child leads me up however into what is like a loft where I have never been before. It is attachted to, yet somehow distinct from the rest of the house. Also it is very light and filled with ancient books and objects. I look at them and feel that there is something oriental and mysterious about them. Somehow they seem like a treasure, all dusty but full of wisdom about life.

Then the child goes to a door that is split in halves, a higher and lower. It can not get through the lower, but goes out the top half.

 For how the dream was looked at see Interpretation

Giving

Relatedness; the sort of exchange or give and take which goes on in a relationship, even the internal relationship with oneself, or the environment.

Giving: One can give affection, support, sex, ideas, as well as wounds. One needs to see what the interaction is by looking at what is given.

Giving or receiving advice: In a dream this is often important information, unless one is being mocked or cheated. Often such advice can be about a problem you face or the direction of your growth.

Giving birth: See birth

Giving false hopes: We constantly give ourselves false hopes through our desires and thoughts, but giving others false hopes can bring consequences. See Avoid Being Victims

Received: Consider what is received to define what you are accepting or rejecting in oneself or from others. See: accept; gift; Receive.

Example: I dreamt I was standing before an immense wall of what looked like water, but it was upright and steady. It stretched upwards and sideways as far as I could see. Because it looked like water I stretched out my arm to touch it, and was surprised that my hand and arm penetrated it easily. And as I pushed my arm in deeper to see if I could feel anything, an arm to my left protruded from the wall. I felt I was witnessing a deep truth; the wall was the hidden life we are all surrounded by. Whatever I put in came out toward me.

The Idioms show the many ways this action can be used. Idioms: Don’t give me that; give and take; give as good as one gets; give away or give-away; give oneself away; give somebody away; don’t give a brass farthing; give place; give a piece of ones mind; give them enough rope; give someone the evil or glad eye; give someone the elbow; give ones notice; giving passage; giving off; giving ourselves.


Useful questions and hints:

Have you seen in dreams that we get what we give?

What were you giving or being given?

Was it received or rejected?

See KarmaClicking OnTechniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams

Glacier

Emotional tension, repression, and frozen feelings. Probably repressed feelings over a long period of time. Or perhaps fear of living or expressing your feelings or emotions, so a frozen chunk of past experience. It might at times point to a difficult period of your life when you were living in a cold and hostile atmosphere or environment.

Large amount of frozen areas of life experience, or feelings seemingly impossible to move on from. Or a feeling of awe about the hugeness of natures creations and the timeless aspect of it. Also the possibility of finding things from the long past uncovered.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I doing in relationship with the glacier?

Was I aware of any feelings while with the glacier?

What was my experience of the glacier?

See Summing UpTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

Glass

Glass represents the invisible but powerful feeling or social barriers we use in everyday life.

The sort of invisible yet tangible barriers we may erect or feel around others, such as natural caution, emotional coldness, disinterest, fear of being hurt or pride; social barriers. Invisible aspects of oneself which nevertheless may trap us, such as fear, lack of self respect; self doubt.

Glass can be a protection for food and to cook in. Also a protection against the weather and cold.

Frosted or smoked glass: Desire for privacy; keeping parts of oneself hidden; an obscure or unclear view of a situation; occasionally relating to death – the very real yet obscure experience we all face. Barriers or social techniques you use to gain privacy. It can also suggest keeping parts of yourself hidden, or an obscure or unclear view of a situation. Occasionally it relates to death – the very real yet obscure experience we all face.

Breaking glass: Breaking through a barrier; shattered emotions. What barrier are you breaking through, what restraint? It might also mean shattered emotions. Breaking a relationship; shattering an illusion; broken hearted.

Breaking something made of glass: Breaking a relationship; shattering an illusion; broken hearted.

Stepping on broken glass: Glass may not be very visible, so may represent hidden dangers; being careless about direction in life or present situation; or if it is being done without heed to injury, represents self inflicted pain.

Glasshouse: Something in your experience that protects fragile aspects of your growth; something that is itself fragile; a subtle but real barrier between the energy of your life and the aspects of you that are needing to grow.

Glass inside you swallowed: You have taken in very dangerous feelings, ideas or events that can knock down your ego or personality from within. It may cause a great energy loss because of loss of blood.

Example: Later, a lot of very ugly injuries and cuts appear in my chest and throat because I swallowed bits of glass, I realized the glass is going through my body, but nobody in my family believes and they think I did it to myself.

Next, same injuries but now in my belly, and I start throwing up blood, again and again, throwing up even my entrails. Now everybody believes I have glass splinters inside my body, and something has to be done.

Finally, when the bits of glass are in the last stage of my intestines, a doctor comes and something like a surgery is conducted. I can “see” the interior. With a pair of tongs the doctor is helping the glass to be “got out” without hurting anything in my body, and among the dirt (crap) he found a flower and in the interior of the flower he found a piece of glass, but then he realizes, that it was not glass, it was a diamond.

An amazing dream saying that amid all the pain and fear of illness when it is all felt and faced and healing is sought or thought, then it is realised that the awful hurts and fear was all in order to allow the awareness that at the heart of such experiences is the connections with the unchanging and eternal. See Diamond

Useful questions and hints:

Is the glass protecting me in some way?

Or am I in a dangerous situation with glass?

Am I looking though glass at something or somebody?

See Being the Person or ThingClicking OnSumming Up

 

Glass Drinking

It depends what is in the glass. See alcohol

In so many films and TV shows people are shown with a glass in their hands. Also at weddings and parties it is the same, people wandering around drinking alcohol. Alcohol is a known poison and health risk, it is also a downer, its action is to make one less aware. But for many people holding a glass can represent good times, friendship, intimacy – or drunkenness and death of sexual feelings.

It can also for some represent making money. The profits on selling alcohol is significant.

Empty Drinking Glasses: Past events; memories.

Full Glasses: Present or future experience. Perhaps something you are thirsting for. What is in the glass also holds information. See: break; cup

Useful questions and hints:

What do you associate with holding a glass?

What memories are there for you in the glass?

What is the theme of the dream?

See Associations Working WithAvoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Glasses Spectacles

Ability to see – understand – or lack of it; a way of hiding oneself, as behind sunglasses. Terms like ‘short-sighted’ or ‘long-sighted’ help to understand the use of glasses in a dream.

Coloured glasses: Suggest attitudes that may colour your view of life, as with ‘rose tinted glasses’.

Finding glasses: I shows that you have gained a new insight or are seeing things more clearly.

Lost or broken glasses: May indicate that you are not taking care of the insights you have gained that would give you a better view of what confronts you.

Sunglasses: Protectiveness or disguise.

Example: I keep pulling my glasses off and rubbing my eyes; I can maneuver pretty well without them, but I’m very aware that if a cop were to stop me for anything I’d be in trouble.


Useful questions and hints:

Is there a problem with my glasses in the dream and if so what does it signify.

Have I noticed any forgetfulness lately or lack of ability to focus?

What am I faling to clearly understand?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsIdentity and Dreams

Gliding Glide

Gliding is often a controlled form of falling. It is usually felt as pleasurable, and is sometimes linked with sex in some way. It suggests as in some of the examples pleasurable control. But as the examples show, it can express in many different ways. As the last example shows, the pleasure was something he tried to escape from.

Example: I get in my hang glider and fly over the vast acres of trees and crops I own. I am very wealthy. My wife is trying to take it away from me. She’s a glittery, non-caring woman, selfish. I come back. It’s hard because I’m gliding against the wind. I finally make it work. She’s stealing jewelry from my house. I want to kill her and prepare to do so.

Example: Just like Tammy, I can also control that state of sleep. At first it was afraid but every time it occurs to me, I feel more and more free to control what’s happening. As I was searching for answer on what I’m experiencing, I found out that this is called sleep paralysis. And again just like Tammy, I mostly glide and fly and actually feel falling. I’m always looking forward to sleep paralysis.

Example: I am on  yacht with my parents in the Med. It is beautiful. Then we are docked at our local canal and are burgled several times. I go for a walk and find a wonderful girl on a high cliff. She had an amazing calming effect on me such as I have never known before. We glide off the cliff and fly high into the sky as I sing beautiful opera music.

The girl is your own wholeness, your full potential. Few of us manage to ever materialise this completely. As you meet this you sing because you feel the flow of creativity and intuitive insights you never accessed before. But you have only touched them, not brought them fully to consciousness. And there is a difficulty, the burglar. Something in your family life, old attitudes perhaps, stand in the way. There may be a skeleton in the cupboard, something to realise concerning your family’s stand in dealing with life.

Example: Gliding from a mountain top. Then I am with Pat Brown, a girl friend I knew at school. I am lying on top of her holding her breasts. Then I was being led into rooms but avoiding them each time as I felt some sort of trap and threatened imprisonment. To avoid being caught I take a deep breath and this caused me to fly up into the air and away.


Useful questions and hints:

Was there any fear in the dream?

Where you aiming to reach a goal?

What pleasure did you feel, and have you felt similar feelings while awake?

See FlyingMartial Art of the MindLearning to Allow Yourself Secrets of Power Dreaming


Glisten

See: Glow.

Globe

Wholeness, your complete nature, symmetry or proportion. Usually refers to the soul or spirit, in the same way as a square or cube often represents the physical in a dream. Or it may represent the world. Sometimes the globe is in divisions denoting the different faculties or aspects of your nature.

What is meant by this is that although as a conscious person our life might be a mess, we still have health and wholeness as a potential. It often leads to a realisation that there is another subtler and more powerful world linked with out physical world. It also symbolises the amazing potential we all have if we find it. See giant

Or the globe may repre­sent the world, in other worlds your present ‘world’ or experience or activity, the way you see or experience life. See: world.

Example: The Lady appeared amid the glowing light.  On 13th September 1917 30,000 people met. Two skeptical Priests chose higher ground to watch.  At noon the sun grew dim; a globe of light advanced down the valley to the tree; shiny white ‘petals’ fell out of the empty sky but vanished as people reached out to catch them.  The children again saw the Lady amid the globe of light:  she promised them a miracle.  The Priests saw the globe and were much shaken.

The children who had first seen the Lady at Fatima in Portugal, were give two prophecies by the Lady. The first was that the present war would soon end and the second was that an even worse war would begin in 1939. See Our Lady of Fatima

Example: I dream of my late son, who passed this summer from Pneumonia. (Drug induced). We are in a globe type room, sort like an observatory. It is bright and colorful though the ceiling has stars and sky like patterns. My son is standing in the center of the room with me by his side. I am instructing him on something. I have a mentor (a male figure) looking on silently. I just know the mentor is for me. I mentor my son even though the/my mentor does not speak or anything.

The globe type room is something I have come across several times. It is a way of showing you a more global view of life. An enlargement of your awareness. The stars and sky patterns are also to help you realise the beauty and that your awareness has gone beyond what you can usually know through your senses; a wonderful dream. I think you already have a lot of experience in this other world knowledge, for you are clearly helping your son from the Highest in you.


Useful questions and hints:

What have you felt or realised in regard to the globe?

Was it glowing or well lit?

Were you aware of any knowledge given you?

See ESP in Dreams Edgar CayceSecrets of Power Dreaming

Glossolalia-Speaking in Tongues

Communication is a necessary part of living beings. According to David Attenborough, “plants can see…count and communicate with one another…react to touch and estimate time.” These claims are supported by the facts that plants turn towards the light, and even prepare themselves for sunrise by facing east in anticipation; trigger hairs on plants react to touch; there is even a social element in plant behaviour in that they fight enemies for territory and compete for mates in order to ensure the survival of the species.

One function of the unconscious and dreams is to bring aspects of our thinking and feeling which may be ill defined, toward clarification. Foreign or strange language may therefore illustrate something which is being communicated to us from within but is still not clear. The unconscious, as in speaking in tongues – glossolalia – and of course in dreams, frequently moves toward clear awareness in stages. The strange language is a half-way house toward focused critical awareness, as is a dream. If we bring focused attention to these, as explained in processing dreams, the next step, clear verbal expression, can be reached.

Glossolalia is speech arising not from our conscious mind but from the source of our life or as it is commonly called, ‘our unconscious’.

W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams and unknown voices come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through several levels of our mind:

a] The deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ or cellular level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through.

b] As the physiological or psychobiological process moves nearer consciousness, its next level of expression is postural or gestural. Thus, we may express our deepest hidden feelings in an unconscious body posture or movement. Not only our feelings express in this way, but also our physical tone or health shows in our postures and movements. Even the plant droops if it needs water.

c] Next, when something moves from the gestural to the next stage of expression it becomes a dream or a dream image or symbolic expression, which although it may not be understood, is now entering the arena of awareness. It is still a part of the move toward consciousness. This is sometimes called the mythic level and is something we see working in producing religious thinking or myth creation. It still remains at the symbolic level. So, in this level any speaking (in tongues) is still in the symbolic or non-understandable expression, and only clarifies as it enters the next level.

d] At this stage, what had been deeply unconscious, then symbolised, now rises into consciousness and is capable of being verbalised or thought about and analysed. If one had attempted to verbalise something in level two it would have been so far outside of consciousness as to defy description. Also, when looking at these levels or stages, they suggest that the dream process is a means by which deeper stages can be portrayed to awareness in order to make them known. Therefore, by working with the dream process we can tap deeper levels of awareness and make them known. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level. See Dreams – Practica Techniques to explore them

An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised, that he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.

As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the man’s conscious attention, and the spontaneous self-regulatory/dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

Pentecostal Christianity speaks of gifts of the spirit. These are listed as the gift of: the word of wisdom; the word of knowledge; faith healing; the working of miracles; prophecy; the discerning of spirits; diverse kinds of tongues; and interpretation of tongues.

Most of these are easily recognisable descriptions of faculties of the unconscious. The unconscious is constantly scanning information and considering the highest probable outcome – thus prophecy. Access to universal aspects of consciousness allows the gaining of insights which might also account for prophecy, wisdom and words of knowledge. See Edgar Cayce

Speaking in tongues is a common way in which the unconscious expresses its feelings and insights. It is a level three expression in Van Rhijn/Caldwell’s levels of consciousness – given above; so when the ‘tongues’ are considered as symbolic expression they transform into meaningful words, just as dream symbols do. My experiments with such phenomena convincingly show the common link between these often-considered unrelated or meaningless phenomena and LifeStream. See How it Flows

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So, we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will is in full operation when we sleep and in fact runs all our important life processes like breathing, heartbeat, digestion and also dreams as spontaneous movements.

Glove

Insularity against the world. It may also be an invitation, like a dropped glove, or handkerchief. Can stand for a hand without any life in it. Protection, or the attitude of avoiding contact, or something that does or does not fit in some way. See: Clothes

Gloves: Protection, as in wearing rubber gloves; keeping ‘one’s hands clean’ as in the sense of avoiding ‘dirty business’; being out of touch.

Also: Holding their glove would be holding their hand. Picking up a dropped glove: Similar to picking up a handkerchief dropped by a woman – an invitation to a relationship.


Idioms: Hand in glove with; iron fist in velvet glove; with kid gloves; with the gloves off.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is the glove(s) portrayed?

Is this about protection, or a desire to avoid contact with someone or something?

Does a situation fit me well…or not?

If this is a dropped glove, is it an invitation of some kind?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming


Glow Glowing

When something glows with an inner light, it means that it is expressing the inner energies. It shows something that contains a great deal of yourself, and often links your individual awareness with the whole. The actual form will probably symbolise some personal quality, through which the wholeness expresses. It is the inner light, not the form, that expresses the connection with the whole. But from the form you can understand which part of you is relaying direct influence or guidance. See: Dark; Light.

Glue

One can be glued to the television, or a book. It can there­fore express emotional and intellectual involvement, empathy, sympathy or love. But it can also mean bonds or dependencies you find difficult to break.

A means of fixing things to places, or to mend them. Sometimes it is an attempt to cover up mistakes by gluing things together. May indicate a wish to bind someone or something to you. Spilling glue might have sexual indications.

Example: My father points out a circle on a sign, like an Indian hoop, but it’s an auto tire with tools glued to it to advertise a local car repair shop.

Example: She becomes aware she has some sort of glue all over her face. She is trying to pill it off and it teats her skin slightly as she pulls it away. She feels it has been suffocating her.

Example: I dreamed, I am putting glue on my face, which dries to a film like a mask, and I think of putting it on my penis. This dream occurred just as I was getting involved in the company, which indeed sold an adhesive (though not intended for the body). Yet I did not know what to make of the dream. A few days later, one of the officers of the company joked with me that perhaps the glue would be good for patching condoms. And then, as I became involved with the job, I found myself writing advertising material that was disagreeable to me. I had to go along with attitudes that at least were not discussed to the point of agreement. So I felt sometimes that I had to present a mask and was impotent to express my own opinions.


Useful questions and hints:

Do you feel you are ‘stuck’ with something?

Has it worked or is a strange thing being glued?

Was your face involved?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsWaking Lucid DreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Gnarled

The marks of time and work. The difficulties and struggles of life, but often displayed as wisdom or inner power.

Example: I dreamt that I stood before an immense tree. It was old. It was gnarled with the storms and summers of its life. It was wonderful to see. And as I crouched over my toolbox half in the cupboard under the stairs, with tears streaming down my face, I knew that I am the tree of life. I could feel all that has lived before living in me. It was a precious moment.

Example: I dreamt a lot of sweets, brightly wrapped, were being put into my open hands. All I saw of the giver were his hands. Beautiful, big, gnarled hands of a working man.’ Alex U.

In exploring his dream Alex saw the hands as the holiness of everyday human experience, especially regarding self-giving, as in parenthood, love and work – the hands of the self giving spirit of love that we usually forget. Alex doesn’t eat sweets, so they represent pleasures he seldom allows himself, the pleasure of everyday life and love .

Useful questions and hints:

Did you get any sense of life experience from the dream?

Was there any lesson learnt from what you saw?

What were your feelings about the dream?

See Associations Working WithProcessing Dreams – –   Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Gnaw

Something may be eating away at you inside, such as conscience, worry. What is gnawing represents the source of worry. Gnawing can also mean attacking a problem or situation, or link with hunger for something. See: Eating.

This seemed to have a strong connection with a woman I had fallen in love with. I felt torn, in conflict, lost. I have not felt quite like this for many years. Gnawing away at my innards was just the same anxiety as I had experienced all those years ago with Silvia.

Gnawing images can in fact indicate deep anxieties, as follows:

I remembered the tremendous physical anxiety I had felt when searching for work. It was an actual pain in my lower abdomen, a real burning gnawing deep inside. I went right into the anxiety, and it was the fear any life form feels when exposed to danger. I remembered the film of baby turtles hatching in the warm sand. As they made the perilous journey from dry sand to the sea, seagulls swooped and ate them; alligators snapped them up; fish swallowed them. The anxiety was that of stepping out from underneath our rock into the open sky, and taking ones chance with life. If fear paralysed us we would dodge more slowly. But the seagulls might get us however fast we moved. It was the chance we took. There was no guarantee of success or failure.

My parents had sowed in me the seeds of enormous anxiety about sticking my neck out from the rock of security. Now, as I was exploring fresh pastures, I faced the agony of anxiety of the unknown, unseen seagull.

Negative thoughts that eat, gnaw, and destroy your creative ideas and connections.

Example: Then I was out in the garden. A small rodent type of animal was running around. Apparently it was our pet that we have adopted. It was foraging about, and as I watched it found what looked like a carcass of a dead animal, and began to eat the remains. Still watching I saw that the “dead” creature was still alive, and the rodent was eating its internal organs. Then the creature being devoured turned over onto its back, and opened itself to being eaten. At this point it looked like a large squirrel – not a grey – that had been cut open and gutted. I couldn’t see its heart beating, but it seemed alert and was okay about being eaten. I was pondering this and the animal got up and ran away. Some dogs chased across a road. A car skidded, hitting one of the dogs, but not badly injuring it. I pointed at the dog saying, “You know you shouldn’t have done that.” It looked at me as if it knew.

An interesting view of this is given in the persons exploration of the dream: The main thing I felt was the small rodent and the small creature, squirrel, it was eating. I arrived at the understanding that the squirrel was partly about hibernation. This represents a desire to pull back from activity, to hibernate in the sense of the spending more time with my inner life. It also links with the experience of a readiness to die, and I mean that in the way that one can melt back into the primal source of things. In the dream this is represented by the fact that the squirrel at first is almost invisible because it looks as if it has sunk into the earth, and only a small piece of fur is showing. As the squirrel I felt the rodent was disturbing me from sinking deeper. It was winter and time to become inactive in the world. This was me gnawing away at a process of disintegration that was going on in me.


Useful questions and hints:

Do I feel I am gnawing away at something in my mind?

Or is something eating away at you?

Are you destroying your positive feelings in some way?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Gnome Goblin Knockers or Spirits

A part of our personality left undeveloped or not integrated. For instance we may have musical ability which was suppressed by the need to bring up children; a part of self malformed by painful childhood experience or lack of emotional nourishment. It may therefore be a link with our unconscious. See: Fairy.

A gnome in a dream represents the power of the unconscious when linked with ones deepest wishes or childhood dreams. See: dwarf.

The magical world that relates to one’s “inner child,” and the inner treasures or abilities that the dreamer may possess. But they often represent the forces of the unconscious that can reveal great gems of truth, or stand in the way of doing it yourself.

Goblins or Knockers: They represent the mischievous, ill meaning side of us that we have not acknowledged and so appear in strange forms. As a knocker it might be a warning of some sort, depending on the rest of the dream.

Spirits: Apart from spirits of the dead the term may also refer to any incorporeal or immaterial beings, such as demons or deities. In a dream they are usually associated with parts of our emotional energy that has been repressed by fear or misunderstanding, and so is expressed as frightening or destructive influences. See ghost

Example: I fell asleep on a long couch journey to Spain whilst travelling through France. A colourful gnome jumped up and down the kerb. A while later I saw in my dream a black thin female figure with a band of bright light around the head like a band. She was moving gracefully like a puppet. It had a peaceful aura. When arriving in Spain I saw the gnome in a souvenir shop exact size, and next to it were a few dolls with weird big black eyes. Also I saw the black figure resemblance whilst at a cabaret show. Puppets came on that were black with fluorescent lighting around the head, identical except they were men.

Useful questions and hints:

Do I feel threatened or frightened by my dream?

Can I recognise that the dream characters are projections of what I have read or seen?

What can I do to alter my dream?

See Possession and DreamsSumming UpSecrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

Go Going

It is usually referring to decisions, as in this quote from a dream, “I wanted to go to the grocery store closer to my house rather than the one we were at because it is cheaper. Then I said, “Why don’t I just go get the detergent at the other store?” Then she said, “Never mind, we will just go in here, it doesn’t matter.” Then I had to go to the bathroom.”

Adding ‘don’t’ gives it a negative charge – a decision that you are not happy with

Going: This is a difficult one to be precise, because you can be going off to school; really going to miss me; a party was going on; we were going shopping; I ran up to see what was going on; my love has died and I am going to leave you – and so on. So I would suggest using Processing Dreams

Useful questions and hints:

Can I define what I want to do in the dream, or else its theme?

If you imagine yourself in the dream again what feelings do I have?

Is this something you often do?

See Dream ActionRoleSecrets of Power Dreaming

Goal

Your aims, ambitions. The goal may also refer to the purposefulness of your unconscious drives. There could also be a link with winning or losing, as in sport. Therefore success or failure.

May refer to the external goals you have set yourself, but dreams often use the image to refer to the internal sense of where you are going in your life as a whole, and not just what job you might achieve. After observing the symbol forming action of the unconscious, Jung came to the conclusion that the unconscious itself was purposive and had certain goals. Such goals arise out of the connection the unconscious has with all life, and its sense of wholeness.

Although we may think that the goals we longed to reach when we were teenagers are not longer applicable,what was felt so strongly leaves a mark and still influences us unless we have alterd it. Also there is the influence of traumatic experiences that continure in a negative way. See – Conditioned Reflexes and Life’s Little Secrets

It might not be that you have purposely set yourself goals, but you might have a great attraction or urge toward something – and that is a goal. But apart from that there are tasks that we are born to deal with or meet. These are flaws in our character that dreams particularly point out and show us ways to deal with. I know I use this example often, but it is excellent.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression of having been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity. Suddenly I realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was myself. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. I dropped the attitudes and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I dropped other habits of emotion and thought with which I had trapped and tortured myself. I realised I could be totally free within myself. One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. So intense was it I cried out. The cell mates called a warden. They stood looking at me as I experienced a radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was mad. Nothing would ever be the same again. Andy.

Here the problems were shown and the way to deal with them also. Andy did apply what he learnt from the dream and he did find a fountain of joy opened in him.

Useful questions and hints:

So what goal have you set for yourself?

What goals do you have spiritually?

What goals do you have for relationships?

What goals do you have for your health?

What goals do you have for your home?

What goals do you have for what you want to do with your energy/work/creativity?

What can you see are faults in yourself you need to work on?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsDream YogaAges of LoveSecrets of Power Dreaming


Goat

Rutting masculine sexuality, or if a female goat the fertility and procreative power; ability to climb, personally or socially; tough ability to survive difficulties; sometimes connected with repressed natural drives which become reversed or evil/live when symbolising the devil – or the animal drives or instinctive and pooled consciousness prior to ego development. If you dream of the goat god Pan, see girl in the wood.

It can also depict somebody butting into your life, or conflict with someone if the goat is attacking. Also sure-footedness or meeting difficulties with ease.

If you have kept goats it may well represent responsibility or caring. If you have bred them you might use the goat to depict your own reproductive urges.

In the Bible the goat represents the bad guys in the phrase ‘separating the sheep from the goats’.

As an astrological sign the goat is the sign of Capricorn. For Capricornians the goat may represent their basic character. Capricorn is a “Cardinal” “Earth” sign. It is the sign of hard, long struggle, and finally, high attainment. This suggests a slow starter, somebody who makes it late in life. It’s symbol is a compound creature, half goat, half fish. The front portion has the head and front legs of a goat, the hind portion a fish’s body and tail. The “Goat,” with only his front legs, is patiently and perseveringly struggling to climb a mountain, but is handicapped and hindered all the time by having to drag with him his Piscean after-part. This represents a stage in human evolution during which humans were developing personal identity, but their instinctive drive were still powerful and difficult to deal with. It still depicts this in a person’s life today. The Capricornian is said to be ambitious with definite aims and purposes. They are patient and perseverance in overcoming difficulties. Thus they finally succeed in the attainment of their Zodiacal goal.

Example: I dreamt I was in a large room sitting near one wall. In front of me was a nanny goat, pregnant with very large teats. The goat asked me, or I knew that she needed, milking, because there was too much pressure of milk in her udder. I started to do this and noticed the goat was very squat, powerful and with tremendous physical stability. That is, its shape made it difficult to unbalance. I seemed to know how to milk the goat. A backwards and forwards motion was necessary, and no squeezing needed. It was like masturbation. As I did this I watched the milk flow on the floor, and thought what a waste it was, but felt soon her baby could feed. Then I watched her give birth. It was a very quick and easy thing, but I believe it was a human child, not a goat. I don’t know if the goat was then a woman, but a woman also gave birth, and I realised while still dreaming that I had dreamt twice about giving birth and this was because a birth process was at work in my unconscious. Paul.

This dream shows the many associations we have with the goat, everything from the procreation of motherhood to sex and masturbation. In fact Paul says of his dream, “As I remembered the dream I realised what some of it meant. The goats milk pressure is the pressure that builds up making it necessary for me to masturbate. That it is milk means it is my self-giving, my flow of love to others, wasted on the floor. The dream suggests this will soon change, and something is being born. Also the fact it is a breast yet it is being masturbated, means childhood needs for the breast are developing into real genital needs.

Idioms: Get my goat; an old goat, meaning an ageing man still lusting after women.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What can I understand from how the goat is portrayed in the dream?

What am I doing with the goat and what does this suggest?

Does the goat in any way portray elements of masculinity or femininity, maybe connected with mother or motherhood?

See Mammal BrainTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Energy Sex and Dreams


God

And He said, “Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6).

“I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).

“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, That He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:14- 18).

feathers2

Jung says that while the Catholic Church admits of dreams sent by God, most theologians make little attempt to understand dreams in relationship to God.

God and Christian morality is as incoherent as our own core of logic about our sovereign independent agency. He  (God) says he is the one who puts our will and thus our specific actions into us, but then condemns or glorifies us arbitrarily, to demonstrate His power. Even so, he continues to treat us as morally self-authoring entities, the origins of our actions. But he continues to maintain that it is not us, but only Him, who is the origin of our will, while still condemning or praising us. How can the potter be morally angry and impatient at his own clay products? God’s moral attitude is manifestly incoherent or self-contradictory.

In fact the whole image of God we have been given is ridiculous. God is shown as a male figure, never with a female aspect. Yet God, being the creator of Everything, so that all things have their source in Him??

The fundamental description of god in Hebraic teaching was ‘ain soph’ – the unknown god. Being Everything, it can never be a THING because things like maleness would be something. But it/God becomes something in expressing itself. For the word Elohim is usually translated as God, but it actually means gods. See Secret Bible

Example: As I experienced this, I realised that everything that exists is a part of that wondrous being. There is nothing that is not of its love. So that whatever arises in the universe arises out of, and as, THAT. The human sense of God is a realisation of the very substance of our own existence. The awe we might feel is from an intuition of what has been given us as our own being.

And as that great unity of energy and consciousness died, its very last impulse was for those new beings that might arise from its death. The impulse that flashed out we call love. It flashed through the universe permeating its every particle, in a way that we cannot yet perceive, but which is like a touch upon the pulsating chaotic movements of particles and lives. See Big Bang and God are the Same

Example: For a while I drew nearer the awareness of ‘God’. I wanted to be able to have a clear view of what this experience was and how to describe it. It seemed to me that there was no great astral, ethereal being we call God. In my awareness I sensed that there was something connected with the living bodies and minds of all things. It was something like music in the sense that out of the many separate instruments an overall sound arises.

Or it could be like the body that comes about from the unity of countless cells, yet is different than any single cell. A reality that does not have its base on any one thing, yet has existence nonetheless. So I saw God as a reality that is as ever shifting as music because of the changing face of physical events and mind arising from it. This thing ‘God’ is as near to us and as practical as our own heartbeat. If we feel our heartbeat and honestly ask ourselves what causes our existence, do we really know? We probably have some formulaic idea such as chemical or biological processes. But neither chemistry nor biology explain the full answer. What is at our base is a mystery, and it seems wise to me to stand before that mystery humbly and open to it in our dealings with everyday life.

My sense of God did not present itself as something that was an ultimate being causing all things, but as an intrinsic aspect of what exists, and that exists because of reality, and acts upon it. You can never grasp it because it always moves and evolves. I felt it to be like wind. Could I be the wind? It is featureless yet touching and influencing things.

Then a strong image of a snake arose. The influence of God, of the featureless power that can enter a human life and transform it was like a snake. The snake can bite you, and its venom may flow throughout your being and kill you. Most of us are very frightened of this. The reason being that the venom will take away your personal boundary of self. It melts the boundary of egoic self-interest, and personal connections with family and children, with choices in action. It replaces the personal interests and fears with a self that is part of the one great life. So, the fear of the snake is not because its venom is deadly, but because it transforms. It turns you into a being who is part of the whole. It robs one of the artificial walls placed between self and the collective pool of life consciousness.

Being a god: You are always the hero of your own life. You are the central character of your own drama of experience. As such you are the deed doer, the hero or fallen god, especially when the dream is portraying dramatic life events.

We are all deities. As it says very clearly in Genesis, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

So we are all the image of God – Unfortunately we live in a world that denies it.

Meister Eckhart has this to say of it: So now I name it in a nobler fashion… It is free of all names, and void of all forms. It is one and simple, as God is one and simple, and no man can in any wise behold it.’

Because God is neither male or female, darkness or light, the created or the creator, but is everything at the same time, it is foolish trying to define what is behind existence.

God in a dream can depict several things: A set of emotions we use to deal with anxiety – i.e. our own belief that a higher power is in charge, so therefore we are okay in the world and are not responsible – thus an escape from responsibility; a parent image from early infancy; a set of moral or philosophical beliefs one holds; self judgement; something/someone we worship; a feeling of connection with humanity; an expression of the fundamental creative/destructive process in oneself; a sense of ones living interaction or relationship with all beings and the universe.

So to dream of God might be an expression of your religious feelings or emotional feelings about God. But it is helpful to remember that if you have strong feelings for a friend, or think about them and feel uplifted or moved, the feelings in no way are that friend. They are only about that friend. So in most cases, when someone tells us they were moved by God, they are usually meaning they were moved by feelings or ideas they experienced about God.

God also depicts processes in oneself that can be enormously transformative. Seen in a very practical way, if a person has no belief that there is anything in life that stand beyond their present situation and weakness, they might never open to the possibility of it. Even if God is only an idea, opening to the influence of that idea allows the action within oneself of an enormous enlargement of functions such as self-healing, widening of awareness, and reaching beyond ones previous limitations and boundaries.

In some dreams however, one has an experience almost as if there is no separation between what is sensed as God, and oneself. This formless, often emotionless experience, may be thought of as an opening to your fundamental and core self.

The archetypal image of God when investigated in dreams, often reveals itself to be an underlying sense that we have within us of our own core self – and so therefore in some way – life itself, the creative impulse of life. This unconscious realisation that we are the Creator, that the holy essence of life itself is expressing as our own being, is so difficult to accept that it is usually projected outward to form an external God. We approach this external God as if it is something distinct from ourselves. Yet again and again, when people delve deeply into themselves they arrive at the realisation – I AM GOD – I AM THAT I AM.

The powerful emotions we sometimes experience about God may well be connected with our tremendous childhood need for love and approval from parents. But equally as likely is that the immense feelings we have about meeting God in a dream, may express the wonder and perhaps terror we experience in meeting the enormity of realising we are the Creator. As the ego melts and realises itself as the One Great Life, undifferentiated, there can no longer be a sense of real separation.

Example: When I explored the emotions that had surfaced in recent dreams about God, I came across something totally unexpected. I had decided I would treat the image of God like a dream image, and ‘get inside it’, find out what was behind it. When I managed to do this I found with amazement that my desperate need for my father’s love, a love he found difficult to express, had been transported into my internal sense of God.

At this point I suddenly saw that my urge for God is actually the urge for my father’s love. My unsatisfied urge to receive love from my father, became a power to create an image of a loving God, an image of a cosmic father who can love – and from this inner creation of the psyche I can get the love I need. I created a loving God because that was my need. But others may create an avenging God to deal with their feelings of guilt; or a mysterious beautiful ever present God to deal with a sense of parental loss, and so on. The image takes the place of real human love – a second best. I see also that it is much more honest to say – not God loves me – but I love myself. I have become the father. I am the God. I have dared to take on the role of father and God. Tony C.

Example: I felt myself to be a primitive tribal male. Suddenly I encountered a force – or what I saw as an immense being. This being I felt was a god or God, but looking back it wasn’t an all encompassing being, so was more like a god, or an aspect of God. My visual impression of it though, was of something so huge yet visible, that I was at first terrified, and so were my ‘people’. If one can imagine an immense skyscraper rising into the clouds and beyond, yet not a building but a living being, this was my view of it. This being I knew as the All Shaper. It was the power which gave form or shape to everything. As such it could influence the shape one had become through the errors of history or the deeds of ones family or oneself. The pristine shape or matrix which guides the cells to form organs could be restored.

There was a problem however. This being was terrifying and beyond the gods of my people. To stand before it or acknowledge it was akin to transgressing all the lore of the tribe, all its customs. So not only was the All Shaper something more than we had known before and so threatening to our – and my – world view, but also to take it as ones god was to break with all the tribal traditions and to stand apart and different to ones whole tribe. Christopher.

Here is another view of God – there can be any number of such views.

At this point I experienced the living God, the influence of which, (the spirit we had felt). I had been aware of this God before, but never in such detail. It was experienced by me as the buzzing, radiating consciousness of all creatures. It was the united consciousness of all people and creatures everywhere. Not simply an aggregate of influence, but a living unity of consciousness. In the dream “we” were praying to this God, which is at the same time, oneself and more than self, and I here understood how such prayers work or fail. Because this God is not simply separate people doing things in the outer world, but collectively is unified effort, and is both the individual and collective consciousness. It can therefore both receive, be influenced by, and influence, individuals and groups. But because it is the collective being, its buzzing being is concerned, if that is the right word, with communal interest, with the whole, with the individual in their relationship with the collective. Where there is a collective desire, it is so powerful it becomes a certainty in realisation. There is so much power behind it, virtually nothing could stand in its way. Even though at first it is only held in collective mind, a certainty of it becoming manifested is almost absolute. This is rather like insurance statistics as reliable guide to future events. So if we pray for something that is of value collectively, the power of “God” is behind its manifestation.

But what I saw was that this is only one form of God. There are many gods – but for some people, this appears to be the absolute God.

Example: Is it God that I will find?

My experience replies – If you so wish for a God, then you can create the experience of one out of your own longing and energies, your creativity – and such a God will be wondrous.

But when I look to the ends of my own experience I do not find a God. I find the fundament of my own being – a primal condition of awareness that is ever with me though seldom dwelt in. It is a reality not a God. It is a foundation in my being, not a being giving me foundation. And what is there to find save consciousness and its reality? It leads to no wonders – it is a wonder. There is no escape from myself. But there is the liberation of that realisation.

Example: I witnessed a conversation between a man and a woman, and the man says, “Religion; that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

And the woman he is accusing of this inability to face reality says, “You poor person! Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest religion is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure. Have you never understood that? Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? It can also be something far more even than that. It is can be an active loving relationship. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life. Is that something you are afraid of?”

 

Goddess

As the oldest form of worship, of feelings of awe, were in regard to the woman and her ability to give birth, goddess worship was probably the first human religion. It recognised the miraculous power resident in a woman’s being, the bloodiness and wonder of an emerging new life, and the close link this had with death. Such powerful responses are still very much part of our inner life. The goddess still walks among us. For each woman who is a mother is a goddess, having given birth to Life. See: Goddess–holy oriental woman under woman.

In a woman’s dream: The unconscious connection you have has with all women, and all female creatures. The power of the collective psyche underlying your personality; the mysterious connections with nature and the forces of nature the woman is in tune with through menstruation, child bearing and mothering. Also you are always the heroine of your own life. You are the central character of your own drama of experience. As such you are the deed doer, the heroine or fallen goddess, especially when the dream is portraying dramatic life events.

You are a goddess: We are all deities. As it says very clearly in Genesis, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

So we are all the image of God – Unfortunately we live in a world that denies it. See Big Bang

In a man’s dream: Your collective sense of women as a whole and not as individuals; personal fear of female power, usually relating to early experience of your mother; your capacity to love in a transcendent way. See Archetype of the Goddess

 

Useful questions and hints:

As a man can I recognise the goddess aspect of the woman who is my mate?

As a woman can I recognise the goddess aspect of myself?

How do I relate to the goddess?

Can I explore her divinity in myself by using Talking As?

See Life’s Little SecretsDream YogaTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce


Gods

In the paradigm of the present western society there are no such things as gods – maybe for many not even God. See Archetype of the Paradigm

But from the point of view of dreams and from the cultural traditions of many other countries, gods exist. Even Christianity clearly mentions gods, even though it is denied. In Genesis it says “God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.” As it says, “let us make man.”

The word Elohim is used in the original script of this piece and it means, to quote from The Unknown God by F. J. Mayers, “Elohim” is a plural name, and yet it is always treated as a “singular” one, and always used with a singular verb. In this verse, Elohim, in using the phrase “in our image,” etc., treats Himself as a plurality.” So the unknown God – ain soph – in expressing Himself, becomes many. So there are many expressions of God. In one statement it calls this ‘The One in the many’. After all, God is beyond description and so can be a paradox. In many dreams gods are also shown, and are seen as the consciousness resident throughout the cosmos, as it knows itself in various forms. And although we are used to seeing gods portrayed in human form of a mixture of animal and human forms, these are simply human ways of describing their attributes. They are often felt as beings of different dimensions, or sometimes are the consciousness behind the creative forces of our own lives and solar system.

But many people who have explored their own depths, find god is not outside them, but is the very core of their being. We are in fact all holy – as it says in Genesis “God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.”

Example: I experienced what I saw as interface between all that we are as our everyday waking personality; between all that we have gathered and understood and lived in this lifetime, and the immensity of what we are as a spiritual being. I saw the details of this and it is quite difficult to summarise or to explain in any way. But as clearly as I can it was like the processing of information so that all that you are formed a sort of the pattern or a signal, and that signal called out of the immensity of the spiritual life what was relevant to you and your further development. Now that is a very clumsy description because even as I say it I sense an enormous subtlety of what I met and experienced. What I saw was that the interface is unique in every being. This is because every being is unique and creates their own pattern. And that pattern calls out of the infinite something different. So in this sense there are as many faces of God as there are human beings.

As I saw all this I realised that if one could help people to come to that point, to bring themselves to that meeting, then they would begin to receive that influence that frees them. It frees them by growing them, by giving them more of themselves.  See Life’s Little Secrets

Gold Golden

The best or most valuable in oneself or in opportunity, or the eternal in your life. Something that stands the ‘acid test’ or does not tarnish with time, in terms of personal qualities, such as love, patience or care in work or something you value or want in your life.

Gold can sometimes indicate riches, as in an increase in money, opportunity or way of life. Or is the real power you are seeking your life – the power to help, to heal, to see.

If cheap or false: Something you valued but does not deserve respect.

If tarnished: Something beautiful and valuable in yourself, perhaps your spirit, that you have let become soiled. See: gold under colours.

Gold crown: If it is on a baby’s head it shows the child has a great soul, and will probably do well in life. I on an adult suggest achievement or wonderful ideas, even great wisdom.

Gold letters in name: It can mean that you see yourself as important, or that your dream is telling you that your future is assured.

Gold teeth: Often relates to words you speak that have wisdom.

Losing gold: Suggests that you are worried about your future, or have lost a great opportunity or a valued relationship.

Mining gold: It often means that you are finding the greatest value through your efforts. One man in reviewing his life’s work dream that ngiht he had found gold. It was the recognition that there were some things of great value in what he had done. Mining also meant that one sometimes had to chip away at the rockface of life to uncover the gold.

What that means is that you have chip away at the difficulties that face you and by doing so you gradually clear them and arrive at the gold. See Life’s Little Secrets


Painting gold: If the body it represent healing old hurts or misunderstanding. Or it can mean changing something into a promise of the good.

Example: I had a dream where the outline of a heart appeared and one half of the heart was ruby crystals and the other half was diamond crystals. Then as I watched, the colour gold outlined the heart again. Then all of a sudden a bright white light burst out of the heart at me. It was so bright it actually woke me up. I had just learnt to do Reiki at the time and had done quite a lot that day, so I’m assuming it had to do with that. Is that the case or can I attach other meanings to this dream as well. I would appreciate your input.

The dream is about initiation, and is certainly bought about by opening to your core self. And by core I mean the drama of how humans long for a connection with life that transcends time, space and death. It is a desire for wholeness. But another way of defining it is that which doesn’t change, what does not shift in human nature, what remains as the foundations of existence. The lovely images of your dream shows the heart, the centre of you, filled with jewels. And jewels mean something that have been formed through ages and are usually dug out of the rocks – and so are very precious. So to have many of them tells you that you have such a treasure in you to uncover and allow to express. The gold outling the hear shows it is a lasting gift that cannot be tarnished.

Example: I was standing on a bridge overlooking railway tracks. Young women dressed in bridal gowns and blindfolds were struggling to climb the steep embankment. People threw the brides gold coins as they got to the top. They thought it was good fun, but I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of injury. I am getting married next month, although I am not a ‘young’ bride – nor a ‘middle aged’ one!

This illustrates the mixed feelings you have about marriage. You fear you may get hurt or disillusioned in the process. The bridge represent the link you are making with your man, and the railway track is the social norm ones life conforms to in some degree – you grow up, get married, have 2.5 kids, retire at 65.

But the gold coins and the scramble show another side to yourself. This is more of an unconscious wisdom you have. You see life has risks, you may get hurt. But the pain and the joy, the struggle and the peace are all parts that together can lead to a whole and mature you. The gold and the roundness of the coins represent this wholeness you might achieve. It says life is not about being safe, but about daring to grow.

Idioms: pot of gold; worth their weight in gold; a golden opportunity; golden age; golden rule; golden years; kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; silence is golden


Useful questions and hints:

What does the gold in your dream represent?

How did you come by the gold; hard work, a gift, by reviewing, or by daring?

Was the gold a promise of a new life, an initiation into something better?

See Life ChangesDreams are Like a Computer Game Facing FearTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Golf

See: games.

Gorilla

Very often, especially in women’s dreams, the gorilla represents the woman’s father. At least, the aspect of him she may not be able to come to terms with. In particular sexual urges that she has not really accepted and integrated.

But the gorilla can also be used for powerful instinctual forces that we either struggle with or learn from. As such it confronts us with the feelings and drives that lie underneath our conscious personality and may sometimes erupt or confront us in a variety of ways. This is because the mammal is part of our heritage. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrainhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/animals/

Example: My 16-year-old daughter is under some tension as 0-levels loom. She has dreamt that she is in our living room looking through patio windows. In the next door neighbour’s garden she can see a huge gorilla rampaging up and down. She is terrified it might get over the fence, particularly when she realises that it is trying to reach a baby gorilla which is in our garden. Eventually the parent finds a way out into the street but the baby tries to get into the house and cannot because of the patio window.

This dream shows that your daughter is heading towards mature sexuality and parenthood, not suffering pre-exam tension. In the language of dreams, anything moving towards you, such as the baby gorilla, shows a part of yourself rising into consciousness. At adolescence the procreative urge, connected with both sexuality and parenthood, moves from obscurity into the main living area of your life. That’s why your daughter is in the living room witnessing animals in a parent/child relationship. The restraining patio glass indicates that she’s holding off these natural urges. Learning to deal with ourselves at such a time of change is similar to learning how to drive a car. When we start we may feel anxious that the power we are handling in the car may run us into a wall. As a maturing personality strapped into the driving seat of our body, we meet waves of sexual impulse, storms of emotional reaction, and avalanches of ideas and sense impressions. The social pressures to compete in school exams and make decisions about career and future are a considerable load to hear. Some young adults suppress their inner urge to mature in social and sexual relationships, because they feel they cannot deal with them as well as the demands of schools. Perhaps that’s what your daughter is doing unconsciously. There is a suggestion that your daughter has no opportunity at home to discuss the biological and emotional changes she’s experiencing. Figuratively speaking, why not help your daughter to let the gorillas into your house?

Example: I had a very unusual dream the other day. I was outside somewhere with my dad when I spotted a guy. I thought he was very nice but my dad said or did something which upset him. He was misunderstood. Suddenly I was trapped in a room somewhere with this boy who had morphed into a gorilla. We were both very upset and he was distraught because we couldn’t be together for some reason related to my dad’s behaviour. We were affectionate towards one another it was a very happy feeling but also sad and frustrating at the same time. Suddenly this guy/gorilla embraced me and I could see that the top of his head had suddenly morphed back into that of a guy. I could see his brown hair and I stroked it for a few minutes. In this dream I was in love with him. There were strong sexual feelings involved but it didn’t go any further than that.

I have a strong feeling that the dream is about the unconscious influence your father’s opinions have on your way of relating to and being with guys. Usually we do not realise how our own views express what our parents feel until we meet exactly what you are meeting now. It isn’t that your father really means to influence you – or even if he does, you need to honour your own growth. That means you will gradually find the strength to have your own life – at least I hope you will. The beauty and the beast is the fairy story you are enacting in your dream. The young girl has to transform her love for her father to what seems – or is judged to be – raw sexual impulses – the beast. We have a crazy educational system that does not really honour the fact that young people are going through a tremendous change, and it needs to be recognized, and it happens during a time when we are pushed to study for school.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the gorilla in the dream, and what does this suggest about the way I am relating to my own primal urges and responses?

If I am afraid of the gorilla, what exactly am I trying to get away from in life?

Is the gorilla communicating anything to me – if so what?

If I imagine myself as the gorilla, what do I feel and know?

See Mammal BrainSumming UpAnimalTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Gospel

See Religion and DreamsMeetings with ChristBible Its Dreams and Symbols – The Secret Bible KabbalahGod and the Big Bang are the Same

Gourd

Female sex organ. See: Cup.

Government

Either the rules by which you govern your life, or exterior influences you feel governed or influenced by which it is governed, or the inner forces that govern your health, well being. In each case it would probably be wide influences, not from an individual.

But in some dreams the government or its agents are out to get you, and that suggests a feeling that there is no escape. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of running from any fear or repressing anything that threatens you.

What you can do is to deny that the agents or government have any power over you – as it is your dream, there is no one except you in the dream, so you can turn the tables on yourself. See – Summing Up

Example: On going indoors the man, now as a police inspector, led me down to the basement, and pointing to the corner of the room (that I had used as a darkroom) asked me how, “That got there?”

I forget what it was, but felt unjustly accused. The inspector got two toughs to hold me and was going to drill my teeth out with a hand drill, and beat me. I was terrified and fought back, kicking one in the testicles. But could not break away.

Then I feigned madness and regression to childhood to avoid further torture. Seeing this, one of them lead me away to a house in Crackerlands to kill me. I set upon him and knocked him out, took his gun, thought of killing him, but did not.

Being free, I wondered what to do. Where to get away, go back with the gun, or what? Suddenly I thought I had better go back and hand myself over again. In a flash, as soon as this was decided, I saw through the whole set-up. The thugs felt that they were part of a huge crime organisation, worldwide in scope. Like the war underground resistance, no section that knew other than their leader. But in fact their leader had no higher authority than himself. So I went back, gave them the gun. They rushed me but I made no effort to struggle. This shock them far more deeply than any attempt to escape. I then explained that I was no longer afraid, because I saw how petty and futile they were. This broke their power and the dream finished.

Here is a clear example of how changing your view of the ‘enemy’ can change your whole dream and you can face the fear.

Gown

See: Clothes.

Graduation

The tests you meet in life and relationships; entrance into a new life; the sense of achieving adulthood, or the skill leading to adult independence; probably also associates with your sense of value.

Graffiti

This is like a signature, a connection with the person, an attempt to have a presence in society, to move beyond being the lost ant in the huge anthill. It can also be a message from your unconscious. So often graffiti is a real message from your dream self, try to understand it.

Graffiti may also be felt as an intrusion of other people into your life and your world.

Example: I stumble into the department for the study of subcultures — everything is grungy and citylike. There’s graffiti pieces everywhere, covering everything. Hookers are standing around. A street sign that says “TWO” is on the corner — this was supposed to mean like Second Street, Downtown, etc. Somehow, I stumble into the Porn department. It seems that some religious vandal has been through, ripping the place apart, throwing videotapes and movie reels, film, photos, everywhere. Some bureaucratic vandals have been through, too — the Porn department is being cut, immediately. The head of the department, a clean-cut, sixtyish, solid woman in a business suit, explains what’s happening. As I stand there listening, two or three young women come in, wearing very casual, California surfer-type clothes. When they hear the news they become very, very upset — one is even crying. they put a lot into their department, after all.

Example: I see a brightly glowing green and red light in the corner of my vision. I look around and realise that this light is coming from a tree in the car park. There is a big graffiti drawing there, painted on the huge tree trunk, lit up from below with floodlights. I go closer and realise that it’s a sign, one that I must have written during the time between kissing the man and ‘waking up’. It says, ‘Does anyone know what happened last night, between the hours of ** and ** , everyone was evacuated and I was here in the car park talking to a man. I have lost an entire day.


Useful Questions and Hints:

If the graffiti is readable what does it say?

Does it mean anything to you?

Wht do you associate with it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAssociations Working WithHabits

Gramophone

May symbolise memory, due to it being a record player, and replays or records the past.

This may also literally refer to records. That is, memories of your past, perhaps even past lives. Records might also link with whatever you feel about particular music or artists. See: cassette.

Grandfather Grandpa Gramps

As can be seen in the following examples the grandfather is often a helpful, healing or supportive influence. Sometimes they are even spiritual teacher and guide. Grandfather is the highest in us. He is ones own inner light, the descending light.

Personal feelings connected with the grandparent; family traditions, such as established values or unconscious attitudes, spiritual values, old age and death.

Inner grandfather: Many people do not realise that they have an inner grandfather equally as powerful as an external grandfather. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with or knowing your  grandfather, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your grandfather was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘grandfather’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner grandfather can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.  The inner grandfather can also signify what has been received via genes passed on or ancestral influences. See ancestorsparent integration

They are, in our dreams, often expressions of ones whole inherited past from all ancestors. In some dreams this can be an open door to realising much about the inheritance one received from the past. It is worth exploring. The grandparent can represent what you have come to know, what you have built into you of the divine spark of life, the radiant potential that is at your core. So you might say that the grandparent is the divine or infinite you know because of what you have drawn out of the infinite possibilities of everyday life. See The Conjuring Trick

I saw that fundamental to all living or cosmic processes are interrelationship and the building of dynamic networks. In a human sense the most basic of these is that between the two sex cells. In a relationship of mutual trust they split their boundaries and risk death to merge and share. At the next level of sharing, two people give of themselves in sexual relationship. Out of this a family group can grow, with its kinships and interdependence. At base, it only works well when a deep trust and mutual self-giving occurs. The trust and dynamic cooperativeness not only build bonds and a sort of organism of the group at a physical level, but I saw it builds then into an integral spiritual organism for survival in eternity.

I need to explain that to make it clear. At a physical level – if father hunts for food – mother cooks and cares for baby – while grandfather chops wood and grandma weaves a blanket – then the group is similar to the body where cells do different work, and so the community of cells exist in a way which not only enhances survival, but also creates something greater than the individual cells.

In working on a dream, I saw that my father’s shop brought forward the sense of my connecting with the previous two generations of my male family whose life was interwoven with the place. Namely my fraternal grandfather, my father, and myself. I was the culmination of those lives. Not only this but I had achieved manhood and had integrated their lives. I had not rejected or repressed what I had got from them, but loved it and furthered it. The shop was like my holy cave of the ancestors, my totem, which summarised the foundations and influences of my life, of myself. I had a wonderful sense of synthesising my forebears and lifting up what I had received.

“Psychic warfare can occur in any family situation. Psychic warfare is as often intra-sex as inter-sex. In respect to the significant women of his life, a man is likely to assume three roles—son, husband, and father—just as most women assume the roles of daughter, wife, and mother. Curiously, on the evidence of therapeutic patients, all six of these roles or images usually coexist in the mind of any individual after the age of five or six, three on the male side of the psyche, three on the female side. The crisscrossing loyalties and conflicts of these six images are intriguing in their complexity and significance.

Here are the ramifications as seen from the male side. In his return to childhood emotions the patient finds the one dominating figure in his early life, his mother. Most of his deep emotional concerns are centered on her. But unfortunately he is not the only male concerned with her. Two other men figure as important vectors in a tight little sociogram: his own father and his mother’s father. Certainly the patient as a boy fused with his father; and generally, if he knew grandfather at all, he fused to a lesser degree with him. On the male side of the patient’s psyche, then, there are three male fusion areas or images—the grandfather, the father, and the son—and all orbit about the central figure of the mother, who represents to each, in the role of daughter, wife, and mother, the various guises of the eternal female.

The patient may have some rather happy memories of grandfather. Their relation may have been intimate and untroubled in the way that life with father could never be. One patient recalled long visits to his grandfather’s farm where he could feed the chickens, go swimming, and be generally spoiled to his heart’s content. One day he was recalling a particularly delightful visit to the farm with his mother. At this point the therapist, a discerning soul, asked the patient a loaded question: “Where was your father?” At the word “father” the patient blanched and a pain shot down his chest. He realized for the first time that he had suffered guilt not only for going to the farm himself, but also for his mother’s visit. Both had been disloyal to his father. He recalled his father’s opinion of his grandfather, “a nosy old clod,” and his complaints at the mother’s frequent visits to the farm. And he remembered his grandfather’s snide comments about his father. The patient loved both of them; he was fused with each; and he now realized that by their conflict his loyalties were not only divided but his very sense of male self was split. Before he could relieve the pain and the psychic conflict it indicated, he was forced to analyze and understand the inevitable competition between his father and grandfather for the attentions of his mother.

Much later he discovered the torment of the division between himself and his father over the same woman. Only at the end of therapy did the relations between the three male roles or images become clear. The husband, who claims the strongest and most vital role with the wife, must fight off the two weaker contenders, his father-in-law and his son. These two, in the weaker sex-denied positions, tend to align themselves in a compact of the defeated.

Fortunately, in our actual relations as men, and in the split fusion images of our male psyches, all this conflict and dissension is not absolutely necessary. In reality, each male has his unique and irreplaceable position with the eternal female and within time has occupied or will occupy both the others. Knowing and accepting this, he need not try to play all roles at once with the same woman. A healthy male who has had his fill of the joys of sonship can relinquish that role without rancor to his children, while he takes up the rich pleasures of being a husband. And if these are fully satisfied he will not be so niggardly in granting that reward to another man with his own daughter while he enjoys with her the pleasures of fatherhood.

Through this understanding of the three male images a man can not only maintain smooth and harmonious relations in his family life but achieve liberating integration of the male side of his psyche. The father, husband, and son in him need no longer be split into warring complexes, but joined in their mutual attraction to the eternal female, each taking his turn at the game of love in time, each enhancing the value of the other. Then a man can become proud and grateful for his manhood and find joy and love for womanhood.”  Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W. V. Caldwell.

Example: Now I dreamt grandfather on my father side, was dying. I went to his deathbed scene and hugged him, seeming to merge into him, and there was much love. Stood back and saw a younger man was acting the part of grandfather. He was a crook. The impostor began to dictate grandfather’s will. He said, “To my grandson I leave one potato.” I realised an attempt to do me out of my heritage was underway. I went in other ruins searching for the real grandfather, but only saw accomplices of impostor. Not sure if I found grandfather.

In exploring the dream I worked this out to mean I was looking for the real me, the heritage of my basic self.

Example: I feel the presence of my grandfather. The corridor comes out to my own front yard. My grandfather draws my attention to a cloud through which shines a beautiful golden sunbeam. My grandfather tells me that the sunbeam represents love, the greatest power in the Universe, and that I have to learn to love and accept the circumstances of my life, forgiving and understanding those who I feel short-changed me. If I can do this, he tells me, I can use this power to help others and I myself would develop more rapidly. In my dream I was aware of my body in bed. The sunbeam came through the roof and hovered over me. I could let it enter my body if I wished. I allowed the beam to enter my being, and it did so at the base of my spine and moved up my back and came out the top of my head in a shower of sparkling golden light. I felt the soothing warmth of it and allowed £t to enter again. I felt inspiration and joy, and awakened with tears of happiness streaming down my cheeks.

Example: I am a Kaw and Osage Indian. My paternal grandmother was over 3/4 Osage Indian and my maternal grandfather was full Kaw Indian. I always knew my grandmother saw things. She knew things. After her death in 2001, I was 22, I started talking to my aunts about my dreams. As in, my husband and I lived in Alabama for a year. A month and a half before our lease was up. My grandmother came to me in a dream. She told us to prepare to leave now. I woke up and told my husband this. We gave our 2 week notice that day. When we were pulling out of town, there was a mandatory evacuation for the island. I knew then that I had something. I have had a lot of similar episodes since. I would really like to work to make this happen a little more with more meaning. I know some things, and have several deceased family members that I talk to on a regular basis, but I need to get more out of them. I don’t think that this is the way to put it, but I want to know more. Please help if you can.

Example: When I was 17 I met a guy and quickly became involved. I met his grandfather only a couple of times during our relationship before he passed. He had raised my boyfriend; he had only sons and grandsons. Never had there been born a girl in their bloodline. About six months after we started dating, his grandfather died. I went to the funeral with my boyfriend. Shortly after I had a very vivid dream of the funeral. As I walked to the casket to view the body, the grandfather raised up looked me right in the eyes and said, “You take care of my baby girl.” The next week we found out we were pregnant. I did give the first girl born to that bloodline!

Example: A woman dreamed that her paternal grandfather was a Rabbi and that together they found an altar in the basement of a temple. This woman, who is Jewish, does not have an active faith. She did, however, have a great love for her grandfather who had been an Orthodox Jew and had gone to Israel when she was age 20. When I asked her what she might want to do now that she found the altar, she responded that she wanted to bring it up into the sanctuary. So I asked her to do some active imagination, to close her eyes and to see the altar in the sanctuary. When she did, she saw her grandfather in a yarmulke, standing with his arms outstretched praying over the altar. When I asked her what he was praying for, she answered that he was praying for her and that she felt very touched and supported by this gesture of his. Then suddenly she opened her eyes and recalled a childhood memory: when she was six and a half, she had scarlet fever and was expected to die. This very same grandfather at that time brought a prayer and prayed it over her; afterwards, she recovered.

Another side of a grandfather while we were exploring a woman’s dream. While we explored Margaret’s feelings and memories connected with the dream symbols, she told me that her man friend prodded an old childhood pain which he didn’t know about. Margaret and her son had been with him and his mother for a good weekend camping. She told her son he could go play in the park while they packed the car and they would pick him up on the way out. They were all in the car and drove to where the son was and called him, he saw them and started to run towards them and then the man friend drove the car forward as if to make out they were leaving him behind. Margaret burst with pain and anger.

The underlying cause of this was that her own parents had split up and neither of them wanted Margaret to live with them. She had therefore been looked after by her grandparents. The event that crystallised her feelings occurred one day when her Grandfather had, on the Grandmother’s instructions, driven Margaret, who was 7 years old, to the edge of the town, told her to get out and started to drive away. This was because she wouldn’t eat her breakfast. She still carries the pain of that day. She told her father many years later and he was very angry with his own father for doing that to Margaret. She says – Anyway, it came out again when we were looking at the dream. The male friend grew up with an alcoholic father who has just died, but he says he hasn’t any trauma to deal with??

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I on good terms of bad with my grandfather?

What was the dream saying in its theme or plot?

Was there any sense or communication with grandpa?

See Talking with the deadLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce


Grandmother Grandma Gran

So many people dream about their grandmother, especially the dead grandmother. Grandmothers represent so much in your dreams. They are the doorway through which your life came into being, and bring us that much nearer to the source of Life. They are also the wonderful gateway to the ancestors and their collective wisdom.

Of course they could also be a bad grandmother – but even so they are a reflection of the pains and inner wrongness we may carry with us through our family inheritance. So whether good or bad we should honour them, for only through them can we find out way back to what is beyond them in the past.

She is a mother and a grandmother and is a very special person in your life.  A grandmother is the living essence of all the mothers who have existed before them. I know that seems an everyday thing in one way, but if you take time to consider it, it means that your mother or grandmother is a sort of magical being. It also means that she is a stream from which the rivers of your life have flowed.

At times a grandmother may appear like an angel, as she is to a young child. Her touch and love is a link with the ancient wisdom that grandmothers have inside them. It can reach through them and change your life.

See Integrate

 Inner grandmother: Many people do not realise that they have an inner grandmother equally as powerful as an external grandmother. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with or knowing your  grandmother, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your grandmother was never there for you – you still have all the memories of her not being there for you filed under ‘Grandmother’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner mother can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.  The inner grandmother can also signify what has been received via genes passed on or ancestral influences. See ancestorsparent integrationThe Conjuring Trick

Example: I had this dream about my grandmother: I walked into a very bright house where there were so many little children…it seemed she was taking care of them, they were playing and laughing inside the house. She was wearing her favourite flowered dress, as I walked toward her she spread out her arms and offered me a hug, so I went to her and as she hugged me I felt warmth and happiness, I saw bright flowers and sunshine and plants in the breeze. Then in an instant it was all gone. I woke up; I was in a good mood. I got ready for work and as I was on my way to work my mother called me to say happy birthday. Right at that moment I remembered the warm hug my grand mother gave me that very same morning…..what a coincidence that same warm feeling. As I shared that dream with my mother, we both had tears of joy.

Example: But as the baby I knew I was giving a signal that I was bonding. The cries were a bonding signal. I wouldn’t cry until I was in the presence of someone I could bond with. I felt my mother had been frightened of my weakness, had thought I was dying and had not opened her heart to me. So only now did I bond.

I knew someone loved me. I knew they understood what pain was and were not afraid of it or of death. This pierced me right through. It was my grandmother, but to me it felt like some higher being who had reached out of the unknown to help me. The bonding cry was a signal to say “I recognise you! I recognise you! I’m bonding to you. I’m bonding to you! Someone recognises me. I can cry now because I am in the presence of love.”

Example: What could this mean? I have been in communion with my spiritual nature and speaking to my loved ones who have passed on recently (mother, grandmother, papa, great grandmother and oddly, I’ve been feeling my great great grandmother around me, though she passed on long before I was born).

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part did your grandmother play in your life?

Have you ever felt her presence – good or bad?

What do you carry in your nature from your grandmother?

See Characters and People in DreamsSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your DreamsTalking with the dead

Grandparents

Personal feelings connected with the grandparent; family traditions, such as established values or unconscious attitudes; spiritual values; old age; death.

The grandparent can also represent what you have come to know, what you have built into you of the divine spark of life, the radiant potential that is at your core. So you might say that the grandparent is the divine or infinite you know because of what you have drawn out of the infinite possibilities of everyday life.

Some ancient cultures believe that dead relatives such as grandparents are part of their life, as if they are sharing your life experience and offering a channel for divine forces to bring changes about. Also grandparents can be seen to give information and support in a person dreams.

Example: Grof said that in some people the experience was of ancestors fairly near in time, such as grandparents or great grandparents. But sometimes they felt as if they broke out of their usual limits of memory and found deep knowledge of ancient ancestors. These regressions were felt to be very much a part of the sub-strata of the person’s present life. I have personally experienced this and what I met gave me an enormously enlarged understanding of my grandparents, my father and my own life tendencies. My recover of ‘memory’ was of several hundred years in the past. It arose from exploring what appeared to be a simple dream. My sense was that I was not reading my genetic code, but a heritage of behaviour strategies passed on to me unconsciously by my forebears.

Example: I am getting near to a place where the deads “live”; it is not a cemetery, it has big walls (it is a place similar to the one I usually go to when I visit my grandparents in my dreams) it is a   big space where a lot of people can be. When at first the gates open I am afraid by the thick fog which is everywhere, I can’t see anything, and I feel scared; I started running and I call for the livings; then the fog disappears and I am entering among the deads; they are all packed together, it’s a crowd of beings, I am looking for my grandfather, I see him and I recognize him.

Example: What I see is that if we think of the ancestors as our parents and grandparents, at their death that life experiences absorbed back into that huge collective memory.  What they have done and been becomes a possibility in our own life.  It is an influence that we either need to understand and reject, or potentials that we can allow ourselves and express.  Each year that we ourselves live does not disappear.  Its influence is absorbed and tempers the responses to life we experience at the moment.  Our forebears, personal and social, have just the same sort of influence in our present life.  Emmeline Pankhurst, although she was a major figure in the emancipation of women, was herself simply a link in a chain of influence that had started long before her.  She now is a link in the chain of present action on the part of women’s rights.

The Inner Grandparent: Many people do not realise that they have an inner grandparent equally as powerful as an external grandparent. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with or knowing your  grandparent, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your grandparent was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘grandparent’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner grandparent can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.  The inner grandparent can also signify what has been received via genes passed on or ancestral influences. See Conjuring Trick; AncestorsParent integration

Our relationship with the dead should not be seen as the same as when alive, for we have left the body life beg=hind and live in dimension of experience without boundaries. Of course dreams try to help us with this but it can be difficult to understand. Below are parts of communications received.

“I am now part of your life. In this place of no boundaries means our lives roll together. And this is part of the love that links those in life and those in death. I am also creating possibilities and situations in your life here and now.

From this dimension life and death are not separated, and that my friend Kevin partook of my life through the love developed between myself and him. The link was so pronounced that he also experienced my life as I lived it as there were no boundaries.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel the influence of your grandparents in your life?

Can you feel yourself as a link in an amazing chain of life?

Have your grandparents ever supported or advised you in your dreams?

See Talking with the deadCharacters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingEdgar Cayce

Grape

Because grapes can be used to make alcohol, they often have a special significance, and are very ancient cultural symbols, they often indicate an influence that changes the way you feel.

The grape is often seen as representing harvests and sacrifice. Sometimes we see images shown on the media of a sexually desirable female eating or offering grapes/herself. So at  times they may be linked with wealth, or a way of life that is based on having power over others.

They also depict fruitfulness, fertility, but perhaps fruitfulness of a spiritual kind. So a woman dreaming of them, especially near her belly can assume she is pregnant. But they also signify pleasures of the world, drinking, sex, wealth, and conversely, in Christianity they signify the blood of Christ. That means the essence of human experience. The collective human wisdom. Sometimes the are seen as a sign of health.

Wine was originally just the juice of the grape. It was the fluid, the blood that runs out of the grape when you crush it. The juice of the grape is its life that it gives you freely. It is the blood of its being it lets flow and gives to you. It does this to perpetuate its seed. But this act of survival is done in a way of self-giving. That is why the grape and its juice has become a symbol of the eternal life, the blood of Christ, the love that flows out to us from God and from the ancient beings. They constantly give of their body to us. The grape is therefore a symbol of our relationship with God. See: alcoholcoffee.

The experience of countless human lives has been linked and transformed into a vast sea of wisdom and heightened awareness. It is this we ‘drink’ when we touch our own union with the ocean of awareness that is our spirit. See: blood.

Example: A thirty-seven-year-old woman, who for three years had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive, dreamed of looking down and seeing huge, ripe bunches of grapes growing from her belly. She knew she had finally conceived.


Useful Questions and Hints:

How do I see or use grapes?

Do I like or dislike them?

Am I seeing them as a sign of a good harvest?

See Energy Sex and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is popular, juicy and healthy for some, so it has those connections. But for some it taste quite bitter and acidic, so much suggest something good you do not like.

Grapefruit can be contra-indicated for some people taking some medical drugs such as warfarin. See fruit; Grapefruit Seed Extract

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you picking, eating or shopping for grapefruit?

Has the juice been extracted for drinking?

What was happening in the dream?

See Plot of the DreamHabits Settings in Dreams Techniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Grass

This is mostly about the power of growth, growth which has the ability to happen anywhere. It was also noticed by ancient rural people that weak things such as grass and babies, though vulnerable, still arrived in the world year after year.  Sometimes can mean overgrown thoughts and feelings that need cutting. Multiplicity, countlessness. The innumerable thoughts that can spring up. It can also link with pot.

By overgrown thoughts I mean that sometimes a person allows thoughts and speculation arising from lead the person to confusions and emotional pain. A woman I was talking to grew up in a family which led her t o constantly have to watch what was going on and not spoken about in the family. There was a hint of danger which made her constantly try to think about what the family would do, how it would effect her, would it lead to more emotional suffering – all which led her to create her own emotional suffering.

Cutting grass and weeds:  Things have got out of hand and need attention.

Flattened grass: A sign of some activity taken place on it, people or animals on it, or a flood.

House lawns: The state of your home life or personal habits.

Long green new grass: Your growth sprouting up anew.

Example: I go to a young man’s table. I lay down on the grass in front of it and hug the grass lovingly. This is a way of telling him I understand and accept his beliefs. He responds by hugging the meadow grass on his side. We talk. He asks me out, says he’d take me to town if I wanted, after work. I accept, and confess I’d like to see some of the tourist thing like the Paul Bunyan monument.

Idioms: Grass is greener; grass grow under your feet; grass is greener on the other side of the fence; snake in the grass.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the grass green and healthy or dry suggesting something not growing?

What were the surroundings to the grass?

Was the grass marked by signs of activity?

See Settings in Dreams Techniques for Exploring your DreamsActive Passive

Grasshopper crickets

Because of the film Pinocchio which shows a grasshopper/cricket as one’s conscience, it may be that in your dream. So it could represent your conscience or guilt. See insects

Grasshoppers are always jumping away as you get near them and so might show something about how you or someone else is in a relationship.

The sound of crickets is a very ancient sound, and so can represent our own ancient self that still lives in us.

Example: Now I move into being the story teller. I could hear the sound of the birds and crickets outside, and it felt like I was experiencing how the world was millions of years ago. Not like going back into the past, but recognising how the past is still with us. I said – There was a time when I heard it for the first time. I heard it all for the first time and I was amazed. I had been unconscious, asleep, and I woke up. I then heard it all for the first time. I could hear myself – life – crying, laughing, mating. I was in awe. I was in AWE. I fell down before myself and I worshipped. What creates all of this? What could create it?

Example: Tom and I sit and talk. We clearly are growing more affectionate and really like each other. There is hesitation because he is my friend’s man. Suddenly it begins to rain grasshoppers. I don’t like that and Tom and I duck into a corner of a store front. The other man ducks into another place nearby. Tom is very efficient and helpful asking the proprietor of the store if we can come in. He says no. Tom goes in to get what we will need to be comfortable. A Mexican man comes up to me and asks if I want to buy a cover to put up to protect us. I say You will have to ask the gentleman. I really like that he is taking over and arranging everything for my comfort. Tom returns with several pairs of rubber boots, a bottle of something and something to eat. The Mexican man is putting up the cover which causes Tom and I to have to cuddle close together. We look at each other longingly. He adores me and I feel filled with love and sexual excitement. He tenderly kisses me. I love it. But I pull back, remembering he is my friend’s man. He smiles gently at me and says, I won’t do that again until I’ve talked with Carol and broken off with her. Carol is now with my man and they seem to be fine with each other. It won’t be long now and Tom and I will be able to make wild passionate love.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings do I have about my dream grasshopper?

Was it in context with anything else?

Was it a lesson I learned in the dream or a feeling of antiquity?

See Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power DreamingJesse Watkins EnlightenmentBeing in Control

Grave Graveyard

This depicts our thoughts and feelings regarding death. It may relate to your family heritage of attitudes or traditions. Sometimes, but not often, such a dream is about contact with the dead. But more frequently things in our life we have ‘buried’. It can also refer to melancholy feelings about life or feeling ‘different’ to other people; or even a relationship, which we think is ‘dead and buried’. See: burialcemeterytomb.

For a number of people in their dreams the grave is also a place of transformation as shown in the following examples. It can be consciousness resurrected out of the grave of deadening materialism, out of the mirage of the profit motive or the fanfare of the identity supermarket.

“Men have collected stones since the beginning of time and have apparently assumed that certain ones were the containers of the life-force with all its mystery. The ancient Germans, for instance, believed that the spirits of the dead continued to live in their tombstones. The custom of placing stones on graves may spring partly from the symbolic idea that something eternal of the dead person remains, which can be most fittingly represented by a stone. For while the human being is as different as possible from a stone, yet man’s innermost centre is in a strange and special way akin to it (perhaps because the stone symbolises mere existence at the farthest remove from the emotions, feelings, fantasies, and discursive thinking of ego-consciousness). In this sense the stone symbolises what is perhaps the simplest and deepest experience – the experience of something eternal that man can have in those moments when he feels immortal and unalterable.

The urge that we find in practically all civilisations to erect stone monuments to famous men or on the site of important events probably also stems from this symbolic meaning of the stone. The stone that Jacob placed on the spot where he had his famous dream, or certain stones left by simple people on the tombs of local saints or heroes, show the original nature of the human urge to express an otherwise inexpressible experience by the stone-symbol. It is no wonder that many religious cults use a stone to signify God or to mark a place of worship. The holiest sanctuary of the Islamic world is the Ka’aba, the black stone in Mecca to which all pious Muslims hope to make their pilgrimage.” Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.

Example: Hello Tony, I want share this with you as well. Dream: death: Rebirth for me is my title of my dream. I was aware of myself and I was going downwards, descending. It was like I was dying and I could see myself descending down like into a grave. As I was doing this I realized that I would be in complete darkness. No light. As I was watching this I was aware I started ascending upwards as well. As I was doing this I realized that I had changed and my entire body even my face was changing. In all of this changing I saw my face change as well. I was the same Dona but with a different body. I was seeing myself and I was very young very beautiful with blonde hair. I was aware of being so happy looking. I was smiling and I had on a long blue grown that looked like Victorian style. I was very rich looking as well. I was aware I was very happy with my new self. Then I had this dream vision. I was aware of seeing the kundalini appear to me on her own as the beautiful cobra. I was aware of her pose and she was erect and upwards with her hood wide open. Her colors caught my eye. She was black on her back and her stomach was solid white. Which to me is like the colours of yin, and banshee was standing there looking at me and I was doing the same. She only wanted me too know she was there with me it seem. She didn’t say anything nor was her mouth open either. I think the colors mean too me that the male part and feminine are balanced. She did not try to hurt me or scare me or make me afraid of her. She was very calm with me as she stood in front of me facing me. I was very calm and not afraid either. Tony this is an awesome vision of her I saw and the beauty of her is awesome. I am so thrilled she is my inner guru and my guide with so much love for me. Thank you for letting me share this with you.  See Banshee and Kundalini

But there is another side to grave, the terrors we meet when we are frightened of our own demise.

Example: As I did this, the door to my right creaked open, and two black men entered. They looked as if they had risen out of a grave, almost as if the flesh was hanging of them. I was very frightened as they came towards me with their arms reaching to me. So I made the sign of the cross, and said one of the words of power used by the group. At this the two black men disappeared. I felt, not only great relief, but also as if my knowledge had given me some power. I suppose, once more, there was some smugness, as if I was strong enough to meet anything. So I lay back in bed ready to sleep. As I did so, once more the door creaked open, and in came the black men. This time none of my waving of hands in the sign of the cross, and all my magic words, stopped them. They reached me and their hands went around my throat to strangle me. I woke up screaming and terrified.”

Over a period of time the man was able to face these fears and discover what they were in reality. He says, “It had taken me that long to meet what were my own terrors. And what I gradually uncovered was that the terror was about my own sexual urges that I had forcefully buried. Those black men were my own natural urges that I had pushed into the grave of my unconscious; natural urges that I had turned inwards against myself. I even more slowly realised that there is nothing evil in our us, but forces in us that have been turned into a direction that is negative. All the holy words cannot protect us from meeting ourselves and what we have done to ourselves. The church has educated us to believe that there is so much evil in us and the film industry has deepened that.”

Example: “I really want to let everyone know something,” she said. “C. S. Lewis once said that life is a public performance where you learn about life as you go along. This is a model for me. We learn the way to be as we do it. We make mistakes. We keep missing life. We learn that we die as we live, but our expectations are in death. We bring forth the expectations we have about death in our dying. If we expect them to be shitty and full of suffering, that’s how they will show up. It’s the mood and tone and pattern that we re supposed to have sex in. The real sex is the sex between two people as they invent it right then. Mostly, I say, like sex death is not the way we expect it to be. Unfortunately, we act it out the way we have been taught (both in sex and in death). It’s too bad because it could be quite spectacular, quite amusing. The fact is we should leave ourselves open to see what’s possible with death. Otherwise, it’s such a cliché’. So here’s the thing and it’s rife, and there’s plenty of opportunity to do it wrong. I’ve learned so much, in actual fact, about my living and dying and about my to-be death. My death is right on schedule. It’s me who isn’t.” Quoted from Death Dreams by Kenneth Kramer

Example: Though he had left her well provided for economically, after his death she felt she had no emotional resources to live on and was too old to find any. Drink, and acting as custodian of mementoes from the past—her husband’s clothing, his toothbrush and other possessions—were her only interests, aside from speaking of him as often as possible, almost as if he were alive.

She brought with her to her session a pipe that had been her husband’s favorite and which she often looked at and held when she wanted to feel especially close to him.  Finally, she closed her eyes and reported that the pipe was “getting warm” and then that she had the feeling of holding not the pipe but instead her husband’s hand. She now experienced the first of many vivid memory sequences during which she “relived” with intense emotion a great many past events. Her husband seemed “real as life” and she wept with joy at his “return from the grave.”

She then began to talk to her husband, telling him how much she had missed him since his death, how difficult life had been for her, and how their friends had abandoned her since she had started to drink. To the guide’s inquiry, she explained that the sense of her husband’s presence was “completely real” and that he listened “very seriously” to her discourse and sympathized with her plight, but managed nonetheless to convey the idea that he “didn’t really approve” of the way she had been behaving. She fell silent, and finally reported that the pipe was only a pipe again, that it was growing cold, and the sense of her husband’s presence was becoming very faint. Then, however, it returned once again—a presence so powerfully felt that she thought she could “reach out and touch him.” She felt her husband smiled at her lovingly, conveying “whole worlds of encouragement and strength,” then slowly turned his back and walked away. Then the sense of presence was extinguished and somehow she knew that he would “come no more.” The pipe now was “cold and lifeless” in her hands and had “nothing more to do” with her husband. “At long last,” she said, he was “gone. Dead. Really dead. He has made me understand that and I have got to accept it. That is what he would want me to do. Quoted from LSD The Problem Solving Drug by Stafford and Golightly.

In the above the woman is led to realise the awful condition of being so dependent on her husband. In talking with him he led her to see her mistake and stop wanting him with her in the body.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I frightened of dying?

What does the grave in my dreams make me feel?

Can I imagine being in the grave to see what feelings it provokes?

See Summing UpLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar CayceNear Death Experiences

Gravity

Being held down by physical appetites, material ambitions, worldly philosophy. Weighted down by worldly experience.

Great Greater Greatest

Mostly the word great in a dream usually means it is or would be good; or it suggests ‘a lot of’ something – was also a great deal of deep, green & gray speckled marble. A great man or woman can mean many things – it can mean impressive or that their qualites are remarkable.

Greater means a comparison or measurement – it is a great film, but this one is greater still. But it can also be used in talking or thinking about ones understanding – moved on to a greater understanding.

Greatest can indicate your feelings or judgements about someone or something.

Example: I am going abroad, but I get cut in an accident and I am taken to a hospital and treated fairly quickly but expensively. I, as a woman, meet a man and we have a good dinner, great kissing (sex?) Then when it comes to paying for everything, T and I pay for everything and that is expensive too.

See Summing Up

Green

Most of the plant kingdom is green, and so many dreams use it to depict something in that you is connected with growth, potential for growth, or capability of fruition and regeneration. A green living thing might emerge from apparently lifeless earth, suggesting a new living direction or feeling is emerging in your life.

These positive associations are linked in some dreams with healing or positive change, and green is often found mentioned in dreams about heaven.

The negative associations are with envy or jealousy. Also when things go mouldy they often go green, and slime or infected mucous is green, so at times green may mean something is bad or likely to undermine your health or positive feelings.

Many growing things are green before they ripen or flower, so green might also suggest not yet being ripe or lacking experience.

Because traffic lights use green as a ’go’ sign, in some dreams it can suggest a positive yes to decisions or directions you are taking.

There is an obscure but sometimes relevant connection for people who are working to unfold their inner qualities. The green leaves of plants are instrumental in allowing light to become the energy in transforming the mineral forces of the earth into living tissue. So in some dreams the green is used to show how your own process of opening to the forces of Light and Life are transforming your lower or less conscious levels of self into greater consciousness and expression. In all it is about transformation. See Life’s Little Secrets

Sometimes a dream snake is green, and this shows the possibility of great inner growth, healing and change, depending upon your relationship with the snake. See: snake.

Blue green: This indicates healing or change coming from within or from a spiritual dimension.

Dark yellow/greens: Evil intentions; growth of negative attitudes; sickness; envy; jealousy.

Greenish grey: Pessimism and lack of enthusiasm or ‘colour’ or satisfying growth in your life.

Idioms: Green fingers; green with envy or jealousy; green eyed monster; green light; green – naive.

Useful questions:

Do I sense the feeling quality of green in the dream – is so what is it?

Am I meeting changes and personal growth or healing at this time, and in what way?

If there are negative feelings in connection with the green, what of such feelings can I note in my waking life?

See: Colour.

Greenhouse or glasshouse

Can represent either that one has been cosseted or over cared for in life, not exposed to difficulties or harshness.

But equally it can refer to your vulnerable growing parts of oneself or others than need care and attention to help them grow. It could equally apply to a new project or aspect of yourself you are working on. It might be something in your experience that protects fragile aspects of your growth, but something that is itself fragile. Also a subtle but real barrier between the energy of your life and the aspects of you that need to grow. See: growth of something; Glass.

Example: I met a man who seemed to be something of an adept or master; a sort of Caucasian white guru type. At first I understood his name to be Faser Dan Li. Then gradually it became Father Li. This I understood to represent fatherly and the name of Faser Dan Li to mean faster than light. Anyway, this guru figure took me into very large greenhouses. Stretching away into the distance tiny seedlings were growing, most of them about four inches in height. As I watched some youths drove in on cross-country motorbikes and roared around the place. Faser Dan Li did nothing to prevent them. But when they had gone he looked at me and said, “Those are your emotions. They are wild and out of control. As such they could damage the tender growth of souls represented here by these little plants. Until your emotions are much more fully calmed and under control you cannot be given the keys of insight into other peoples being.”


Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever cared for plants and watched them grow?

Was the dream greenhouse linked in any way with scenes of vulnaribility?

Did the dream show any violence?

See Summing UpAvoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Grenade

Anger, violence, explosive emotions. See: Bomb.

Grey – Gray

This sometimes indicate feelings of living an unhappy or colourless dull existence, a daily round without excitement or stimulus, or morbid or serious thoughts. Sometimes it suggests officiousness or officialdom.

Grey is the mid point between black and white, so in that sense depicts balance or calmness, but it can also indicate lack of clarity, indecision or blurring of distinctions. Like fog, it suggests not being able to see clearly. The grey could mean not judging myself, as in the past you might have got caught up in black and white thinking about yourself.  It could also mean invisibility or a way of protecting yourself.

Artemidorus wrote that, “.. a sky that is gray, gloomy or full of clouds, signifies failures and afflictions. In fact grey or gray is often used in language to indicate such feelings, as in the following sentence, taken from Castle’s Dreaming Mind. “If a dreamer needs to be sensitised to how gray, confining, or confusing his or her outlook is toward life, dreams may be cast in sombre,  prison-gray  tones  or the dreamer may wander around in a fog.” These states of mind can lead to ill health or at least a lowering of excitation and energy in life. An extreme example of how grey indicates difficult feelings is seen in the following dream.

Example: I have had a series of dreams which feature grey people standing beside my bed, and each time I have woken myself up by screaming, with my heart pounding, my being unable to move. JS

With grey hair it has several possibilities depending on the tone of the dream. It can link with maturity, wisdom or gathered experience. But it can also point to ageing, the loss of faculties with increasing years, and the path to death along the avenue of diminished interest or sparkle in life.

Grey clothes suggest neutrality or lack of ‘colour’, or in some dreams officialdom. But as with the grey colours worn by puritans, it can also suggest a moral stance, an avoidance of extremes or vivid passion. Such a stance might be one of avoiding full relationship or involvement in life. It might also suggest lacking anything more than a ‘bread and milk’ diet sort of life.

But some dreams describe grey in a powerful and exciting or enjoyable way. One dream includes a ‘beautiful, grey, old time car’. Another has a grey carpet that reminds the dreamer of home and comfort. Silver grey is sometimes felt to have these positive and life giving qualities.

Idioms: A grey world; a grey area; grey matter (brain); grey power.

Useful questions:

Is the dream environment I am in a grey one, and if so what aspect of my life does it reflect?

Does my life lack colour at the moment, and if so in what way?

Is this grey in the dream depicting my own feelings, or is it how I see the environment I exist in?

See: ColourTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsProcessing Dreams

Grotto

See: Cave.

Ground

See: Earth.

Group

This shows how you feel about being one of a crowd, and what sort of strategies you use for dealing with a group – whether a follower, a leader, a quiet introvert, or an extrovert.

Grove

Similar to Garden, but being trees, specifies the growth or area of your ideas and habitual emotions.

Growth of Something

In the widest sense nearly all dreams act as a process of growth or a move toward maturing. Some dreams are very obviously presenting internal forces or dimensions of experience that might lead the conscious personality toward a greater balance and inclusiveness. In fact although it is not generally accepted, growth is a tremendous instinctive force as powerful as the sex drive. Although our overall direction of dreams is an attempt toward growth and wholeness, it is not easily achieved because of the fears we inject into out dreams. See Summing Up

The changes in us which bring about new ways of relating to other people, ourselves and activity. The change or personal growth may be mental, emotional or physical. Sometimes the change is one of achieving new realisations. There appears to be a drive from the unconscious to gather and integrate experience to thereby expand the sense of self. This expansion can lead to an awareness of existing in an ocean of being in which all things live.

This push is something we all experience but usually fail to understand. Each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. It is the current if Life. This current then carries us on through old and through gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this force of growth and change. and is fought like hell by many as we are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death.

The feelings that flow through us or we are immersed in are the process of life in our body, connecting with emotions, sexuality and changes of mood, we know this push/river as the flow and events of our life or destiny. We are constantly a river of energy which is expressed in everything we do. Because it is Life that flows through us it is creative in its action. But we are part of the creation, for we create with what we do. If we put feelings of hatred and destruction in the flow as it passes through us – that is what we are creating. Unfortunately, those feelings, and therefore we who release them, create our own destruction. Whereas acts which connect with others create bridges and bring others into our life enriching it. See Opening to Life

The push to grow can be recognised by the process of change, and if it is blocked in some way it becomes a feeling of unease or tension or even pain. Growth is an innate urge in us. If we stop holding it back we will emerge from childhood and our countless justifications.

Example: In every human being, I seemed to be told, there is a fire that burns, a creative fire. When that fire is permitted to burn freely, the human being is healthy and creative, whether he be farmer, artist, mother, workman. But when the fire is blocked, as it is by this pain, then the person is crippled, just as I had been crippled for most of my life. As a child, I had felt worth­less because I did not have my brother’s masculinity and in­telligence, nor my sister’s grace and beauty. And because I had felt worthless I had withdrawn into non-identity and non-feeling. Later in life I had found one worthiness: a talent for acting. But I had used the talent as a means of escaping into the iden­tity of the characters I portrayed, instead of searching to find my own identity. Quoted from Myself and I by Constance Newland.

The drive to create, to change or grow is also seen as the move toward individuation, self realisation or even enlightenment. For we are all incomplete while we are lacking self realisation or feel a sense of being ill at ease. See Individuation; Life’s Little Secrets; Enlightenment; Archetype of the Self; Life Within Change and Constancy

Guard

We guard our language, our thoughts, our actions. The guard can symbolise the morals, social pressures, fears, used in this way. It may also represent a fear of losing something, such as respect, love, social standing, virginity. Can symbolise protection also, such as in the form of a guardian. See: police.

Guide

The principles that guide your direction in life. They may be a worthy or unworthy guide, depending on the principles or desires by which you are directed. The guide may also be an animal, in which case see it under its heading. Or it may be an intuitive guidance.

Example: I am sitting in a chair.  Across from me are a woman to the left and a man to the right sitting on a sofa.  They have black skin, hair and clothes.  On my right a tall man sitting…white skin hair and clothes.  I know he is a spiritual advisor, counsellor or guide.

The guide says to me “would you even say that this is a therapeutic depression?”

I am unsure as to what he means by the word “therapeutic”…but feel a little jolted, maybe insulted, for lack of a better word…maybe insulted at his implication that it was necessary for healing…and reply “No” to his question.

Many people look to their dreams as a sure guide to what to do and believe in ther life. But of course we may be influence by our fears or beliefs, and dreams cannot guide us while we take them literally, for dreams are from the world beyond rationale thought, and so thinking about their meaning is of no help. The following example may explain this.

Example: Last night, I again asked my guides to show me through my dreams whether our relationship was good for my best self. This was my dream:

I am living in a large old house with P (my husband) and I ask him about a girl that I recently discovered online who is an adult film star and frequents the same cafe that he occasionally works at. When I ask him if he knows her, he admits to me that he has known for a while and recently had oral sex with her. He apologizes, but says he is somewhat interested in her and intends to pursue her. I get very upset and verbally attack him and pull his hair and have a bit of a tantrum. When I am calm, I feel better, but still completely betrayed and saddened.

In the first place it is very seldom that any dream states things straight out as in everyday life – even in waking life things are usually not that clear. To get at the real meaning of a dream you have to enter into each character and object in the dream, and be them. Because dream come from a very ancient part of us that uses ‘felt’ things as a language of dreams. So you have to feel the quality of your dream people and objects. Try being the girl – the adult film star.

I am not you, but the first thing I have to say when I imagine myself as the film star is, “I am not a real person, only an imagined one who is about sex.” She is an imagined one because she does not actually appear in your dream, but is a raging feeling in you. As such she becomes a target to believe in. So the dream is a magic mirror reflecting you, your feelings and fears – so you see your husband in the light of a person with no integrity. Such feelings grow because you cannot ‘find him out’ and so your feeling, which you project onto him, grows, ruining the relationship, until he maybe actually finds another woman.

If I am right, instead of projecting your feelings onto your husband, try seeing where they come from in you – usually parents or a previous relationship in which you were actually left for another woman so fear it will happen again. Try Acting on your dream

So the unconscious can be seen a kind of intelligence that attempts to guide and otherwise assist the conscious self. The language of the unconscious is, however, indirect and symbolic, and requires, not interpretation, but efforts made to explore the enormous emotions and feeling hidden in the images of dreams.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you tested your guide to give you information that can be checked?

Have you simple thought about your dream or actually explored it?

What is it that guides you in life or dreams – define it if you can?

Is my guide an expression on my own wishful thinking or desires?

See Using Your IntuitionBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce


Guillotine

Losing ones head, or threat of it; killing out ones ability to think and reason – so perhaps becoming irrational. See: BodyHead.

It could be a way of meeting the fear of death. It can also be a graphic way of saying that your head is cut off from your feelings.

Example: I felt I could really die, not just as an illusion, not just in the drama of other people but my own life would have a very normal end. I know now I never wanted to face this but realise there is such a thing as really living. When I felt this, it did not take long to discover that if there is such a thing that could lift one up and this can only be the life I am leading. With this horror of death realised, I started to experience a most fantastic happiness with the realisation that after all I do not have to die now. I felt I was no longer with my neck under the guillotine. This was the very feeling I have been living under all my life. Right from my childhood, and without my knowing it. I did not know that all the time I was living it was as if a rope was round my neck or my head was on the guillotine. But now I had this unique opportunity to experience what it felt like to die. It has revolutionised my life.

Example: I dreamt I was in a line of young women like myself, and as I looked ahead to where we were going I saw that as each came to the head of the line they were decapitated by a guillotine. Without any fear I remained in the line, presumably quite willing to submit to the same treatment when my turn came.

Working with Carl Jung he explained to her that this meant she was ready to give up the habit of “living in her head”; she must learn to free her body to discover its natural sexual response and the fulfilment of its biological role in motherhood. The dream expressed this as the need to make a drastic change.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Where you witnessing the guillotine or on it?

What did you feel during the dream?

Were there feelings about dying?

See Near Death ExperiencesDreaming of DeathSecrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Guilt

Feeling guilt in a dream is a direct experience, but what you are feeling guilty about may well be in symbols and need clarifying. See: emotions and mood.

Example: Yesterday, as C. and I talked, I saw I was defending my own pain, or that I was hurting my children by being apart from them. Noticing myself doing this I opened up to see what was happening. I realised I was holding onto my guilt. I was arguing so that my pain or guilt would not be taken away. Why?

As I worked on this I saw that I stimulated my love for my children with feelings of guilt. I saw how I had been doing this for years. Much of my pain had arisen from this habitual pattern of directing my energy. The more guilt, the more love.

Why did I feel guilty – because I had left my children. OK, but the reason I held onto that guilt was to keep my love going. But now I saw that I could love without guilt. It was now unnecessary.

Is there a temptation or guilt regarding a relationship with the opposite sex. Basically boy-girl stuff. Mostly this is put into us by our cultural education. Sometimes this may be brought about by religious thoughts, and the root of this is the story of Adam and Eve. But the story is a childs version of the translation of the original Hebrew. There was no sin or wrongness about it when the original language is looked at. See The Serpent at Work; Programmed

It is interesting that the word Adam is actually a Hebrew word made up of the letters  ADM. But the Hebrew language is a sign language like Greek, where each letter has a meaning like a word – such as Alpha and Omega. So in Hebrew the word ADM represent the beginning, the start and creative impulse which was humankind. It is not the name of an individual man.

Our experience or pleasure in relationship is one of the most profound experiences we can meet. It can be enormously healing if we can relate to pleasure in a way that does not cause tension or guilt. Therefore loving relationships in dreams are ways of exploring our own possibilities, not only within ourselves, but also in future relatedness.

Apology can also be an expression of guilt. But guilt is a corrosive feeling that can eat away at you. It is much better to see something as mistakes we have made, mistakes that can be learned from and altered.

But there is an enormous guilt many of us feel and yet keep it hidden, even from ourselves. It is the guilt of not allowing the best in us to flower and be expressed. The signs of it are shown in an inner unrest, feelings of depression, crying because we realise we lack something precious, or even compulsive religious feelings. The way through to the wonder of living our own flowering is in the recognition that we do not know from our past what the cause of our distress is. The next step is to give up all the old thinking and surrender to our own process. See prison; Life’s Little Secrets

Example: As I looked at my impressions and rising feelings, I saw how powerful has been the realisation that within ourselves we are nothing. That our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

But it is a frightening realisation too. For it brings us to the realisation that nobody else creates the hell or heaven we experience life to be. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in our creation.

Example: I was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his shit and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean it and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself. As I watched though, he came to the point of accepting responsibility for his condition. He came out, and we then happily asked if we could put his clothes in the washing machine. He started a new life. Dennis.

Dennis had been passing through a period of recognising how fears, guilt and lack of confidence had imprisoned him. He had literally been living in this emotional ‘shit’ for years. When he stopped feeling guilt for being wrong and dirty, and saw that he had made a mistake living like that, he could open himself to help from others.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you have any insights into the cause of the guilt?

Am I open to the idea that I made a mistake I can learn on and not being eaten away by guilt?

Can you walk out of the hell or prison you have been in and start allowing your best to flower?

See Avoid Being VictimsKarmaEdgar CayceTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Guitar

See: Fiddle.

Gulf

Is there something separating you from a person, or a situation? The gulf might even be a feeling of some kind that caused a rift between you and an individual or a situation. If the gulf is huge, see Abyss.

Gull

See: Birds.

Gum

See: Glue.

Gun

This could be a sign of urges to hurt someone. It may also signify fear of being attacked and hurt by others, or a sense of inadequacy when facing aggression. For some people the gun relates to a sense of power and strength to meet the world. It is a confidence based on an exterior object. The gun can also represent aggressive or frightening sexuality.

Gunpowder

See: Dynamite.

Guru – Dalai Lama – Sensei

Represents your connection with the whole of life, with collective wisdom, or the collective unconscious, as it relates to your life. Beside a guru, the dream figure can be any person you feel is in contact with the mystery of Life, so is not concerned with physical welfare, but is very linked to the realisation of your eternal nature and life as it connects with the whole. Thus the guru in dreams will usually guide you towards greater self understanding, deeper relationships with him/her/self, and instruct you in any necessary disciplines of mind and body.

There will be an unfolding to you of the inner meanings, where necessary, of ancient scriptures. The guru really represents your own awareness in the wider awareness beyond the physical senses. Thus, as a dream series develops, if you reach the stage of illumination, you will wake up as the guru, or merge into her/him, or be absorbed in his/her consciousness. This may be frightening, due to fear of losing individuality or ego. But in fact, the guru is your own self. See: Yoga and Dreams – God; Goddessarchetype of the self

Example: ‘Dreamt that J.A.’s Guru was coming to see me. I was waiting in some kind of reception hall. Suddenly he came with his followers. He gave the impression of being Eastern. He wore a long white gown and his arms were full of harvest produce, fruit and vegetables. He explained that he ate once a day and ate everything at the one meal. He then put down the food and took both my hands, palms upwards. He examined them for a minute and then pointing to a place on each hand told me I was capable of being very efficient; also something else I can’t remember. He then looked at me and told me there was something I should have done but didn’t, but again I cannot remember. He then told me to look at his forehead and see what was written there. I looked and saw the lines on his forehead were placed so that they spelt out a word explaining what he was. It was something like MEEK. He then told me to look again and I would see my own self written there. Again I looked, and this time saw the word BITTER. The other people there could not see the writing, and he told me everyone had what they were written on their forehead. He then pointed into the audience and said, “But you will do the thing you came to do. You will do it!” He pointed beyond me, but I felt the words were for me.’

This particular dream is really more of a prelude to initiation, but it does explain many things. First of all, what we have called ones ‘potential’ is often symbolised in dreams as a holy man, guru, yogi, master, saint; or as Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, or some great person. His arms are full of harvest because this part of our being holds all the fruits of our experience, as well as the future possibilities of self. It is therefore very important what this being tells us in our dreams. In this case, the man found that after the dream repressed bitterness poured out of him for some months. In the next dream by another person, initiation is taken a step further.

Example: ‘I was walking along a street in London, and my wife came hurrying up to me. She looked very excited and said, “I have found a Master” (a saint or holy man). I was very sceptical and told her so. Nevertheless she insisted, and asked me to come and see for myself. We walked to a printing firm nearby, where a few people were already waiting for the master. I reviewed my scepticism, thinking that this was probably a man who was very clever and spoke much occult nonsense, and so everybody thought he was godlike; or at least, all those who desperately wanted to find a god-like man. Just then a man walked down some stairs from the building and said quietly to those waiting outside, “He’s coming.” Outside the building was a loading bay a few feet high. On to this walked a slim man of middle height, in his thirties. He seemed very ordinary and was bald except for the sides of his head, where his hair was a sandy ginger colour. He appeared a very passive man, and began to talk quietly, with little emphasis, his gaze above our heads, as if looking beyond us.

As he talked I thought to myself that I had heard all this before. I had read it in the Bible and a number of other books, but it hadn’t done me any good. Neither could I see myself even beginning to live up to it. In fact I dismissed the man as a dreamer. He didn’t talk for long, however, but soon finished and came down from the bay. We all walked slowly along the street, some of the people asking him questions. When we neared the end of the street he stopped. We also stopped, and were facing him in a small irregular semi-circle, there being about six of us. He didn’t speak, but looked at the person on the extreme left for a few moments. Nobody said anything, and he then looked at the next person. I watched him but had no idea what he was doing until his gaze turned to me. Suddenly it was as if a bolt had struck me and pierced me to my inmost being. I knew this man understood every fragment of my life – more than that – he loved me as I have never been loved before. A floodgate opened in me and a torrent of emotion and love swept over me. I stumbled forward impelled by the current of my feelings, and embraced this stranger with a fervent love. As he held me the turbidity smoothed and became a calm love, and I stepped back. His gaze turned to my wife and I saw her expression change under the impact of his eyes. Now I had no doubt – he was a master.’

The dreamt of guru can open the floodgates to our ability to feel love, to realise what is in the way of our own growth, and to catch a glimpse of our own infinite potential. One of the ways a master confers his grace, or initiation, on his pupil is by ‘look’, by ‘touch’, by instruction or pointing out things, or by being lifted up as if to a great height so seeing a vast view of life.

Worshipping an external guru: Suggest you have missed the point of meeting your own Self, your own  spirit or centre. It shows a form of dependence upon another instead of finding ones own holy centre.

Here is a dream telling the story.

“In my dream I had the definite sense it was a yoga or Eastern seminar inside the room. I watched a man as he was pausing, he stood in front of the open door and with feet fairly wide apart, bowed his head right to the floor, with hands held in a salute. This presented his bare behind to my view. His clean and hairless rectum was very evident. In writing this down though, I realise there was no view of genitals.

In exploring the dream I first felt the posture to be one of surrender or acknowledgement of a teacher. But it was also a very powerful stance, and had in it the bums up sign. I imagined going into the room as the man. As him I felt intelligent, confident, willing to reserve my opinions to learn. In the room an Eastern man in robes and regalia sat on a stage, a guru. Many people sat on the floor as if meditating. The guru figure was not saying anything. I had the sense of people trying to get wisdom from him, even if he were not speaking – as if his silence held wisdom. I sat and opened to learn what this personage was communicating. As I looked he winked at me. I felt this was a communication, as was his silence. He simply sat and looked around the room. Occasionally he ate something, then got up and left.

I felt as if I got the message. It was that he was not the goal. He was not something to look toward as if he were an answer. He was simply saying – you are the goal. Living your own life is the path and the goal. There is nothing to find, only your self to live. You need someone to look at to learn this presumably, so I will sit here until you learn not to look at me.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did the guru give me a new experience of yourself?

Was I uplifted in some way?

Were there things about my attitude such as bitternes or scepticism that held back my own wonder?

See Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentEdgar CayceEnlightenmentMethods of AwakeningTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Guy

See boyfriend; man; man in your dreams; family

Gymnasium

This can indicate that your involvement, or suggesting you involve yourself in self help – especially in connection with health.

Taking risks in learning something new, or practicing new skills, perhaps needing daring. It also applies to physical health.

Dreams are themselves a form of exercise, a gymnasium of the soul. As such they stretch and increase your strength and flexibility, your ability to experience the wonderful dimensions of you. See Levels of Awareness.

Example: I am playing in a ping pong tournament in a gymnasium, but with very old and faulty equipment – old paddles, dented balls, no nets, etc. It is frustrating, but fun. Also the equipment keeps changing. Just when we seem to have the right equipment, we discover something is missing. (I am competing with out-of-date equipment/ideas?)

Example: I see a man. We talk. I hug him and am in his lap. I say to him. I love you. man is distressed. I say don’t be upset. It’s all right if you don’t return my love. I do this twice. Now I feel like dancing. I find a spot on the gymnasium floor where it’s not as crowded and begin to dance like I’m Ice Skating. I swirl and glide gracefully. People stop to look. Someone puts a spotlight on me. As part of the dance, I leap up to grab hold of a crystal chandelier. This represents reaching for God. It is beautiful. The crowd admires my dancing. I am touched by the motion of reaching for God. It is very spiritual. Barb.


Useful questions and hints:

What were you doing in relation to the gym?

Have you ever been to or used and actual gym?

Did you realise anything from the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsConditioned Reflexes

Gypsy Gypsies

Intuition, psychic faculties, irrational aspects of your feelings, perhaps pressurising you toward things you don’t want.

They may represent the instinctive wisdom or intuition such people have, or the feeling of being confronted by someone you do not understand or even trust.

The opportunity to enter a life of apparent greater freedom, or even a wild romance. Meeting with the challenge of manhood.

Useful questions and hints:

What are my feelings about Gypsies?

Do I wish for a more carefree or romantic existence?

Is this about using my psychic faculties?

Do I feel rootless, or without a real home?

See Using Your IntuitionBeing the Person or ThingQuestions

Letter H

Hades

This may relate to some sort of self-torment, perhaps through feelings of guilt or difficult decisions made in the past. See: Hell.

Hag

Sometimes represents grasping, evil emotional tendencies; or can hide the old wise woman of instinctive or natural wisdom.

Hair

Mostly hair in dreams links with the way you are thinking, your self image and attitudes. In some dreams it can link with sexual attraction or even what sexual characteristics you are displaying. Therefore changing the style of your hair would show you changing the way you see yourself, or how you want others to see you.

We sometimes use our hair and the way we style it to show what group or social group we identify with. So a hair style could link with a social group or status – business; hippie; middle class; smart and motivated; laid back; Goff’s; punk; artistic etc.

Example: I was watching a man do a stage act. It started with him looking directly toward me and gradually taking on the character of a hippie person. His hair was in a pony tail at the back and he became less well groomed. Then he shook his hair loose from the pony tail and went through amazing changes in which the whole styling and colour of his hair altered and changed the way he looked, and even his sex. For instance his hair became shoulder length, red, beautifully styled in a full waved perm of shining hair. As this he was a beautiful female. At another moment he turned profile and the hair styled backwards into a mane of wavy hair. T.C.

This dream shows how the hair depicts character and mental attitude, even gender. See: washing hair.

Baldness: Ageing; feeling obsolete; lack of thought; maleness.

Beard: This depends on the age of the person and the situation in the dream. For instance stubble on a teenage boy suggests he is moving into manhood. But a beard can also suggest carelessness – as when someone hasn’t shaved; a mask if someone uses it to hide their youth; or a way of life that does not conform, or like a backwoodsman. Sometimes the link is with a war veteran, suggesting a long exposure to conflict and extreme living conditions.

Black wig: This wig suggests the false thinking, the unconscious false thoughts, still prevalent and to be dealt with.

Brushing hair: Clarifying or bringing order to attitudes or thoughts. Getting rid of emotional or relationship tangles or tangled ideas.

Changing hair style: Changing the way you see yourself, your self image. Perhaps also changing attitudes and a change of mind.

Chest hair: Masculinity, virility. If it is on a woman, it suggests her expressing masculine qualities.

Colour of hair: In everyday life we unconsciously gather a lot of information from someone’s hair colour. For instance racial background is one immediate thing we see. But hair colour might well link with someone we know – our father, or mother, or someone close to us. If that is not the link it can suggest attitudes – light-headed for instance; dark thoughts; fiery temperament with red hair, or age and perhaps wisdom with grey or silver hair.

If the hair is artificially coloured this shows the person or yourself trying to be something you are not at your ‘roots’. But this might also show an attempt to stand out, to be different to those around you to gain attention or change your self image.

Combing hair: See: comb.

Cutting off beard: Making a change; feeling more certain about your manhood; or uncertainty about manhood, depending on dream. It can also suggest a fuller meeting or self expression, and uncovering of who you are. In some cultures it might suggest leaving behind traditional religious beliefs.

Cutting hair: It can be about a change taking place in you – it cold be to smarten yourself up, or to have a real personal change. Cutting hair or a hand or some other part of the body may be about an initiation into another type of life. In traditional initiation rites and a boy’s or girl’s initiation to manhood or womanhood the cutting of hair, was symbolic of growth beyond childhood and a taking on of mature life. See Long Hair

Cutting hair right off: This depends on what hair is cut off. If it is wild and unkempt, then it would show a real change and a more disciplined way of thinking and acting. If the hair style suggested some sort of social, religious or cult affiliation, then it would show a move away from that. In general it shows cutting back on what you think or dream, like clearing out a cupboard of all the things no longer needed. It can also show denial of sensual, sexual and physical drives, as with a monk, or acceptance of age or baldness.

Dark hair: The thoughts and ideas that move you yet are largely unconscious. Might show ‘dark’ thoughts or attitudes. But it can also suggest racial dispositions, such as Latin passions or responses, or the black cultural way of being. As mentioned above, it can also link with someone you know.

Disheveled hair Mental confusion, personal carelessness about how you appear to others. It might also be an indication that you are ruled by crazy thoughts and ideas.

Fair hair: Awareness; ‘light headed’. Might link with racial types such as Scandinavian stock, or indicate a coolheaded person. Being blonde is also for many women and men a statement of wanting to be attractive, or wanting to attract attention and not be one of the crowd.

Genital or armpit: Sexuality. Your natural or instinctive feelings and drives. See: pubic hair below.

Hair on chest or body of female, even child: The male side of the woman; might be parents desire for a boy generated male characteristics. It could also be a sign of something unusual breaking through, something that you didn’t expect growing into your life. See archetype of the animus

Hair in mouth: Hair in ones mouth is a cause of tremendous irritation or discomfort. So may be something that is very disturbing or difficult to speak about. Also the mouth is associated with eating and speaking.

You would want to get rid of the hair and irritation as soon as possible. So it may be something you are saying that is so wrong it makes you feel irritated. But hair can also represent your thoughts, so maybe it is something you are thinking and not words.

But the way you can find out for yourself is to imagine yourself in the dream and explore the feeling with the idea – what does this mean. You could use Being the Person or Thing

Long matted: Not caring about social image or self; drop out.

Long hair: Freedom; permissiveness; girlhood with woman.

Plaited or pony tail: Girlhood; socialised or disciplined thoughts and feelings.

Pubic hair: Some dreams mentioning pubic hair do so in a way that suggests it as a glimpse of what lies beneath – or at least a glimpse of whatever pleasure or emotions, perhaps even fear or pain, are generated by the experience of or thoughts/fantasies of sex. When the pubic hair is missing it is about the revealing of the sex or gender. Of course, today, the appearance or absence of hair could refer to the latest fashions in sexual display.

Another possibility of the lack of pubic hair is that your sexual feelings, needs and power are being made conscious, or are brought to awareness.

In connection with teenagers it shows the emergence of their sexual life and all that will bring.

Short hair: If it  was long it shows a radical change in the way you see yoruself, perhaps more busines like or less feminine. It can also show that you are maturing beyond the girlhood or boyhood stage. Your present age has nothing to do with the change. See Ages of Love

Tight style: Discipline; self restraint.

Very long beard: Sense of eternal or long life.

Washing hair: Changing ones attitude; altering the way one thinks about something or ones viewpoint. “Wash that man right out of my hair” mind/feelings.

White beard: Wisdom or experience gained through long life, and perhaps an awareness of life beyond the senses.

Wig: False attitudes or thoughts; an assumed social front.

Woman’s dreams – Armpit or leg hair: Social expression of sexuality or physicality.

Idioms: harebrained; hair of the dog; get in your hair; got you by the short hairs; keep your hair on; hair raising; have us by the short hairs; let one’s hair down; make you hair curl/stand on end; didn’t turn a hair; pulling hair out; put hairs on your chest; tear one’s hair out; split hairs, without turning a hair. See: shampoo.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being expressed by the hair style or things done to the hair?

Is the hair coloured, if so what impression do I have of it?

Is this different in any way to my own hair style – is so what do the differences suggest?

See Victims – Secrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Hairdresser

See: Barber.

Half

Part of; divided; incomplete; in between; conflict.

Half open: Opposing feelings about whether to ‘be open’ or not; can I, can’t I – will I, won’t I.

Half way up/down: Indecision; faltering motivation; sometimes between the opposites, or outside of ones everyday experience.

Half full: May refer to half ones life used up.

Cut in half: Conflict between intellect and body / sexuality.

Half buried: Something you are only partly aware of.

Halfman: See ape-man

Example: ‘I could see an older woman watching me from the road. I felt very scared at her being there. I walked to the front door, I started to walk passed the front door, felt great fear and hung back, half behind the front door, for protection from her.’ Pamela H.

Idioms: half asleep; half-there; all over hell’s half acre; better half; don’t know the half of it; half the battle; have half a mind to; lower half; meet you half way; not half bad; second half of life; six of one, half a dozen of the other; split in half; half-assed; ain’t half-bad; half-bad; half-baked; go off half-cocked; half-cocked; half-corked; half-cut; half-hearted; half-lit; half-pint; half a person: half price; half-shot; half-snapped; half-there


Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort or half is shown in my dream?

Do I feel as if I am not half the person I could have been?

Have you hung back because of fear or uncertainty?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsDream YogaPrison

Hall

A point of unity; coming together of things, or connection with new people and ideas. It can also represent an important change, such as occurs in marriage, or social acclaim.

Halo

Expressive of the inner light. See: Glow.

Hammer

Power, of a material physical nature. Threat of aggression. May refer to male sex organ, or sexuality in its physically forceful, unsympathetic aspect. Or can express your desires to hammer something home or make yourself felt.

Practical abilities you have; suggestion of things we might need to do in our life – hammer out a situation with someone, cut away old attitudes, drill through resistances to discover our real feelings, etc.; male sexuality in different aspects.

Hamster

A pet that needs looking after, and so can be used in dreams to suggest oneself in a child, or a part of you that  feels as if treated like a pet. See pet

Hand

Most frequently dreamt of part of body. It depicts how you express yourself in action or relationships; your grasp of life, of ideas, of opportunities. It shows the way you hold on to – or let go of – people, your children, situations – this is why people are handcuffed to take away their power. The hand is an extension of your power – to give, take, wound, heal, support or do. Sometimes it is hands we reach out to protect ourselves or others. With our hands we touch other people and the world around us.

The hands express the full range of human emotions and desires. Everything from violence to the tender caress, or skilful surgery or creativity, are manifest through the hands. Here are some examples: He clutched at my hand – I put my hand over the receiver – She had her hand on my butt and pinched hard – He caught my hand and begged me silently to listen to him – The woman tries to hand me a purple composition book – they are second-hand  – Staff in hand I smash it down – I reached the cot and put my hand out to smooth the sobbing a little – The woman next to me keeps trying to hold my hand –– My dog took my right hand firmly in his mouth and led me.

Fingers: More than anything else it is through the fingers you feel and explore the things around you . Although your eyes allow you to see the world, it is with your fingers you take hold of it, work with it, create or destroy.

Fingers can be expressive of your feelings. It can be the finger of scorn; accusing finger; finger of suspicion; beckoning finger, or to put your finger on something and therefore know something about it.

Fingers represent your grasp on things, your method of materialising yourself, or leaving your mark upon matter. Therefore your personal skills.

The thumb is the jewel in the crown of the human hand. Without the thumb the human hand is nothing but a grabbing and holding thing. The thumb has the characteristics of personal identity.  The thumb in essence is a symbol of status, of human status. It depicts our personality, our uniqueness and what mark we leave on the world in living our life. Its strength shows what makes us stand out. Its weakness depicts the characteristics leading to our merging into the crowd. So it indicates ones standing in connection with other human beings, where you place yourself or where others place you because of their relationship with you.  The thumb is an indication to how assertive a person is, whether they are able to express themselves satisfyingly during their life, and how capable they are of influencing and mastering the environment around them.

The finger can represent the penis, as is common use in sex-play: or your means of sensing. or fingering things. Fingers can, as the wedding ring finger, suggest something like marriage. The finger print also denotes your uniqueness.

The fingers had a life long before human beings existed. They lived, they were part of life on this world; and they had to do with the gaining of greater control over food and movement. They are not peculiar to human beings. Their past is something we have taken up, we have carried forward, we have added to and shifted flexibility in the thumb. But the fingers were there, delicately shaped, and formed. They were already waiting for us to take them and glorify them.

The dog or the cat could pick up its babies and carry them and move them around but the ape can pull its fleas out. It can hold a stick and manipulate in quite a different way, and this is the fingers this is what the fingers built, this is the platform from which we are able to touch the world, move it direct it in a different way.  This past is still here in our hand. The fingers are the lengths they are because of the way our forebears or whatever creatures that we arose from, used them. They are the connection that we have with them.

There is a quality in the fingers relating to the physical world, with changing things, with being able to manipulate, being able to create, to take hold of the world and reshape it in an enormous variety of ways, much more so than other creature.

The first finger: Is what we point with and suggests directing ones power or influence outwards. It is what we delicately hold things with using our thumb. This is the finger we point with, it is a directive finger, it can even be rude to point with this finger because it is representative of us and our ego.

The second finger: Ninety nine percent of the time  this finger is the longest on the hand. It tells us of the conventional side of the character, the ability the person has to respond to law, to rules. It indicates family, responsibility and the things we carry as responsibility in our life. What I am saying is the finger connects with things that have deep and fundamental origins within us and that provide the balance and certainty and in our life and which we must take care and responsibility of. It not being a digit that alone sees any action, but one that is always involved right in the middle of all the fingers activity. This finger to me shows the basis of a person, their makeup and the responsibility they can take on, the importance of their family and those things that are very much supportive within their life.

The third finger: This finger connects with our creativity. It is about what we externalise in our life and about our energy and our drive to create.  This is the expression of the person more in raw energy terms. When we look at the hand and see the tendencies within that character, whether they are physical or artistic in some way or intellectual, this finger represents really the expression of those tendencies, expression of creativity in whatever way the subject expresses themselves. Generally this finger is the third longest finger on the hand. So this finger is partly unconscious. It represents the unconscious, because as a physical aspect it is less determined than the thumb and first two fingers. It is more spontaneous, it has less to do with personal deliberation than the other part of the hand.

This finger is less deliberate and conscious than the thumb and the first two fingers, so in that sense it has to do with many of the interactions that go on between us and other people that are less deliberate, that are semi unconscious in a way. Many people don’t recognise those factors in their life, they don’t recognise the emotional factors or the social factors in their life that although barely conscious, are extremely powerful.

The fourth finger: It represents how we communicate ourselves to the outside world, our ability to be fluent in communication. If this finger is very long and well formed the person is good in communicating, in relationships and in interacting with people, it is about our relationships with people together with our communication.

Blood on your hands: Shows you have hurt or even killed an aspect of yourself. See Blood on Hands

Claw-like hands: Clawing, wounding ability.

Dirty hands: Dirty work; unclean activity; something you have been doing that has left ‘dirt on your hands’ – suggesting perhaps that you want to get rid of the influence it has left in your life.

Fingernails: These sometimes depict your ability to effect or change something, to grasp small things. They could also reflect your way of life such as rough physical work or otherwise, suggesting whether life has been hard or kind. Perhaps also your state of health. They might be weapons, or reflect your personal condition – i.e. dirty or cared for, whether you are ready to really use your hands.

Fist: Anger; restrained anger; threat; graspingness, selfishness, arrogance, aggressiveness, tension.

Handshake: Contacting an aspect of self; friendship; testing a relationship or gaining an impression of someone.

Left hand: The left hand – if you are right handed – are those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm – our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represent confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish.

Palm of hand: It is the most used form of contact with the world, with matter and work or creative action. The other side of the hand is the opposite of that, and suggests a none physical action or purpose. It is about the mental faculty of decision making of non physical activity. It can also been seen as a notepad on which you write memos.

Right handed: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do.

Rough hands: Marks left by difficult or demanding experience; roughness in handling others.

Idioms: a bird in the hand; a free hand; an old hand; at the hands of; bite the hand that feeds; can’t put my hands on it; caught red-handed; change hands; don’t hand me that; eat out of the palm of your hand; firm hand; first hand; give me a hand; hand in; hand out; hands are tied; hands down; hands full; hands up; hand me down; hands off; hand over fist; hand to hand; hand to mouth; hard hand; have it in hand; helping hand; in good hands; hold your hand; in the hands of; lay my hands on; laying on of hands; lend a hand; like the back of your hand; open-handed; out of hand; out of our hands; raise a hand; second hand; upper hand; wash your hands of; burnt fingers; at one’s fingertips; snap one’s fingers; soil one’s hands; try your hand at; green fingers; have a finger in; itchy fingers; sticky fingers; fingers crossed; lay a finger on; point the finger at; get one’s finger out; fingers to bone.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am doing with my hands or fingers – is it creative, destructive, giving taking, etc?

What feeling, thoughts or attitude am I expressing with my hands, and how does that relate to my life?

What descriptive words are linked with my dream hand(s) – strong, big, hurt, small – and what does that say about what I am doing?

See Processing DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the MindKarma


Handbag

See: Bag.

Handcuffs

Because the hand is an extension of your power – to give, take, wound, heal, support or do. Sometimes it is hands we reach out to protect ourselves or others. With our hands we touch other people and the world around us. Also this is why people are handcuffed to take away their power. So can indicate those fears, feelings of guilt, self judgements, that restrict the freedom and expression of your innate wholeness and health.

Your dream may also use them to show how you attempt to control either your own self expression, but maybe also another person. Because handcuffs are now see in many films where they are used in sexual bondage, it may be that it indicates this in your dream.

These are usually seen in crime films or sex scenes, so may in some way depict either your desire to be made ineffective physically or feeling it is happening to you against your will, see if you can find the feeling of being made ineffective in daily life. If you are handcuffed with hands in front of your body, you are still in a position to be very dangerous if you care to – a quick bang on the throat can down anyone. If your hands are cuffed behind you – it doesn’t matter in dreams because it is your own feelings that create the dream image of being made a captive. So, start feeling like you are in charge of your emotions and nothing can keep you handcuffed. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: When I rang his doorbell, instead of my ex boyfriend coming to the window, it was my brother and three other men who were all dressed as stereotypical ‘gay men’ leather pants, handcuffs etc lol……in real life, my ex accidentally set my budgie free which never returned, and I think my brother is ‘in the closet’.

Example: I am a small boy accompanying Jim. Jim has to arrest some big dude. When he finally finds this guy, he tries to twist the guy’s arm behind his back several times. The guy just laughs. Finally Jim offers to give the guy his gun – he hands it and the holster to the guy. At that point the guy surrenders and Jim is able to handcuff the guy’s hands behind his back. But not before finding a loaded, cocked pistol on the guy. “That was a very, very close call,” I think as I watch Jim lead the guy away. I am full of admiration for my brother’s courage in arresting the guy. I also think that I could never/I will never be able to do that.

Example: I had a dream that I was at a festival and while I was in a time share that was near the festival. A white man brought a Native American man and a white man handcuffed to each other in the home. The white man tried to escape by taking me hostage but the Native American male refuse to do it and fell on me to protect me. Then I looked at the Native American male whom was young and attractive and there was a mutual attraction. He then began to connect with the spirit world by chanting and after he chanted he gained the knowledge to take the handcuff off and run to the back yard to get away.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were the handcuffs used for?

Did they take away power, arrest someone’s ability; for bondage or to control?

Where you wearing the handcuffs?

See Being in ControlDefence Mechanisms and ResistancesTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Handfasting

This was the origins of marriage before Christianity brought in priesthood and church weddings. It was the promising of marriage between a man and a woman. To quote from the ancient ritual: Handfasting is the eternal joining of two people in love. It is a sacred ceremony of commitment presided over by a High Priestess. Best performed at a time of sunrise or sunset where the sun and moon are present in the joining of two lovers. See images of handfasting

But prior to this statement handfasting was done without any priest or priestess.

If you dream of handfasting it shows a real commitment – but as the church ceremony says, “Who God has joined together let no man break asunder.” There is no mention of any priest of priestess – it was the flow of love between them that creates the bond; and presumably if there is no love there can be no bond.

The great bond is when the spiritual marriage takes place within you – this is the marriage between your conscious self and the spirit.

Hanger Hanging Hung

Anything that hangs depends upon the thing it is hanging by, or from. So hanging in a dream shows a state of depending for support on one thing, as shown in the dream. It can signify dependence, fear of falling, lacking support. Or it may be you have found something to hang onto that actually supports you in an otherwise difficult situation. It is then helpful to define what it is in your waking life that is giving such support.

A person who is hanged: Awful repression of self expression, to the point of feeling dead or depressed. Perhaps feelings of life not worth living. To dream of being strangled, or of hanging oneself, signifies “oppression and distress”. See: neck.

From another perspective, suicide is something to avoid if we take cause and effect into account. See karma; Answer to Critics; suicide


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel you are depending upon something or just hanging on?

Is there someone or something that gives you support?

If you are dreaming of suicide explore the dream to find answers?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of HabitsAvoid Being Victims

Harbour Port

Departures; meetings and partings; leaving a phase of life behind, or meeting a new one, and how we encounter such changes.

It can also indicate business, or the holiday environment where you meet opportunity or failure, love or abandonment. In other words Life in all its variety.

Hard

Unsympathetic, unfeeling, unresponding. Difficulty.

Hare

Intuition; creative ideas; the crazy irrational notions we sometimes call intuition. This probably arose because of the hare’s habit of suddenly bounding up from its hiding place unexpectedly, as intuitions often do. The hare can also depict the victim or hunted feeling; swiftness; timidity or shyness. The hare occasionally appears as a supernatural figure giving advice; or as a sacrificial animal. As such it depicts our ability to make great changes in life, or to draw on potential that has enormous unexpressed resources.

In past cultures the hare was often given great respect. It stood for intuition, rejuvenation and resurrection, and thus of the immortal nature of humans. The hare was sometimes the messenger of the gods. It was also seen as a fertility symbol, and was predominantly female and connected with the moon. In this connection the hare is the Easter Bunny, connected with the Moon Goddess Oestra or Eostre. The Native Americans saw the hare as a hero/saviour, the personification of light. For some reason early Christianity saw the hare as representing lust – but many animals represent lust in Christianity as this religion has had a huge struggle with sexual drives. It seems to be a faith that has difficulties with sexuality. The Jewish faith see hares as unclean. This rests on a law that only grass eaters with cloven feet should be eaten.

The Winnebago North American Indians saw Hare, like Trickster. He was in animal form and has not yet reached mature human form. He was seen as the founder of human culture-the Transformer. The Winnebago believe that the Hare gave them their famous Medicine Rite, and so he became their saviour as well as their culture-hero. This myth was so powerful, that those who used the Peyote Rite were reluctant to give up Hare when Christianity was offered them. So they merged him with the figure of Christ, and some said they had no need of Christ since they already had Hare.

The picture shows an ancient picture of three leaping hares. The symbols is from old English churches in Devon and Cornwall, but the image was also linked with the Moon Goddess. The gestation period of the hare is 28 days, and so there has always been a link with the moon and human menstrual cycles. Easter was originally a festival celebrating the period of fertility.

Example: I was walking across open moorland, followed by a crowd of people. I was their leader, and was supposed to be leading them to “Salvation”. The only thing was, I had no idea in which direction salvation lay. We came to a barbed-wire fence and stopped. I was considering the best place to cross, when I noticed a rabbit beyond the fence. My dog was with me, and leapt on the rabbit to kill it as in my previous dreams, but this time the rabbit fought back and bit his foot, and he stood back respectfully, as he would if a cat clawed him. I now saw that the rabbit had turned into a huge and powerful hare, with four pink furry babies. Then the hare spoke to me, saying, “Where are you going?”

‘I told him we were looking for salvation. He listened, then quietly said “Turn back. Go back to whence you came. At this I became irritable and said, who was he to tell us what to do. There were so many so called authorities telling people how to discover truth, and yet most of them either disagreed or hadn’t found it themselves.

‘The hare looked at me and suddenly disappeared. Then, in a few moments it reappeared. This impressed me tremendously. I felt it was a sign of complete self mastery, and knew the hare was the master. He then said again, “Go back, and carry on with your accustomed tasks. Do not seek wildly the Kingdom of Heaven, for you already have what you seek within you. Your seeking only hides it.” Now the hare speaks again. “Go back,” says he. “For what you search is within you already, as the plant is within the seed. Go back therefore, carry on your accustomed callings, and wait, for it is nigh upon you from within and without. But wait, and you will know it.” Then we all turned around and went back to our village, and carried on our usual tasks, knowing that in time, we would realise our heaven.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the hare give you a message, if so can you put it into words?

Is there any warning indicated in the dream – if so what is it?

Is there anything new or vulnerable arising in you intuitively?

See Mammal BrainUsing Your IntuitionTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Harness Unharness

Directing our energy or potential; control; restraint.

The horse for instance depicts human instincts that have been harnessed or socialised for generations. It shows the enormous amount of potential energy we have if we harness our instincts and work with them. Working with it or harnessing it is best done with a certain amount of love and respect for the huge amount of us that is still and animal. See Levels of the Brain

People with strong sexual urges are potentially powerful healers and creators. Priests and nuns do not take vows of celibacy without good reason. Strong sex desires are actually desires not yet transformed, recognised and harnessed. If harnessed and used well they can be the basis for finding the direction or work that you will find most satisfaction and reward in.

A harness is a joint thing which combines your energy source with your consciousness and intelligence. As mentioned, it should be done with respect and love.

Example: Dreamt I went into a great square garden, something like allotments, but also a park. I entered from what seemed the base. A man rode by on a galloping white horse, passing to my right. As he passed I cried out some sort of stimulating calls to the horse. It galloped more energetically and the man was thrown off. The horse now galloped around the footpaths of the square. Each time it went passed I called out to it. It’s harness fell off. I walked to a square of houses in the top right of the big square. They were very old and seemed to have originally being an old convent.

The man exploring his dream says of it: From a negation of sexuality a release has been achieved. My attention is turned from the inner and outer world’s to the inner. The white horse – is the released life energy, being centred and rising to ones Core. Passing from left to right means it was repressed but is now released to consciousness.

The man – is the forces of restraint, moral, sexual, worldly activity, that I have been imposing on myself. These have been thrown off. Myself in the dream plays the part of my inquiring mind, my search for truth and wholeness. That I call to the horse means that my opening my being to the highest in me – good and bad – calls the force to free itself from forces of restraint – the harness. The small square – is the attitude of opening to the Highest, from which all the rest developed. It is old because it began in past lives. This was not necessarily as a woman, as the convent symbol might suggest. The convent represents the receptivity, the fertility or femininity of soul we offer to our potential. See

Asking more about sexual desire, the reply was given that outer sexual expression must not be overly indulged in if we wish to explore the inner world. Nor must it be repressed. It must be expressed in a way that will not interfere.

Unharness: To remove the restrictions or moral restraints from energies and desires. See: Horse.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you felt the wonder of the released energy coursing up your spine?

Is the harness to control or to unite you with the power?

What was the harness used for or doing in your dream?

See Energy Sex and DreamsResistancesInner WorldLearning to Allow Yourself


Hashish

Either the release of intuitive information and experience of inner self, or it can represent artificial insight, or the fantasies we experience through personal delusion or hopes and fears. See: Addicted.

Hat

In many dreams a hat depicts ones present opinions, beliefs, or mental attitudes. For instance a Jewish skull cap would represent the religious beliefs of the wearer, a cap might suggest informal or relaxed attitudes, a hard hat used for building work suggests protectiveness, and hats are fundamentally protective in any case. A huge hat might suggest an irrational or impractical state of mind, or a mind that is expansive. See: Clothes.

The colour of the hat is of great importance too. Often a red hat suggests difficult feelings or danger is involved. See: colours

A hat can also point to a role or status, such as would be suggested by a soldier’s, chef or policeman’s hat.

In this way a hat in a dream can define what you are doing ‘in your head’ in the way you deal with your emotions, sexual desires and relationships because of your attitudes and opinions.

Some hats represent ideologies or various cultures, such as a Tibetan hat, or a Sikh head scarf. This may show how you are being influenced by or in conflict with different ideologies or ways of looking at people, life and the world.

Someone else’s hat: This often shows you what you feel or intuitively sense about the person it belongs to. In this way it might be showing you what is going on inside their head.

Someone’s hat seen without them around shows you sensing their presence in your life, their influence.

Taking off hat: In the past this was used as a sign of respect or humility. But it could also show you changing your attitude or state of mind – removing or shifting your values or thoughts.

Idioms: At the drop of a hat; brass hat; eat one’s hat; hang on to one’s hat; hang ones hat; hat in hand; hat trick; hats off; take my hat off to; tip of the hat; under one’s hat; old hat.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What type of hat is this, and does it suggest a role or status – if so how do I relate to that?

Is this hat linked with a social situation such as a party, theatre or work?

What attitude does this hat link with or illustrate, and am I expressing that attitude?

See Characters and People in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsBackground


Hatching

See Hatching under bird

Haunt Haunted

Memories, feelings, guilt, which haunt us, or parts of the wider awareness of the unconscious which attempt to communicate. What communicates can sometimes be the husks or influences from past traumas or events, which have been emptied of hurt and real influence, but still affect us as habit patterns. They can also be fantasies, hopes, longings we have given time to, and so filled with our life and sexual energy, and which now influence us. See ghoul; ghost

Also we are so programmed by what our parents fear or believe that we carry these into us and are haunted by them in our dreams. Our emotions can cause much suffering, and unless one can uncover the roots of such despair, it may feel as if one were bewitched, haunted or cursed by such feelings. Or it may be that rather than darkness, one is haunted by the dreams of ideal and wonderful love that only lead one on to misery – a sort of chimera or mirage that tempts but provides no reality. Unless we can come to terms with what is behind the haunting images of death we meet in waking and in our dreams, we fail to live fully and daringly. This is because we are too troubled by death lurking in the shadows of injury and the unknown.

Example: I dreamt I was aiming to get out of a house. I had a feeling it was deserted, and I was pulling my dad with me. My father looked tall and thin and rather worse for wear, so I had to support him – and at the same time I knew it was me I was pulling along. We had to pass through a room to get to the front door. As we entered the room I had a feeling it was haunted in some way – there was a sort of heavy threatening feeling about it. I got the door open to the front door but my father was gone – disappeared. In his place was a young woman about late twenties; so I caught her arm and pulled her out of the building.

When he explored his dream the result he got was – It was that the old deserted building was representation of an old way of life and attitudes I had lived in years passed – that was why it was deserted. The heavy atmosphere and haunting of the room was a hangover of depression and negative thinking I used to have that could still be felt at times. And my father/me was an attitude or view of myself I have at times, one of a worn out old man. I was in a hurry to get out of the building into the sunlit street. My father/me disappearing was that I had let go of that attitude, and the woman depicted opportunity to love.

Useful questions and hints:

Does this represent a particular old memory, fear, or piece of the past that ‘haunts’, or keeps coming back to me?

Does it indicate dread of the unknown? If so what is it you dread?

Do I have things from the past that I have tried to bury or forget about?

See: Spirits Hallucination Life’s Little SecretsDreaming of DeathTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Haversack

See: knapsack.

Hawk

Often a messenger or a far seeing creature. Because it flies high it has an overview of what it surveys. It can therefore signify the spirit or the flight of the soul.

But it is also a hunter and can attack, so can be seen as in opposition to the victim predator theme.

See: Eagle.

In some dreams it is shown as a eye that sees all, and also the trained intuition that sees more than the physical eyes.

I realised he was like a wild bird, a hawk flying high across Peaks. His mind soared across concepts in which many people remained their whole life. His vision encompassed a wideness I had never previously met. So, for me he was a teacher, a master revealing dimensions of life I had not guessed at.

Here is another man’s vision of what the hawk means.

In one moment it brought together all that I had experienced in the past and previous times of vision. It encompassed enormous amounts of information in simple words. The words now, without the vision seem empty. But as it was happening I could see the vast sweeps of time and how the individual human life is woven into the whole pattern of events, and how the present life is in every way an extension of that weaving. This opened a view that I had never seen before, as an expression, in ordinary or extraordinary human events, of these vast sweeps of history, of how huge dramas are involved in the most simple of human events. I saw that when our vision expands, when, like a great hawk our awareness soars above this moment, and takes in the huge horizons that stretch away from this time, this place, this period of our life, we gain a vision of tremendous context, tremendous background for all that surrounds us and we experience. In fact this ‘context’ was so enormous I could, even with this wide view, not grasp it all.

But a hawk is also a hunter and can attack, so can be seen as in opposition to the victim predator theme. So can be grasping and attacking. See: Eagle.


Useful questions and hints:

What was the hawk doing – attacker, seer, wise or hunter?

Did you feel anything in the dream?

Was the hawk a source of wonder or of fear?

See Martial Art of the MindSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working WithInner World


Head

You can lose your head, have a head for heights, figures, or use your head. Usually relates to your mental cleverness or intellect, your thoughts. But it is also often to do with attitudes and decision making. Apart from this it represents consciousness, awareness of self or controlling factor. In some dreams it might help to think of the idioms about the head in your particular language. For instance in English we say ‘get ahead’ meaning improve ones standing. Or head over heels, meaning crazy in love. See: Face.

The head usually links with your thoughts, opinions, your intellect, and especially your ability to make decisions. Therefore it is an indication of your intentions.

Because your eyes, ears and mouth are part of your head the turning of the head toward or away from someone or something links with this ability to make decisions, to avoid seeing or being involved in something.

The head, as with the face, can also depict your self image. This is fairly understandable from the huge number of idioms about head and face, such as ‘lose one’s head, lose face’, so one might literally dream of a headless figure. The position of the head also shows what is felt, as when we say ‘held held high’ or ‘hanging my head’. One can also be ‘in ones head’, meaning locked up in thinking and worries and so not seeing what is going on around you; or ‘out of ones head’ meaning crazy in some way.

Dreams may also use the head as an image to show how one is ‘in two minds’ about something, or is changing ones mind. This might be shown by having two heads, or changing ones head.

Dreams may also use the head as an image to show how one is ‘in two minds’ about something, or is changing ones mind. This might be shown by having two heads, or changing ones head.

Example: A big man, with several gunmen, came into the house at Woburn Walk, threatening to kill my father. I held them off by threatening the leader with the 410 shotgun held at his head. There was no definite conclusion one way or another at the end of the dream.

The dream is obviously using the idea of the head as being vital to life. It is just and idea as you cannot be killed in a dream. See What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Here is another dream showing how we do not need to be frightened of attackers.

Example: I was in bed. There was a knock at the front door. My wife answered it. I heard a scuffle and a man’s voice. He was assaulting her. My wife said in the struggle I would come, and the man laughed. I got out of bed and got my gun. I went into the room and rammed the rifle barrel in his face. My wife got clear. He said I wouldn’t have the nerve to fire the gun, still slightly mocking. I said, “Wouldn’t I!” And swung the gun like a club, smashing it on his head. He ran out into the street and I threw the broken gun after him.

Head without a body: This might mean you are not in touch with your physical and sexual needs, or it could mean you eel like a ‘nobody’.

Flames coming from the head: We all have areas of the brain that are seldom developed – you know the old story of only 10% of our brain is used. The flames show that in some way you are awakening those higher brain functions. You may at times while awake feel a tickling or tingling feeling on the top of your head, and that may be a sign of the awakening.

Idioms: above one’s head; a good head; a head start; banging ones head against brick wall; come to a head; egg head; enter one’s head; funny in the head; get it through your head; get something into one’s head; get your head together; give head; go off one’s head; head above water; head of steam; head in the clouds; head in the sand; head man/woman; head over heels; head up hold your head up high; heads will roll; lose your head; off the top of my head; over one’s head; out of my head; swollen or big head; square head; talk your head off; turn one’s head; two heads are better than one.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I doing with my head – turning to look at, turning away, held up, down?

Where am I ‘heading’ in my dream, and what does this indicate?

What is the drama of the dream suggesting about the head – losing it – hurt – changed – and how does that link with my waking activities or attitudes?

See Summing UpEasy Dream InterpretationBeing in ControlEdgar Cayce


 

 

Headache

Despite conventional thinking by many people, headaches are by no means “normal” but instead are your body’s way of saying something is wrong. For instance I have not suffered a headache for over twenty years. Consider what the dream says about the headache. Or even as suggested in Being the Person or thing try being the headache and explore what you receive.

It often points to diet, or tension, so ask yourself what you are doing, or what attitude are you working under to cause tension. Maybe try using Arm Circling Meditation or Life’s Little Secrets

It might also be worth reading Martial Art of the Mind

Headmaster Headmistress

A headmaster/Mistress in your dream is an authority figure and can be a source of great wisdom or of great misery. The wisdom can be seen from the examples, the misery often through criticism which can leave a lifetime effect.

Example: A headmaster called me into his study. He showed me a top to something like a small Buddha figure. I realised that it was mine from the long past, and I had lost it without even realising it. I tried to remember the details of having owned it, but could not. The headmaster did not give it to me. He then took me to a room with a bed in it. On the ceiling were marks from ejaculations. I then recreated the scene, and saw Les/me on the bed in sexual abandon.

This is a fairly straightforward comment from the master of consciousness, the headmaster, on the errors the dreamer had committed. Here is the tremendous difference between a simple memory dream and a dream of instruction occurring due to efforts to discover who we are, and align our identity with our source. The Buddha head is the consciousness of the Overself, and the wrong expression of sexuality why it was lost. The bedroom scene is an amplification of just how it was lost, by what aspect of ones nature, and when, i.e. in the past. Although up to this time the dreamer still had tremendous urges to arrange liaisons with other women, the dream helped him find strength to hold his sexuality within his marriage, and to seek to express it with love.

Example: I had been standing outside something like a school. In it were children from all over the world. The headmaster came out and dragged me into the building backwards by my coat. He didn’t force me, just encouraged me. The children, aged from about nine to eighteen. I think the headmaster was singing or calling out the names of all the different countries in the world. It went on and on because there were so many different countries the children came from. I was led to work there like a teacher. I felt teaching the children I would never develop real status in society. There would never be rich financial rewards like many other tasks give.

Another example of how the inner self, in the image of the headmaster, gives a guide to the work the person should do – one of service.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the headmaster or headmistress the source of wisdom or of misery?

What was my experiences of headmasters or headmistresses while at school?

What have I carried with me from those days or from the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power Dreaming Summing Up


Heal Healer Healing

Parts of oneself that can channel healing influences to bear on your present needs.

Through the use of dreams one can use these visions of the night to discover and heal the deepest issues in oneself, and to touch the high ground of their spiritual awareness. They can present in symbols past traumatic experience. If met this can lead to deep psychological healing. Such dreams are therefore an attempt on the part of our spontaneous inner processes to bring about healing change.

A healer in a dream is a wonderful sign that you are accessing the healing forces in yourself. Use the image to help your own and others healing process. See Secrets of Power DreamingIt is important the 2 wills

Example: I know my body has the ability to heal itself, but I didn’t know how. As I was working to renovate our house, and it was difficult, and the pain had continued for six months without any change, so in LifeStream I asked what I could do. The answer was quite detailed. Holding in mind the pain in the arm I waited for the responses to arise from within. Soon, spontaneous fantasies and ideas bubbled into awareness, almost as if someone were explaining the situation to me. I was led to understand that during the past year I had not only been working hard physically to renovate the building, but because of divorce, family conflict within my new relationship, plus the change of home, I had experienced much stress and anger. During my sawing, plastering and hammering, I had discharged much of this anger and stress. As with any hard work, the cells in my right arm had broken down, but the anger and tension had prevented the cells from regenerating adequately.

As this insight emerged I could see what a shrewd summary of my recent unconscious attitudes it was. The emerging explanation went on to say that each cell is a tiny individual life, and in the body, they each take on a particular task. Some live as workers in the muscles; some are thinking beings in the brain, and some act as transformers, as in the liver. Each cell depends upon the others to co-operatively share food, oxygen and pleasure. The cells in my arm didn’t mind the hard work, but they also needed to share the pleasures of eating, music and love making. I had been unconsciously deluging them with anger and tension, and denying them laughter and relaxation.

So when I ate I would consciously allow the pleasure I felt in my mouth to be felt by the rest of my body, particularly the right arm. When I made love, I attempted to relax and let my whole body feel the pleasure, not keep it in the genitals. I frequently concentrated on my right arm, relaxing it and allowing pleasure felt elsewhere to flow to it. Within a week it was completely free of the pain, and the problem has never returned.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel needs healing in me?

Does the dream says anything about how to be healed?

Can you explore the maning of the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsAvoid Being VictimsLife’s Little Secrets

Hear Hearing

Hearse

Feelings about death or reminder of time left to live. It can be a warning of someone’s death if there is a person connected with it. Or a project or issue that is now dead and needs to be buried.

A white hearse is still a reminder of death, but with a positive ‘things will be okay’ message. See: Funeral.

Example: When I finally rush upstairs to get myself ready I see the hearse and coffin have already arrived and my husband and two children are – in the clothes I got ready – going down the path weeping. I think “Cheek! They’re going without me.” Then I realise the funeral is mine.

Example: I was present at a funeral, and moved about in the house among the mourners without being in the least degree able to realise the death of my friend as a case for mourning. I saw the coffin placed in the hearse, and in due course I was marshalled to a place in the funeral procession, which proved to be not in the mourning-coach, but in my own carriage. By my side, in the shadow, sat a gentleman, who, after being silent for a short time, said to me in a well-known voice, “I agree with you that death ought not to be regarded as a subject for mourning, and that the trappings of woe are out of place on an occasion like this.” I looked up to see who it was who had thus divined my own thoughts, and saw, without the least feeling of surprise or fear, that the speaker was no other than the friend whose body was then in the hearse on the way to the grave. It seemed to me to be quite natural that he should thus divine my thought, and that we should be together, he talking and I listening, as if death had not parted us. It also seemed quite natural that a moment or two later he should vanish away as he did, and I be left alone as I was, with a strong conviction that I ought to be able to come and go, divine and speak as he had done.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What else was mentioned apart from the hearse?

Were you just a watcher or were you involved?

What feelings did you have – and where they ones you had had at some time?

See Plot of the DreamCharacters and People in DreamsTalking AsDreaming of Death


Heart

Emotions, sympathy, tenderness, love, affection. Also inner feelings, desires, secret thoughts, conscience. You can take heart, and thus carry on through difficulties, or lose heart and give up. In some dreams the heart stands for worries you may have about your health. It might not be that you have heart problems, but simply that because of down feelings, your ‘heart’ is not in what you are doing, so there is no zest for life.

Your dream heart indicates your emotions, and through them your pity, sympathy, your likes and dislikes. Of course it also might point to your actual physical heart. This obviously links with relationships and their challenges. If you think it refers to your physical heart get it checked out.

Example: I experienced a degree of fear that the problem with the motor referred to my heart. I let myself slip into the fear and it dissolved and I saw that it referred not to my physical heart, but to my heart as my feelings. I could see that the problem is to do with no feeling connected with people. There’s nothing that makes me feel connected with people. I don’t feel excited about anything.

Being stabbed, shot or in any way injured in the heart may depict deep emotional hurts, but also may be a warning of physical heart problems.

Many dream about the heart are in connection with pounding or racing heart, and these are indications of anxieties or fears, sometimes of illness or death, that are pushed into the unconscious where they rattle about scaring you. Most of these are simply what they show themselves to be in the dreams – fears. Fear that is repressed can cause great tension and illness. Most of such fears are groundless and best brought out into daylight where you can see them for the lifeless, bloodless creatures they are. See: fear – dealing with.

But if your heart is often beating irregularly, or beating fast it is worth having it checked.

The dream heart also depicts your connections with other people as the following example shows.

Example: I was in what looked like huge white ribs. In the ribs was a big heart beating. Beyond that was my homeopath. I could hardly breath, struggling to live. I could hear the heart beating, but as I listened I could also hear another heart beating. It seemed to me it was my sister’s heart connected to my own invisibly. The homeopath came forward and stretching open the ribs, reached into them, took hold of the invisible heart – it was like a shadow behind the other heart – and pulled it out. Immediately I could breath again and felt I was whole. In everyday life I and my sister have been incredibly linked, even to the point of having cramps at night on the same nights, though living in different parts of the world. I had become ill recently out of this connection, but as soon as I had this dream I was well again, but my sister became ill. She has just been diagnosed as HIV positive and is dying.

In the Bible there are nearly a thousand mentions of the word heart. In modern language we might describe this as referring to unconscious intentions or feelings. This might still be the case with heart appearing in dreams. So it could relate to what you are feeling, desiring and intending unconsciously, as with the example above.

Idioms: after your heart; break your heart; change one’s heart; cry your heart out; done one’s heart good; don’t let your heart run away with your head; eat your heart out; faint of heart; from bottom of heart; have a heart; have no heart; have a heart; heart like stone; heavy heart; lost your heart; my heart’s in my mouth; open-hearted; pluck at the heart strings; sick at heart; steal your heart; take it to heart; the heart of the matter; wearing your heart on your sleeve; young at heart.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feeling or attitude is involved in this dream and where do I meet that in my waking life?

What is happening to my dream heart, and how does that relate to my life?

Is there fear or some threat of death here, and what anxiety am I feeling while awake?

What am I pushing into my unconscious that my heart dream is showing me?

See Dreaming about an Ex Beware of LoveSecrets of Power Dreaming


Heat Hot

Strong feelings, release of feelings or exuberance. Sexual passion or excitement as being on heat. Uncontrolled desires. Power or great energy. Heat in dream or in your body often accompanies great change or a healing or transformative process.

Heat can bed to cause incredible pain as the example shows.

Example: Then they brought in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons. And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents. And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of tears. Anna Kingsford

Heat is a sign of life in our body. It is sometimes called the ‘fire of life’. If the fire becomes a raging inferno in our dream it probably shows signs of illness. Also heat can indicate trauma.

Example: In a repressed home where the spontaneous expression of feelings was not allowed and had to be covered up with white paint. If strong emotions began to bubble up through heat, the thin veneer of social politeness might blister and possibly peel away. The family image would be tarnished if feelings trapped beneath the surface heated up and became visible. Mary was stunned by these comments but recognised their validity. Suddenly she found herself flooded with previously repressed memories about specific incidents of physical abuse and emotional trauma from her childhood. These were memories that had been totally blocked from awareness during the intervening years. She realised that she had internalised the adult fears that her family’s social position would be destroyed if someone were to find out the family’s guilty “secrets” about her abuse. Mary was therefore expected to “whitewash” them.

Idioms: a dead heat; heat is on; if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen; put the heat on; take the heat; the heat is on


Useful Questions and Hints:

What way am I experiencing the heat?

Is the heat being used for some purpose?

Do I have difficult feelings about the heat?

See Energy Sex and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsLife’s Little SecretsSettings in Dreams

Heather

The word heather comes from the word ‘heath’ which is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils, and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation.

It is often high ground where little else will grow, and heather is therefore a hardy survivor with a beautiful perfume and wonderful nectar which bees collect. Gypsies collect heather because it symbolises good luck. So basically I feel it represents in dreams surviving difficult circumstances and yet thriving and producing beauty.

The Heather plant, this ground-covering plant grows on top of peat in the moors of the Celtic lands. The blossoms are full of rich nectar and are very attractive to bees, which are seen in some traditions as messengers to and from the spirit world. It is associated with generosity and healing, as well as contact with the Otherworld.

 

Heaven

This might suggest you find life difficult, and this is a compensatory dream. It might also be an intuition about life after death or a retreat from life, even a meeting with your religious concepts. A sense of heaven in a dream can be touching your own sense of harmony or integration. Being away from the pain or unhappiness of a terrible relationship or place or being in love or deeply happy and be shown as heaven. See: Mention of heaven and hell in spiritual life in dreams.

“The ancient mystery religions viewed the planets as a ladder or stairway to heaven that was travelled by the soul after death. The ruling god, or later the archangel or archon, of each planet corresponded to an aspect of the personality: love, power, anger (this is the origin of the ‘“Seven Deadly Sins” and the “Seven Virtues”)

That is an old pictorial way of explaining heaven. It does say that we each may go through a process of going through different levels of experience in ‘heaven’. But today’s view of heaven and hell are that they are self created by the way we live and what we do with the energy of life we all have. We can make of it a hell of remorse, bitterness, sacrificing others for our own good, living only a life based on greed or a life based on the fact that we are all part of the web of life and in doing so find lasting satisfaction. See Summing Up


We can go through the levels while still living in the body by a process of maturing by learning from what our life presents us with – the good and the bad are all learning experiences. See Life’s Little Secrets

Hedge

See: Fence.

Hedgehog

This probably refers to the sort of response we sometimes have of being easily hurt by situations or peoples remarks or actions. It could also mean we feel someone we know is very prickly or easily offended or irritated. or memories which create pain or irritation. Sometimes it illustates a vulnerable part of oneself which easily withdraws, but can react by hurting others.

But in fiction hedgehogs are often depicted as rather forgetful and rural characters who are slightly short-sighted and having a very personal view of the world.

Example: I stood on a mini hedgehog and got spikes stuck in the bottom of my foot. I pulled them out and put the hedgehog on the sofa. Then I sat on the sofa to recover from the spikes in my foot, and got spikes in my buttock. There was no real pain. I just wanted the spikes not to be a part of me. Can you interpret this?

There is a real clue in your phrase – I want the spikes not to be a part of me. Something is irritating you. It causes you  not to be as active or mobile in exterior activities, maybe even relationships. It also has the effect of you not being able to relax as much as you need – thus the spines in the bottom. I don’t know where these old memories or irritations arose from. But as you call this a mini hedgehog, it may have originated from when you were yourself a mini human being. To get a hold on those spines, ask yourself what minor irritations are causing you not to relax or get about, and pluck them out of your life.

Example: As Joe and I turned a corner I saw something on the path. At first I didn’t recognise it. Then I realised it was a hedgehog giving birth. Perhaps at first I thought the hedgehog was dead. I pointed it out to Joe and we stood watching it. I warned him not to get to close because he took a step toward the hedgehog and I could see it trying to move away in apprehension. I wondered what Joe made of this sight of something so fundamental. I felt it was something important for him to see. An important experience.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling a need to withdraw from being in contact with others?

Is someone, or am I, being ‘prickly’ or easily irritated?

What defences do I use to protect myself?

See AnimalMammal BrainTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Heirloom

Good or bad tendencies that have been passed on from family, or acquired from society, powerful links with the past, possibly to do with talents or tendencies.

Helicopter

Like any aircraft it is about the adventure and uncertainty of flight. See airplane.

But a helicopter is a particular type of experience, and can represent many things depending on the rest of the dream. It can be a way of escaping from difficult feelings, or saving people, or an attack vehicle, or, most important, a way of having a much wider awareness of your life and situation. It can be an eye in the sky and hover and land where no airplane could, so it is about manoeuvrability. The following example show some of these different meanings.

I would stand at the top of the stairs and instead of walking down the stairs I used to fly. This dream lasted for a numbe

r of years and as I got older I sometimes dreamed that boys or men were chasing me. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.

Example: ‘ I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.’ M.C

Example: I’m watching a film or tape taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – it’s night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta

Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life.

I am walking out of a house which sits embedded in a huge mountain. I see a helicopter coming and know that it is going to pick me up and swoop me away into the air. I hurriedly place some old lawn chairs and some fake trees on the lawn to prevent it from landing. I know that my preparations are fruitless and that it will land one way or another. It will fly me through the air and dump me in a Girl Scout camp away over the water. I despair as fighting it is totally useless.

In exploring her dream she said: I am a helicopter owned by the armed forces, and I am large, strong and powerful, totally made of steel. Nothing can shoot me down as I manipulate quickly in the air. I never break down. There is no way to stop me once I am on purpose and have the mission computed into my mechanical system. Enjoy the ride, lady! I will dump you in a Girl Scout camp, and you will get to play with the little girls.

Dream Ego: But I am a grown woman, and I don’t want to go to a little girls’ camp. I am not a little girl.

Masculine in this dream is represented by the helicopter, a powerful war machine owned by the armed forces, and it seems inexorable in its purposes. The abduction, it seems, cannot be avoided, although the result is to isolate the dream ego in a camp for little girls. Abduction by the Ghostly Lover does in fact keep women young, girlish, and unknowing in the ways of existing in a realistic adult relationship. Although dream ego despairs of her fate, she feels totally helpless to escape the abduction. Women often feel they must fight the combined armed forces of the patriarchy in defining their womanhood in other than child-like ways, and often it does seem hopeless. Women are relegated to Girl Scout camps, earning merit badges, and being schooled in the ways of traditional womanhood. And, although the terrain may be lovely and close to nature, we essentially get closed out of the training culturally agreed upon as forms of power deemed important by the society. Quoted from The Sundance  Magazine.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I in a helicopter or watching  it?

What do I feel about what I see?

Am I trying to escape from something or saving something?

See Active PassiveBeing in ControlTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Hell

Hell in dreams usually refers to your self created misery, perhaps arising out of such things as anger or resentment you cling to, or a sense of being different or unwanted. It may be due to feelings that burn in you, pain from past trauma, or memories of, or feelings connected with, a place or relationship you were deeply unhappy in.

 

 

Helm

As on ship. Will power, the efforts made to direct your life. Whoever is at the helm would symbolise the directing influence of your life. Business man would represent ambition or money, a priest would denote religion; an artist stands for creativeness and beauty.

Helper Assistant

This relates to your own problem solving abilities or your strength and skill to deal with or heal what confronts you. Sometimes this embodies feelings such as security or love that have, in the past, enabled you to meet difficulties or situations.

Helpless

The feeling of helplessness is like a catch 22 problem – there seems no way out of it. But dreams are not examples of the external world in which sometimes one really is helpless. Dreams operate from very different principles; in this inner world of dream a slight shift of viewpoint or attitude can shift everything.

Although, as an adult, you might now be capable of gaining your needs, such powerful feelings of helplessness, anxiety or sense of abandonment, can be stimulated by any situation reminiscent of the childhood situation that first called them into play – i.e. being a helpless baby. Such feelings are often caused by a blockage, rather like a blockage in a river or a drain, a huge backup of water/feelings is the result. You may not think of yourself as having a flow but it is easy to recognise. For instance many people can see that blocking their sexul drive can cause irritability, anger or even neurosis. The sexual area is simply one channel our energy flows through – there are also hunger for food, blocked emotions, inability to say what is burning inside you – so you can be blocked in many ways bringing about difficult feelings. See Inner World; Life’s Little Secrets

Example: From that place we look at ourselves and see what a fantastic piece of equipment our body and mind is. As a conscious person we are right in the middle of everything. To say, “Oh God, we are nothing but a piece of slime, a helpless pawn in the hands of destiny,” is ridiculous. We are the culmination of everything that has existed before. We are that growing tip, that exploring awareness, in touch with unimaginable potential. We are everything that can be. What do we want to be?

Example: I am on my back, feeling completely paralyzed. Stunned and as helpless as a fly on its back with its feet in the air.

Example: I am very afraid someone is going to come in through that door – someone having to do with my bookstore dreams. But instead of shutting the door and locking it, I am kneeling down and cowering under a blanket below a window. I feel helpless to keep him from coming in. I am also afraid that the servant who is working outside in the dark will look in and see me.

Example: I felt helpless and wanted to murder you guys who did it to me; then I realized it was my own mind doing it; it’s always been my own mind imagining trouble and enemies


Useful Questions and Hints:

Has something caused or led to the feeling of helplessness?

What prevents me from moving from the feeling considering I can be or do anthing in the inner world of dreams?

Do I have unconscious fears or dreads of some sort?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Hen

Motherly feelings; something to do with being female or caring for young. See: Chicken.

If being eaten suggests nourishment. Otherwise a female, or the female in a male; being ‘chicken’ or scared.

If you know chickens and have watched and reared them you will have other associations, such as motherhood, the wonderful fatherhood of the cockerel. Also the stillness and concentration of the broody hen. See Associations Working With

Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that’s a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.

When I explored the dream I realised that of course. I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I have been the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female.

This dream can lead to the thought that a cockerel with chickens can mean the eggs are fertile, which might mean for a woman that she is ready to have a baby.

Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.

Here the chicken obviously represents the dreamers own childhood feelings of desertion. The old lady is the mother.

Sometimes there may be associations with ‘chicken feed’ and so the question is, are you working for nothing?  Also is there any sign of this being a ‘hen party’? If so ask ourself if you are guilty of it.

The cock: a male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence.

The hen: Mother; motherhood; being immersed in motherhood concerns and perhaps not having a life beyond that.

Chicks: This is a reference either to your own babyhood and feelings or events associated with it, or to external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.


Idioms: chicken feed; chickens come home to roost; chicken hearted; she’s no chicken; cock of the walk; don’t count your chicks/chickens before they are hatched.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the bird in my dream expressing any of the important stages of growth such as babyhood, leaving the nest, or making a nest?

What quality or attitude is the bird expressing and how does that relate to me?

What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?

See Being the Person or ThingEmotions and Mood in DreamsInner World


Heraldic Crest

This usually holds in it massive information about what you have inherited from your forebears. To access this information you need to carefully explore what you feel and associate with the crest and its details.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you experience any feelings or thoughts about the significance of the dream?

What associations do you have with the shield?

Does it in any way suggest your family history?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Herb

Healing, or some particular influence such as drowsiness, stimulation, cleansing.

Herbs were often dreamt about by primitive tribes who sought healing information from their dreams. And many of the great herbal cures were found in that way. This can still be found in some peoples dreams – they dream about a food or herb that will be helpful to them. So a gift of herbs may represent the gift of healing.

Dream were often said to be proked by having herbs near one while going to sleep. Mugwort was one such. They were used as a form of evoking helpful dreams or anwers to questions. See Incubating Dreams


Useful Questions and Hints:

Did the dream suggest any herbs to use or avoid?

Was there a person teaching me what the herbs were useful for?

Do I work as a healer?

See Summing UpLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Hermaphrodite

A hermaphrodite may indicate the union of your conscious and unconscious. The ‘marriage’ may be total or partial, depending on how much of your unconscious you have integrated into your conscious attitudes and actions, also how you have integrated the other polarity of your psyche – the male into the female and the female into the male. Every man has feminine components in his psyche, every woman has masculine components in hers.

A whole and balanced personality occurs when we have both genders in balance, not when one is promoted over another. It can lead to dogmatism in a woman who has not integrated her male, a moody and emotionally fickle and open to swings of feeling in a man who has not integrated his female.

The balance is seen in the figure of Shiva who is shown as part woman and part man. Also Christ shows great intuition and feeling, signs of a blanced person.

Being both sexes: Might suggest feeling uncertain about our own gender, or having problems in the role of our own sex. Or finding a balance and wholeness in oneself.

Example: ‘I was outdoors in my underpants teaching a group of people. Looking down I saw my genitals were exposed and I had female organs. I felt okay.’ Bill S.

Although Bill works in the building trade, he finds it easy to cook, look after his children, cry, and accept his ‘female’ characteristics.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I try to change my gender instead of integrating it?

What message has my dream for me?

What feelings or longings were felt in the dream?

Am I still at odds with my internal male/female – if so what still stands in the way of unity?

If I have found unity with my inner male or female what has this brought into my life?

See Integrating the female in the male Integrating the male in the femaleTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Hermit

Sometimes symbolises a desire to escape the demands of the world. Or a hermit is the representative of your inner feelings. This means the part of or inner strata of your mind that is not involved in external life. See: archetypeof the hermit.

Hero Heroine

If you are not the hero/ine of your own dream, you are probably still not accepting responsibility for all your own drives, potentials and weaknesses.

Professional players are also heroes for some people or a role model.

The hero/ine frequently depicts your initiative and unexpressed potential. We might see your highest ideals as coming from an exterior figure such as Christ, and so miss touching the depths of your own being, and avoid responsibility for your urges or actions.

What happens to the hero/ine shows how your creativity and expressed love fare. See: archetype of the ideal Christ; archetype of the hero/ine and archetype of the self; compensation theory; religion and dreams.

The story of the birth of Christ, of Buddha or of any holy person, is actually the story of your own birth. We are all the children of that great creative act – the Big Bang. I know science talks about it in a materialistic way, but dreams see it as the creation of all that exists, and it is holy and full of wonder. See Summing Up

This suggests that we are all the heroine or hero of our own life. We all are the source of all the great myths, we are all undertaking the great Odyssey – for were we not the one who faced the enormous and threatening journey of conception and birth, often lost in the mists of time? Do we not face life and death daily? Do we run and hide from the threats and fears or do we realise who we are and meet life and death until we rise triumphant?

RaceYoullNeverWin

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I face responsibility for my own actions or do I choose to blame others?

Do I have a sense that I am special or have something special to do in life?

Can I as a person live some heroism in my daily life and relationships?

What are the life challenges, inwardly and outwardly, that I face?

Can I define them and look at my strategy to deal with them?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsJesse Watkins EnlightenmentTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Heron

See heron under birds

Hexagrams

See Introduction to the I Ching

Hide Hidden Hiding

You may be hiding from feeling, or avoiding awareness of something you don’t want to see. Are you being protective – hiding how you really feel about someone, or about your sexual feelings concerning someone.

Hiding a body or object: Not facing difficult feelings connected with the body or thing.

Hiding from something dangerous, or dangerous thing hidden: Feeling threatened either by unconscious contents or an exterior situation.

Hiding Place

Hiding from feeling; avoiding awareness of something we don’t want to see; being protective – hiding how we really feel about someone, or our sexual feelings about someone; not knowing.

Hiding a body or object: Not facing difficult feelings connected with the body or thing. See: dead people dreams.

Hiding from something dangerous, or dangerous thing hidden: Feeling threatened either by unconscious contents or exterior situation.

The example below illustrates how we may use one emotion or situation to hide what is really important.

Hiding place: Usually it represent a feeling that you can hide from or not be noticed by people or things you wish to avoid. It can also suggest that you are hiding from knowing who you are. See Resistances

Example: I felt low and mean. I am a parasite. How, in what way? The view of mankind came back. Men and women hiding from their own pointlessness, their own featureless existences, their life without any real meaning. They lived and ate, fucked, slept, died. They laughed wept, but all without any overall direction or point to life. It was like my wife and I talking about working towards something. If one is not working together for something, even if it is to school the children, or go on a cruise, life can feel like an empty drudge.

Hiding in attic: Escape from other people; retreat from everyday life. See example below.

Example: I was sleeping in an attic. A large dog was with me – a wolfhound like I used to exercise a few years ago. I and the dog would go out together. The dog was wild and free. I enjoyed being with it. Together we did things like hunting which felt very real in the sense of not being artificial behaviour. Although I never washed I felt clean and healthy. Leon.

When Leon explored his dream he felt the attic was a place where he could exist but not be involved with people. The attic reminded him of the attic in a childhood house in which he slept, where his mother never went because of the steep ladder. So he could go there and be alone, free of other people’s presence and influence. It can also be a place you can or hope to keep objects hidden.

Example: ‘I was in my bedroom, I looked up and saw the top of some long curtains were on fire. I thought ‘My God, now my sister is setting fire to the house to hide the evidence’.’ Ms A. T.

Example: About fifteen minutes after having taken the drug, this dream which had been incomprehensible, spontaneously revealed its meaning – The underground shelter was obviously meant to be a symbol for my unconscious mind which existed below the surface and had been so well camouflaged that it could survive indefinitely without being discovered. My friends and relatives in the shelter were symbols too – of my symptoms and neuroses which could have survived the duration comfortably had not those barbarian shock troops discovered the underground hiding place. Those barbarian shock troops, I quickly realized, were symbols again – and very apt symbols – for Doctors E and M who were using the barbarian (experimental) shock therapy of LSD. They had already forced my unconscious above ground, and were now asking me to round up those friends and relatives (symptoms and neuroses) that had escaped. As soon as I did round them up, we were to be destroyed. As this interpretation unfolded, the nightmare lost its terror and became instead an encouragement: unconsciously I might be frightened at losing my neuroses but consciously I was delighted. This was quoted from Myself and I by Constance Newland.

Example: I dreamed I dared not move from home as I had murdered my father and hid the body in the rubbish tip at the end of the garden.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I hiding or hiding from?

What was being hidden in the dream?

What do I hide from myself?

See QuestionsInner WorldActive PassiveSumming Up


High

See: Height.

Highway

See: Road.

Hill

Difficulty, obstacle, something needing energy with which to deal with it. A hill also symbolises the climb to higher attainment, wider view of life or opportunities. A hill or mountain often represent the influence of your potential, and the energy of growth or change latent in that potential. Therefore being on a hill can show you in a state of mind, or an attitude, perhaps even a form of meditation, that is opening you to the action of the growth energy within  you.

You climb to success, or go down hill to failure, illness, death. You can see further from above, or be overshadowed at the foot of a hill.

The symbolism in the New Testament shows the crucifixion taking place on a hill, and this represents the top of the head and the sexual, emotional, mental nature being opened to a wider and less objective and self centred life. See mountain

A hole at the bottom of a hill: Especially if surrounded by shrubs, depicts the vagina. Or if like a cave it suggests you are entering more deeply into the levels of your mind. See Levels of Awareness

Going downhill: Feeling as if circumstances are pushing you; feeling you might, or have, lost control; the second half of your life, or old age. It also suggests that you are going backwards into past memories. See bridge

But sometimes going down hill leads to the beauty of everyday life, of coming down from heights and reconnecting with basics with a new view of it.

Going up hill: Difficulties; hard work or effort; the first half of our life; or life itself if it feels like an uphill struggle. Climbing a hill can link with the rising feelings of passion or sexual pleasure, or the transition from expressing energy genitally to expressing it in less physical ways. Such a shift from a lower mood or sensation to one felt as exhilarating or lighter is often shown as ascending.

Example: I was walking up a hill pushing a bicycle. Several other people went by riding theirs but that didn’t worry me. I went on up the hill and could only gasp in wonderment when I got to the top – I could see for miles and everything was in the most wonderful colours you could ever imagine. My first thought was ‘How wonderful God is to create such a beautiful world for us.’ I thanked him then and there. I thought ‘I wonder if it is like this behind me?’ as I looked around, right up close to me was what seemed like a huge black wall. As I looked along the wall, right at the end the marvellous view started, this continued round to the side of me and in the huge expanse in front. I can’t remember any road or pathway going down the hill, onwards. Muriel M.

Green sunny hillside: Feeling whole; a sense of heaven.

On a hill: A clear view of our situation; achievement; something we have made an effort to attain; expanded awareness.

Example: I was down in a low bit of a village, trying to get to a road high up on a hill where the sun was shining and was walking through dark, empty houses. Heather.

This shows the different feelings we sometimes associate with high in a hill and down in the valley.

Also: Hill or hills sometimes represent breasts or the belly.

Top of a hill: Apart from what has been said above, the top of a hill is often used in sacred symbolism to represent the crown of the head, which in turn relates to the potential we have as human animals to expand our awareness beyond what is available through our physical senses. This expanded awareness takes us beyond time and separation into a more unified life.

The term High Way is itself a wonderful symbols as the next dream shows.

Example: ‘I am riding through thick fog. I feel I should turn back. But then I see a pale golden white glow and know that if I continue to the top of the hill I will emerge from the fog into a most beautiful place.’ C. B.

C. B’s dream illustrates the emergence of the expanded awareness mentioned above in connection with the top of a hill. See: levels of awareness.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What hill am I at the starting point of, or am I going down to earth?

Do I sense a change in my feelings in connection with the hill?

What do I realise about the hill?

See: Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; altered states of consciousness; high; descending; last example in flying.

Hinge

Backward and forward movement, so could indicate arguments. It can also suggest a relationship or idea that hinged on something like an idea, a meeting, willingness, money, etc

Hinges can also suggest support for what is hinged.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in my life is capable of opening or closing easily?

Is there something that hinges on a decision I make?

What supports my action of opening or closing to other people?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMartial Art of the MindEdgar Cayce



Hip

The hips, like the knees, are the main load bearing joints and often wear out. In dreams that can indicate your ability, or lack of it, to deal with stress.

Stress can be PHYSICAL – Exposure to extremes of heat or cold. Eating, breathing, exposure to, toxic substances, poor quality food, air pollution. Too much physical activity, tight clothes restricting circulation, exposure to infection, viruses, etc.

Stress can be Psychological – Feeling unwanted, seeing oneself as a failure, being without friends or caring relatives, feeling guilt or shame about past actions, having no satisfying social role or rewards. The list here can be enormous and include many types of trauma such as childhood desertion.

Stress can be SPIRITUAL – This includes having no sense of connection with the process of life in and around you; finding no meaning in life or death; seeing life and the cosmos as wholly hostile or impersonal.

All can be felt as heavy burdens to deal with. See Managing Stress

Hippo Hippopotamus

Weight, power through physical weight and size. Or it could be a way of saying that we feel uncomfortable with being ungainly or overweight.

It can also represent emotional clearing, or emotional turmoil. Of course if it comes into your life, it could suggest a ‘big event’ or thing in your life. If it is a baby hippo and you are looking after it there may be a suggestion that a big event is occurring in your life, one that will grow and claim much of your time. Being a creature that lives underwaqter a great deal, it can represent what is unconscious in your life.

The hippopotamus, sacred in Egyptian and African traditions, is the second largest mammal on earth. Its name means “Water Horse,” and it spends most of its day in water. This animal, very substantial in physical terms, can guide us in grounding ourselves so we can face and dissolve emotional issues (the power of water).

In ancient Egypt the goddess Taueret was in the form of a pregnant hippopotamus with large sagging breasts. She represented motherhood and the care of children.

Example: Today I dreamt of a slightly smaller than life sized hippo – probably about a metre tall. The hippo seemed to be alive and yet like bronze model. It was sitting on its behind with its mouth wide open.

The message or understanding I received was that it was a doorway to the collective unconscious.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I know and feel about the hippopotamus?

Is this about weight or physical size (do I feel huge)?

Is this about a hippo in the water and if so, does it indicate ‘knowing what lies beneath the surface’?

Is the dream hippo indicating anything about weight issues?

If so what?

Am I living a secret life – underwater?

Are they indications of pregnancy or birth in the dream?

See AnimalsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsJesse Watkins Enlightenment


History

In some dreams we find ourselves in the past, with the feeling of those times, or involving clothes of past times. This nearly always depicts, not a past life, but your own feelings about those times and what they were like. So a cowboy scene might depict your pioneering spirit or sense of adventure. We need to define what feelings we derive from reading about or seeing films about such periods of history.

Our past; the person we were at some period in our life. But foremost among the additions to the jewels of understanding garnered in the past, is that of insight into ones personal psychological history and personal traumas. Dreams are very frequently dealing with our history of fears, traumas and programming. These are not easily identified as our history or traumas, but are given in dreams such a nighmares or fears we run away from and need to be explored in order to uncovere their full import.

We also have an enormous history of our own life. For any real exploration of self which goes beyond the limits of the physical senses and cultural norms, these internal contents – our own history and its results – must be met and integrated. It is this meeting that gives the fuel or material for the emergence of a wider awareness growing out of the limitations of everyday experience.

Within language can be found as much history as can ever be found by archaeological digs. From it we gain personal self awareness and interpersonal communication. If we could become conscious of an entire language, we would see how we and the language we use has emerged out of an immense history, an amalgamation of all human experience, constantly shifting. We would have a vision of the extraordinary mind, love, pain, and multifaceted nature of human life. This would be a god-like experience.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your dream saying about you or your history?

Can I connect it with any feelings I gained from books or films?

What associations do I have with what the dream portrayed?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsDreams see into our Far PastKarma


Hit Hitting

Apart from aggressiveness, you may hit on an idea, hit on the answer.

An expression of energy or aggression, often fear. If you are hitting a child, it suggests you are still trying to destroy or repress the development of your own child self. In other words, as a child events that happened to you, parental or social punishment or restrictions, may have held back your emerging curiosity, enthusiasm, sexuality, or love. Maybe these things were crushed. But they are still within you to resurrect, and will call out to be healed. So the hitting in your dream would be a continuation of the repression that you received in your early years.

Because of problems we never resolved with our parents, while we are together with a partner we tend to hit them with everything we needed to have worked out with our parents. This is because any emotions or love that was hurt with parents now gets projected onto the present love.

Example: I hit the ground and I could feel intense pain everywhere. I thought ” I love you Thomas ” (my boyfriend). Then I died and everything went black. I then remember standing over my friend who jumped off same building but wasn’t fully dead yet. I felt bad that he was in pain and was looking in his eyes. I then smushed him like a bug with my foot so he would be out of his misery.

As can be seen in this dream you cannot die in your dreams,although you can imagine and feel what you think it is like to die like that. Then as with a computer game, there you are again to play once more – the game being played is The Game if Life.

In one woman’s dream she wrote to me that she could see a massive wave building up and coming towards her. It was so huge that the water was retreating as the wave was building. She said she couldn’t move because there was nowhere she could run from it, and so she stood in fear of it. Then as it hit her she woke in fear.

Now I want to say to somebody like that, “Why are you frightened of life?” I say this because it is so obvious in the dream that what is coming to her is something so huge and wonderful, and yet she is the terrified of it. That wave was a massive force of positive change that if she had met it would have transformed her life. Unfortunately many people are frightened of Life. See Life’s Little Secrets

Being hit in the guts in a dream is usually about hurts in a relationship or something to do with sex, feeling a target of someone’s verbal or emotional attack.

Example: I was attending an adult class with about 20 or 30 people, mostly men. The teacher came in. He said something and a man asked a question or spoke back. The teacher got really angry and hit him with a walking stick. Someone else in the class remarked on the beating and was attacked also. A man sitting next to me on my left said that if the teacher hit him he wouldn’t sit and take it.

But as the second man was hit, my companion said something like – Bloody hell. The teacher landed two mighty blows on his arse, but he didn’t move. I said in horror “Good God!” whereupon the teacher moved to hit me. I stood up and said, “If you hit me with that thing I’ll whack you in the fucking ear.” I felt keyed up and ready to fight. He backed off and threatened to get the headmaster on me. I told him to try it. He said if I could do better try it. So I took over the class and it went really well.

Then I seemed to be witnessing a young man making love with a girl in a room. A teacher burst into the room and got angry at the couple. The young man was not at all cowed. He said, “You burst into a private room without knocking. We happen to be adults. I want an apology.” The teacher was silent for a time then apologised. The young man said, “Thank you sir. I am proud to acknowledge you as my teacher.”

The dreamer was a man in his forties, and the dream, when he explored it was about the sort of violence he witnessed at school. It shows how he felt and what he wanted to do, to stand up for himself for taking such heavy blows – but at the time lived in the belief that it was normal. But he was now seeing it from a different viewpoint, and handled it very well. As you can see, you do not have to cower to aggressors in your dreams.

For dreams or hitting another car or person or being hit see car

Hitting a child: Is usually a response stimulated by supreesing ones own growth or having a childhood in which your own growth was punished. Hitting a child is the aggressiveness turned against your own growing sexuality.

Idioms: a hit; hit and miss; hit and run (baseball); hit and run (traffic); hit home; hit it off; hit man; hit me (card games); hit me; hit me for a loan; hit me with your best shot; hit my funny bone; hit on; hit on all cylinders; hit paydirt; hit rock bottom; hit speeds of; hit the bar; hit the books; hit the bottle; hit the brakes; hit the bricks; hit the ceiling; hit the ground; hit the ground running; hit the hay; hit the high notes; hit the nail on the head; hit the road/trail; hit the skids; hit the spot; hit town; hit the wall; shit hit the fan; the fat hit the fire; where the rubber hits the road


Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I witnessing the hitting or doing it?

Was I hit physically or in the way of being not recognised or shown love?

How did I react to hitting?

See Active PassiveCharacters and People in DreamsTalking AsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Hive

See: Bees.

Hoe

Efforts of self cultivation, and weeding Out faults. See: Garden.

Hold Holding Held

There are five aspects to holding.

One: To control, as in controlling or ‘holding ones breath’; to be able to manipulate, kill or do something with what is held; this includes holding onto something for support or protection.

Two: Ownership – this is mine to share or not.

Three: In touch with; knowing; having a ‘grasp’ of.

Four: Responsibility; left holding the baby; ones situation.

Five: Intimacy; taking to oneself, taking hold of oneself as in masturbation; as in second example.

This is complex. It might be that you are trying to control something – as when you hold your breath. You might be trying to control how you feel about someone or something – as when you hold on to something or someone in a dream.

Holding something enable you to manipulate, or create. So you need to define if what you are holding, or the way you are holding, in the dream, has this sort of quality.

Are you trying to protect something or someone by holding? Or are you holding in a possessive way? This might mean an attempt at ownership and not sharing.

Is the holding a sign or responsibility, as when you are holding a baby? Or is it an expression of tenderness, as when you are holding someone?

Holding something in your hand, apart from possession or control, can also mean you have access to it or have the experience of it.

The personality types that we hold within us. If we can tap them they are an enormous resource. Technically they are called Autonomous Complex, and hold in them such varied and spontaneous responses to life, that they have enormous creative potential if they can be met and expressed in a way that does not dominate or destroy the central personality. So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious.

We can be held prisoners by our own beliefs, ideas, convictions and habits. Our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is this realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong. See Avoid Being Victims; Allowing the Spontaneous

Example: ‘I am a prisoner in a room with three boys aged three, five and fourteen. They seem to be my children. There are two prison warders, a man, a woman. The man was subservient to the woman who holds the keys and keeps control.’ The children are hungry and frustrated, keep asking me to free them. I asked the woman warder but she refuses, saying, “Sit down and keep quiet”. I suddenly got up, went over to the male warder and said firmly, surprising myself, ” There is no reason to keep these children here.  You are a man. Why don’t you assert your authority and free them?” The man warder got up, took the keys from the woman, who didn’t resist, opened the door, we went out. Carol J.

Example: ‘I was in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure.’

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Idioms: can’t hold a candle; don’t hold your breath; get a hold of; have a hold over someone; hold a candle; hold a grudge; hold a meeting; hold back; hold down; hold forth; hold her liquor; hold in; hold it; hold me responsible; hold on; hold out for; hold that over my head; hold the fort; hold the phone; hold the purse strings; hold up; hold water; hold you up; hold your drinks; hold your hand; hold your horses; hold your mouth the right way; hold your nose; hold your own; hold your temper; hold your tongue; how you hold your; .no holds barred; the way you hold your mouth; hold-out; holding the bag

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there ideas or convictions I hold onto like lifesavers?

What do you hold onto as if you own it?

What do you feel about control?

See Being in ControlActive PassiveBeware of LoveTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe Slow Breath


Hole

An error you may fall into, a difficulty you are facing, or a danger that confronts you. A big hole might suggest a descent into the unconscious, memories. A hole, especially with grass, foliage or bushes around it, can represent the female sex organs.

Any hole, tunnel or cave, not only suggest female attributes such as receptiveness, they also indicate the unknown or what is still unconscious. If the tunnel, hole or cave is dimly lit, it suggests aspects of you that are not defined, in the shadows of other more fully expressed qualities. See: Cave and Fall.

A hole can also be an escape route, so you need to define if this is true in your dream.

Difficulty or tricky situation in life; a situation you might ‘fall into’; a place to hide or feel protected in – therefore womb like feelings; an escape route or a way through from one situation into another; a way of ‘seeing through’ something; an ‘opening’ or opportunity; the vagina. Occasionally refers to death. Or sometimes used as word play meaning whole.

A hole is also something that things can go into or come out of. Food goes in our mouth for instance and comes out the other end. So poking food in a hole could link with eating. But holes can link with leaks, and sometimes dreams use a leak to suggest the way we lose energy or waste our energy resources. (Rocket dream as example.)

Going in hole: Meeting feelings, urges or fears we usually keep unconscious; confronting aspects of self buried beneath our surface awareness; memories of womb existence; death – burial.

Falling in hole: Of course it could mean you are meeting a difficulty that you didn’t keep  your eyes open to see. But some holes we fall into or find ourselves confronted by are there as a challenge to see if you are confident that nothing can hurt you in your dreams. Falling is not fatal or even harmful in dreams. We tend to take things we are rightfully scared of in everyday life and then take them into our dreams where nothing can hurt us. But of course we still fear if we do not understand that dreams are like computer games and are virtual realities. You can get killed a hundred times in dreams and yet you awake the next day none the worse – except if you are frightened, and  it is fear that can do you harm, not dreams. See dream yoga.

Holes in clothes, objects: Faults; weaknesses; illness; ‘full of holes’.

Holes in body: Sense of weakness; emptiness in ones life such as loneliness; illness; negative feelings about that part of self; see body for appropriate part.

Hole in head: Letting everyone know what you think; gossiping.

Hole in road: Difficulty ahead. Death or death of person falling down the hole.

Pothole: If you are going into it, it suggests you are exploring the precviously uknown memories or parts of your nature, gaining a deeper understanding of yourself. It could even suggest going back into a womb type awareness.

Small hole: It depends where it is and the context in which it appears. It could refer to the vagina, or a hole on your body.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the hole frightening or beckoning?

Where is the hole – in me or in the surroundings?

What feelings did I experience in the dream?

See Associations Working WithInner WorldMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Holiday Trip

This may mean you are feeling relaxed, or changing your feeling state. It may also show you feeling independent; satisfying your own needs; reaching a period of your life in which one can rest on ones laurels.

But a lot of trips or holidays are a way to get away from the stress of everyday life. Unfortunately that is not possible unless you have removed the causes of stress within you. See Opening to Life

Also it can be an attitude that allows you to explore or express in ways you usually refrain from, or a way it discover new things. Some holiday dreams end up being nightmares because of relationship difficulties through spending time together. Other ‘dark’ things occur in holiday dreams because we are relaxed and have time to think and so what had been held back through being busy can emerge.

A religious holiday can mean you are feeling a connection either with your religious beliefs of with the seasons of the year that such holidays represent. For instance Christmas represent the birth of the sun as the days start to lengthen after the sun apparently dying. Because we have a real connection with such festivals we may dream of them – we are all a part of the great cosmic cycles and were represented by many faiths before Christianity became dominant.

Example: I was fed up. I said to my husband, ‘Let’s take a holiday, just the two of us, get away from it all.’ I saw an advert in a newspaper for a log cabin, very secluded. We took it. On our arrival I was overjoyed. It was so neat and tidy, but very plain. The large bedroom had a double bed and a single by the wall. the sun was shining really brightly through the window. J. M.

Example: I was on board a pleasure cruiser on holiday with my wife. As I stood on a high deck I looked down and saw her sitting below with very tight knickers on and nothing else. As a man walked toward her the knickers came off or slipped down. The man was sexually aroused and started attempting to penetrate her. She only put up a token resistance, mewing a bit, but not fighting him off. I rushed toward them and kicked him off.’ Andrew P.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was it a good holiday or did difficulties arise?

Did you use the holiday for something good?

What feeling arose during the holiday?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingKarma Learning to Allow Yourself


Holiness

This often suggests you are meeting something in yourself that incorporates a great deal of your life experience. Often we are just feeling something, or just thinking. But when this sense of holiness occurs it means there is great inclusiveness of your whole nature in what is being realised or experienced. See: Glow.

Hollow

Feeling of emptiness in ones life; womb feeling or memories; feelings about the vagina. See: hole

Holocaust


But many of us have experience a form of the holocaust in our childhood. They are people who deny emotions, experience general anxiety, guilt, general aggression, inturned aggression and difficulty in relationships. They tend to develop a false self. Sometimes these people are able to function as adults although they may be emotionally children. They often have a great capacity to struggle and to manage without ordinary. See ground-zero

Here is a statement of such a suriviver:

I have run away from myself all my fricking life trying to be normal, trying to have what other people had. The fact is I didn’t have it. I don’t actually want it. I know that can sound like sour grapes, but I have found something amazing in being myself, in learning to cope with who I am. That is quite enough to get on with. That is quite enough to learn. That is a whole university degree in survival – in being a human being – in learning to crawl out from the bloody wreck – in surviving a nuclear holocaust. In the 60’s I could never understand what ‘ban the bomb’ was all about. What are all these people worrying about the end of the world for? I had already experienced the end of the world. I have been living it all my life. What is the problem, I don’t quite understand it.

Death in dreams is always associated at a deeper level with the transformation of personality and character.

Whether we have a nuclear war or not, the very threat of war (usually perceived as a nuclear explosion in dreams from which there is no escape) is causing a great deal of anxiety in our populations, especially among children and adolescents whose image of a nuclear future tends to blunt their initiative to work towards the future. Why invest one’s time in education and work apprenticeships if there is no future in which to live? Why not indulge oneself in the present, through sex or drugs or just “hanging out”?

A Jewish doctor who worked with me as a client was the only child of two people who were the sole survivors in their families of the Holocaust. He discovered during analysis that his motivation to become a doctor arose because he knew within himself that one could be killed for simply being a Jew. Doctors were the last ones you killed.

But in dreams, wherever death is illustrated, there is also the promise of rebirth. The rebirth is the way beyond fear of death and destruction and should be sought in your dreams. See Martial Art of the Mind

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you mixed up in the holocaust?

What were your emotions or feelings in the dream?

Did you find a way through the dreadful images?

See Summing UpDiving into the Depths of MindBeing in ControlProcessing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Holy

Something so beyond the limitations of our own small personality enters us and leaves its imprint. A place in which we meet oneself and or another person deeply and passionately or a way that transforms one in some way. An experience of the holy suddenly allows you to know yourself as an intricate part of all life and the cosmos.

 Example: Then, during the walking contemplation prior to the very last exercise – how dramatic can the unconscious be? What timing! – I began to feel an extension of my awareness. I could feel my existence streaming back through all time, like a river existing in all the past. But my river was flowing through my family. In some strange paradoxical way I was my whole past family stretching back for hundreds of years.

The holy is also a common action that we take for granted that are actually the foundations of life on Earth. Being the foundations of our existence they are seen as holy by our dreams self – such common things such as sex, eating, water, caring for our children, giving of ourselves, are all holy. The church treats eating and drinking as holy by making it a sacrament – disguising the fact that every act of eating is eating the body of God/Life, and makes sex also a sacrament by the marriage rite.

Example: I remember that I was rather lonely and sad for no particular reason and I was going on a date with myself to the planetarium.  In the dark planetarium, the stellar night sky covered the dome like a real night sky.  There was a grand zooming out process.  Starting with a person in a house to his city, to his country, continent, the earth, the solar system, our Milky Way galaxy, and to Local Group (the cluster 10), to supercluster and at last to the observable universe.  Watching the earth and our galaxy disappearing into a point as the zoom gets larger into the cosmos, I was overcome with a surging emotion in my chest.  Instead of deepening my despair, a grand sense of relief overwhelmed me, a sense of gratitude, a sense of the Holy.  It is hard to describe or explain.  Opening the knots in my heart, tears surged up because…  it was so beautiful.  I was infinitely alone yet infinitely not.  Coming out to the streets of NYC, everything and everyone was a wonder.  We are utterly insignificant in the scheme of things.  And I was elevated.  The Earth is so beautiful and our lives are so precious in its fragility. Quoted from Grace Park, Honors Seminar Spring 2003 – A Dream within a Dream – Modern Physic and Myth

Home

For public buildings see Buildings. Or see House.

Ones basic needs such as shelter, warmth, nourishment – but usually in the sense of what we have created as our basic way of life; the values, standards, goals we have accepted as normal, or are ‘at home’ with; as in the first example. The situation or feeling state in our home, which here means family atmosphere and attitudes; the state of feeling relaxed, being oneself because away from other people and what we need to be in relationship with them. Thus a sense of being oneself, or absence of concern over other peoples criticism. In clarifying this dream symbol, it needs to be defined as to what the state of feeling was in the home, and whether one shared the space with others, and what this was like.

A home is a sort of womb in which you can grow and are born each time you step outside of it.    It is like a structure in which gives support and strength and is an enormous part of you especially when you are young. So much a part of us it is difficult to grasp where it is in our life, except in dreams when we actually explore them by using Being the Person or Thing

Future home: The direction you would like your life to take, or fear it might. See: house below.

Homeless: The negative side of feeling homeless is seen as representing big changes in your life such as leaving home, or travelling and living in another country, and so feeling abandoned by all ones friends and usual sources of support. Dreaming of being home;ess may also link with feeling life has no meaning or purpose. They may occur after going through separation or divorce, or even the death of a loved one, especially a parent or spouse.

Such dreams can reveal grief, anger, resentment and despair that has not been face or dealt with. Meeting such feelings is way Facing and working through these feelings is important and may show emotional blockages.

The positive side of homelessness is realised as a feeling that our home is in ourselves and we feel at home wherever we are. Sometimes it comes out of a realisation of our spirit – our knowledge of our oneness with Life/God/Self. Our awareness of being in eternity, of release from all the anxiety, worries, thoughts and fears humans are often locked in.

In a past home: Depicts the parts of our character or experience which developed in that home environment.

Moving into your own home: This is a move toward independence, toward being at ease and not having to be influenced by other peoples needs or influence.

Someone else’s home: What we sense as the attitudes and atmosphere – or the situation prevailing in that home. So a young woman going to the home of her lover and his wife, shows her facing the fact of her lover’s home situation and commitment in marriage.

Example: the track I had worn across a small front lawn because I had used a shortcut instead of walking along the path, had shouted at me about my lack of care. Now inside the house, the same things showed themselves in the state of my house, my inner health. I was humbled by my feelings of love for my wife, but more humbled by how much I owed her, and how little pay. Despite all, she had stayed. The dog jumped up at me, pleased to have me home. The children all had something to ask or tell. The house was untidy, but it was home where they were.

Mark wanted food. I had to watch Neal’s nose while he quivered it and told me it was a motorcar engine. Helen I held close. She said that we were both number one triangle on the fireguard.

Having realised that the door was me, and gone inside, I saw that for years I had been so bound up with myself that the whole house reflected my neglect. It was my neglect.  Even so, despite that there was my wife, who I had come home for. There were the children. And as I entered I looked at the map of the world I had stuck on the wall. I saw it as the children might see it. That is, not just as a picture, but as colours and a feeling. The light was switched on in the kitchen. It was soft coming into the darkened room I was in. There was a lot I could not be proud of. But the map, and the light in the kitchen, that was home.

Example: ‘I was sitting in the living room at home and my mum was sitting there; like we do when we’re relaxing in the evening. From nowhere in particular my dad was there. He held his girlfriend in his arms and displayed her in front of us. She was stark naked. My mum tensed up, tightened her lips, and tried to look away. I felt acutely embarrassed for me, mum, dad and his girlfriend.’ Lynsay S.

Example: ‘I am walking down a busy street when I realise all I have on are my bra and pants. Everyone is staring at me and I try to appear unconcerned but feel more and more embarrassed as I go on. Eventually the street and the people fade and I am alone in my own home and a great sensation of relief comes over me. I do not bother to put any more clothes on but wander about the house secure in the comfort people are no longer looking at me. Mrs S. C. This depicts the home as absence of demands made on us by other people or social rules – so the ability to be oneself.

Example: What arose from within myself, seemingly as if from my own wholeness, was that even the common animals can, with a little effort, build themselves a home. A chimpanzee, will reach out for, and with a few branches create a place to be. Whereas we human beings, especially in Western culture, particularly in the United Kingdom, have to work hard perhaps for 25 years or more to own a dwelling place. Why do we have to live in such a uncertainty? Why does our social system keep us running after a carrot for so many years?

It is fundamental for an animal to be able to reach out and get the raw materials to build its own nest. Whereas with a human being we may have to pay for that nest all our life. For some strange reason many of us seem to accept this as normal. Yet it is a fundamental human right to be able to have a place to live that does not produce stress – the stress of debt for instance. As things stand, every tiny shift in government policy about the percentage of interest in repayments, causes uncertainty and anxiety. To be manipulated by such anxieties into being work machines is not right. It is something to be rejected. We should not accept it.

 

Idioms: Bring something home to someone; close to home; come home to roost; home and dry; broken home; home truth; home is where the heart is; feel at home.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel at ease or ill at ease in your dream house?

Is the house in the dream not my home as I know it?

What is happening in my dream?

See The House in Your DreamSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce Plot of the Dream

 


 

Homosexual Homosexuality

Each of us has some element of homosexuality in us unconsciously. I find through examining and exploring many dreams that in our psyche we are both male and female, but have been polarized because of our body’s gender. If you undertake a long examination of your dreams and seek to employ what they say, you realise that you are simply consciousness without marked gender.

In young men and women it is often an easier option than facing the many needs and responsibilties of parenthood.

In ones dreams homosexuality may suggest a desire for the father or mother’s love, perhaps because they were not demonstrative. So one was led to crave the love of a man/woman; conflict or anxiety about ones own gender; feelings of sexual inadequacy, or inadequacy in ones own gender. But in some people who have not managed to find a heterosexual partner, or who have been let downby it again and again it could be a way of finding a relationship that works.

Unconscious pain in regard to the opposite sex – this may be rationalised into reasons for being homosexual rather than being experienced and made conscious; depicting an introversion of ones sexual drive. Sometimes, being the receptive partner in the same sex relationship suggests inturned or repressed sexual drive, possibly through trauma, fear or inability to meet a full woman/man’s sexual nature.

Sometimes there is a powerful link here with the mother/father relationship from childhood. For some reason there may have been a disturbance in regard to the need to possess ones mother sexually, and so a self restraint about expressed sexual feelings. Sometimes it also suggests ones father was not a sexually potent male. In other words unsure of himself in regard to women, and perhaps still emotionally dependent. Castration also means you are no longer a threat to anyone, and do not have to face a woman’s or man’s full sexual and emotional needs.

But central to all this is the ability to really integrate both sexes in yourself. Here is a definition.

“Men and women seem to deny their bisexuality even more strongly than they deny their sexuality. This occurs in spite of the obvious admixture of masculinity and femininity they see around them, in spite of the fact that an exclusively masculine or an exclusively feminine personality verges almost inevitably on the neurotic. The demands of reality are so varied and the attributes labeled “masculine” and “feminine” by our culture are so evenly divided that anyone who attempts to function exclusively with one set or the other condemns himself to being half a person. Yet men and women fight recognition all the same. Men fight their fusion with their mothers. They are horrified to realize they have a rather well-defined feminine psychic identity. This element is vestigial in most men, but it is there all the same, and the amount of psychic energy required to down it is enormous. By the same token women all too often reject instead of accepting and absorbing the “masculine” components that are integral to healthy personality

Once the fact of psychic bisexuality is accepted, the overcompensatory binding of personality into the strait jacket of sex role can be relinquished. Men discover that they have repressed all esthetic appreciation and expression because it is characterized by our culture as “feminine.” They may re-establish interest in art, literature, and music, in gardening or cooking. Women find that they have denied their ‘masculine” interests in business, sports, science, government, and mechanics. Re-entering and renovating these long-deserted wings of the psychic estate can provide a fullness and sense of integration lost since childhood.” Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W. V. Caldwell.

Example: Hear a recording of a well known recording artist (Tom ***) a homosexual who became straight through facing his unconscious tendencies. RECORDING.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I caste myself in an exclusive role as male, female or homosexual?

Can I admit that at base I am both genders?

Have I found freedom?

See Male or Female?Summing UpSecrets of Power DreamingJesse Watkins Enlightenment


Honey

The gathered essence of your life experience, so it can indicate the wisdom and skills you have developed. Because the honey comes from the hard work and dedication of the bees it can include this as part of the way you attained the wisdom as extracted from your life experience. So it represents the fruit of your labours, the summary of your experience and/or work. Its mystical symbolism, arising from its use as a promise in the Bible, the land of milk and honey, suggests the reward of spiritual labours, or facing personal difficulties and dealing with inharmonious conditions.

Because bees produce honey there is a suggestion that bees can harvest a sweet and satisfying experience, and suggests what you have gathered from your life experience. It can also point to sensual pleasure or sweetness. Its use as a term of affection might at times link it with your feelings about a person, or someone you are ‘sweet on’.

Honey, which is the food of gods can be a sign of spiritual attainment. Bees are symbols of the soul and the sun, and are messengers to the heavens like birds. They are associated with the gift of prophecy; the priestesses at the temple of the Delphic oracles were called ‘Melissae’, or bees. The oracles and gods of prophecy were given offerings of honey and honey cakes.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the plotof the dream suggest about your relationship with honey?

Is there any suggestion of fruits of your labour or life?

Did your dream include any sensual pleasure?

See Plot of the DreamKarmaTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Hook

Something with a catch in it. You can be hooked on drugs, drink or love for someone, hook on to an idea, opportunity. The hook might suggest a question mark. The ability to ‘hook’ a woman. Can also refer to a left hook to the jaw in boxing.

It is often used in dreams in hooking one thing to another, suggesting connections of some sort. Look up what is being connected to clarify the meaning. If it is a hook to hang things on it might refer to a hang up, hung up on drugs or alcohol; or the hook could be a support.

From the point of view of dreams, the conscious mind is rod and line. The dream is the bait, the question the hook. These are lowered into the waters of the unconscious by becoming quiet and passive, letting the question and dream sink into lower levels of consciousness by stilling the upper levels. Then, like the fisherman, one has to be patient. One waits for the line to pull. It is no use thinking or analysing, the real answer comes as intuition hooked by the question.

We can be hooked on a projection on someone. Often it is something, a fault that we hide in ourselves and hate when we meet it in someone else. Or it can occur when we as a woman  or man cannot accept or integrate the opposite gender. This leads to being the victim of fruitless loves for a man or woman – the  projection onto an outer person what is denied in themselves.

For hooker see prostitute archetype of the prostitute

Idioms: by hook or by crook; hook up with; hook, line and sinker; off the hook; ring off the hook; hooker


Useful Questions and Hints:

What if anything is being hooked or hooke up?

Was it working out what was being done?

Am I hooked on someone or something?

See Plot of the DreamArchetype of the AnimaArchetype of the AnimusIntegrating an Ex

Hope Hoping

Hope in a dream usually has an element of uncertainty in it. For if we were not uncertain we would not hope for something different. But in some dreams hope is the foreruuner of a change, as in the next two examples.

Example: “I hope the tiger doesn’t follow me”. However the tiger did follow me but it gave me a sense of protecting me and making sure I made it to me next destination.

Example: I am searching for my lost mobile phone, even though I am not hopeful, but to my surprise I end up finding not only the mobile that I had lost recently but also the other three mobile phones lost earlier at the same place.

But hopes can be a cruel carrot taunting is to follow false hopes. “The You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations.”

Example: This would not be so hard to bear, if another part of my nature were not so much given to dreams and hopes, often of an impossibly romantic nature. My hopes spur me on to activity, efforts to achieve some impractical dream, while my cynicism is actively showing me just how little of that hope I manage to realise.

Example: Last but not least I am in love with a foreigner who I met 3 years ago, but I don’t have much hope, it is too complicated, we are too far apart to make life easy. He lives a long way away and he is someone from the desert, completely different, time hasn’t got the same meaning.

Example: My own sex life has become a desert with its pain, soiled with its dead life. The attic possibly represents my dreams of youthful sexual hopes because my cousin Sylvia slept up there.

There is a way through these trials, as described in T. S Eliot’s poem:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.


Idioms: cross my heart and hope to die; get your hopes up; Great White Hope; haven’t got a hope; haven’t got a hope in hell; high hopes; hopes dashed; pin your hopes on


Useful Questions and Hints:

Were your hopes rewarded in any way?

What is it or was it you really hope or hoped for?

Do you think there is any chance your hopes will become a reality?

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing DreamsSumming UpIncubating Dreams

Horizon

The present limit of your perceptions or experience. The cusp or threshold around which something appears or disappears. A goal or aim.

We can in our dreams have vast horizons or narrow horizons, and so you need to ask yourself what is meant if you dream about a vast horizon, and what state of mind is indicated by narrow horizon.

Example: After many, many dreams I had a final dream before waking up. I was heading across miles and miles of land, forest and lush green land. I saw a huge glowing mountain on the horizon (flaming? It felt like a positive creative glow, not destructive burning). I ran towards the mountain, but I was hundreds of feet above the green canopy, taking “Mr. Fantastic” long-legged strides. (Mr. Fantastic is a comic character that can stretch his body all over.) So I was moving towards the mountain, with my long, long legs on the ground but my head and focus up high in the air. I felt myself go deep into my mental energy and my mind, and I used that vantage point to move faster and farther. I began stepping so far and fast that the land around me blurred while I moved and came into focus slightly between steps. I felt big and that I had come to a point in my mind that I had not yet discovered.

Example: There was sand, it was deep, became deeper and very soft. Then I was swimming in it! Was so soft and oily – a bit like the Dead Sea water, then my two friends were there and suddenly they kind of sailed/swum/drifted off to the distance. Then I looked to the horizon and the distant hill had what looked like dust rising off the horizon line – like sand or dust rising because of the rain hitting it – but the longer I looked the more I realised it was not dust rising but actually a large number of tigers – yet in/under or actually made of the sand of the land – i.e. sand was tigers, running in large numbers, up over the hill – so I saw the point at which they were reaching the top of the hill and just running over back down again…. They were running fast, at a fast and steady pace over and down, over and down… beautiful it looked.  The sand was golden and yellow and soft and ONE. I live in the dessert…

It seems that only while you are alone do you begin to realise you have an awareness of something wild a beautiful in the desert. Maybe you felt it subtly while you were in the desert alone. I believe it is that in a desert or a landscape where there are not a wide variety of colours, we begin to have a sense of oneness, of feeling something very special. That is probably why your dream showed it as swimming; sometimes it is shown as flying. That is why you experienced your core self as oneness.

Example: Winston Churchill reported an extraordinary vision experienced during anaesthesia. During it he reached a state of mind in which he felt that his awareness encompassed all that existed and was to be known. In this exalted state he was gradually aware there was another horizon forming beyond his present knowledge. Then he broke through to this new realm, gradually reached the point of once more feeling he encompassed it all, only to find another horizon.

The dream horizons can shift and show us visions of things we cannot grasp if we stick to our present attitudes and convictions. I see in peoples dreams an often shown scene; there is a room with many doorways. As the dreamer opens a doorway they see a landscape; another doorway shows a completely different scene, and so on.


Useful Questions and Hints:

How would you describe the horizon in your dream?

What qualities did the horizon have?

Did you travel beyond the horizon?

See Summing UpSecrets of Power DreamingJesse Watkins EnlightenmentTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Hornets

Fear of being severely hurt or hurting others by stinging remarks or attitudes. It is also any thought the dreamer had that are a form of inturned criticism like beating oneself up. So it could also stand for hurtful and malicious thoughts turning and hurting the dreamer.

Example: A man dreamed he was in his office. Hornets, whose stomachs were colored red and yellow, buzzed around him. “None attacked me, although I felt I should prevent their further reproduction. I took a container and bottled them in the wall.” This was a warning that the working conditions surrounding him were exemplified by the red and yellow colored bellies of the hornets, reflecting the adrenal glands, an emotional centre. The bottling up of the hornets was the warning to the dreamer to stop, wherever possible, all negative, stinging remarks flying around the office and his own participation in them. From Cayce files.

Example: I noticed a hornets nest in the side of the house. The next door neighbour knocks it off and hornets enter the house and sting me. I angrily show the neighbour and son the huge watery swellings. I clout the boy for a stirring up the hornets. I had held my arms above my head and the swelling decreases. Now, with lowered arms I see a bubbling up of skin spread up my arms to chest, then to my entire front. I have no apparent sexual organs because I am covered in a wafer of dead skin. My wife looks at me and has no feeling of caring, and does nothing to help. She is telephoning another man. I see him and her at the same time. He says for them to go off together, and gives the impression of how sexually adequate he is, and how inadequate I am. I feel so hurt and angry I decide to leave my wife for good.

In this dream the neighbour is the dreamers own thoughts of what other people will think of him. It irritates him so much that people would see him as not a real man because of his sexual inadequacy that he decides to stop any sexual feelings for his wife. So then he creates the fantasy that his wife has another man. The root of the problem was that the results of sex were so awful and painful it led to him cutting of sexual expression.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way do I put myself down or beat my self up?

Do other people’s opinion of me hurt me?

Do I feel I am inadequate?

See Summing UpAvoid Being VictimsMore than you Presently KnowTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Horns

Protectiveness or desire to hurt. It can show the animal in the human – as in the form of Pan, or it can indicate; sexuality or the penis.

Example: ‘I ran into a house and came face to face with a huge stag. It started eating my leg. I was pushing against his horns and managed to stop him chewing me.’ Jasmine C.

The first part of Jasmine’s dream, not quoted, is obviously sexual. Being eaten therefore suggests she is being consumed by her sexual drive.

Example: She started walking up to meet me and I saw behind her all the hill was covered in pink and white flowering trees in full bloom, it was very beautiful and I knew I had never seen it like that before. I opened the gate and the goat started to charge me, it was her way of greeting, I saw she had very long horns and said to someone who was standing with me now, “You must be careful as her horns can be dangerous but if you don’t get in the way she will not hurt you.”

Horns are used to warn of danger, but can also be used to express triumph. Since animal horns protrude from the head and are used for defense, so they can suggest a negative attitude.

They can represent hardened thought projections, thought-forms, the shape of long-held ideas. Horn projecting form a unicorn is an extention of the sexual drive that was blocked at the genital level and allowed to express the level of insigiht in the head. That is why the unicorn was only captured by virgins. It needs a virginal mind, one not controlled by preconceptions, to reach the higher levels of mind.

Idioms: horn in; Pull in one’s horns; lock horns with someone; take the bull by the horns; on the horns of a dilemma; toot your own horn; horny; don’t blow your own horn; horn of plenty; horny; Gabriel, come blow your horn; lock horns; pull in your horns.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I see the horns as dangerous or protective?

What sort of horn was it, sexual or musical or of a creature?

Have I ever kept my mind virginal by avoiding preconceptions?

See Inner WorldvirginSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Horoscope

Inner characteristics; the tendencies to be dealt with in life; irrational or intuitive knowledge that can instruct you concerning your fundamental strengths and weaknesses. Even if the dreamer does not believe in horoscopes, he or she probably still associates them with characteristics arising out of natural influences, or a person’s unique relationship with the cosmos. Therefore the dream horoscope may well depict that.

If you dream of a Goat – Aries, Bull – Taurus, Twins – Gemini, a Crab – Cancer, a Lion – Leo, a Virgin – Virgo, Scales – Libra, a Scorpion – Scorpio, the Centaur – Sagittarius, Fish/Goat – Capricorn, the Water Carrier – Aquarius, Fishes –  Pisces – it is worth exploring your dream, as it usually carries real information about you than any ready made horoscope. I am a Taurus and bulls appear in my dreams 35 times. Each time they gave me information that was not always complimentary, but was really true and helpful. See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the animal or sign in my dreams a real reference to me?

What way does my dream deal with horoscope?

Have I ever had my horoscope done by a professional – not printed ready made?

See Active PassiveQuestionsDreaming about an ExSumming Up

Horse Horses

There is not so much difference between the horse and the dog. They are both domesticated animals, and so represent urges and drives in ourselves we have learned to harness or direct. The big difference is that the horse can carry us and serve us in our labours much more powerfully than a dog.

For myself I feel the horse is the most beautiful and loved herbivore.

The dream horse also depicts or expresses our pleasurable energy and exuberance, the sort of enthusiasm or feelings of well-being that can ‘carry’ one through the day easily; dynamic sexual drive; the physical energy and life processes that ‘carry’ us around. As such it may also link with the life processe. Horses like other animals are quick to respond to love and danger. So they can be panicked and you can feel the effect of this part of you. See Mammal Brain

The energy that carry – or pull – us through growth and ageing, as happens when we dream of a horse drawn carriage or cart. Therefore in old age the unbidden processes which move us toward death may be depicted as the horse in a threatening or helpful role. The horse depicts human instincts that have been harnessed or socialised for generations, but have perhaps been let slide into non-use or crushed. It is also survival drive, sexuality, love, all yearning toward service, toward metamorphosis, all that has powerful energy to move us.

A horse or a man on a horse can sometimes signify a messenger or a message.

In his book Dreams and Dreaming, Norman MacKenzie says the horse ‘… is dynamic power and a means of locomotion; it carries one away like a surge or instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures which lack higher consciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magic spells, especially the black, night horse, which heralds death.’ In a woman’s dream the horse can sometimes represent her relationship with a man and the power and strength she gets from that, as in the following dream.

Example: As I talked to the pale golden horse it felt more and more as if I was talking to a male companion who was in union with me. As I talked about my mother, she was standing before me in full anger and blaming me for bringing out the witch in her. H.

Example: A rather shadowy man in a building opposite to where I used to live as a teenager was introducing me to a new job. I seemed to understand that I was to do a milk-round. He led a small horse from out of the building. It was to draw a cart. When the horse saw me it ran to me and become very excited and loving, rubbing against me and licking me with a very long tongue. I was both pleased and slightly threatened. Threatened because it was so intense. At one point though we rubbed against each other with a degree of sexual pleasure.

I believe many young girls feel totally as if they are fully connected and loved as the photo illustrates.

But our dream horse can be a wonderful guide and mirror for us.

Example: I love horses too and they are great teachers, for they mirror what goes on inside us. I used to ride horses for many years and when I was not convinced about what I asked the horse to do, it would not consider me as its leader and was more likely to refuse to do what I had asked. Their sensing is perfectly developed. Anna, A few weeks ago I saw a documentation about Buck Brannaman. He says –

“Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.” So says Buck Brannaman, a true American cowboy and sage on horseback who travels the country for nine grueling months a year helping horses with people problems.

Black or dark horse: Unaccepted passions; threat of death. The unknown parts of your tremendous energy arising out of unconscious processes. The dream horse represents the very long history we have had with horses, through peace and terrible wars there are very long associations we have with them. It shares all that with us and so can be realisations emerging from our long past. Or it can represent threatening changes. Riding a black horse can represent the amazing energy used to bring awareness of things that had been unconscious into consciousness.

Blinkered horse: Not allowing oneself to see what is happening around you; anxiety about life, or an attempt to control ones natural anxiety or panics.

Controlling the horse or fear of it: Trying to control, or fear of, feelings of love and sexuality, of our own natural drives and emotions that are powerful enough either to give us motivation in our activities, or drag us along unwillingly.

Dead horse: Serious loss of energy or motivation which could lead to illness or depression; an old and dying set of habits and motivations or way of life.

Falling off horse: Relating badly to ones urges and needs. This could result in tension, breakdown or illness.

Grooming a horse: Taking care of ones basic needs such as food, shelter, sex.

Horse and carriage: The natural processes of life that move us through youth to old age; forces that can move us, either from within or as natural events, but which, if we are relating well to the horse, we can guide in some measure. It can also indicate the inner power which brings thoughts to awareness, things you might be blocking to think about. The horses represent the power which draws the mind.

Horse dragging the dreamer along: Impetuosity of feelings; feelings dragged along by natural urges.

Horse loving you or expressing sexual feelings: The flow of positive and natural sexuality and warmth from within.

Horse race: The events of everyday life, and your relationship with people; everyday competition and where you rate yourself in it; what happens in the race shows how you are relating to opportunity, or how you feel about your accomplishments and being part of the ‘human race’.

Horse running freely: Allowing ones emotions or sexuality free reign; love of life.

Horse unwilling to move or carry: Your inner natural reaction is against the action or direction you are trying to go. Sometimes this is a warning that you should not go in that direction.

Horseshoe: Good luck, receptivity if prongs upwards; bad luck or lack of receptiveness if prongs downwards.

Large horse: Enormous energy.

New born horse: Emerging energy or new motivations.

Old or worn out horse: State of your feelings, perhaps worn out from overwork; may refer to a member of the family.

Riderless horse: Sometimes represents the death of someone, as in the following example.

Example: “I dreamed that I was awakened by the sound of a horse’s hooves in the street. I saw a white horse, with no rider, stopping at midnight in front of our house. I knew it came for my younger sister. I went to the door and opened it to call her, when suddenly I saw her coming down the stairs, all dressed in white. She did not say a word to me, but walked with stately steps down the stairs, through the hall, and out of the door. She mounted the horse and rode away. I woke up crying.” The woman’s sister died a month later.

Riding or leading horse easily: Good relationship with inner drives and emotions; the harmony between instinctive drives and personality.

Running away from a horse or horsemen: Fear of sexuality, which includes responsibility for parenthood and relationship. Fear of ones own strong desires or urges; avoiding the responsibility of directing ones own feelings and desires.

Sick or dying horse: Loss of health, energy, enthusiasm. Have a physical check.

Speaking horse: Realisation of what you are feeling but have not been aware of; expression of levels of feeling or body processes usually unconscious.

Strange or unknown horseman/woman: Message from the unconscious; a new opportunity or event.

Struggling to control the horse: Fighting with ones urges and natural drives; difficulty in controlling ones emotions or sexuality.

The mare: femininity, receptiveness, fertility or a woman.

The stallion: masculinity, power and virility or a man.

 

This energy wave rises, but in fulfilling itself in genital sex the wave falls again, self-awareness with it. However, if the energy is released, and yet not allowed to spill out in the full sexual release, the energy keeps on rising – flying in fact – lifting awareness with it, until it becomes a vast awareness of life and death. The white horse can have a similar meaning. For instance a woman turning her love of her children into social caring suggests a way of expression that goes beyond personal drives or the instinctive urges toward personal survival. She ‘flies up’ into a wider social context. See: Cayce, Edgar.

In mythology Pegasus was born from the blood when Perseus cut off Medusa’s head. Pegasus then lived roaming freely until Bellerophon caught him with a golden bridle given him by Athena. Bellerophon went through adventures such as the slaying of chimera with the help of Pegasus. But Bellerophon tried to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus (Heaven) but Zeus caused Pegasus to throw him off and fall back to Earth.

However Pegasus arrived at Mount Olympus where he served Zeus. The symbolic meaning of this is that when the uncontrolled and undirected processes of thought and intellect are stilled a new level of experience or energy is released. This new way of relating to sexuality or life energy can uplift or expand consciousness to the point where we arrive at cosmic consciousness. But the old human personality cannot manage this and falls away as a new being emerges. Chimera, the destructive and illusory view of life arising from a purely sensory view of life is killed in the process. See: cosmic consciousness.

Thrown from horse: It depends on who is thrown from the horse and why. In general though it suggests that the instinctive or spontaneous life force has cast off an attitude that is restraining it, or not dealing with it well. One dreamer who saw a man thrown from a white horse realised that it showed how, “The forces of restraint, moral, sexual, worldly active that I have been imposing on myself have been thrown off.”

Tied up horse: Inhibition; need for release of feelings and allowing freedom of expression to feelings and creativity.

Training a horse: Developing new habits; directing your energies in a socially acceptable way; learning to direct sexual and emotional energy.

Uneasy on ride: being taken for a ride; feeling ones emotions or natural urges are dominating.

White horse: Changing sexual drive into love and wider awareness; a meeting with expanded awareness of yourself.

Wild horse: Undirected energy; sexuality which might not take care of personal or interpersonal needs.

Working horse: The energy or motivation needed to work; how you feel about yourself, that you are only a work-horse, or perhaps treated as such.

In this sign the animal nature is ruled and directed by the human spiritual nature. The symbol of Sagittarius – half beast and half man represents this new emergence. The emergence of the human out of the animal, and the different sense that human beings have of themselves. It suggests a new type of human being in fact. If we look at the Zodiac from there on – Capricorn, we have the half goat half man figure – until we arrive at Aquarius, a fully fledged human figure. The human faculty is to transcend, to make that change. To switch across seasons, physiological changes, to actually attain consciousness. This allows us to look at the seasons, to adjust to them in a completely new way than the animal.

Example: ‘As I talked to the pale golden horse it felt more and more as if I were talking to a male companion who was in union with me.’ Alison B.

Alison’s horse is obviously portraying her feelings for a man, but also that motivating and active power in herself. The dream shows how easy and integrated she is with this.

Example: I was driving along Tottenham Court Road with my wife and my youngest son. As we neared Euston Road I saw the magnificent sight of hundreds of horses coming full gallop toward me. I knew it was a great horse race – something like the Grand National. There was every sort of horse – many riderless, all surging in a mass so thick there seemed no space between them. Then we were walking in the Covent Garden area, and it was still a market. I was crying openly at the wonder of what I had seen. Edward.

Edward’s tears are because his dream brought him a glimpse of something much bigger than his own small life. He touched the amazing flow of the energy behind the human race in its infinity of forms. Perhaps just lightly he experienced cosmic consciousness, the state of awareness that transcends ones own limitations of body and mind. But the dream also has elements of the competitive drive we feel as humans, and the struggle to know where we stand in relationship with others and the mass of other people we exist within.

Idioms: Back the wrong horse; from the horse’s mouth; don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; horse sense; you can lead a horse to water; wild horses; workhorse; horsing about; getting on your high horse; eat like a horse; back the wrong horse; beating a dead horse. See: spiritual life in dreams .

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your relationship with the horse and what does this say about how you relate to your own motivating and energising drives?

Where is the horse taking you, or where are you directing the horse – this gives you clues to your direction in life?

Is the horse decidedly male or female – if so is there a connection with how you are relating to someone or yourself?

See Talking to Inner SelfSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMartial Art of the Mind

Hose

Sometimes a hose can indicate ones intestines or penis.

A hose can be air hose, for water or for oil, gas/petrol or to drain something, as with a dentist. Bit is usually depicts a force or energy that can be directed in various ways – on, off, constructively, playing around, destructively or carelessly.

If it is a garden hose for watering, then it is about your efforts to look after and promote your inner growth. An air hose can indicate mental efforts or internal pressure, which can be a stimulus or anxiety.

Example: But the dreamer is told that he must learn something about contact with the higher forces. It is demonstrated that his method of handling this matter may be why it has not worked for him.  These hoses, this force, they are not to be treated lightly or carelessly.  They must be handled thoughtfully and with great care.

Hosing: This can indicate a cleaning or clearing impulse in you, or a way of deterring others getting near you. But it can be used in police techniques to control a crowd. Sex play. See: pipe; water; garden.

Medical hose: What was the hhose doing in the dream? Was it healing or destructive?

Example: As I was lying on the bed I see the doctor holding a big syringe like object with a white hose connected to it. At this time I could see myself through another person’s eyes and as I watch myself screaming in pain. I saw the doctor putting the hose inside me and I felt the hose sucking the baby that was inside me and I could feel it leaving my body.

Panty hose: Depends what you are doing with them. Ask yourself what feelings are being shown in the dream.

Tangled hose: Obviosuly you are not taking enough care in handling the flwo of forces in your life. Ask yourself how you are dealing emotionally- do you feel tangled in any way?

Washing machine hose: This could relate to your efforts to clean up areas of your life. If the hose bursts it might mean that your energy of emotions is causing a mess.

Idioms: hose it down/ hose it off;


Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of hose is it and what feelings are felt?

How were you using the hose –w ith care or playfully?

Were there destructive or bad things happening?

See Summing UpEnergy Sex and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Hospital

Hospital represents needing or being involved in a healing process of body or mind; worries about ones health. Healing also signifies change, so the hospital may also mean the difficulties met in making changes.

Example: ‘I was a prisoner in a hospital, although there were no locked doors or bars. It was a psychiatric hospital, but we were allowed to believe we had a physical illness. I had been very ill, but was trying to escape.’ Joan P. At the time of her dream Joan was feeling trapped in depression and was also attending a therapy group.

The healing may need us to really feel the pain or feelings that underlie our illness.

Example: During the fifth and sixth sessions I relived the overpowering sense of desolation while I was in the long term hospital and felt with clarity my sense of abandonment when my mother left me on visiting days. At the eighth session I re-lived with great anxiety fighting against being anaesthetised for tonsillectomy. I fought with three doctors who tried to hold me down and I was anaesthetised in a state of acute terror.

The woman had suffered from acute migraine attacks and was completely cured through the LSD therapy. She says, “I have two sons now and it is nice to think I can enjoy life without having that constant fear”.  Her husband stated that his wife was a much more peaceful person since the treatment, and had had no further attacks of migraine. He stated that his wife no longer minded his being on night shift and now seemed perfectly at peace with herself, lie stated that the sexual side of the marriage was much more harmonious.

So much of the causes of illness are hidden from our conscious mind and need to be explored in other ways than thinking. See Life’s Little Secrets

To be able to find such healing we often have to realise our core self, our enormous potential. Joseph L. Henderson, writing on Ancient Myths and Modern Man in Man and His Symbols, points out that Perseus had Athena; Theseus had Poseidon. This, Henderson points out, represents the wholeness of oneself (ones potential) from which we can draw strength – the conscious personality that we identify as ourselves, expressing as it does only a tiny part of the totality of our possibilities and experience.

Of course fear of death is such a huge and enormously powerful cause of inner illness. Such fears are based on concepts we hold regarding ageing or death. The loss of identification with oneself as a procreative and highly motivated person may seem to be a sign of emerging incapability or even senility. The fear then sets up a conflict with the process of psychic growth.

A woman who had worked as a nurse describes her experience of this as, “‘The feelings I have about dying, about losing my drive to live, link with ideas of being incapable in hospital. Those are feelings or ideas I connect with it. Those images have made it – or are making it – hard to meet.”

However, such a felt death is only a precursor to the experience of resurrection or rebirth, and this leads toward a new relationship with oneself and the world.

There are signs of undealt with emotions and pains of childhood, but there are many other causes. But one of the clearest indicators is of the hurt baby or child within is from your dreams. Examples of dreams showing the damaged inner baby and child are as follows:

Example: I am with my wife, taking a short cut through hospital grounds, but we are seen and reprimanded. “You must not take short cuts through hospital grounds.” Then I am in a strange old house. Under the floorboards I find many babies. They are abortions from previous girls living there. As I watch, one dried up baby body begins to fill up with blood. I can see its intestines.

Example: A war was on. I was in London and bombs had blasted buildings. A baby had been injured, along with an elderly man with black hair.

Example: I was in a hospital. A nurse passing by looked at my baby son and then suddenly looked again and said, “Did you know there is something wrong with your baby?” I told her I didn’t. She said she would prefer not to tell me, and to ask the sister. I knew this was because what she had seen was a serious illness.

Each of the dreams shows very clearly the image of an injured or sick baby. Two of them also take place in a hospital, linking the baby with the need for healing. In the first dream there is also the reprimand that no short cuts should be taken in the healing process. The second dream indicates real conflict and injury from the experience of bombs, and also brings in the dark haired man – the dreamer’s father had black hair. The last dream again suggests the baby is in a serious condition, but in this dream the dreamer is not himself aware of it and must seek to find out what it is.

Sometimes the meeting of oneself and ones experience is see as a huge battle ground.

Example: I had several previous dreams of being a soldier moving up to the front with my fellows. Tonight I dreamt that we were now at the front and were ready for battle. Then suddenly the signal was given and we were over the top facing the enemy.

The enemy the man was facing was his own fears and traumas from childhood. The willingness to be involved in the battle led to a breakthrough in which he relived a dramatic event from being in hospital.

But of course some dreams are about actual physical illness.

Example: In the early nineties a friend, Ken S., came to consult me in my capacity as a dream therapist. He had experienced a dream that troubled him and wanted to understand it. In the dream Ken was walking along the upstairs passageway of a large old house. He was in his dressing gown on the way to the bathroom. About halfway along the passage he felt a fine spray of water on his body. This drew his attention to a small leak in a large water pipe running along the passageway. At that very moment the pipe burst and a torrent of water poured out. Ken was then rushing around trying to deal with the burst pipe, but fire also started elsewhere in the house.

Ken and I approached the dream using a traditional psychotherapeutic approach in which each aspect of the dream represents an emotion or psychological state in Ken. We didn’t get any satisfaction with this and so ended with the view that we hadn’t discovered the associations and powerful feelings that would uncover the hidden parts of Ken’s psyche. Three days later Ken was rushed into hospital with a burst colon. Ken was near to death, but with surgical and medical help recovered. When I next saw him, still in hospital, our eyes met and we both said at the same moment, “The dream” – meaning the dream had been a warning of the burst colon.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream about a psychological or phsyical situation?

Are you aware of any underlying cuases that are involved in the hospital dream?

Do you think you could face childhood emotions and pain in ealing?

See Avoid Being Victims – Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor Damage of fearWoman’s Creative PowerSumming Up

Hospital Gown

This may suggest there is some sort of healing process at work in your life at the moment. If not that then there is need for care or an involvement with hospital or sickness in some form.

The hospital gown also can suggest vulnerability or being looked after by others, or in a dependent relationship.

A hospital gown is often put on before an operation, and if there is any suggestion of that in the dream then it is linking with a big change in you, or the need to attend to something within you that is not healthy. In most cases this refers to a psychological difficulty or bad adaptation to your life situation, but it can at times point to a physical ill. If this is a strong feeling in the dream, have a medical check.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Apart from the gown, what is going on in this dreams regarding why the gown is being worn, and what can I understand from that?

Is there illness in the dream, and if so what is it and what does that suggest physically or as an analogy?

What is felt about the gown and the situation?

See Summing UpBeing in ControlTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of Habits

Hostage

In the media a hostage is often taken as a buffer against being killed, but it can also be a way to get money, or to get attention for a belief. Or a way hopefully to avoid being hurt.

Hostages in ones dream might also suggest that the dreamer is in some sort of disagreement between an employer and employees. For instance the boss, by keeping the struggle going without doing something about the issue, is holding the employees hostage.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of hostage is being depicted in the dream?

Is anything being demanded?

What is your reaction to the dream events?

See Active PassiveTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe power of HabitsCharacters and People in Dreams

Hot

Pleasurable ‘warm’ feelings; passion for someone. Hot can be pleasurable are harmful. It can destroy thing as with fire. Heat can cause pain and so one has an automatic reaction to avoid it, which is not always useful in dreams.

Heat can be a sign or excitement or tremendous change or activity – as when the body is fighting an infection or clearing toxins.

We are all alive because of the slow fire that is lit within us. The fuel it burns is the food we eat, and it is excited by the air we breath, so some dreams show this is their images.

Example: I dreamt I was creating a program. In the end I copied the whole program – all its parts – and put it ‘in’. This meant I could access all the parts at once without having to go out of one segment into another. This still didn’t feel exactly what I wanted, but it felt better, an improvement. My wife said that during the night I was very hot, like I was in a fever. That is how it felt – like I was working in such an intense way, I was electrified and buzzing.

Example: When the gunshot wonded flesh was in the antiseptic the blood bubbled and effervesced, becoming hot. I felt the flesh would not be of any use now, but wasn’t sure.

Example: I begin to feel as if I am opening to something of immense power. I have an image of myself seated and almost glowing with this power, and oriental people are backing away from me. They are not doing this with fear, but with something of the attitude or feeling one might have when you stand near to a big fire and it is too hot to be close to.

Example: There are four devils trying to get into my body and take over. My bedroom is going like a whirlpool around me, like evil all around me. I wake in a hot sweat and am terrified to go back to sleep.’ Joanna. LBC.

Joanna’s dream and hot sweat was the result of the fear she felt and the struggle she felt. She was fighting against her own urges. Dreams are simply images we use to express what we feel. She was fighting against being controlled. See Reaction to the unconscious

Very hot or burning: Potentially painful emotions or passions, which may leave their mark. See: fire.

Hot water: It can be that you have done something that you judge is not approved of by others, or you know you are in trouble now. See compass

Idioms: Be hot on; hot and bothered; hot blooded; hot headed; hot stuff; in hot water; in the hot seat; make it hot for someone; hot air; a hot hand; a hot number; a hot ticket; a hot topic; drop him like a hot potato; got the hots for; hot and bothered; hot goods; hot off the press; hot on the trail; hot on your heels; hot stuff; hot tempered; hot topic; hot under the collar; it’s cold / it’s hot; not so hot; shit hot; strike while the iron is hot; too hot to handle; sell like hotcakes; hotdog; hothead; hotshot; cat on hot bricks; hot blooded; in hot water

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What category of hot does your dream fit into?

Was ther any pain for discomfort in your dream?

Where you in ‘hot water’ in any way?

Was there pleasure or pain in the dream?

See Active PassiveAllowing the SpontaneousTalking to Inner SelfTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Hotel

New areas of self. Attitudes in self that may not be permanent. States of mind or being in which you are lodging, holidaying, or passing through on your way to somewhere else. Luxury and ease.

A dreamt of hotel might also link with work or an opportunity you had; or even a sexual affair that happened. If it is temporary are you involved in constant activity with much coming and going of ideas.

When you stay in a hotel you temporarily transfer your feelings about territory to the room you hire. But you know it is only temporary, and so dream hotels often link with a situation you are in that will not last long, or that you are moving through. This may be in connection with work or relationships, or even the way you feel, depending on what else is in the dream.

The dream hotel may also be about feelings of getting away from pressures, demands and duties that you face at home. Or it can depict your journey, your shifting values.

For many people a hotel is a place of work. If this applies to you, then the other activities in the dream are commenting on your work situation or how you feel about it. If your main association with hotels is about holidays, then your dream is exploring your need to relax, and perhaps your hopes of what you might find in that relaxation. What is it you are looking for or hope for?

If you have used hotels as a place for sex, then ask yourself what your dream message is about that.


Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you worked or lived in a hotel for a long period?

Do you use hotels for holidays?

Have you been involved with hotels as a place to have a relationship?

Are you going through changes or uncertainty?

See Associations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsEdgar Cayce

Hound

Something to do with persistence, or following clues or chasing something or someone down.

A hound can follow a subtle clue, such as a scent, and show you where to find it. People often use the word hound to mean someone is really bothering them, perhaps life a stalker. See dog

Example: S is trying to integrate A through sexual intercourse, but that is not the way this unification can come about. As A, that kind of union is no longer there for me to give and as A I am not honest in even this attempt to give her what she keeps hounding me for, so my anger takes over and I am not entering her in a loving way. This is not who I am, so as A I am violently ill with the contact of our bodies and souls, and this horrible green jealousy and envy of S grabs me and attacks me. I recoil violently as it wants to consume me, but I am an old soul and very strong and experienced, so I am able to wretch and expel it from my body.

Example: A large puma was in some bushes. I was encouraging my dog, but suddenly realised the cat was in a snare – its back left leg was in the wire. I called the dog off and went to try to take the snare off. I was apprehensive the cat might attack me. But it pulled loose by itself, the wire trailing from its leg as it ran up the hill. As it went I noticed it had a large moist vagina the size of a woman’s. Then two hounds began to worry something in the spot the cat had been. An animal was hiding in a blanket or cloth. I drove the hounds off and saw the animal was a huge anaconda or rock snake. I caught hold of it behind the head, but it pushed hard, but I could just about hold it. It seemed to understand what I wanted though, and folded itself back into the material.

An insight into this dream came from exploring it: The Puma somehow is my relationship with my wife and my own feelings. I have struggled long and hard with my sexual drive to be free of negative feelings. The snake is my own sexuality and masculinity or creativity. We work together now after initial struggle for control. I felt deeply loving toward my wife for being my companion and helper in this discovery of myself. It is an acceptance of my own physical delight and my own strength. See Reptilian Brain


Useful Questions and Hints:

Are the hounds or hound helping me or hounding me?

What do I or did I feel about the hound(s)?

Have I ever enjoyed seeing a dog tracking something?

See Mammal BrainSumming UpAssociations Working WithTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


House

For public buildings see Buildings or for other home things see Home. Also see house in my dreamparts of house like attic or windows.

A house nearly always refers to you, depicting your body and aspects of your personality. That is because it is what you live in – your body. This becomes obvious if, having visited friend’s houses you judge their character by the condition of the house. The following description of a man returning home gives a graphic example of this.

Example: When I arrived home and walked through the garden gate I noticed things about the garden I had never let myself see before. The untidiness and absence of care were no longer hidden by veils. Particularly the track I had worn across the small front lawn. It was worn because I used it as a shortcut instead of walking along the path. But then I arrived at the door, I knew suddenly that it was me. The door was me, and every scratch on its paint was a part of my life, reflecting my state. Opening the door I went into myself. The door and garden had already shocked me with my lack of attention to outer details. Now inside the house, the same things showed themselves in the state of my house, depicting my inner health.

We are all human animals trying to deal with and confronted by the complexities of modern life, with its subtle and ingeniously devastating values. A house is a modified cave. It is so easy to get lost in the jungle of values and forget that. As (primitive) humans, we may recognise what are the basic needs – food, shelter, and human and physical warmth. A cave without emotional warmth was deadly and even if it fitted the modern “values” was deadening. Love was a food that we all needed to face the outside world with outgoingness and pleasure. Without it there was no flowing radiating charge in us to transform the outer world into a place we could meet with courage. See Opening to Life

Thus if you take a large house with its many functional rooms, the library would represent the mind; the bathroom cleansing or renewal of good feelings; the bedrooms ones sexuality or intimacy; the roof your protectiveness or ‘coping mechanisms’. But these parts of the building may also be seen as different parts of your body. So going into any building suggests an entering into something within you, perhaps a searching or looking within yourself. So the structure of the building not only associates with your physical age and well-being, but also with the structure of attitudes and viewpoints built in your youth through your relationship with those around you. In a larger context, a house can represent a family tradition, the class the family is in the social hierarchy.

Example: When I identified with the house it took a while to really experience it as a living process rather than simply an intellectual interpretation.  But when I did become the structure and experienced the extent of the house, I realised it as my body.  But it was not my body as I had been taught to see it through my training as a nurse.  I did not experience it simply as a biological process, or a physiological machine.  I experienced it as an incredibly ancient thing, carrying or incorporating in its form and functions lessons of life gathered over millions of years of human and animal evolution.  I felt that it holds within its darkness – the presently unconscious areas developed and lived in the past – enormous amounts of information or memories.  We fail to be aware of these because our attention is so fixed on the world outside of us.  But of course, even there, if we look carefully, we can see we are the result, our culture and language are the result, of the events and lives stretching back into the ancient past.

The house can depict a way we allow the world into our life, or exclude it, and the love or attitudes, the pain or hidden secrets of relationships. But a house is a massive symbol and it can link with many aspects of you and your life. So to really get from your dream house what it refers to you also need to ask yourself what type of house it is. For instance how old is it and how does that refer to your age and what period of social attitudes your were born in and influenced by. What social strata does the house represent and what environment does it stand in?

Then, in what way are you influenced by or developed from that social background. If we then go into the house, what is happening inside, and whereabouts in the house? This indicates things, feelings, past influences you are presently dealing with. As a person you have many facets and possibilities, and the various parts of the house depict these. The interaction between these facets are what make you who you are. Understanding them enables you to find your way through the things you face in yourself and the world.

Example: I started to identify with the building, and realise that I am the building. My body is the building. As the building, as my body, I realised that I have been built by many different influences. Not only have my parents contributed by their genetic make up, but also the environment I have lived in, the food I have eaten, the society in which I lived and its many chemicals and waste products all have been influenced in the building and shaping of my being. In fact in the dream the building appears strong, solid and functional.

abandoned house – ancient houseapartment or flatattictrapped in an attic – threat from atticlooking out from attichiding in attic

Back of house – balcony/verandaballroom –  bannister – basement – bedroom basement and cellarsnake in the cellar or caveBad smellbathroom big house buying a house 

childhood house cellar – ceiling – chimney – corridor

dining room – doorBack doorBlack doorDoor to strange landscape or worldDoorknobfront doorLeaving door openglass doorshutting a doorside doorSomeone at a door

empty house

first floor – Floors of house – Floor –  fortressground floorHomehouse attackers or intruders from outside–  house burnt or falling –  cramped housedamage to structure –  – Front of House –  house known only in dreamhaunted houseinside of housekitchen in woman’s dreamkitchen larder or fridgeliving roomLooking back at a/your house – moving or new housenursery 

Grand house or stately home

old or known houseother people in houseother person’s house – Outside the house and garden

People or things coming from downstairs

repairs enlargements or renovationroof – Room – row of houses

Secret or unknown room – Seeing your husband/wife/partner go in someone else’s houseBeing in someone else’s  house – Shelf – Stairs – Study or library

Things in the house – Toilet – Top floor or attic upstairs –

people or things arriving from

Wall – Windows

Abandoned house: Suggests it was lived in at one time and was then no longer used or honoured. It also has suggestions in a dream of things that have left memories. There might be things left there that would be useful. Sometimes there have been things done there that you are frightened of or regret.

ancient house: A very old house, especially if it is large, can depict what could be called past dwellings, or past lives involved in or connected with your present life. In general it depicts the past from which your present life has emerged, and the influences from which it arises.

apartment or flat: In general the same as house or home – below – but may have a slightly different significance if you have lived in an apartment or flat. Therefore the questions need to be asked as to whether the dreamer lived/lives alone in the apartment? Does the dreamer share the apartment with others? What was living alone or sharing like? These form the associated feeling states connected with the dream apartment. See Settings in Dreams

attic: The mind, ideas, memories, past experience; things that are out of sight or forgotten. See larger entry on attic

If trapped in an attic: a purely intellectual approach to life.

Finding an attic: pleasure at new ideas, discovering potential or wisdom from past experience, or you are dealing with things you previously thought were not important in your everyday life.

Threat from attic: Disturbing thoughts, or something connected with what you have hidden or forgotten.

Window or turret looking out from attic: Our sense of connection with the cosmos; wider awareness; intellectual view.

Hiding in attic: Escape from other people; retreat from everyday life. See example below.

Example: I was sleeping in an attic. A large dog was with me – a wolfhound like I used to exercise a few years ago. I and the dog would go out together. The dog was wild and free. I enjoyed being with it. together we did things like hunting which felt very real in the sense of not being artificial behaviour. Although I never washed I felt clean and healthy. Leon.

When Leon explored his dream he felt the attic was a place where he could exist but not be involved with people. The attic reminded him of the attic in a childhood house, where his mother never went because of the steep ladder. So he could go there and be alone, free of other people’s presence and influence.

Back of house: Usually represent the less public of viewed or private area of ones life. Where one can be more of oneself out of the public eye.

balcony/veranda: It can mean an attitude of looking down on people, maybe superiority but it could also be about not wanting to get involved or express who one really is. A balcony in a theatre is also a special place for important people, and also a dangerous place for young children. Veranda can be an outdoor place for entertainment or socialising, so can suggest an ability to express yourself and be sociable.

ballroom: See: ballroom.

banister: A feeling of security against falling or being hurt. Something that protects you; a protective barrier. See: the section on stairs under house and buildings. It might at time be a link with childhood memories where hurt was involved.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the banister play in my dream, and what does that suggest?

Am I near a dangerous edge in my life?

Is this something I have built out of my attitudes?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsSumming Up

basement and cellar: Usually the things we have hidden from awareness in our unconscious. The example shows how Mrs L. has killed or repressed a part of herself. We might ‘kill’ ambition, love, sexual drive, and these be pushed into our unconscious.

But the basement or cellar also is the entrance to personal and transpersonal memories, our biological ‘unconscious’ functions, archetypal patterns of behaviour, subliminal or psychic impressions, the collective unconscious. Frequently it is the place we keep memories of traumatic events in our life. So a dark shape or intruder might emerge from ‘downstairs’. Our dark deeds or guilty memories are also in the basement.

A snake in the cellar or cave: Our psychobiological drive; the energy behind our growth and motivation which includes sex drive. Often experienced as our emotional or feeling drive or zest for life. This connects us with awareness of our evolution as a person.

Bad smell: emotions which could cause depression or illness.

Example: ‘I know I have killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar. The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. Various people visit my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of these recurring dreams the police actually investigate the disappearance of ‘the person’ and go into the cellar. When I wake from these dreams I always have the most terrible guilty feeling.’ Mrs P. L.

bathroom: If you are from the USA going to the bathroom can mean you want to use the toilet, in which case see toilet – or maybe you need wash, or have a shower or a bath, in which case see bath/bathing.

buying a house: See: purchasing a house.

chimney: Smoking; the birth canal; sign of inner warmth. Belching black smoke: The grim mechanised side of our culture centred on production instead of humanity.

corridor: No man’s land; limbo; in between state; the process of going from one thing to another. The corridor, because of its shape directs ones progress along it. So it is both limiting and yet gives opportunity to traverse a building quickly.

So if it has this feel in your dream it links more with the expression of your potential or energy. As such it is a channel for the energy of potential to flow through you, into the many departments or ‘rooms’ of you. The example may refer to the experience of birth – the birth canal. Such a corridor can also depict a sense of not being able to get out of a dissatisfactory situation. It may refer to a direction in life produced by circumstances, or even the female genitals. See: white. Many corridors in a building might suggest the complications and barriers that stand in the way of simple effective action or expression.

Example: ‘I’m trapped in a long passageway or corridor. I can’t get out. I’m feeling my way along the wall – there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t get to it. I’m very frightened. I wake up before I get to the end. Then I feel afraid to go back to sleep.’ Margaret.

door: Freud felt that a door, a keyhole, a handle, a knocker, all depicted sex and sexual organs. The first example shows this clearly. Knocking refers to the sex act, the cul-de-sac is the woman’s legs. But the image of a door has so many other ways of being expressed in dreams and is used very frequently. In the first example it represents the experience of discovering a new feeling state. For instance if one had always been apologetic and now became affirmative, ‘new doors’ of experience could well open.

Door – General meanings depending on dream: A boundary; the difference between one feeling state and another, such as depression and feeling motivated; a barrier to change or growth; the passing from inside oneself to exterior life; the feelings or attitudes, such as aloofness, we use to shut others out of our life to remain independent or private; being open or inviting; a sense of leaving an environment or relationship – escape; entering into a new work or relationship situation; entrance to a new life style, or a new phase of one’s life. Or conversely, an exit from one situation into another.

Back door: Our private, family life; our more secret activities; the anus.

Black door: The barrier that ones fears or apprehensions set up; the unknown, but perhaps imagined in a way that does not relate to reality. Going through the black door may therefore lead to a freedom from the limiting fears.

Door to strange landscape of world: Finding entrance to unconscious.

Doorknob: Turning point in opportunity, sexual or otherwise. The ability to make a change or to enter into a new situation. See: knob.

Front door: Public self; confidence; our relationship with people in general; a vagina.

Leaving door open: this can suggest that you remain ready and sympathetic to new ideas, a relationship, or to move in and out of a situation.

Glass doors: Invisible barriers in the way of your goals or possibilities; being able to see through to the possibility of change.

Grand house or stately House: Possibly represents either your inherited tendencies from your ancestors or your logn past; or your vision or ambitions for something you would like to happen. Remember that great things have always developed from people’s great ideas that they then work at making real – for the real is only our vision of the future that we put our life energy into building. See The House of the Ancestors

Shutting a door: Privacy; trying to find ‘space’ for oneself; the dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact; repressing memories or feelings; decisively ending something.

Side door: Escaping from a situation or being indirect.

Someone at a door: Opportunity; the unexpected; new experience or relationship.

Example: ‘I find my way to a door and knock. It is at the end of the cul de sac. An old woman of about sixty comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and have sex with her.’ Patrick S.

Example: ‘I come up to a door which I’d never seen before, and on opening it, I came across another house fully furnished.’ Mrs R. F. Example: ‘I am being strangled from behind by a faceless man! I had gone down to lock my flat door for the night when I noticed the door was open. I hastily bolted it and ran upstairs, but unknown to me the intruder was already in the flat.’ Miss H.

Here the door represents the censorship the dreamer places between her conscious self and her sexual drives. In ‘strangling’ our own life drive, we ourselves feel cut off from life.

empty house: Suggest that you are feeling empty of purpose and perhaps are slightly without purpose. Or it could mean that you have a completely new beginning to be very creative with your life and direction.

first floor: (In this dictionary the first floor is called the ground floor)

fortress: See: castle.

ground floor: For all the ‘floors’/levels of a house see Floor

Home: Ones basic needs such as shelter, warmth, nourishment – but usually in the sense of what we have created as our basic way of life; the values, standards, goals we have accepted as normal, or are ‘at home’ with; as in the first example – the situation or feeling state in our home, which here means family atmosphere and attitudes; the state of feeling relaxed, being oneself because away from other people and what we need to be in relationship with them. Thus a sense of being oneself, or absence of concern over other peoples criticism.

In clarifying this dream symbol, it needs to be defined as to what the state of feeling was in the home, and whether one shared the space with others, and what this was like.

In a past home: Depicts the parts of our character or experience which developed in that home environment.

Someone else’s home: What we sense as the attitudes and atmosphere – or the situation prevailing in that home. So a young woman going to the home of her lover and his wife, shows her facing the fact of her lover’s home situation and commitment in marriage.

Future home: The direction you would like your life to take, or fear it might. See: house below.

Idioms: Bring something home to someone; close to home; come home to roost; home and dry; broken home; home truth; home is where the heart is; feel at home.

Example: ‘I was sitting in the living room at home and my mum was sitting there; like we do when we’re relaxing in the evening. From nowhere in particular my dad was there. He held his girlfriend in his arms and displayed her in front of us. She was stark naked. My mum tensed up, tightened her lips, and tried to look away. I felt acutely embarrassed for me, mum, dad and his girlfriend.’ Lynsay S. Example: ‘I am walking down a busy street when I realise all I have on are my bra and pants. Everyone is staring at me and I try to appear unconcerned but feel more and more embarrassed as I go on. Eventually the street and the people fade and I am alone in my own home and a great sensation of relief comes over me. I do not bother to put any more clothes on but wander about the house secure in the comfort people are no longer looking at me. Mrs S. C. This depicts the home as absence of demands made on us by other people or social rules – so the ability to be oneself.

house: If the house is one we know, live in now or in the past, what is said about home applies.

Attackers or intruders from outside: Social pressures or response to criticisms.

Basement: See: basement.

Bedroom: See: bedroom

Big house: People often dream of a very big and grand house, and often feel it is not theirs, but everything in a dream is created by your own thoughts, fears, and genius. It depicts the many different departments and areas of yourself you could explore, also your ancient past can be open to you if you enter your dream house.

The big house is a sign that you are much bigger and have more space/potential than you presently believe or know. You need to explore that potential and develop it, for you are a miracle of life, and nobody fully understands what we are. So see Being the Person or Thing

While awake we often think we have a view of what we are based on other peoples opinion of us, our parents lack of interest in us and their comments, that may have made us feel small and insignificant, or even our own view of ourselves, what our body looks like. And so often we have a diminished view of ourselves. But being alive is a miraculous and amazing thing – probably the most amazing thing in the universe.

Our astronomers are searching everywhere to find life on other worlds. In one way that is ridiculous. We spend enormous amount of money and time in such searches on other planets and yet forget that we are living beings with enormous – even infinite  – potential and do nothing toward caring for and helping each and every one to unfold their potential.

Burning or falling down: Big changes in attitudes; leaving old standards or dependencies behind; sickness. See: Last example in falling.

Cellar: Similar to basement – what is unconscious or below ones usually level of awareness. Also may still have associations to do with ‘below stairs’ referring to what is beneath one or a lower class. Also in the cellar or basement one is near to the earth, the primordial forces of nature, what moves beneath ones ‘street level’ personality. The basement can also link with what your present personality has been built upon, your past or family and cultural influences. If there are no walls to the cellar, or tunnels leading from it, it shows an openness or connection with influences beyond your own personality.

Ceiling: Protection, security, against the life’s difficulties. Something above your head, or out of reach. The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity, the height or range of your imagination, or your mental limit or boundary. If you live in a flat with people above you, the ceiling can mean the things other people do that enter your life, interfere with it, or even damage you in some way.

childhood house: It refers to feelings or incidents. sometimes traumatic, that occurred in your childhood years.

Remember that a house nearly always refers to you, depicting your body and aspects of your personality. This becomes obvious if, having visited friend’s houses you judge their character by the condition of the house. See Children’s Traumatic Fears

Chimney: Smoking; the birth canal; sign of inner warmth. If belching black smoke – the grim mechanised side of our culture centred on production instead of humanity.

Cramped house: Feeling of need for personal change; feeling restricted in home environment or in present personal attitudes.

Damage or structural faults: Faults in character structure; hurts such as broken relationship; bodily illness.

Dining room: Appetites; social or family contact; mental or psychological diet.

First, and other middle floors: Internal needs, rest, sleep, hungers; the trunk. See floor for fuller description.

Floor and floorboards: Basic attitudes and confidence; what supports you and you may take for granted, such as health, good will of others, the house you live in. The floor often appears without much emphasis in many dreams. This suggests it is depicting the present situation or environment you are in. For instance first floor or second floor would suggest a different situation in which the events of the dream are taking place. Front of house: Our persona; facade; social self; face.

Ground floor: Practical everyday life, sexuality; hips and legs. It can sometimes suggest real love because all live has to be grounded, it has to be expressed unless it is brought down to earth. See floor for fuller description.

If it is a house created by the dream: Ones body and personality in all its aspects.

Haunted house: This usually point to a troublesome memory or experience that still ‘haunts’ you. But sometimes it can be something very real met, as follows:

Example: I believe there were other people in the huge attic room with me. Then the scene changed and I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms. Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary. Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it.

Inside the house: Within oneself.

Kitchen in woman’s dream: May refer to pride in the ability to create a home and contribute something valuable to the family. See: cooking.

Kitchen: Creativity; nourishing oneself; mother role; diet.

Larder: Hungers; sensual satisfaction; your store of memories or feelings that satisfy or nourish you.

Living room: This is the mental and emotional space you live in. Your dream will usually give you a pictorial version of what you have created within yourself, what you exist in and its quality, space or despair. It might also refer to personal leisure or ‘space’ to be oneself and everyday life.

Looking back at a/your house: Shows you looking back upon yourself, upon your life. What you see if a summary of your life at that time/

Moving or new house: This can either refer to a radical change in the way your attitudes and feelings create a sense of the world around you, or that you are in process of being changed by circumstances and events, and therefore deals with the difficulties or excitement/plans in facing the change. Certainly it reflects some sort of personal change, most likely to do with the way you live your life.

Example: Joan had a dream as an 11 year old child and has had it 20 times over the past 40 years. When she was 11 her family moved from a wonderful big country home into a small city road. She didn’t want to move house and didn’t have anyone to share her difficult feelings about not wanting to move. So, never having expressed her feelings the dream kept recurring. Example: The difficulty of facing change is also reflected in the dreams Diana still has as an adult. She dreams her children are always young and her parents always as they were when she was young.

Nursery or child’s bedroom: Feelings about your children; ones own childhood feelings and memories.

Old House or house previously lived in: A previous set of values or way of life, sometimes even a suggestion of influences from lives previous to your present one. This can have very deep meaning, as it can show the influences from your past that are still active in you; it can mean influences from your ancestors and your far past.

Other people in house: Different facets of dreamer, or person or people involved quite deeply in your life. Therefore a stranger entering your house would suggest a new relationship.

Other person’s house: Another person’s life. If you go in the house, it shows you getting involved with that person, perhaps being a part of their life – as for instance entering a relationship. If you are watching someone else go in the house, it suggests an awareness of that person, or an aspect of self, being involved in another person’s life. See entry below on seeing partner go into someone else’s house.

Outside the house and garden: Extroversion or the relationship with environment.

People or things coming from downstairs: Influences, fears, impressions from unconscious or passions – or from everyday worries.

People or things from upstairs: Influence of rational self.

Purchasing a house: In general this may relate to making a decision to change, or wanting a change in your life or circumstances. Purchasing something in a dream also often involves the process of deciding or being uncertain. The decision making is to do with clarifying what you want, what you would like. See: purchasing.

Repairs, enlargement or renovation: Reassessment or change of attitudes or character; personal growth.

Roof: The philosophy, beliefs or coping strategies we use to protect yourself from stress. The roof can also suggest how you are dealing with the energies of emotion, and whether your ‘house’ or personality, is sound.

Standing on a roof: Heightened awareness. See: spiritual life in dreams

Mending roof: Developing new coping strategies; feeling vulnerable; developing the qualities on your life that lead to wholeness.

Leaking roof: Need for new coping strategies; a suggestion that you need to deal with personal problems.

No roof: If not a threatening dream, suggests no barrier between personality and psychic or spiritual awareness; a sense of connection with life or wider awareness. If threatening, feeling invaded by forces outside oneself, or disturbing emotions if raining.

Roof garden: Spiritual or mental growth or flowering of new ideas, insights or abilities. See: Last example in window.

Room: A particular feeling state – for instance the room might feel sinister, warm, spacious, cold, etc. – so depicts such; womb; your life situation if it is a room you are living in. In this sense the room can depict what difficulties, what traps, what poverty or richness of life you are living in. Sometimes a room, because of its spaciousness represents the amount of potential or opportunity one has. The ‘containing’ quality of a room may also depict involvement in ones mother. The décor of the room usually suggests how you feel about the quality of your life.

Bare room: This may suggest you feel your life lacks comfort, or the joy of your own created environment. It can also suggest potential.

Entering another room: Entering a new experience or phase of your life, a new feeling.

Room without doors or windows: May represent the womb and life in the womb. What is happening in the room may show the state of a pregnancy, or feelings about pregnancy; feeling trapped.

Secret room or finding of extra rooms: A common dream theme – recognition or discovery of previously unnoticed aspects, abilities, fears, or traits in oneself. If the discovery is distressing, this may reflect a feeling of a change in ones status quo which is disturbing.

Example: ‘There was a room in my house I had never been in before. It was filled with water and had three kittens submerged in it. While in the room I didn’t need to breath.’ Audrey P. The room here represents Audrey’s childbearing function – her womb. The room can therefore depict mother or qualities of mothering.

Row of houses: Other people. See: entries on room; roof; stairs; wall; attic.

Seeing your husband/wife/partner go in someone else’s house: This may suggest your partner has the tendency to move into another relationship. This may be only your fears, but it may show you sense a growing distance in your relationship, and the possibility of your partner going elsewhere.

Example: I was with my husband down some back alley ways – behind houses – all a bit grey looking and maybe evening light. We were looking for a way through and my husband suddenly took off down a very narrow alley through a wooden tumbled down fence and was gone. I tried to follow but when I got through the fence I felt my husband went through the house that was ahead. It was a strangers house and I just couldn’t make myself walk up to it, open the back door and go through it – what if someone saw me or asked me why I was in their home uninvited – I imagined that the owner was a young oriental woman – and I wasn’t sure IF my husband HAD gone that way or down another alley way. Kate.

Some months later Kate’s husband went to live with another woman. Shelf: Possibly your memories, of something that is a part of your everyday awareness; something that is accessible in terms of your using it or remembering what it represents. See: ledge.

Someone else’s house: Moving into it suggests you want to be like them or want to be near them or even love them in some manner.

Shelf: Possibly your memories, of something that is a part of your everyday awareness; something that is accessible in terms of your using it or remembering what it represents. But principally the way you display or store things that are either precious to you or things, memories you store that still have importance,

Stairs: See stairs

Study or library: Mental growth; mind.

Things in the house: Aspects of ones feelings and makeup.

Toilet: Privacy; release of tension; letting go of emotions, fantasies or desires which we need to discharge. See: toilet.

Top floor or attic: Thinking; the conscious mind; memory or memories, things that haunt you; the head. See: attic.

Walled garden: With high wall it is not only a defense about intruders, but also a private area where you can sunbathe with or without clothes, or be a private person. See wall

Windows: Ones outlook on life; how you see others. See larger entry on window.

Useful questions and hints:

What is happening to the house – changing – decorating – exploring – and how does that apply to me?

What does the quality, age and areas of this house describe about me?

If I describe myself as the house what do I say?

If I am exploring new areas of the house, what am I finding?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems See: For fuller insight into house – House in Your Dream; Basement, Stairs, Window, Glass, Door, Furniture.

Housework

The cleaning out of non functional – negative – attitudes, thoughts and experience; keeping our internal house in order, perhaps by taking time to clarify or define motives, opinions and feelings about others.

Dreams are one of the major ways our inner process tries to do this old housework of cleaning up our inner problems or conflicts. But because we resist it the process cannot complete itself even though we are asleep. Think of nightmares for instance. They are the major way the dream tries to present us with things that have really disturbed us, and most people wake trying to distance themselves from such feelings as fast as they can.

The earliest dreams we may recall are usually dealing with the housework of the present – the tangles and pains of childhood and infancy. Piece by piece they emerge into awareness to be known and integrated.

But sometimes such a dream may connect us to a long past during which our forebears did such tasks and left in us the heritage and urge to keep our living place clean and healthy. When found these are wonderful things to find is us – the urge to prepare good food; the urge to look after the life around us in our garden and help it grow to beauty; the urge to care for and love all the children in our care, even the wonderful companions of our life – the cats and dogs of our existence.

 Example: I’m carrying two heavy bags home from school. A teacher doesn’t help me. I am at home, now a mother with children moaning for their tea. I can’t go to bed unless I complete my housework. I’m on a sinking ship like Titanic, jump overboard, divers helping others avoid me. I cry out for help, but they ignore me. I’m a disabled single parent with 2 teenage children.

I am hearing your cry for help Elizabeth. The sinking ship tells me you are near to emotional collapse. However, at a distance I am wondering if – a) From your schooldays you felt nobody supported you so you got into a victim role. b) You consistently take on too much and push yourself too hard. c) You have asked for help but have found no response.  Do any of these apply?

The two bags are your children, who you have no help to carry. The dreams describe the man in your life as apparently strong, but in fact doing nothing to help. What can you do though? Certainly stop pushing yourself so hard – or learn to relax the feeling of constant pressure. Make a long term plan to gain help from your children, to share the load. As a mother you are an important person and no mother should live in a society that makes a mother feel such stress. So be like a tigress and stand up for you rights.

 Example: Sometimes we dream about balking at doing housework. This usually (if not factual) indicates a refusal to clean one’s spiritual house, for we are often unwilling to face the fact that we have fallen short of living up to our ideals, or what we know to be right and good. A good case in point is the woman who said she used to have beautiful dreams until she began to ask for guidance. After that her dreams became so ugly and frightening that she decided she didn’t want guidance! She had begun to discover some of these hidden rooms of her own mind and soul and she didn’t like what she saw. So she stopped looking. Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way does the dream show you involved in housework?

Most animal keep their ‘house’ clean, even pigs. Do you have trouble with housework?

What does the plot of your dream depict?

See Plot of the DreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams – Habits – Edgar Cayce

Hug Hugging

A direct expression of warmth and the beginning of intimacy, or acting it out for social reasons.

It is also an expression of enormous recognition of the other person, a meeting that can take many forms – sexual, a feeling of being family and connected, a sense of knowing the person in a deep way, a sharing of past pain and struggle, a cry to be held and given security.

Example: He came over to me and peeked in. I was a little embarrassed because my butt was showing. I got up and he wanted to hug me. That was O.K. He suggested we go to his hotel room to make love. I said, “No, I don’t want to,” because I wanted him to care for me, or be caring and then the sex would be good. He looks like, “Uh, oh. She wants to get married.” and I said, “No, it doesn’t mean we’ll be together forever, just that when we’re together, I want to feel close, cared for.”

Example: ‘I had very little pubic hair and thought it must be because I had just had a shower, but, no, on looking again I had very little hair. I was hugging Mary, a friend, my arms around her back and one hand holding her vagina. It was then I noticed she was the shape of a man there. I drew away for a second at the discovery then felt OK as it meant I was hugging a male/female person. We were very warm together. Two days before this dream my husband had said his mother called a vagina a MARY.’ Lucy R.

Example: We need to remember there is a strong connection between sex, creativity, and spirituality. All of these stem from the same centre-the difference lies in the direction of our will. Often a strong sex desire stems from an inner urge to merge with God, to become more spiritual, or to reach for a higher state of consciousness, but we fail to recognise this as the source.

Example: Our baby was there in the basement. I went to see to him, to see if he were okay, and as I did so he looked at me and we both recognised that we had known each other in a past life, and we hugged each other with much love, and it was as if he were a man with a very large face, and I clung to him with love.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did the hug mean to you?

Did I feel anything, emotion, while hugged?

What did I communicate, or was communicated in the hug?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsSettings in Dreams Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Huge

See big; giant

Hung Hanging

Quite a few dreams show someone, or yourself, hung by the neck. There are many possible things this might indicate. For one thing it definitely links with is death, the fear of death or the possibility of death. Such a death might be the result of self sacrifice, as shown in the Tarot card of the hanged man, or it might be as the result of social action – the cause and effect of things we have done; a punishment because of feelings of guilt.

However, many hangings are due to suicide, and so might in a dream reflect depression, loss of any pleasure in life, a retreat from pain, or feelings of hopelessness or guilt. See Suicide

Hanging on: Anything that hangs depends upon the thing it is hanging from or by. So hanging in a dream shows a state of depending for support on one thing, as shown in the dream.

It also shows dependence, fear of falling or lacking support. Or it may be you have found something to hang onto that actually supports you in an otherwise difficult situation. It is then helpful to define what it is in your waking life that is giving such support.  

A person who is hanged: Awful repression of self expression, to the point of feeling dead or depressed. See: Neck.

In some dreams however, there is a different sense of the hanging. It suggests not a death but an almost complete suppression of the life in one. A strangulation of the flow of pleasure and creativity that would otherwise stream through one. In such a case the rope needs to be removed and a new way of relating to oneself developed. See Exploring Dreams Techniques to use – Masters of Nightmares and Secrets of Power Dreaming

One can be ‘hung up on guilt’, or things are hung on something. In which case see Plot of the Dream or Processing Dreams 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I see someone hanging by the neck or is it me?

Do I often depressed or unable to express myself adequately?

Is there someone or something that gives you support?

If you are dreaming of suicide explore the dream to find answers?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams  The power of HabitsAvoid Being Victims – Self-Help Techniques To Use

 

Hunger

Your need for what sustains you, emotionally, mentally or physically. We sometimes lose hope, faith or strength, and this hunger represents the inner need felt at such times. See: food.

Often points to things you unconsciously yearn for, but have either repressed, denied, or been unaware of. Your needs, or demands, physically, emotionally and mentally. You may feel the need for success or fame just as acutely as the need for sex or food. See: eating

The solar plexus also links with hunger, the longing to be held, desire to give of yourself, or to be at the real or figurative breast. If these urges have been hurt, we may feel pain in the solar plexus and tend to hold ourselves back from active social expression or intimacy in relationships.

 Example: As I walked past the shops, having fasted for days, I found a sudden great enthusiasm for a packet of figs, as if they were wonderful, and I ought to buy them here and now. Then, thinking about this, I thought, “But I have a packet of figs at home, and do not need any more yet.” It was only then that I realised how the whole train of thought and desire had arisen from my hunger. With other shops also, the same thing happened. I was led to consider buying foods, without at all realising where the urge had arisen from, and to see this only later.

It seems likely, considering the above, that other things we repressed, such as our sexual needs, love and our need for something more from your life, also emerges subtly into consciousness in a similar way as hungers.

 Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep hunger for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was me as a united being and consciousness. It was, I felt, beautiful.

A person describes their experience of this hunger.

I had been exploring my inner world and here I took time to eat. I had prepared some oats before starting. When I ate them I experienced the most wonderful awareness of hunger and absorbing, not just the oats, nuts and seeds, but also the environment, and all that I had learned and taken in from the woman I loved. I mean by this the total environment, earth, air, water, culture, history, people. I felt like a hungry animal, cramming food in my mouth, loving it, and knowing I was feeding Life as well as myself.

I felt that if we have the courage, we are a firmament of experience. By exposing ourselves to experience, and allowing ourselves to really feel the pleasure, the torment, the passion of what we meet, we are feeding Life. But we are more than a mouth, we are also a way of gaining insight, of integrating experience, and that is the real food of Life.

I felt this is the real human work on the planet – consciousness, integrative sentience. This, I felt, is certainly my work, my function. It is to feel, to experience, to cry, to laugh and certainly to love. But in the midst of all that, to connect, to learn, to ask why or what, to gain insight and knowledge even if that is a struggle. Life, ones life, places, are situations where we can feed. Life says, “Take this in! Take this in! Experience, feel, ferment. Then show it to me. You are my digestive organ.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

What to you long for?

Is what you hunger for shown in the dream?

Have fulfilled your dreams or longings?

Do you feel hunger emotionally or is sexual attraction?

Is it a hunger and need of the body or of the soul?

See Learning to Allow Yourself  – Inner WorldExploring Dreams Techniques to use – Hungering

Hunter Hunted Huntress

The aspect of oneself which is either killing out our ‘animal’, or gaining sustenance from it; the urge to get away from everyday responsibility; our bread winning qualities. Being hunted can represent feelings of being a passive helpless creature, or being criticised or attacked unreasonably.

Hunting and learning the skills of hunting can take many forms. Remember that hunting includes survival skills. Just as a fox cub ‘learns’ how to hunt from its parents without words, so we absorb the deeply etched negative and positive survival or ‘hunting’ strategies of our parents simply by being around them. They never need to talk about it because usually the parents are unaware of it themselves. If genes come into it anywhere, they perhaps create the reflex response that instinctively draws in the survival tactics that perhaps even our parents themselves have never really been aware they live by.

In doing this the higher animals learn what cannot be passed on as instinct, what is not ‘hard wired’ into them. This holds in it a tremendous advantage because ‘hard wiring’ takes a long time. Through this faster method we learn what to be afraid of, what to eat, how to hunt, because the lessons learned by pain through many generations are exhibited in our parents behaviour in dealing with events. This is the information we may obtain through dreaming of our ancestors. Unfortunately there are many people who never had these skills, and unfortunately what passed on to them was all the negatives. See Passing on SkillsThe Conjuring Trick

 Example: I learned a lesson while hunting as a young man. For hours I had walked through woodland looking for a quarry but without sign of a single creature. Tiring I stood against a tree eating a sandwich. Slowly and magically the forest came to life around me, creatures walking and flying nearby unafraid while I remained quiet.

Example: I dreamt I was a primitive hunter in a forest. In a tree I watched the game come along certain trails, going toward water. In this way I learned to hunt to feed my family and tribe. But when I killed I gave praise to the animal and also to the hunter who would eventually hunt for me. For death is the mighty hunter who claims us all, and if we have not honoured those we hunt and kill, we will not be honoured as we are taken.

KillWhenHungryIt says, the law of the jungle says only kill when hungry – or like fox in a chicken house, when storing food for a hard winter.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I really hunger for?

Did I satisfy my hunger in the dream?

What lessons did I learn from my parents about ‘hunting’?

See Seeing into our Far PastProcessing DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming –  Life’s Little Secrets

Hurricane

To dream of a hurricane can indicate many things; approaching danger, frenzied emotions; feeling as if all power has been taken from you and you are tossed around by forces you have no control over; an overwrought and tormented mind; or even excitement at some passionate and exciting experience.

But if you can tolerate the emotions, fear or excitement, the outcome of these hurricanes of feeling can be joyous. For if you come through they lead to realisations that were hidden behind the emotions or fears. You will have conquered your fears and become a much bigger person and gone through the powerful change you were meeting.

 Example: I notice that there is a terrible hurricane coming up. I call out to everyone to go to the cellar. Charla is asleep. I go to her and finally have to pick her up and carry her as she wouldn’t wake up. My grown son who is gay and his fiancée are there.

Example: Our house had storm shutters and a storm cellar. Dad had already gotten food, clothes and blankets, and we went into the cellar. The hurricane hit and we were safe, though we didn’t have power for a while. They named it Hurricane Juno.

Example: Huge thunderclouds boiled into formation, but just as rapidly shifted and went. I said to the people in the room that it looked as if a storm was coming. But of course the clouds had all shifted. Suddenly however something new happened. Instead of thunderclouds a huge spiralling wind formed – a hurricane. I felt the excitement and danger of the situation and I think I called to my friends to warn them. Quickly the huge column of twisting storm moved down the open countryside directly toward the house. At one point I thought it changed course and would miss us, but it turned back and came straight at us. At this point all the distant view was obscured by a whirling mist. It was suddenly dark as the massive whirlwind blotted out everything but its own presence. Then it hit the house. I was expecting the roof to be ripped off, but there was no sound of rending or breaking. There was great tension though and I turned to look out of another window across the room facing the opposite direction. I could see great turmoil as the wind hit people and objects outside. It presented a great contrast with the house, unmoved and unshaken. Through the window it appeared as if an earthquake were lifting people up and dropping them. The earth itself shook and rolled like it were water rippling.

The dreamer had found the strength of his core self, which left him unshaken.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you run from the hurricane or did you meet it?

Where is the strength in you to face such things?

Is your house/self build upon shifting sands, or upon the rock of self realisation?

See Entering the SilenceSumming Up – Processing DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Hurt

Have you been wounded by what other people have said or done? Is there some event from the past that still hurts in some way?

But nothing can actually hurt you in your dreams. It is like a very dramatic film that you are fully immersed in and playing all the parts; you can feel everything but when finished you are the same without any physical hurts. Of course you may feel fear, or even terror, but they are all your own responses to the images you have conjured. If you learn to face such fears then they will not longer frighten you. We are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts or fears that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiment’s of our fears and ideas presented to us as truths; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are.

We have lost touch with the natural world and do not honour it as part of our life as many native peoples do, and this we can learn from our inner world, our dreams. We do not tend to the hurts we feel as a natural animal that we are, are so become sick in our soul – a soul that we deny we have. See Summing Up

 In our waking life it is good to recognise that our actions and deeds can cause others to feel hurt and change the way they feel – even lead them to feel traumatised. See Avoid Being Victims

We need also to see if it is us causing the hurts we feel. I recently asked a man who had experienced enormous pain through, as he felt, being misused by a woman friend. When I pointed out that this was the woman’s normal behaviour that he himself had described to me, so why was he hurt by it, he said that she should have been more caring for his feelings.

I then asked him if perhaps he was asking her to act like an adult while he maintained the emotional level of response normal in childhood – namely blaming someone else for his hurt. In response he again justified himself by saying that it was normal to feel hurt from such an action. See Ages of Love

 Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

 Example: I was in a large motor vehicle with perhaps three or four other men. The vehicle was like a very large lorry or removals van. We were driving along an unpaved road in slightly mountainous or rugged countryside. As we were driving along we became aware of a huge vehicle trying to overtake us. This had caterpillar tracks on each side of it like some tanks. It was immensely wide and going very fast. We pulled over as far to one side – the left – of the road as we could to allow it to pass. But as we did so we got too near the edge of the road and went over a precipitous drop. Quite a long period of the dream was taken up with the experience of falling. We seemed almost to go into freefall, a weightless state, because the fall was so long. It was long enough for me to think many thoughts about death, whether death would be instantaneous. I was not aware of any sense of fear or terror, simply an awareness of falling and what it might mean. Then we had crashed and I was still alive. I then had a memory of standing at the bottom of the huge drop waiting for someone.

As can be seen, when there is no fear there is no hurt or terror. Also even when there is terror in the dream there is no hurt. Like the computer game, you can get up again and continue the game – of life – until you learn to overcome your fears and go up to the next level of the game.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in fact am I frightned of getting hurt by?

Do I realise that the inner world of dreams is totally different to the  outer world? See Inner World

Can I face my fear of being hurt in my dreams?

See Facing FearKarmaMartial Art of the MindAvoid Being Victims

Husband

It can depict how you see the relationship with your husband; your relationship with your sexuality; sexual and emotional desire and pleasure; how you relate to intimacy in body, mind and spirit. Or it can be habits of relationship developed with one’s father.

Example: ‘My recurring dream – some disaster is happening. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep.’ Mrs G. S.

The husband here depicts Mrs S’s feelings of not being able to ‘get through’ to her man. This is a common female dream theme, possibly arising from the husband not daring to express emotion or meet his partner with his own feelings. For Mrs S. this is an emergency. Although the dream dramatises it, there is still real frustration, anger, and a break in marital communications.

Cannot find or lost husband or he disappears: Many women dream of ‘losing’ their husband while out with him, perhaps shopping, or walking in a town somewhere. Sometimes the dream portrays him actually killed. If you wonder whether your dream was a premonition, it is more likely a form of practising the loss, so it does not come as such a shock when or if it does happen. The greatest shocks occur when we have never even considered the event – such as a young child losing it’s mother – an event that has never been practised, not even in fantasy, so has no inbuilt shock absorbers. As most of us know, men tend to die before women, and this information is in the mind of married women. Mrs A. D. may have unconsciously observed slight changes in her husband’s body and behaviour, and therefore readied herself.

Example: ‘I dreamt many times I lost my husband, such as not being able to find the car park where he was waiting, and seeing him go off in the distance. I wake in a panic to find him next to me in bed. These dreams persisted, and then he died quite suddenly. He was perfectly healthy at the time of the dreams and I wonder if it was a premonition of me REALLY losing him.’ Mrs A. D.

Example: My husband and I go out somewhere together, mostly in a town or built up area. After a while I lose him, and even though we arrange to meet at a certain place, he’s never there when I arrive. I’m looking everywhere and desperately asking passers by if they have seen him. The sense of loss and panic is awful and people keep saying “Yes, he is over there, or went that way.” I never find him.

Dead husband: Your memories and remaining emotions about your husband. Sometimes a meeting with him. See Dreaming of Death

The example below illustrates the ‘psychic’ meeting some women experience. In anything of an apparently psychic nature, we must ALWAYS remember the unconscious is the great dramatist. It can create the drama of a dream in moments. In doing so it makes our inner feelings into apparently real people and objects OUTSIDE OF US. While asleep we lightly dismiss this amazing process as ‘a dream’. When it happens while our eyes are open or we are near waking, for some reason we call it a ghost, a vision or a psychic event. Yet the dream process is obviously capable of creating total body sensations, emotions, full visual impressions, vocalisation – what else is a dream? On the other hand, the dream process is not dealing in pointless imaginations. Many women tend to believe they have little sexual drive, so it is easier for G. L. to see her drive in the form of her husband. But of course, her husband may also depict how she felt about sex in connection with his ‘sexual appetites’. It is a general rule however, that our dream process will dramatise into a past life, or a ‘psychic’ experience, emotions linked with trauma, or sexual drive, which we find difficult to meet in the present.

Example: ‘My dead husband came into my bedroom and got into bed with me to make love to me. I was not afraid. But owing to his sexual appetites during my married life with him I was horrified, and resisted him with all my might. On waking I felt weak and exhausted. The last time he came to me I responded to him and he never came back again. This happened three times. The last time I don’t think it was a dream. I was not asleep. I think it was his ghost.’ G. L.

Death of husband: If you think about your husband, do you think it is him. No, it is your feelings memories and emotions you feel. That is exactly the same with dreams. It is not your husband you are dealing with directly, but your fears and feeling, your emotions and anxieties.

So dreaming or his death you have been exploring your feelings about him dying. It is not a prediction, and many women dream of their husband dying, and feeling of what it would be like without him. Rather that than never have face his death before it happens.

Example: I had a really horrible dream last night. My husband died. In the dream we were sleeping and when I wake up in the dream I realize that my husband is lying next to me as if he were still sleeping, but he’s not sleeping he’s dead. He died while sleeping. In the dream it’s horrible and we don’t bury him, I cremate him and I go every where with his ashes. I cannot let go of him and I feel so much pain because I won’t see him anymore, hear his voice or feel him. I woke up from the dream crying and turned around and hugged him and kept crying I felt so scared and I felt a lot of pain; it took a while for him to calm me down, I couldn’t stop crying. Right now typing this makes me get a chocked up feeling just thinking about what I felt in that dream makes me feel horrible (in the sense that I might lose him) I hate it and I feel scared. What could that dream mean?

It means that the woman is facing her feelings and anxieties about losing him. But losing him means the loss of support and companionship, of dreams of their future.

Inner husband: Many people do not realise that they have an inner husband equally as powerful as an external husband. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences, along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your husband, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your husband was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘husband’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner husband can appear in dreams because you are deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

Other woman’s husband: One’s own husband; feelings about that man; desire for a non committed relationship with less responsibility.

Sex with husband: The sexual dream at best is a wonderful indicator of how you, the dreamer, are feeling about your sexual and emotional relationship, or what one longs for, at the time of the dream. At worst it depicts all one fears might happen or be happening.

One can fairly safely say that our dreams are not so much about how the world and other people actually ARE, but rather how we see or passionately FEEL people or the world are. Of course our feelings and views may be very accurate, but one must always be aware of the variance between what one has created out of ones own inner life and vision, and how others people see themselves or events actually are.

Example: I dreamt I was laying in bed with my husband. I felt a sexual attraction and flow, something I hadn’t felt for a while in our relationship. I reached out to him expressing this but there wasn’t any response from him. So I talked to him saying that I had reached out to him sexually and in his body response I had felt there was no attempt to meet me. He replied that in fact that was the situation as far as he was concerned – that he was indeed saying no. Jo K.

Jo and her husband had lived for a year without any sex at all prior to the time of this dream. This had not been an unhappy time. Far from it, they had achieved a lot of peace and warmth without tension. On talking about her dream with her husband, he felt that he wasn’t saying no to her sexually. Indeed, his stated reason for not reaching out to her was that for years it had always been him making the approach to her. This had led to his feeling he was imposing something on her and as this was unpleasant he had stopped any attempt at sexual relationship. So Jo’s dream was really about how she saw her husband rather than what was actually happening. See Surviving Love and Relationships

Useful Questions and Hints:
Is the dream in any way an expression of what I feel or fantasise?
What is the dream dramatising?
Does it express our present state of sexual relationship?
See Difficult Relationship – Dead Partner or Ex – Identity and Sex – Ages of Love

 

 

Husk

The face value, the outer quality under which may hide beauty, nutrition, wisdom. It can also relate to past hurts which have been released, but which leaves the ghosts of their influence in you.

Hut

Childhood family feelings; basic uncomplicated situation or relationship.

It can link with memories of holidays or a relationships on holiday. It can link with work and how you do it – with quality or slipshod.

There are often a lot of sexual indications in connection with dream huts. Also a hut, especially if it is a native type hut can indicate ones primitive feelings and urges.

In some initiation rites for males, the boys live in huts shaped like a dragon or crocodile. This is a symbol of a young boy’s struggle to become independent of the mother and the power of the unconsciousness. In a similar way a sweat lodge in a heated hut or tent has a similar note of initiation, in which the dreamer changes from one level to another – a boy into a man; a girl into a woman; a woman or man into an elder of the tribe/family.

 Example: There was a girl about 17 and she lived in a small hut that was made up of wood and covered in banana leaves (dead). She was living on her own until a boy about 17 as well came to live with her. He was very sexy but the two were not dating or anything. It was like a room mate. Well the girls father that lived a few huts away (the huts were spaced pretty far apart, like 3 acres apart, but it was a small village) the place seemed to have no bad weather anytime or anything; it was sunny all the time and everyone had tanned skin. No one ever got sunburned. Well the father came over and saw the boy and thought that they were having sex but they weren’t. The girl went to her father and explained that he saw things wrong. So they got on better.

Example: I looked and saw it was badly done, and was seeing how to smooth it. But the place I was going to work was across the estate about three hundred yards away, where there were a lot of small huts. Then I was driving away with the thought I was going to start work the next morning.

Example: We walked a bit further and came to a hut beside the road. we laid down behind the hut in some long grass to make love but suddenly I saw a snake and jumped up. It turned out to be only a bicycle pump but by now we were aware of other people nearby and the moment had gone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with the hut?

Did I face any trials or was it in any way sexual?

Was I in a tribal or primitive environment?

See Settings in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsPlot of the DreamJesse Watkins Enlightenment


Hyena

Because of old and stereotyped beliefs about hyenas, they probably depict an attitude of living on other peoples vulnerability or weakness; taking advantage of someone or being taken advantage of; underhandedness; messenger or bringer of death; feeling parasitized. In fact the hyena is a resourceful hunter and pack animal, and the spotted hyena, the one we mostly see, kills 95% of its food, so is not a scavenger.

 But remember that anything you dream of is a projection of your own feelings, attitudes or fears. So it is worth asking yourself what traits of yours are shown in the dream.

 Example: Hi-I had a long dream that involved interaction with a hyena last night. I was at work in the greenhouse with my friend/boss and a big huge animal was walking around and it was sniffing around about to head into the woods and then it turned and sniffed us from a far and we said “It’s a hyena!” in amazement and then tried to close the greenhouse doors slowly but it came through the sides of it through a little tunnel; everything was really slow, we moved slow, the hyena moved slow. We were both bracing ourselves a bit for a rampage or charge; we both just stared and waited and it came right to us slowly just sniffing and it went out the door. We were very relieved but it started coming back through the side again and I started packing things into the hole that it came through but it got through again-it was not fierce or fast, it was just walking very deliberately and slowly. It came again into the greenhouse, shuffled past us and then it morphed into half-man and he proceeded to take a bunch of our food, packing his bag full of our stuff and talked about how he lived right down the way and how convenient that he now has a nice food supply, it felt like he was mocking us, that he knew he was stealing from us but didn’t care. We were pissed but he was very nonchalant.

Then later I was at some type of party and I started telling someone about how there was a hyena that showed up at my work and how it took all our food and that it was going to now continue to take our food and I was pissed and I was telling them my plan, I was going to either shoot it or get rid of it somehow. And the guy to my side started smiling slyly and said “I am the hyena, don’t you recognize me?” and at that moment I did recognize him to be the one who the hyena had morphed into. And I turned to him and said “oh yeah, well I don’t appreciate….” and started telling him how I felt about how he was taking advantage of us. I found him to be kind of charming.

We started to take a walk and I babbled on about how he couldn’t just take our stuff like that and he just listened. He seemed to like me and like listening to me. And at one point he would softly touch me as we rounded a corner. We brushed up against each other a couple times. I was enjoying his company, enjoying that he was listening to me. I did not judge him to be dangerous or bad, I just didn’t want him to take our food and mess with out stuff; and I understood that different animals have different habits and ways of living. It was very mysterious penetrating dream. Very visceral. I Googled hyena dream and came up with a whole slew of nonsense. And then I found yours, thank you.

As can be seen from this dream it starts of from the stereotyped attitudes mentioned; that of taking advantage of other people. But it soon becomes clear that the dream is examining human/animal attitudes. Then it is realised that “different animals/people have different habits and ways of living.” See Animals

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream hyena shows traits that you can idenitfy as your own?

Can you recognise that you yourself are an animal?

How do you treat or feel about the animals around you?

See Levels of the BrainAnimal ChildrenLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming Up

Hypnosis

Being influenced by the suggestions of who or what hypnotises in the dream. Becoming receptive and surrendering to the hypnotic symbol. Whether this is good or bad must depend upon who or what it is in the dream to which one surrenders control. In a symbolical sense generally wrong unless consciousness is maintained during the hypnosis, but must depend on the dream contents. See LSD Hypnosis Meditation the DreamSelf Hypnosis

Hysterectomy

Having a hysterectomy doesn’t kill your woman’s ability to conceive of the new. As the examples will show. And because you are a woman, remember that you have all that creative energy built into your body. As a woman you conceive in all manner of ways, from new ideas, to discovering new parts of you to nurture, so let the new birth of an idea, a new project, or even a dream baby you gave birth to grow, feed it, love it, and watch it grow.

But if you have had a hysterectomy it can be a big shock to your feelings of confidence in being a woman. But the later examples will show a different side to this.

 Example: ‘I was in a small terraced house with a friend I had known years earlier. It was her house, there were two or three children in it. Suddenly, it caught fire, I wanted to stay and put the fire out but she did not. She dragged me outside and down the street. We saw the house burn down. I had this dream the day I got home from hospital, after undergoing a hysterectomy.’ Mrs G.

Here the fire depicts the consuming feelings of loss regarding Mrs. G’s child bearing function. Also the ending of a phase or era of her life.

Any creative person who has dreamt of giving birth after hysterectomy will tell you that what emerges in the creative act is alive. It doesn’t matter what it is, it lives. It is thrilling to be part of its development, even if that, like pregnancy, it stretches and challenges you. You can feel this thing connecting you with something more than you have ever touched or known before. Go with it.

 Example: Dreamt I was pregnant and felt incredible urge to “push” but it was far too early in the pregnancy. But I couldn’t fight the urge to push and felt the child coming and everyone was upset, then woke up. I never wanted children, have none, and have had a hysterectomy. But that feeling of “fullness” and needing to push stayed with me all the next day. It was very disturbing.

The dreamer, like most people, did not accept she has an inner life that is quite distinct and separate from your her life – her body. A hysterectomy is a thing of the body, but she is a woman, and has the power of creativity, shown in the dream as a baby needing to be born. The urge to push is a sign of great creativeness that she is denying. See A Woman’s Creative Power

 Example: I was standing over my toilet and noticed a baby’s head emerging from my vagina. I reached down and grabbed hold and helped finish birthing him. It was a baby boy and he was healthy. I handed him off and then I remember birthing the placenta. what makes this all so strange is that when I gave birth to my real children I had C sections. I never birthed them “naturally”. And I also cannot have anymore children because I had hysterectomy a year ago. But it was vivid so real and I have thought about it ALL morning. What could it mean?

As a woman you have the power of creation, even though you had a hysterectomy. Of course you cannot create physically as you once did, but yoy can create an inner reality as you have with the baby you birthed.

 Example: “I dreamed that I wasn’t feeling well I had a bit of stomach ache and the next thing I was having a baby we were at home. We didn’t have anything for the baby because we didn’t know about it. It was a boy and we were looking at Kaiden or Cameron for a name. This is really freaking me out because it was so real but the funny thing is that everything was all calm and peaceful and we were all laughing about what happened. The fact that I’ve had a hysterectomy made it stranger please let me know”

Because you do not have the equipment any more to have a physical baby does not mean your basic nature has lost is creativeness. Lots of women who have had a hysterectomy have dreams or giving birth. This is because it is a way of knowing that you are still a complete woman; after all, a man who losing a leg does not feel he has lost himself in the process. Your dreams know that you are more than body, and even though parts of the body have been lost, you are still whole. Also to give birth to a child in a dream shows you bringing forth a new part of you. It is vulnerable as any baby is, but this new ability will quickly grow into a recognisable part of you. Many women feel that a hysterectomy has taken away their life, their womanhood and their inbuilt purpose. But such dreams show you that althoguh you cannot produce a physical baby you are still have the wonderful creative power of all women.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were my feelings about the hysterectomy in the dream?

Do I realise that I am a creative person?

Can I own my own femininty and creativeness?

See Summing UpInner WorldAvoid Being VictimsLife’s Little Secrets Edgar Cayce

 

 

Letter I

I

Wherever the word ‘I’ appears in your dreams, there may be an important description attached to it. For instance you may be saying ‘I wanted to climb the tree’. Or ‘I felt frightened’. Any such statements give direct information about what the underlying feelings or themes of the dream are, and should be noted. See: Want.

Ice

Being cold emotionally or sexually. It depicts what is meant by the term cold shoulder, where we shut off any display of warmth or compassion. It also therefore shows the dreamer as having ‘frozen assets’ in a personal sense. But often it means that the dreamer has shut off a part of themselves in a sort of cold storage – a freezer. Maybe suggests frigidity. Or the congealing, deadening effect of ice or snow on the intellect when it operates on its own without being related to ones feelings or to an active life. See: ColdGlacier.

Are you frozen in beliefs you cannot or shouldn’t do what you really feel under the ice?

Using ice cubes could be a way of slowing down ones hot passions or calming ones anxieties that burn in you, a way of cooling down or keeping cool.

Body locked in ice, perhaps dead: Deadening of all our feeling reactions and enjoyment or motivation.

A hole in the ice: Is the ability to see the eternal, the cosmic ocean of Life, through the hole. This whole is a subtle play on the hole in self one can look through to the eternal. It is a hole made by melting ones past and pain etc frozen in the unconscious. But the hole also means that as one’s past problems melt, a wholeness occurs through which one is aware of the ocean of cosmic Life flowing through one.

Icicle: Frozen male sexual feelings.

Iceberg: Similar to ice, but may suggest frozen potential. It is being aware of aspects of yourself remaining unconscious or frozen in unconsciousness.

Parking place filled with ice and snow: It suggests that you are finding it difficult to find your place in life because you have not faced or released you talents, fears or truamas, because they are still frozen in being unconscious. Maybe your attitudes are frozen and inflexible and so you cannot access your potential.

Thawing ice: Can suggest a change in the way you feel – a cold attitude towards warmth. This could also be a release of emotions and old fears and love.

Thin ice: An uncertain situation. You are doing something that you should be aware of and it will not support you in what you are doing. Your attitudes and principles you are living by are not based upon what will support you.

 Example: I am visiting a country, probably Iceland. It’s nearing the spring there. I must walk across the ice floor. It’s dangerous. If I step on the wrong part, I’ll slip in. Guards come with me to hold on to me and point the way. They place cardboards and pillows when I should step. I tell them, “My balance isn’t good because of my ankles.” Off we go. I nearly fall in several times. We get to the side where I sit in a chair at a table. It is sitting on the ice!

The dream seems to be a play on the saying walking on thin ice.

 Example: There’s solid ice and snow all around. Everything is solid white. I’m blinded by the white ice and snow, I feel cold, I’m shivering and I think I’m close to death. Then all of a sudden a huge hand reaches out and grabs me. I recognize the hand. I stare at it for a few minutes. Then I grab the hand. I recognize the hand as the man I have just started to date. What does this dream mean? I’m confused about my relationship with this man, confused about my feelings.

The dream illustrates this shift of temperature and also the conflict and death of love or feelings that can be associated with coldness. But the shift in the woman’s feelings when she contacts a man.

 

Idioms: Break the ice; cut no ice; put on ice; tread on thin ice. See: cold.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever given anyone the cold shoulder or acted coldly?

What aspect of ice was my dream showing?

Could I in any way thaw the situation?

See Secrets of Power DreamingSecrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets – Allowing the Spontaneous

Ice Cream

Ice cream, especially for young people, often has the association of being with friends, sociability and sharing relaxed pleasure, maybe family time. Ice cream can depict childlike desires for sweet things. Young girls especially seem to crave such things, and as adults sometimes we still return to those feelings. Ice-cream can occasionally be word play meaning ‘I scream’. Because ice cream is frozen but sensually pleasurable, it very occasionally points to feelings that were frozen, perhaps repressed, that are now being released or melted. See: cream.

 Example: Ellie lies down and I am dragging her. I ask her to get up and pull her own weight. Someone mentions ice cream and cake. I ask them not to eat it. They’ll get fat; it’s no good for them.

Example: Dr. Hadfield tells the story of an amorous young woman who had spent all day serving ice cream at a fete. That night while dreaming, she talked in her sleep, ‘No, I have no more cornets,’ she said, ‘but I can let you have a trombone!’ The in and out movement of the instrument suggests what may have been on her mind.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you doing with the ice cream?

are you eating it, buying it, refusing it?

Do you get pleasure from ice cream or do you avoid it?

See Associations Working WithSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Iceberg

Usually the same as cold, or ice, namely that you may be holding back, freezing, your feelings about something. Or else you may have shut down on much of your sensitivity in life, perhaps to deal with loss, pain or disappointment. Such a huge block of ice may mean that an enormous amount of your energy and creativity is frozen along with your feelings.

The iceberg is often used in literature, and sometimes in dreams, as a symbol of consciousness. A little of your being you are aware of, like the ice above the surface. But the enormous bulk of self is invisible to view; beneath consciousness. See: Glacier

Icicle

Repressed sexuality.

Idiot

Lacking control of reason. Without development of logical mind. It may mean you are doing something stupid. Sometimes it represent intuitive knowledge or insight. If this is so you will probably feel the wisdom of the person in the dream. See: Madness; archetype of the fool.

In some dreams a character who is either mentally impaired, or actually insane may confront you. There are several possible meanings. Firstly he or she can represent parts of your emotional and mental development that have been held back, either through trauma or lack or stimulus. Another possible meaning is that there are areas of you that have not recovered from childhood hurts, and these are often presented as insane because they are not integrated with the rest of your personality. And occasionally the apparently mad person has a great deal of wisdom, and their madness is simply because they do not comply with reason. See: archetype of the fool-clown-trickster.

Example: Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt children. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing.

Example: Ethan says to me, “My daughter had a dream about a jury. What can it mean?” I say, “You idiot! She is the jury and the judge!” He says, “But what does it mean?” “It means,” I speak slowly and witheringly, “that she is feeling guilt. She is sitting in judgement of herself.” He sits back and looks sad and guilty. He’s aware that he’s partially at fault. Barb Sanders

Example: The feelings of embarrassment became very strong. I had the image of a hidden part of a house being opened and the idiot child being brought out from the house, to the enormous embarrassment of the family. I had to talk to myself saying – Brian, this is not any fault of your own. It came about because of the circumstances of your birth and how your mother felt about it. Your mother constantly looked for signs of strangeness in you. All her sister’s gave birth to such big heavy babies, so she felt unconsciously you were odd. But people accept such things now. So there is no need to carry this sense of shame any more. People forgive so much.

But I feel like I am constantly protecting my slightly malformed baby. All day and every day I am protecting my internal baby – and I feel something similar for young son’s vulnerable aspects. Talking to myself again I say – “It sounds like you are protecting your idiot son. You don’t need to be ashamed.” Nevertheless I acknowledge that for years I have felt that I am not a normal person. Am I okay. I even asked my wife yesterday if I was okay as a husband – what sort of husband am I? She never really answered my question. She never does. I don’t know why. She will never acknowledge it. I think my mother always felt I wasn’t quite right, as if there was something to be afraid of. In the dream I had about her I say to her, look mum it’s okay. She collapses and I have to pick her up. There is always the question – Have I got a weak body? Have I got a weak mind? What is the problem? Have I got some hidden deficiency or illness that I am not aware of? She must have carried the guilt of not producing a ‘normal’ i.e. big baby for years. Right until she saw me grow up. I feel she carried it right on until I was producing kids. Then she dropped it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I attacked or haunted by an idiot – if so can I offer it love and healing?

What feelings and thought have I harboured or been told about being an idiot?

How do I react when face by an obvioiusly backward or idiot person?

See Inner WorldSumming UpAvoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Idol

Some material thing. money, women, work, pleasure, that directs your energy and actions. Something, or somebody you worship. False basis from which to direct life.

Igloo

A cold and perhaps unloving home environment. Also the womb; frigidity; a sense of uncaring parental influence. See: ice.

An igloo could also suggest a safe and warmth of a protection against the cold; a home midst the cold world.

Or a place of shamanistic initiation wherein through trials you find who you are.

 Example: A small child sat on the ground outside a small cave like igloo, with a few  rocks in the foreground – and a feeling of barren hard surroundings and lines would slowly come down from the top of this scene like a television on the  blink. and as I watched this scene I knew that one of the lines would mean the end for the child. It was like Russian roulette. The tension and fear increased  as more lines came down.

Example: I want to be true to me. I want to live apart from the external voices that pull at me. I want to nurture my core. This is my act of inner will: the seed of my life that sprouts in the compost of despair. I seek my Big Dream. I seek to meet the eternal ones. I seek the vision that will guide my life. Had I been an Eskimo, I might have been dragged on the shaman’s sled to a secluded igloo where I would be left to starve and freeze for a month. There I might experience a symbolic death, receive a guiding vision for my life and open a permanent channel for inspiration.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel trapped in a cold environment, or am I the cold one?

What am I feeling in connection with the igloo?

Am I seeking to find great changes in my life?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming UpJesse Watkins EnlightenmentMethods of Awakening

 

Ignore Ignoring

Ignoring someone or something is a way of repressing something. This is because every dream image, animal or person is a subtle or powerful aspect of your own efficient working. Just as car is made up of many parts to work well, so are we. A car without efficient brakes or carburettor works, but not well. So we do not work efficiently with parts of us ignored, held back or repressed.

We are told of an objective reality that science teaches, and also of a subjective reality, a form of experience just as valid and unmeasurable by the instruments of science, invisible to the eye, but real, known and felt by our consciousness.

The confusion and contradiction have developed into a wound in humans. People, if aware, realise as never before the division between their outer intellectual nature and their inner world.

If you are ignored in a dream or even in life, is it from being ignored, given wrong goods and wrong price, being treated like a nobody or a fool, or being lied to? In your dreams there is not need to take this form of treatment – fight back.

 Example: I was in a room with my aunt and uncle. It was dark outside and there was some kind of air raid going on with glowing missiles flying through the sky. I was terrified and tried to draw the red curtain across the window to block them out. The window was a right angle shaped one in the corner of the room. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cover the whole window. As fast as I pulled the curtain across, the other end would be exposed, showing the missiles. I was becoming more and more frantic and my aunt and uncle just sat at the table playing cards, completely unperturbed and indifferent to my fear. D. K.

This dream from a girl in her teens clearly shows how she is dealing with her fears concerning the world. Her distress is even more intense because the fears of external threats which appear very real to her, are totally ignored by her family. The curtains depict how much she tries to shut these feelings out of her mind, and how unsuccessful this is. The dream is probably dealing with her difficulties in facing life as an adult, and the demands it may place upon her.

We may also be ignoring the greatest thing. None of us can escape the source of our own existence. We can, however, relate to it in many different ways. People can love it, wash their hands of it, crucify it, ignore it, be healed by it, lie about it, offer themselves to it, worship it – and so on and on. The stance we take in our relationship with this larger life we are an integral part of, is the basic stuff of how we live, and the quality of our life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I ignoring feelings and emotions, or feeling emotionally numb?

What does my dream show that I am ignoring?

What ignorance does this lead me to?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindKarma

Ill Illness

Dreaming of illness is often a way of showing you that you have painful feelings or feelings of anger or resentment which are held within that need to be attended to. Often these feelings were experienced and not fully felt at an earlier period of your life, and now need to be healed or released. At the very least they need understanding. Do ask yourself though, if this is the way you get love, by being ill.

Sometimes however, dreams about illness show the early signs of breakdown in your body. If you are having worrying dreams, have a check-up with your doctor. Tests have shown that men with serious illness have often dreamt about death, and women with such illnesses have dreamt about breakup and separation.

Occasionally illness depicts the way we attempt to get love or attention – by being ill; sometimes relates to our actual physical body, but quite rarely; also may show our intuitions about the physical condition of someone else.

If there is any feeling of illness connected with that part of the body, if there is anything to be ashamed of, if there is anything hidden, then by bringing yourself back to the whole it will be revealed and healed. Life will touch it and lift it out of you. We need to be aware of the feelings of defeat and of failure that feedback into our system and are often causes of illness.

Even our thoughts that our body or part of it is ill can be an awful thing if held onto for some time. For our body is as sensitive as any animal, and our thoughts can cling and destroy. We need to say sorry to our body for making it feel unclean or sick. Open it to the life that flows through you and it will clear away those influences.

Strangely, for both the Africans and Artemidorus, the dreams of illness and death signified the opposite, recovery. I believe this was to give them a release from fear of illness. The same is employed in many so called dream interpretation books, they give not a meaning of a dream, but good or bad luck suggestions. See: infection; body; mental illness.

 Example: I can’t ask for what? Love? I can’t ask for love so I killed myself to get it. I could see a lot of truth in this. How I felt I couldn’t go and get a girl, but would act as if I were sick or miserable to get love, how perhaps much of my illness in the past was a desperate plea for love.

Example: Yes, kaleidoscopic patterns were moving and changing faster, speeding up and getting lighter. First of all just colour, movement and intensity, then it burst into a direct awareness of energy in my being vibrating faster and faster. I could feel it moving each side of my spine, actually vibrating. It got more and more intense until suddenly it felt like the energy had cleared all its pathways and was vibrating at tremendous speed without barriers.

What does it do? What can be done with it? I could be a lot more frightened and self-destructive with that amount of energy. If I used my energy toward creativity and life enhancement, then that’s what the energy would do. It could heal or cause illness, give peace or restlessness, wisdom or folly. It would fill whatever one put before it

In fact it cleared so much pain, darkness and anxiety out of my soul, I felt a peaceful joy shining from me and obstructed by the anxieties I have felt of late. It brought clearness, calm confidence, open warmth.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did your dream define an illness or just that there was an illness?

If you are worried that you might be ill see a doctor.

Can I see that my fears of illness are usually simply fears that do me no good?

See Norman CousinsLife’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Illusion

Wrong idea, false opinion, deception, wrong conclusion.

Immaculate Conception

The dream of becoming pregnant from a light, a glowing bolt, or a spirit, often occurs. This shows you being in a state of mind in which you have dropped rigid ideas, or ‘preconceptions’ and been open to the mystery of life. This is in fact your potential, and the pregnancy is the process of giving birth to a new type of awareness or approach to life. Sometimes we deny or neglect the new child and it miscarries or passes away. But such a child is often miraculously tenacious.

The conception is immaculate, or virginal, because your state of mind is without pre-conceptions. See: conception; pregnancy.

When you manage to let go of what you think God or Life is, what you believe yourself to be, or what you are convinced is so about yourself and the world, then you are ready to receive something new.  Then, that divine conception can take place in you that enables that which exists beyond the barriers and boundaries of your own ego to gain a foothold in you.  Then you become pregnant with new life and eventually give birth to the More of yourself in the way you live and act. This conception and the following birth will become known to you in some way.  It will be felt, or maybe shown to you in a dream.

Deep within us, when we have opened to Life as a virgin, in the cellar or cave of our unconscious, among the beasts of our instincts, and physical energies, the New Life tentatively begins its growth to consciousness, to birth. The star and the stable are the highest and the lowest in us uniting in this wonderful task.

 Example: I am a male and dreamt I was lying in a cellar. I was myself, yet at the same time, I was my wife and another woman I loved. I was in labour, and after a time the baby was born. It was a boy, a wonderful child. The membrane covered part of its face and I pulled it away. The baby then began to breathe, and looked about, fully conscious and very alert. Then, to my wonder, it spoke the name of Jesus, and said, ‘It is gone’.

When asked what was gone, the beautiful baby replied, “The other ego, where has it gone?” I seemed to know exactly what it meant. The baby had been part of the cosmic awareness, of universal consciousness, and was now but a babe; and I said, “The cosmic still exists within you, to become known as you grow”. I then carried the baby from the cellar upstairs, and knew it to be a holy and wonderful child.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did the baby speak soon as it was born?

Have you prepared the way for this to happen?

Are you aware that a new phase of your life has begun?

See The Inner Path of ChristSumming UpEntering the SilenceVirgin

 

 

Immersed Immersion

See: Baptism, or Earth, depending upon what you are immersed in.

Impotence

Often an expression of anxiety of some sort. In which case it will help to clearly define what triggers the anxious feelings. It could be fear of sexual incapacity. A sense of lost of manhood or womanhood, masculinity or femininity. Feeling of being weak, unable to express yourself, or to impress others with feelings or ideas.

Imprisoned Handcuffs

You can be imprisoned by an idea, or a fear, or even a moral code. See if you can discover what it is you are doing to hold yourself back.

In attempting to develop a relationship, we may be trapped by feelings of dependence upon what our parents want, or wanted, us to do or be. If you fear failure, you may not be meeting the challenge of the new, so be imprisoned by the fear. Such feelings as being an outsider, unwanted, resentful, can also imprison us in particular situations.

We are often imprisoned by a state of mind, by a fear, or by ignorance. In attempting to develop a relationship, we may be trapped by feelings of dependence upon what our parents want us to do. If we fear failure, we will not meet the challenge of the new, so be imprisoned by the fear. Such feelings as being an outsider, unwanted, resentful, can also imprison us in particular situations.

But fear of death is a number one form of imprisonment, and feelings that your body is you is just as high on the list. See imprisoned by my body. Also cage or cell; escape; trapped.

Handcuffs: These are usually seen in crime films or sex scenes, so may in some way depict either your desire to be made ineffective physically or feeling it is happening to you against your will, see if you can find the feeling of being made ineffective in daily life. If you are handcuffed with hands in front of your body, you are still in a position to be very dangerous if you care to – a quick bang on the throat can down anyone. If your hands are cuffed behind you – it doesn’t matter in dreams because it is your own feelings that create the dream image of being made a captive. So, start feeling like you are in charge of your emotions and nothing can keep you handcuffed. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

 Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way do you feel restricted or frustrated?

Have you ever found a way out of those feelings?

What does your dream tell you about imprisonment?

See PrisonAvoid Being VictimsLife’s Little Secrets – Edgar Cayce

Inarticulate

Feeling a lack of power or authority when confronted by others. Difficulty in expressing yourself, or in defining ideas. Fear of saying something stupid, or being thought a fool for your opinions. Indecision, conflicting ideas, perhaps arising from ridicule, criticism or punishment during your early years. Sometimes a result of conflicting ideas or urges.

Because we are a flow of energy, and that energy can be expressed as movement, sex, hunger, emotion, self expression through our voice, intellectual insights and cosmic consciousness, we can be blocked in the way our energy is expressed. Being inarticulate is a form of blockage. The blockage can be caused by such an enormous amount of causes, but there is a way of letting your energy flow in your voice. Try the method outlined here Using the Voice

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you ever had insights into what causes your difficulty?

Has there ever been times when all restrictions fell away?

Can you break through by expressing excitement as in the technique of the voice?

See Norman CousinsArm Circling MeditationLife’s Little SecretsMethods of Awakening

Incense

An atmosphere you may be spreading by the way you think or feel. It can indicate the power of prayer, of meditation, invocation and loving, devotional thoughts sent to the highest in you. So can be seen as a power in you that is being used.

Incense burning in many cultures, including Western Christianity (Hindus, Buddhists) is tied to purification and sending prayers up to Creator/God on the smoke. smoke arising from incense or joss sticks is connected with thoughts or pleas rising from people to deity, and as a form of cleansing, in many cultures. This pot for burning incense is to cleanse and raise the vibrations of the church.

Many people waft the incense over them as a sign of cleansing. This probably is a form of autosuggestion, for movement can represent an intention. It the case of lighting incense or using its smoke as a cleansing, it is the intention that is the great mover or cleanser. If the person can consciously feel the intention the movement is not necessary.

In India the ash from incense or joss sticks in temples is sometimes seen as holy and as having special powers of healing or prosperity, perhaps in a spiritual fashion. This ash carries the influence of the guru into ones life, and at the same time reminds one that physical life ends in such dust.

In the East the incense in the past was probably burning leaves of marijuana, and so there was an actual power to shift consciousness.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel about the incense?

Did it influence you in nay way?

Was it used to create an atmosphere of for healing?

See ASC’sMagical Dream MachineProcessing DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Incest

Usually reappearance of infantile urges which have not yet developed, due to a fear or guilt, into more expansive expressions of sexuality. If these urges can be accepted in the dream, they usually begin to mature into adult sexuality.

Such dreams very seldom refer to physical incest, but to the desires we carry from infancy to possess or be in control of the love and body of our parents. As a baby we have a sense that nothing exists outside of ourselves – therefore everything should obey our desires. That it does not – that parents do other than we need of them is a shock that is a part of maturing.

Our infant emotions, uncensored by social rules and self consciousness, are enormously powerful, and wherever unsatisfied or unresolved are stored unconsciously. If we are to integrate the potential energy locked in these areas, we must meet some of the incestuous desires and transform them into adult love. Also from the child’s view it is at one with its mother and father, and has no sense of separation from them. This changes as it begins to become independent from its mothers influence. Then there is a longing to be one with the mother again, a longing for its lost world.

What is normal or approved in one culture is generally widely endorsed within it, but similar deeds may be seen differently in a second culture. But incest taboos seem to exist in every culture. The fact that taboos against incest, which develop naturally in a birth-family situation, may be absent in the stepfamily. Experts say that even if no one intends to behave in a seductive fashion, there is a possibility of sexual attraction between teenagers and their stepparents or step-siblings. Such feelings can be very threatening, especially to youngsters, and parents should be aware of this hazard. Such attractions may call for counselling.

However, we see from the numbers of incest between fathers and mothers and their children, that this is a huge problem in some families. A woman in a therapy group boasted about how she encouraged sex between her young son and herself. So it is not simply a problem between fathers and daughters.

“Sexual abuse is one of the most devastating forms of child abuse. Studies show that the majority of the offenders are trusted family members. Incest often goes unreported because its victims are warned not to tell, or if they tell they are not believed. Experts. define sexual abuse as not just forced sexual intercourse but “any sexual activity or touching that the perpetrators try to keep secret.

Whether the. child molester is a stranger or a family member, it’s important that a concerned adult listen closely to what a child may be trying to say about his or her abuser. Parents should focus on their child’s need and concerns, and they should remember that reacting hysterically can often be more upsetting to a child than the incident itself; but react they must, for the abuse has to be stopped.” Quoted from ABC’s of the Human Mind published by Readers Digest.

 Example: Presents the case of a 25-yr-old woman who was sexually abused as a child and had severe amnesia for the abuse. The case exemplifies the connection between intensity of amnesia and the event of early sexual abuse. It illustrates some of the long-term effects of untreated sexual reconstructing and reintegrating the traumatic memories of incest and their associated effects. In order to help the S forget and let go of trauma, a narrative was woven around the structure created by recovered memory fragments, and from such material as dissociative behavior, dreams, repetitions in life of patterns related to abuse, and transference. After 8 months of treatment, the S’s drinking, depression, and nightmares decreased significantly.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is my dream of sex with a parent enjoyable or traumatic?

Does the dream and its realisations shock and disturb me?

Are their symbols like sex with and old man or woman in the dream?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsMartial Art of the MindLife’s Little Secrets

Incrust

See: Encrust.

Independence

See individuation

India Indian

If you are from a western society, dreaming of India or meeting a person who is Indian can mean contact with the mysterious meaning of Life – the great mother from which wisdom springs. It can also mean a meeting in your dreams with the great guru – your own primal self.

India in dreams can mean initiation into the many states of being and the many lessons of life to learn.

But of course your own associations with India and Indians may be very different. See Associations Working With; yoga and dreams.

 Example: The memorandum also contained this grim warning: “It is probably no accident that the society which most consistently encouraged the use of these substances, India, produced one of the sickest social orders ever created by mankind, in which thinking men spent their time lost in the Buddha position under the influence of drugs exploring consciousness, while poverty, disease, social discrimination, and superstition reached their highest and most organized form in all history.”’  Quoted from David McClelland, Chairman of the Harvard Center for Research in Personality response to the use of psychedelics.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my experience of the dream India or Indian like?

What was the theme of the dream?

Was there mention of a loving relatoinship?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsQuestionsSumming UpIntegrating the female in the male

Indian Red Indian

The psychic, inner life. The part of us that is at home in the irrational or unconscious, and relates to the spirit through this. See: AmericanIndian.

Indian If you are not a Native American Indian, then it suggests an aspect of your own desires or needs which you do not usually identify with or acknowledge. But it is sometimes the voice or action of the wise unconscious, your intuition. See: aboriginal.

If you are a Native American or have some blood, or have been initiated into their ways, then you have a very great heritage, one that will give you greater ability to dream true or see visions (waking dreams). These can guide you on your life path.

 Example: Then my father gets into a small row boat and I get in. He slowly and carefully goes over the wooden boundary. The motor gets caught. My father says “Uh-oh.” I say, “Don’t tell me uh-oh, when we’re in deep water.” We then get over the thing. Then I’m in a canal. An Indian guide is behind me paddling. He is reciting the legends of our people. I feel like I’m going home.

Example: I had a vision once. Two Indians where dancing around a firer. One old and one in his early 20’s they had eagle feathers and suddenly an eagle appeared and the one that was young stood at the edge of the cliff and said sister we are waiting for you, sister we need you, sister we miss you, come back. Sister we need you. And then I had another one this time the old man joined.

Example: my great grandmother was Cherokee and she was taken from her tribe by an Irish trapper. They had 10 children my grandmother being one of them. When I was a little girl my great grandmother lived in a small trailer beside my grandmother and every time we went to see her I stay with my great one I will call her Pearl. She Smudged me many times and warned me never to tell anyone not my parents or any other family member. She told me to remember that we always came from the blue clan.

She said you will see things others will not see some of us do…I hope you will be ok granddaughter.

I saw the spirit of my grandmother a few times and my heart was missing my people felt something like her calling me back…that was 8 years ago. But a few months ago I was meditating when I came into a smoky hut with a circle of what appeared to be Elders and a couple of older women in the back bundled in blankets….One spoke in his native tongue and I understood him perfect (I am trying to learn it now) but he was saying “Things are not like the old ways …there is no respect in our lands…you have eyes like the color of the sky but your blood runs red and your heart is of our clan”…then he paused.

From that point on …occasionally I will hear his voice or sense his presence but whether this is real or not it sure seems it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you met or been instructed in your dream by an elder of chief?

What have you learned from your dream?

Was the dream a form of initiation?

See initiationNative AmericanNative American Dream BeliefsIroquoian Dream Cult

Indigestion

An accepted idea or attitude that does not agree with you. The inability to stomach something. Or may be actual indigestion. Something you have taken in, perhaps something said to you, that you did not see at the time was a poisonous remark.

Are you ignoring you ‘gut instincts’ and thus causing you to dreams of indigestion? So conflict about love can cause indigestion.

 Example: The words then came, “Eat not.” I have a strong feeling this was the forbidden apple, and in some old way, this was why I had not been able to eat apples lightly, because for the past few months, if I ate apples I suffered strong acid indigestion. Something seems wrong with my digestive system anyway, as I have had acid indigestion, pains, and now piles. I felt, though, that the apples could now beaten, and have in fact being able to eat them without ill effects since this session. The indigestion was caused by being offered and apple one day by a woman I was in love with but had a tremendous conflict because I was married. Realizing the connection rid me of indigestion whenever I ate an apple.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I experience indigestion or was it just mentioned in my dream?

What did the dream point out about indigestion?

Have I had a conflict about something?

See Life’s Little SecretsSettings in Dreams Avoid Being Victims Summing Up

Indigo

Indicates the deep peace of the night.

Useful questions:

What are my immediate feelings and associations with this colour?

What feelings were linked with this colour in the dream, and what do I gather from those feelings?

Have I been thinking on or feeling things to do with the spiritual dimension of life – if so what?

Industries

Creative or constructive energies.

Infancy

Parts of yourself that still reflect childhood experiences, perhaps patterns of behaviour you have not grown out of, or being controlled by mother’s will. Or else the feeling of being a baby, or desire to be a baby to escape adult responsibilities.

Infect Infected Infection

The influence of other people’s fears, worries, or cynicism upon you. Influence of your own thoughts acting negatively. Fear of being pregnant.

Ideas or thoughts which cause irritability or negative internal states. Thinking ones job is not secure might create disinterest and loss of motivation in work, even if, in reality the job is secure; taking in negative attitudes from others; warning about physical health; sexual impregnation. See: illness; body.

 Your conscious attitudes influence the fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digest your food, beat your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these usually unconscious processes in you to lose their strength, and thus lead to illness.

Being the victim of childhood trauma, abuse and the attitudes and standards we often pick up – rather like infections – from others around us, and our culture. When these attitudes enter us it can lead to self criticism, negative comparisons, the denial of ones own talents and ‘light’, and in bad cases, illness.

Hans Selye, the father of stress causing illness found that exposing animals to situations that did not expose them to bacteria or pathogens, but were in cages on a roof and so were stressed, produced all the illnesses – hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, ulcers etc. This finding was revolutionary because scientists previously believed that illnesses were caused by different pathogens. Stress, as a concept, caught on.

 Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.

When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, and one should check out ones health in the area.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the infection shown as severe?

Have I noticed any pain or discomfort in the infected area?

Do I need to check with a doctor?

See Norman CousinsTalking to Inner Self –  Life’s Little Secrets

Infertile

In dreams this can refer to nothing being able to grow or sustain life. See impotence; desert

 Being infertile or impotent can have terrible emotional and personal consequences. It might help to read Avoid Being Victims

To dream of it may be a way to help or heal the siutation. But as such human conditons are very much interwoven with the structure of your personality and its unconscious elements, it usually needs a lot of work digging into who you are and why you got to that situatioin. Medical drugs might help, but the long hard work of exploring who you are by dream exploration or such methods as LifeStream can help. See Techniques for Working your Dreams and Life’s Little Secrets

 Example: I frequently dream that my mother and father, or perhaps an older authoritarian female are standing over my bed. I am in bed with a man making love, but disturbed by the presence of whoever it is looking over me. I’m 36, single, probably infertile, working class, typically Cancerian with Leo rising. Tell me all!

An excellent example of a possible cause of infertility – a sense of an overbearing attitude from parents about their duaghters love life.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my dream show me as infertile, and does it give clueas as to why?

Are there parts of my life that are infertile and allow no chagne or progreass?

Have I struggle with infertility – with what result?

See Secrets of Power DreamingInner WorldThe power of HabitsArm Circling Meditation

Infidelity

I see many people write in their dreams about being unfaithful or cheating. It is often said with great bitterness. It is, as far as I can see, based on deeply imprinted programs of belief we have been exposed to.

To really explain this and realise that in fact you have been programmed for pain, the following extends what has been said.

There are many children brought up as babies by animals such as wolves who were recovered from the wild, girls as well as boys. In India two girls were found in this century. They, like Djuma and Victor, never learn to speak, and became trained but trapped animals. They died quite young, unable to adapt to their life with humans and they never developed self awareness.

Speech appears to be like a computer program which when loaded into the human brain changes the way the brain works. The life of Helen Keller, a famous historical character, throws an enormous light on children’s ability to learn. Helen was struck dumb and blind at an early age when she had only learnt one word. She lived like an animal without self awareness until the age of eleven. Then she was taught by a deaf and dumb teacher and remembered the first word and quickly began the climb back to being human. In trying to explain to people what it was like to live a life without words and thought, Helen said that although she existed, she didn’t know she existed. There was no pain because there was no ‘Helen’ to feel any pain, only a body with sensations. She existed as a sort of nothingness. When she remembered that one word, ‘water’, she said that “Nothingness was blotted out.” If she had never learnt that one word before becoming blind and deaf, she might have remained forever in her nothingness. See Helen Keller

The stories of these children’s lives show us the enormous influence the early years of learning has on our mind. Without the exposure to language we would be an animal without any self consciousness. So we do not simply exist as a human being unless we are taught the amazing program of speech and human thoughts and social responses. Many of us believe we are who we are because we were born human. Not so. We are carefully fed programs and we are what we are by being taught it. We are programmed – and of course we can learn to recognise that programming and hopefully grow beyond it.

We have been programmed to believe that we are divinely suited to be married to one person. Also we have been fed a programme of ideas about ‘love’ that set us up for enormous emotional pain, pain because our programs do not work out. We are taught that this is the ‘right’ way to be and feel and any other way is a form of sickness. Yet other humans in other culture never have such pains – their programming has been different. See adultery

I believe this ridiculous fantasy of romance and love as it is shown in today’s world is largely supported because it has such enormous sales benefits.

Example: In some dreams my husband is cheating on me, in others he is just being cruel or cold. I have twice asked my dream guides or my higher self before I’ve gone to bed to send me dreams that shed light on him and our relationship because, for some reason, I keep feeling that I can’t trust him. In saying this, I want to explain that we’ve been together for ten years, he has never cheated that I’m aware of, I never catch him in lies etc., but still there exists this lingering doubt. The doubt is not merely about cheating, but perhaps his deeper moral character.

Here is a clear example of how the woman’s programming about love and marriage is creating an enormous misery for her.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What pain have you felt from being programmed?

Do you honestly think that you were born the way you are?

Can you recognose and grow beyond your programming?

See Avoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Inflate Inflation

This might refer to breathing in some way; it can also depict what happens to an image or idea we have, that becomes inflated with energy, and takes on a life of its own. Also to fill up or be carried away by a sense of your own cleverness, superior abilities, knowledge and power.

Carl Jung also used the terms ‘inflation’ and ‘negative inflation’ to describe psychological conditions. The first he described as egocentric and conscious of nothing but themselves and their one importance. They are incapable of learning from the past or understanding contemporary events.

The negative inflation is typified an unrealistic low opinion of themselves. It usually means the person has failed to meet or integrate an unconscious trauma or difficulty. Thus they live in a shadow world of despair and despondence.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you created a world inflated by your own energy?

Do you feel you are a wonderful and clever person?

Or are you living in a world of shadows?

See Avoid Being Victims Life’s Little SecretsMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Working your Dreams

Inhale

To take into your thoughts or experience, to consider, to accept mentally.

See: breath.

Inject Injection

Feeling other people’s opinions or will forced on you and influencing one; internal influence of something exterior; social pressure to conform or be obedient; sexual intercourse, or influences taken in during sexual relationship. There is often sexual meaning involved, so it could be simple sex, forced sex, or influences taken in during sexual relationship.

 Injection of snakes venom can mean the poison you inject into your own system from destructive emotions and thoughts – such as fear, hatred, malice, wanting to kill or even jealousy. See Norman Cousins

 Maybe someone has been injecting malicious talk or ideas into you, and you could feel it. Such ideas are poisonous if taken seriously, but quite harmless if you see where the poison is coming from and why they are doing it. It is usually a person who wants what you have or is dangerous. So look around and see where the poison is coming from.

 Example: Someone holds me down and gives me an injection.  I fall asleep and wake up…looking for help.  A dark figure comes to me and asks what happened…I do not know. Next I am looking into the mouth of a black whale (which dwarfs me).  It seems to have tonsils shaped like a white heart.

Moby Dick is about a tremendous fight for control by the human ego and the enormous Life Will. But your meeting with the whale is fine, and it is saying it loves you. In fact it is a classic symbol of the unconscious, and it is fine to allow yourself to enter it unless you are frightened of it. If you do it will be the beginning of a amazing journey.

The injection is a way of saying that your conscious self, your ego, will be knocked out. So it is another way of entering the Life Will or unconscious. Then you are in the dark, and meet a dark figure – all signs of things arising from the unconscious. The gates are representing “A threshold, like that between conscious self awareness and our total experience – such a gate needs to open and close.”  See The Life Will 

Injection can also refer to a male penis being inserted, so ask yourself what was injected into you.

If a sedative is given: Return to non responsibility as in infancy. See: syringe.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What was injected and who by?

Did you notince any effects of the injection?

Are you scared of being injected?

See The Life Will – Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Working your Dreams

 

Injured Injury

Many dreams of being inured are usually about psychological injury or anxiety. See hurt

Even if one was injured or mutilated as a result of ones active defence in your dream it is a positve sign, but if the dreamer passively accepted injury in a dream this is a negative implication. This was because the active or passive stance within the dreams indicates a similar disposition during waking life. As the active person is generally more successful, the dream sign of an active disposition is seen as fortunate. See Secrets of Power Dreaming; Avoid Being Victims

In our inner world of dreams we are able to meet fire without being burnt, injury without being injured, wounds without pain, poison without reaction, death without fear. But of course this ability only occurs when we begin to understand the nature of dreams and the influence of our emotions and fears, our beliefs and convictons. See Summing Up

Often our dreams involve some injury or life threatening situation, so therefore we feel concerns and the stress felt by some part of our personality. How to deal with such anxiety is important and it can be done – but not without work. See Facing Fear

Injuring self: Self inflicted injury, as when we create a negative situation out of fear that it will happen, such as making ourselves ill by worrying about our health. See Avoid Being Victims

Useful Questions and Hints:
In what way was I or someone injured?
How did I react to it?
Do I feel my body is me, and so any injury is a threat to my survival?
See Summing UpIdentity and DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Ink

Something that may leave a mark on you, such as a blot on your character. Sometimes represents an unconscious content you are dealing with, or the material to leave an impression or visible sign. It is what you use to leave a mark in life – your artistry, your words, your work.

Occasionally used in laboratory experiments, so then suggests getting your attention to be aware of something. Or the ink blot testing, signifying your unconscious feelings and associations.

Example: Ink is creating in words, it’s what is needed to write, a source to create. A pen is of no use without ink and my creativity and work is not going to move forward without the right vibration I feel in my energy. D.

The poet Coleridge says of a dream he had under the influence of opium which led him to write Kubla Khan. Again a desire to leave his mark.

 Example: On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved.

Example: I dreamed I watched a woman who stood beside me, calmly injecting tiny octopi, each with a brilliant coloured ink. Even though the creatures were incredibly tiny she’d pick each one up easily, inject it and set it down in a silver tray, glistening amongst others. Each one wriggled for a minute, ever so slightly in gentle death spasms, adding to its group and each group in different puddles of ink. She said it would be The Cure and I was not to be anxious anymore.

Example: Dreams have guided me throughout my life and are often the source of my art work. Through art and writing I explore my inner world and bring its dream energy and wisdom into my everyday life.

I have a “mix and match” approach to media, and use acrylics in various ways, as well as transparent and opaque water color, monotype, charcoal, brush and ink and other drawing tools, fabric photograph and collage.  Alissa

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my connection with the dream ink?

Was I using it to write or give a message?

Did I simply see the ink?

See QuestionsSettings in Dreams What is the main action in the dream?Techniques for Working your Dreams

Inquest Inquiry

An attempt to understand; very often an examination of past experiences that killed some part of you, or caused feelings to die or be injured.

An inquest is to properly understand. Or it can be concerned with parts of your experience you need to let go of and bury.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it you are trying to understand or be clear about?

Has a part of you died and needs to be examined?

Have you been the inquisitor?

See Summing UpAssociations Working WithInner WorldSecrets of Power Dreaming

Insect

Irritations or feeling something ‘bugging’ one; feeling insignificant – the ant in the mass of other ants. It can relate to the automatic unfeeling processes of life; cold unfeeling urges; sexual urges, especially with cock-roaches – insects may also represent the sperm swarming toward the ovum, and therefore may deal with pregnancy.

As Jiminy Cricket suggests, insects can represent our conscience and guilt which reminds us of feelings we might sooner forget – perhaps insects represent these areas because they live their life in our house and garden largely unseen – so depict thoughts and feelings occurring on the edge of consciousness.

Ants: Like many insects, the ants might depict small irritations or criticisms things that have got into you in some way. Ants have been used in a dreams to suggest sperm also.

Bees: Collective activity; working as or within a community; hard working or self sacrificing.

Beetle: As the first example points out, they are sometimes associated with things that are repulsive or are irritations. But sometimes are used a symbol of eternal life, of fate, or cause and effect.

They can also indicate the destructive forces at work in us, such as negative emotions of repugnance. The Egyptian scarab can suggest a force of positive change or influence in your life – a force of resurrection.

Example: I am walking around looking for someone to connect with and talk to. I see the turtles laying their eggs, that are really little transparent, snail-like things. A bunch of large beetle-like bugs come out and go to the babies and begin to latch onto them. At first I think this is a ritual where a symbiotic thing happens to help the babies. But then I realize the babies are being eaten. I feel sick. I try to walk and everywhere there are slimy, nasty bugs and things and I must step very carefully. I try to put shoes on to protect my feet so I won’t feel them. I feel sad for the babies.

Example: I dreamt that I was with a very wise being like a teacher and that I had a Scarab (Egyptian Beetle) in my chest. The feeling that I had was that it was alive and I had a very full feeling in my chest. The wise being told me it was all right and then he just said to me, “past lives.” Recently I have been meditating everyday for 10-15 minutes and asking to be guided to my purpose in life. Maybe that has something to do with my dream.

Bug: They are small things that might still ‘bug’ you. Small irritations or things that might scar you. But some dreams are about how beautiful the bug is or how useful. Also, what are the bugs doing and what do you feel about that?

Idioms: bitten by the same bug; bug (someone); chicken on a June bug; cute as a bug’s ear; Love Bug; put a bug in my ear; snug as a bug in a rug.

Bumblebee: There are hardly any dreams in my database about bumblebees. But in general the bumblebee is not aggressive unless its colony is threatened. So you need to use Talking As to see if you can understand what it signifies in your dream.

Butterfly: Something beautiful, such as a delicate realisation that is fragile and easily destroyed. The butterfly also links with the caterpillar, and therefore the ability to transform and leave an old way of life behind, therefore transformation and the spirit.

Dead insects: Has been used to represent an unwanted baby in some dreams. As such it shows the death of the foetus, or abortion of the foetus.

Fly: We usually see flies as something we do not want in our house. So it may suggest either an urge to kill them or get rid of them. Or it can suggest there is something unclean or even dead around. See flying

Flies are also the food of some creatures like lizards or bats and birds. So if you dream of this it suggests the natural order of things.

Example: I had the most disturbing dream the other night and I can’t stop thinking about it. Basically in the dream I was in my bedroom and there were flies everywhere, so I lifted up my mattress and under my bed there was a giant newborn dead babies and a coffin. I opened up the coffin and there inside was another dead baby.

The flies in this dream were a way of getting the dreamers attention to much bigger problem than the flies.

Example: I could see the spiders grow and trample over flies, only leaving lifeless corpses behind. They were sucking the blood right out of them. Then I saw a giant spider, more like a monster, taking a fly and eating it. After it was done, the spider had a human expression on its face.

This shows how we use dream images to show human situations or themes. The theme is how humans can trample over each other and misuse them for their own purposes. Think of the thousands killed in political wars or cleansing operations.

Irritating flies can suggest either someone else is interfering with your life, or you need to become aware of what is constantly calling for your attention. For instance a small irritation can take your attention away from something important.

Example: We have some marijuana to power the raft and push it into the driveway. There we begin waiting – meanwhile fighting off small scourges of rats and flies – while with a shovel waiting for a real big herd of rats to attack us.

The dreamers comment on this is, “After having sex with a stranger, I am afraid that my guilt feelings will attack me?”

Example: When I centred back on the dream I began to shout, “Let me out please. Let me out of here,” banging my chest. As I cried out my head turned to the left and I felt I was a fish. The position was appropriate because my head had an eye each side of my body. I remembered my two fish dreams, one with the dead fish covered in flies.

“Stinking dead fish. Something really rotten. Something really stinking, right in their (in my left chest).” Suddenly I took on a very nose in the air, supercilious attitude toward this rotten thing in my chest. “Quite horrible. It’s a stinking thing. A stinking thing. It’s a stinking fish. Take it away.”

Now my superciliousness of voice and face went. “It’s a fish, like the fish under the carpet in the dream. It’s a bit of me. The wreckage of life. I am a bit of the wreckage of life. Dead fish – I am a fish out of water. Then I remembered when I went home and looked at the house and saw how I neglected you all. I just broke down but I couldn’t let it out there and then. I can bear to see now how I had failed as a father and husband, how I couldn’t give myself to home, family, or a lover. I wouldn’t have been able to see it because there were so many other psychological problems in the way and I didn’t know how to resolve them – my failure, my lack of strength. It’s only because those are out of the way I can begin to see this now.

Idioms: as the crow flies; drop like flies; how time flies; time flies when you are having fun; you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Useful questions and hints:

Are the flies small irritations or signs of something I need to become aware of?

Is something buzzing around in my head and I am not understanding it?

Are there signs of something dead?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing Dreams Life’s Little Secrets

Glow-worm: Intuition; inspiration in dark moments; the inner light.

If flying off: Ones children leaving home.

Lice, fleas or parasites: Thoughts or sexual habits which are purely selfish or carry a health risk; feeling your relationship with someone is parasitic. Thoughts that sap resolves, energy, or ambition, and that detract from your sociability. Attitudes or beliefs, worries, that draw strength from you, or even cause illness. They may be attitudes or feelings you have ‘caught’ from someone else through relationship of one form or another – perhaps in childhood, or even films you have watched.

Scorpion: Like any of the stinging insects, the scorpion can indicate your fear of being hurt, or vulnerability to hurts and slights. Its shape and down curled sting also gives it the sense of inturned negative emotions – the way we hurt ourselves with fears negative judgements, or angers turned in upon ourselves. In this sense it is like the snake. But it might be that you know the scorpion is an amazing mother, and so use it in your dreams to represent the ferocious and protective mother, carrying her children with her.

Spider: Often the dependent emotions and conflicts one feels ‘caught in’ connected with mother or family; any emotions you don’t want to ‘handle’, such as those surrounding a spouse leaving; wanting to ensnare, or feeling trapped by someone.

A spider can also indicate the basic survival instincts in us such as a spider might have – can I eat, or will I be eaten in this meeting/relationship? This level of our sensory and feeling perception is important. Like a spider it keeps one of our feet/fingers on the web or influences that connect us with other people and the world. Like the spider, if we are wise, we thereby know something of what is coming our way – do we advance or run? See: web.

Stung by Wasp Bees or hornets: Painful emotions; feeling stung by remarks.

The example below shows memories of pain and anger are still irritating or ‘bugging’ Rita. The swamp shows these feelings undermine her confidence. See moth.

Example: ‘I have to keep walking because there is something I am afraid of behind me. When I am pressed up against the ceiling being crushed I look down and the stairs and banister rail are swarming alive with a black moving wave of crawling things, like some awful insects. In the hallway is a swamp with crocodiles and other hideous things. My terror is terrible. The person who actually lived in this part of the house was the owners mother. She treated me badly but no one knew as she was artful in her abuse. She pulled me along by my hair, locked me in a cupboard, and once locked me in the orchard – four high walls and a hidden door.’ Rita

Example: I had an awful pain in my left thumb. On going to the doctor he examined it and changed into a surgeon who operated on the thumb. As he cut it open masses of spiders poured out, releasing the pain. Paula LBC.

Paula’s mother had died shortly before the dream. She had subsequently experienced a lot of emotional pain about undealt with feelings between herself and her mother. These had begun to pour out into her conscious life. The dream therefore represented this as a healing process.

Wasp: If the wasp hasn’t stung you, then it suggests memories of past hurts and feeling threatened again. Wasps also can eat flesh, so can indicate feelings eating away at you.

Wasps can also show your own waspishness, or your hurtful words or actions.

 Example: I look at the trunk of the huge thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

In looking at his hand he realising there was a hole in his life, A. B. took note of what he felt. Just prior to the dream he had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether his marriage was breaking up. The dream made him realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life. He could see that as a person he only ENTERTAINED thoughts and emotions. They were simply what he thought and felt about reality, not reality itself. It was up to him as to decide what he wanted his reality to be. Did he want to entertain the reality of the tired ageing man who could no longer satisfy his wife’s need for love and companionship, having nothing worthwhile to contribute to others? That could certainly become reality if he allowed such feelings to dominate him. He had thought that his life was like a giant thistle, but on closer inspection he saw it was a giant hardwood. It did have branches which needed pruning, but the rest of the tree was good and perfumed – giving off good feelings to others. So he decided to put love and care into his life and marriage instead of self doubt and a sense of defeat.

Example: I had a dream of a 3 inch black wasp-I was trying to spray the nest and it flew at me and landed on my hand and I killed it and had to pull the stinger out, it was still moving as it was pumping venom into the palm of my left hand. I thought it was going to hurt but it didn’t to my amazement! It did leave a small hole in my little finger. That is all I remember. I don’t want to be a mean person, I will be on guard so that I am not mean or hurtful. I try to not be that way.

It sounds a little like you are not admitting who you are. I say this presuming that you sprayed the wasp nest to kill them. If so you were not being the harmless person. So the sting was a reminder to leave them alone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you afraid and trying to avoid or kill the wasp?

Do you realise that nothng can hurt you in a dream?

What were you doing in the dream?

See Being the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesActive PassiveProcessing Dreams

 

Inside

An inside pocket, inside a house, tree, car, most often represents your own inner feelings or desires, perhaps usually unacknowledged.

Inside a house, or other environment, means you are feeling, or involved in what that environment represents.

Our inner being encompasses all aspects of life, and should be allowed safe expression. Inside you there are a murderer, a great lover, a sadist and homosexual, an inventor and genius, an angel and devil, as well as God and the stars. To repress them is to force them into expression in your outer life. It is our thoughts and fears that create the monsters inside us.

We all have the creative ability to solve problems; otherwise we would not have survived so long. This ability is always there inside you. That wonderful ability belongs to you.

What do we carry inside us? Well we carry our whole past history inside us and dreams show it to us if we learn from them. It is ridiculous, as far as dreams are concerned to say, “I have left my past behind me.” See Inner World

 Example: The people watching are saying ‘Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!’ Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside.’ Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it engendered.

 Example: We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere. Damon.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I inside something or is it inside me?

What does the dream suggest I am dealing with?

Am I sensing something inside of someone else?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsBeing Person or thingQuestions

Insignia

Ideas of special importance to you. They usually synthesise a great deal of knowledge or information in the sign. To understand them in depth you need to use Techniques for Working your Dreams

Jung distinguished between a symbol and a sign. Insignia on uniforms, for instance, are not symbols but signs that identify the wearer. In dealing with unconscious material (dreams, fantasies, etc.), the images can be interpreted as known or knowable facts, or symbolically, as expressing something essentially unknown.

Before the liberation of Rome in 312 AD, Emperor Constantine experienced a waking vision of a cross of light which bore the inscription Conquer by This. Christ appeared in Constantine’s dream that night and told him to have the insignia represented on the shields of his soldiers to serve as a safeguard against his enemies.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the sign represent for you?

Is it something you believe in or belong to?

Would you use it as a sign of yourself?

See Symbolism of Dreams and their ImageryClicking OnDreams are Like a Computer Game

Insomnia

See sleep

Inspire Inspired Inspiration

Intuitive knowledge. See: Breath.

Integrate Integrating

The way to deal with a dreamed of relationship difficulty or any past experience, it helps to work on integrating the influence left in you from the relationship with an ex or the experience from the past. See Inner Ex’s

It may also be a repressed drive or express as a shadow figure or evil entity – all parts that have not be dealt with that need integrating. Try doing this by taking the dream images – like the person or situation and any beautiful or messy experience – and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. See

This may sound strange but all the images in your dream are projections from your inner world onto the screen of your sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what you learned, bad or good, from the relationship with life or a persona. Think of it like digesting something. In a life you often absorb things from your experience or a person. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in.

And so when you digest it you can integrate – i,e make conscious – the parts that are usable into your life and the rest is discharged as waste matter. See digest 

But integration has a very real function in the growth and maturity of our personality.

When you think about a friend a person or an experience  you meet, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about it/them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person or experience equally as powerful as the external person or event you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting, experiencing or living with it, and they are what makes you the person you are.  The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person or event can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot move, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’, integrate or accept as part of our own experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or experience to live in.

If you can accept that you have such people within you, it is wise to not repress them even if they are uncomfortable, for they are part of you and are enriching. To integrate our inner people you would need to learn things like Life’s Little Secrets and Opening to Life

Intercourse

See: Sex.

Internal Organs

Often to do with concerns over health. Could be a sense of illness in that part of body. But mostly such dreams are unfounded anxiety about illness. See separate organs.

Example: In the early nineties a friend, Ken S., came to consult me in my capacity as a dream therapist. He had experienced a dream that troubled him and wanted to understand it. In the dream Ken was walking along the upstairs passageway of a large old house. He was in his dressing gown on the way to the bathroom. About halfway along the passage he felt a fine spray of water on his body. This drew his attention to a small leak in a large water pipe running along the passageway. At that very moment the pipe burst and a torrent of water poured out. Ken was then rushing around trying to deal with the burst pipe, but fire also started elsewhere in the house.

Ken and I approached the dream using a traditional psychotherapeutic approach in which each aspect of the dream represents an emotion or psychological state in Ken. We didn’t get any satisfaction with this and so ended with the view that we hadn’t discovered the associations and powerful feelings that would uncover the hidden parts of Ken’s psyche. Three days later Ken was rushed into hospital with a burst colon. Ken was near to death, but with surgical and medical help recovered. When I next saw him, still in hospital, our eyes met and we both said at the same moment, “The dream” – meaning the dream had been a warning of the burst colon. Despite having been involved in dreamwork with groups and individuals, and having read about how some dreams express physical conditions, I had never previously been so directly confronted by such a dream. Now I am much more alerted to this possibility. Dream dictionaries may have their limitations, but if this dream had been looked at in the basic way such dictionaries define, Ken would have sought medical attention sooner. For instance House can represent yourself or your body – Water-Pipe can depict your intestines or arteries – Fire means consuming passions, an emergency or illness. Because of the context of the different dream images, Ken’s dream points to physical breakdown.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What fears am I feeling about my health?

Am I aware of vague pains or aches inside that I am ignoring – if so wouldn’t it be best to have a check?

What is my dream suggesting that is happening – and is that likely to be real or symbolic?

See Damage of fear and Facing Fear

Internet

Your connection with other people and the world, possibly at an unconscious level until you give it attention. Life’s unbounded possibilities, with all its variety and conflicting opposites; your unconscious, with its huge resources of experience and information; intuition; Life – in the sense of the infinite possibilities of interaction and meeting with all the people, animals and natural processes that are a part of our everyday life; the exploring of the possibilities of interaction.

Interpreting Dreams

Dreams images are like icons on a computer screen – you have to ‘click’ on your dream images to make them come alive. Thinking about them doesn’t work. You need to open yourself to the magic of them.

To make them into the wonderful gateways they are one has learn certain skills. Apart from dreams being the greatest school, the finest source of education in the process of life, there is the possibility of change. I went on the interior journey because my life wasn’t worth living the way it was. In the world beneath what is normally apparent to us, there are embodiments of your past, of your pains and your wonder. These embodiments confront you, and in meeting them you are transformed. The great myths of the past tell us of these meetings. They describe some of the adventures. But your journey is nevertheless unique.

My aim here is to show you how to understand your dreams and so meet the different aspects of YOU. So as an interpreter one’s emotions need to be alive and responsive; one’s mind needs to be open to the new, the VERY new that your dreams present you with; also the dimensions of you. To really be able to interpret dream you have to be able to personally meet and deal with every aspect of dreaming. That means meeting the horrors that most people wake up in terror of – the snakes, carnivores, the living dead, zombies, the devil and ghosts and also the high ground – meeting death and God face to face. For all these are presented in dreams and if you are not acquainted with them – not just intellectually – you cannot be of real help.

You have to have get hold of a Life Current that will carry you – perhaps into the unknown. Meeting the unknown is the adventure of Life itself. In the US they have great respect for the soldiers who fought – but I feel that anyone who meets the unknown is a Veteran too of many battles won. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/meeting-the-unknown/

Intimacy Intimate

Intimacy indicates an opening of your more private feelings and connections with another being or even object. Such an intimate connection means you are taking into you new experiences, part of the others being and consciousness, also memories and links that you can never lose.

Such intimacy does not just mean sex, it means connection, living close to another. For example we are very deeply intimate with our parents, siblings or anybody we make connection with. But we are usually unaware of it. Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love or live with or are friends with someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship. Please read this wonderful example, it will show how much we take in from those we love or lived with, been intimate with.

The person we are relating to in the dream is an image not only of our own desires but also of how we relate to intimacy, love and pleasure. The interaction with them reveals all your difficulties and skills in regard to living and being loved. Unfortunately we do not go into relationships empty of problems; we carry into them the possibility of jealousy, of possessiveness, of a whole range of childhood problems that we may never have faced before.

 Example: My mother did something so powerfully harmful when I was five that I could not mature or learn love. So it was not until I was in my forties that I began to learn to love. And that was when I regressed to a five year old and had to follow my mother/wife around for fear of losing her. Of course I gradually grew up, not from reading books, but by living out all the pain and disturbance of growing up as a forty year old. I certainly didn’t hide under a guise of Mother Theresa or of a Buddha figure.

Therefore intimacy can face us with ourselves with such depth most often we blame it on our partner or another person, even the world. Blaming is something children do. Most of us have not actually matured to the point of being capable of love. The very roots of love arise out of the incredible survival drives of a baby totally desiring its mother to give utter and complete attention to it. Without that attention, millions of years of survival in harsh environments, tell the baby it will die. So it holds on to that connection with its mother or carer with every jungle trick it knows. These includes tantrums, acting out sickness, sulking, anger, emotional cut off to see if the parent still cares; and if you haven’t outgrown those, then you will use them in your adult relationships.

Quite honestly, few of us have outgrown them, so we are mostly five or six year olds when it comes to the business of love. I remember a man driving many miles to consult me because, as he said, “My wife is going to leave me if I do not change.” He explained that his wife said that he was so jealous that if she talked to another man it would cause a row. So I asked him to remember the first time he felt like that. It took him a while before he said, “I was about five”. I then explained that he had not learnt to grow emotionally since then.

Often we make a satellite character of the person we “love”. In other words we try to make them swing around us in the way that suits our emotional and physical needs. Notice how many people have breakdowns, depression, or even commit suicide when their partner leaves them, goes with another person or dies. Those things point to pretty desperate internal situations – in other words the baby level of feeling response.

What ‘lovers’ are really saying is, “I will love you if – if you don’t go against any of my childhood needs – if you remain my possession – if you don’t do those things that remind me I am a vulnerable baby and open up that incredible pit of feeling.” Mature love is when we accept that the person we care for is a separate and unique individual with their own needs and directions in life. We do not love them “if”. We love them simply because they are who they are, because we respect and admire them, and we allow them the freedom that hopefully we give ourselves.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you ever grown out of your childhood form of love?

What problems do you meet in intimacy?

Do you feel it is natural to feel pain in losing?

See Beware of LoveLearning to LoveInner WorldEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Intravenous IV

An introduction into your inner self of things that may have a healing effect, or a disastrous influence – it depends on the feelings and intentions in the dream what it is.

Introduction to Using the Dream Dictionary

Or

Dreams are one of natures miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the process of life, our core self and our conscious personality. Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millennia.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, Our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See Brain Levels and Dreams and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

So, no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

That suggests that dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

No computer, however amazing, can yet do what your mind does in creating a dream. It produces a living being such as a dream character that can have a conversation with you, and in doing so draw spontaneously from huge areas of your experience or memories. Behind the image lie enormous amounts of data, emotional response and created patterns of behaviour. So the main thing to remember at this level is that you are in a full surround databank of fantastic information. You can tap this information just as you would with any person, by asking questions and prodding for a response. But, even the trees and animals in your dreams are also enormous reservoirs of information, linking back perhaps infinitely with your potential and experience.

 See: Dimensions of Human ExperienceBuddhism and dreams; Cayce, Edgar; collective unconscious; Bible and dreams; esp in dreams; hallucinations; history of dreaming; religion and dreams; yoga and dreams; Dream Yoga.

 See: Dimensions of Human ExperienceBuddhism and dreams; Cayce, Edgar; collective unconscious; Bible and dreams; esp in dreams; hallucinations; history of dreaming; religion and dreams; yoga and dreams; Dream Yoga.

Intuition

Information that rises to consciousness either from a summary of our complete memory or experience, possibly including past lives; or is an unconscious contact with the mind of another person, living or dead, or arises from a contact with the universal mind, or memory of nature, which summarises all experience and knowledge, all peoples’ and creatures’ aims, and the way we can best relate to them, and all future possibilities. See https://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/using-your-intuition-1/

Invaded Invasion

In some dreams we experience a strong sense of being overwhelmed by anxiety or some invading influence, or struggling to survive.

Sometimes such feelings arise from our internal animal instincts or even from intuitive feelings about people invading our territory, and therefore protectiveness for family or ourselves.

Because dreams are about the often unconscious actions of our inner world, and because we are all creators of that inner world, whatever thought or feeling, longing or emotion you harbour takes form, and is given life in our inner world, beautiful or awful as it might be. And when you do not own that power, when you push back any part of that flow into the dark caverns of your mind, where fears and wounds, black angers or unspent vengeance lurk in shadows, they are given life. They grow strong until they wrestle with you, invade the living tissues of your body with their sickness, or burst out into the world as action.  So in the magic mirror that dreams are, reflected all that we do, we dream of nightmarish scenes or of great beauty depending upon how we have used our powers of creation.

 Example: A man who is constantly stressed because of his work situation, and never admits that he has any problems, does not show emotions often has nightmares. But his mother taught him that to deal with nightmare you should force yourself awake. Which he learnt to do really well. But that is muffling a fire alarm while the fire is raging inside him. He constantly refuses to face himself, his fears or his emotions.

An invading bacterium threatens the integrity of the body. But there is also a massive defence and counter-attack when we feel attacked by someone else psychologically, especially where the apparent attacker has different religious or cultural beliefs. In the body the bacteria or virus are attacked and where possible destroyed. With ourselves we need to recognise not only the attack, but also why we are prone to feeling attacked. See Avoid Being Victims          

People often feel possessed or invaded by an evil influence. The problem is fundamentally that such a dreamer feels that the ‘thing’ is far stronger than them, and they have no power over it. I feel there is an answer in the writings of Edward Carpenter when he says: For (over and over again) there is nothing that is evil except because a man has not mastery over it; and there is no good thing that is not evil if it have mastery over a man; And there is no passion or power, or pleasure or pain, or created thing whatsoever, which is not ultimately for man and for his use-or which he need be afraid of, or ashamed at. The ascetics and the self-indulgent divide things into good and evil-as it were to throw away the evil; but things cannot be divided into good and evil; but all are good so soon as they are brought into subjection. See devil

 There are also other inner forces that can invade us. We may find ourselves under the influence of urges that were not natural, or the person was not capable of, before the invasion. See Autonomous Complex

 Example: I had two very powerful examples of outer invasion and their power. My wife and I were visiting my wife’s sister and her husband. Her husband’s brother visited and sat and talked to us and afterwards I felt strangely ill at ease. Being able to ask my unconscious – inner self – for help I was shown that in fact the brother had wanted to ‘have’ my wife and wanted me out of the way. He had said things to me that didn’t seem bad, but the hidden feelings in his words had caused me to react badly. When he came again I was watching and listening for any signs. He immediately said, “What is that silly hat you are wearing”? A simple enough remark, except I recognised it was his way of making me look stupid in my wife’s eyes.

So it is wise to recognise that someone is an invader and take care how you react to them.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you feel is invading you, can you define it?

Is it a person or is it an invisible thing?

Do you feel you have the strength to face it?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming Facing Fear – Dreams are Like a Computer Game

Invent Invention Inventor

Creative aspect of oneself; personal insights; the Self. Maybe a problem solving aspect.

 We each have what could also call it the inventor, organiser, and source of dream images. Jung called this centre the ‘Self’ and described it as the totality of the whole psyche, in order to distinguish it from the ‘ego,’ which constitutes only a small part of the total psyche. When this appears in our dreams it is usually a helping influence. But some dreams, not from the Self are often shown as an evil inventor – often seen in cartoons.

If you are born under the sign Gemini and identify with it, the inventor may apear in your dreams as an aspect of you that you are dealing with.

Our dream inventor can often give us useful avenues to heightened or creative thinking, presenting a technical or theoretical problem in a vivid form that the brain has been unable to conjure up during the day. Leonardo da Vinci, a fertile genius in both science and art, clearly recognised this when he asked, “Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?” Our intuition can produce in our dreams the woman or man with new concepts, the innovator, the inventor.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the inventor and evil genius or a revelation of the new?

Has anything been invented or shown in my dream?

What theme of plot is in the dream?

See Plot of the DreamTechniques for Working your DreamsQuestions

Invisible

Becoming invisible, or appearing out of nowhere suggests something emerging from the unconscious, being forgotten, or relating to the unconscious; or hidden influences – as when touching dimensions of experience states of consciousness usually unknown.

Most of the world around us is invisible, because our human eyes are only sensitive to 1% of visible light, and our ears only aware of 1% of sound. But we are sometimes aware of these ‘invisible’ things through subtle feelings or strange events. Because I knew, that when I left my body and stood in our sitting room in London, my dog saw me and barked, it gave me a clue to another event. (See Talking with the dead) It was Christmas Eve and I was walking with my dog Vince. A friend of my father saw me and invited me in for a drink. My dog, a rather calm and non-aggressive dog, was quietly standing by me until he looked up at the ceiling, a white painted corner without any noticeable characteristics, and started barking at the ceiling. This was so completely out of character that I wondered what he could see that I couldn’t. The man, when questioned, completely was unresponsive. But I believe my dog saw and responded to something invisible to me.

And have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what is invisible to us and we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest an awareness of God is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure? Have you never understood that? It can also be something far more even than that. It can be an active loving relationship with the invisible and unknown that gives you life. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, and a way of merging one with another. Imagine that; a glorious love affair with the very spirit of life! A love affair with the invisible and forever indefinable. Is that something you are afraid of?”

In many cultures they are very aware of what is usually invisible, and open to it in rituals or trance states. For them and many others it is a very important part of their life, as religion is in many cultures.

Example: I want to share with you some of my experience here with foundis (kind of initiates in here is Mayotte – off coast of south east Africa). Last night, I was invited to a rumbu; it’s like a trance state and at the end you communicate with djinns. Very interesting, they have here a real place or idea for the invisible realm which exists (even in villages, ziara, where the invisible world lives).

Example: The first woman is an enormous fleshy torso, somehow raised so that her stomach is at the height of my head.  Her face and legs are invisible; I see only great mammalian breasts swelling and hanging from a broad body with rolls of subcutaneous fat.  Her vaginal lips are plainly double, her outer lips large and open, within which further lips frame a dark cavern, seductive and yet a place of unconsciousness, submission and re-entry into a primal state of non-being.  J.

Example: Satan attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was held back sexuality. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available energy, sexual or emotional. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the connection between Satan and what I do with my sexuality. See Devil

Example: I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process of death leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms. That was exactly the message of the great mandala on the wall, where the invisible centre created all forms – forms which were then discarded, only to create more.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How did I become aware of the invisible in my dream?

Did the invisible have an influence of me or surroundings?

Was I frightened by the dream?

See Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentHallucinationsEdgar Cayce – Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor –  Life’s Little SecretsNear Death Experiences

Invoice

To receive an invoice often symbolises a bill of reckoning. In other words, something you have done or thought, is now producing consequences that have to be paid for. To send an invoice suggests you are calling in what events owe you. But sometimes people might cheat you, as in the example.

 Example: We had gone to bed early and the door bell rang.  When I answered it a salesman was there. I felt he was one of the pushy people who have nothing I want. All they want to do is sell something they have which will earn them a crust. The man was into the house. I got hold of his hair and dragged him out of the house – his body literally prone and dragging on the floor – put him out and shut the door. He had left some invoices or something similar in the house. I went to the door and was about to push them through the letter box when he came and started pushing a bill for two pound through the door for calling on us. I pushed it back with the other stuff.

That is the way you should treat dream hecklers.  “In the ancient view of dreams recorded in the yoga Atharva Veda, being active or even actively aggressive, was seen as a positive sign, even if one was injured or mutilated as a result of ones active stance; whereas if the dreamer passively accepted injury in a dream this was seen as a negative implication. This was because it was felt that the active or passive stance within the dreams indicated a similar disposition during waking life. As the active person is generally more successful, the dream sign of an active disposition was seen as fortunate”.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you send or receive the invoice?

What was the outcome in the dream?

Wht feelings did you have or where indicated in the dream?

See Secrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Working your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

Iron

Strength; material power or force. Strength of will, perhaps unbending emotions. Brutality. Will that does not allow any partnership with the emotions. Hardness and unfeelingness.

This often indicates strength, use of will, protection, or something that is practical and long lasting. But it is also unyielding and can carry heat or cold well, so may refer to feelings about either not being vulnerable, or to being unfeeling or burnt. Metal bars often figure in dreams where the dreamer is fighting off an attack, or actually attacking someone. This indicates really hardened feelings and anger, along sometimes with the desire to hurt.

Iron is one of the common minerals, and some of these are important in the life of the body. In a very real sense, human life brings consciousness to the minerals and the plant substances. Human life transforms, or can transform or lift up these substances, and occasionally this is indicated in a dream. See: chemicals.

 In a number of dreams iron gates are mentioned, or trapped by iron bars. These can either mean you are trapped by a very rigid view of your life situation or that your thoughts are a form of prison out of which you cannon escape. A woman whose mother had recently died dreamt that “we were standing outside a garden with a wall and wrought iron gates. My mother went through the gate, but I couldn’t”.

Metal in its various forms are often mentioned as jewellery. See gold; silver; jewellery 

 Example: 002:040 002:040 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. 002:041 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. From the Bible, Daniel.

Here iron is seen as strength that can break things in pieces.

 Example: The dream of a pregnant woman. She was feeling very much under the weather and had a dream in which a voice told her she should take iron and calcium tablets. She followed the suggestion, taking kelp and iron, and soon regained her health. This same woman seems to have such dreams fairly frequently. At a time when her husband was ill through overwork, she dreamt that he should take vitamin A and more butter. Remembering the truth of her ‘pregnancy’ dream, he did this, and it was the beginning of his gradual recovery. It is worth stating that neither he nor his wife had previously given much attention to vitamin therapy.

Idioms: Iron fist in velvet glove; iron curtain; man of iron; iron will; rod of iron; strike while the iron is hot.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with iron – health, protection or a barrier?

Did I experience any feelings in the dream?

Was I aware of any message in the dream?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsPlot of the DreamSumming Up

Ironing

Smoothing out some situation regarding ones feelings or attitudes. Trying to get the difficulties or problems out of ones feelings or social life.

Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was being ironed?

Was it succesful in smoothing the material?

Do I iron clothes usually?

See Summing UpContext/ThemeSecrets of Power DreamingAssociations Working With

Irrational

Our irrational self or mind works in quite a different way to our rational or logical mind mind. Our logical mind works usually from things it already knows to reach conclusions unless it is researching a subject. But even that leads to what is known and used in logic.

The irrational mind appears to work rather like gestalts, we form gestalts when viewing newsprint photographs, which are made up of many small dots of different shades. Our mind fits them together and sees them as a whole, giving meaning where there are only dots. This how our irrational mind works, like something that scans all the tiny pieces of information and experience and puts them together to form a new insight. Yet separately they appear to have no connection, but can be seen to connect when we see them as a gestalt or through an intuitive function.

Most of our experience is probably irrational in form. Our infancy and childhood is also ruled by the irrational in us, and some people never develop rational thinking, but it may be directed by emotions, instinctive behaviour or belief systems. See crazy behaviour

 Dreams are formed by our irrational mind, which is often called the unconscious. That is why dreams are not easily understood, and why translating them or interpreting a dream in purely rational ways does not work. We can give an explanation of a dream, but a dream is much more than an explanation, it is part of our life process, and even the great biologists say that life is a mystery. A dream is a creation from our irrational mind, and only when we can enter the irrational can we begin to experience a dream – for a dream is an experience not a logical process.

To enter the irrational we must let the irrational be expressed. Quoting from Mind and Movement, “Something else many people say is, “But it might not make sense!” or “I don’t know what to do.” This suggests a sense of needing to have ready made ideas about what to do. During classes in which the people were asked to explore body movements, most people gave up after one minute or so. Some of these classes were ones in which the people had been exercising with ‘given movements weekly for many months. Yet after a class in which they were asked to discover their own spontaneous movements, several of the class dropped out and never returned. This I take to be an expression of an apprehension about anything new emerging into the person’s life. Also, there is an element of these people not believing in their own power of discrimination to sort out what is useful for them. For myself, I have never found the unconscious to lie, but of course we can fool ourselves in projecting beliefs or hopes onto what it presents.”

So the irrational needs one to become in some degree irrational. It does not mean that one is therefore ruled by the irrational. After all the major part of us is irrational and we actually need to allow it or else we will break down. That is shown when people are prevented from dreaming they quickly show signs of mental breakdown. This is like the statements make that one should always be in control. Being out of control can open us to a great deal of fear, or even terror. Yet being able to let go of control is also tremendously important. Many of the things we meet in life we are unable to control – even our own heartbeat and life processes. But many external things such as a relationship, sex, opportunity, losses, accidents and other people’s decisions confront us with areas that we cannot control. The same applies to the irrational.

The simplest way of describing allowing the irrational is to say it is a process of allowing parts of oneself to express that in everyday life may never have had opportunity to declare themselves. It is important to feel safe enough to permit spontaneous body movement, sound and emotion. In most social settings we usually restrain everything except what may be acceptable to others, expedient in the situation, or judged as correct. This means that we may not give ourselves the freedom elsewhere to allow our own creative imagination – our body to discharge tension through movement – experience our intuitive process – and our full range of feeling responses. In this way we gradually diminish ourselves, blocking out much of ourselves that is not of immediate use in everyday affairs. We may in fact diminish our relationship with life itself.

Remember, especially if what occurred for you when you allowed the irrational to express was a deeply felt experience, that it only occurred because you made an agreement with yourself to allow it. Therefore, although it was spontaneous and unexpected, it was still an expression of your own will to allow. To stop the process you simply reverse your decision, thinking to yourself something like – During this session it was appropriate to allow myself freedom of movement fantasy and sound, but now I will again assume my usual social behaviour. This is my choice. See Life’s Little Secrets

Irrigate Irrigation

It represents allowing emotions or feeling values to come into your life, a healing process that will promote growth and a new sense of yourself. So it suggests cultivation of growing parts of you.

Irrigation ditches suggest ways you have worked on to direct you emotions and energy toward growth.

Sometimes it may be a way of showing you what has been left in your nature from the work of people a long time ago. See The Conjuring Trick

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I felt dried up or sterile lately and need irrigating?

Where is the water being directed?

Do I feel a new impulse has come into my life?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsSumming UpAllowing the Spontaneous Flow

 

Island

Something that has come from the depths of your unconscious, but is now established in everyday life. A part of yourself cut off by emotions or isolation or lack of communication. Feelings of isolation or loneliness, or your attempt to cut yourself off from others due to your feelings about them.

The island can also suggest the way you feel safe from the world, or feelings about being trapped.

The loneliness could be as one might feel when retired from work, isolated from a situation you once knew. Being on an island could signify being independent. The island might also signify a small sphere of operation or influence in your life, or feeling trapped; or conversely, feeling safe from the world through introversion or independence.

One can I form an island of charm through belief which stands against commons beliefs like fortress on an island.

The collective unconscious is seen by some thinkers, like Jung and Sheldrake, who see individual human consciousness like an island in a huge ocean in which there are countless other islands. Above the surface of the water, which is like individual waking self-awareness; in this there is a sense of separate existence, with definite boundaries where the shore meets the sea. Beneath the surface however, one island is connected to all other islands. The land stretches away under the waves and rises here and there into other islands. So, it is thought, personal awareness, beneath our everyday consciousness, shades off into a connection with a collective unconscious we all share. Through this connection we may be able to arrive at insights into other people otherwise denied to us.

Swimming or getting to an island: Move to independence.

Desert island: Attempt to ‘get away from it all’ – or feelings of not connecting with others.

Island in stormy sea: Personality traits such as independence and self assurance that give strength amidst difficult emotions and turbulence.

Large island with other people: Isolating oneself by involvement with a particular belief, group of people or problem.

 Example: A woman in red tells me about an island which is at our left side in the sea, not too far from the beach. It is an artificial island she says, which was created by using sand from the bottom of the sea. I look at the white sand in the clear water and I am surprised about the way the island was made. It is a very small island and it looks beautiful with a lot of trees and plants. I see many boats in front of the island. Then I see what looks like a bridge from the beach toward the island, but the bridge is just beneath the surface of the sea.

The island is a place of beauty that has been brought up from the depths of yourself and is now apparent to you, but you do not know yet how to live on it – make it a permanent situation. But there is a hint in the bridge that is invisible being underwater. Yet if you dare to actually walk to it you will find you can do it. Instead you try the sailing boat – probably because you have experience of it. But you can posses the island! Use – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I on the island or far from it?

Is it my island – in fact everything in dreams is your own, though many people feel that they are not worthy or do not ‘own’ it?

What is my relationship with to or with the island?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsQuestionsAvoid Being Victims

Isolation

Long periods in solitary may cause psychosis. Other studies have shown subtle physical changes to the brain when mammals become isolated. Research from the University of Illinois, published late last year, showed that the enzymes needed to produce a stress-reducing brain hormone drops significantly when mice are isolated. This can lead to aggression as well as anxiety. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that long periods of solitary confinement causes problems such as psychosis in prisoners, and that unmarried people who live fairly socially isolated lives become more ill, die earlier, and have more mental illness. Conversely, there is evidence that older people can maintain the health of their brains for longer if they keep them stimulated by solving problems.

In another report it says, “People being held for questioning in police stations, for example, may be treated humanely, but they get virtually no sensory input,” he says. “If the detention is for short periods of time, I don’t think that’s a problem, but there is talk of extending the period of time for which people can be held on suspicion of terrorist offences. And if people are indeed more suggestible, the longer they are held in isolation, the more that must raise questions about the reliability of their evidence.”

But there is another side to this which suggests that there are very different ways of being, and that many of the tests simply report the negative effects of the ‘normal’ human being’. “Two of the participants coped well, sleeping through much of the period. All found it profoundly boring; most found it distressing. One young woman became convinced that her sheets were wet even though, when she checked, they were found not to be. Most of the volunteers started pacing their small rooms like caged animals during the second day and felt less and less safe as time went on.”

Nothing is said about the two who coped well. Here is an interesting description from a young serviceman. “I had an eye injury to my left eye and was rushed to hospital. The result was that the back of my eye had split and I had to remain with bandages over my eyes for six weeks. Straight away I was asked several times if I needed a radio to listen to. That seemed a ridiculous suggestion because I now had a long time living in all the wonders in my mind. I never got tired or bored with it. In fact when the nursing sister said in my hearing that I must now get up and walk around I played deaf the next day making out I hadn’t heard. The sister soon got me out of bed though. But it wasn’t a shock to be made to be active, I like that too”.

I see that evolutionary we are very new to self awareness and are very vulnerable; also our personality is not usually built organically but is something artificial put upon us. To understand this see Programmed

 

Ivory

Something precious or beautiful, such as an insight or personal quality, which has grown out of the push and shove of life experience. Black ivory is the unconscious aspects of the soul or personality. Can also represent purity of purpose.

Because it comes from an elephant, and is the power of a tusk, it can represent the great power of the elephant – the remover of all life obstacles.

Homer in the Odyssey says – Two gates for ghostly dreams there are: one gateway of honest horn, and one of ivory. Issuing by the ivory gates are dreams of glimmering illusion, fantasies, but those that come through solid polished horn may be borne out, if mortals only know them.

 Example: I am staying in a relatives house. He has all these scrapbooks and knickknacks of his daughter who died. I want to steal an ivory piece of erotica (a woman opening her legs to reveal her snatch). I put it in the pocket of my blue smoking jacket.

Example: I am at a museum in some dry place like Australia. It has the most beautiful ‘natural’ exhibits I have ever seen. The most beautiful exhibit is of something that is like an upside down ivory tree, its roots sticking up in the air, with figures of people – angels – naturally formed in the small, fine roots.

Example: In 544 BC, the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya, dreamed her bed was transported by four kings to a high Himalayan peak, where four queens adorned her with jewels and brought her to a golden palace. A white elephant with six shining ivory tusks appeared and painlessly pierced her side with a thrust of its tusk. She awoke to the song of a blue bird and realised that she had immaculately conceived.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel in connection with the ivory?

Do I have any associations with ivory?

Is it something I have wanted to own?

See Associations Working WithSumming UpAllowing the Spontaneous

Ivy

It can indicate ageing or some aspect that has existed for some time – thus the ivy growing.

Also it can show an old world charm or beauty. People sometimes dream of flowers and ivy growing and mingling together – which probably suggests the beauty of ageing, or the mixture of old and new, and even the passing of time.

Poison ivy: Poison thoughts or feelings that can cling and cause hurt. Or something that you need to avoid or be aware of.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel about the ivy in the dream – is it passage of time, an old age beauty or to do with graveyards?

Have I ever been the victim of poison ivy?

Do I feel age creeping up on me?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsQuestionsAvoid Being Victims

Letter J

Jackal

As dog but a wild version; a trickster figure like coyote and fox; a deceiver; being a scavenger it has sometimes been associated with death as with crows and vultures.

Due to being able to see in the dark and the light, the jackal was seen by the Egyptians as a pathfinder in the underworld – i.e. the unconscious – leading the dead to the other world. As such it can be a great help in showing you the way when you are uncertain. See: coyote.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sense do you arrive at of your dream jackal – is he/she sneaky, divine, wise or a messenger? Whatever it is can you sum up what you get from the jackal in the dream?

What do you experience if you imagine yourself and talk as your dream jackal? (For help doing this see Stand in Role)

What are the key words used in describing the interaction between yourself and jackal?

See: key wordsTechniques for Working your DreamsAnimals

Jacket

Feelings with which you clothe yourself. Particularly to do with degree of formality you present yourself with. See: Clothes.

Jaguar

Anger; power of assertion and fierceness.

In its native country the jaguar is seen to have mystical powers. In other words the jaguar in our inner world and dreams has great power that can be used if one can meet the inner creature that you are. So it may represent sexual power, the ability to control or be controlled.

Therefore an animal associated in myth with the unconscious and the power of the Mother Goddess. Native people see the jaguar as a guide as they travel the inner world.

A dream jaguar can represent certain things such as speed. stealth, power, sleekness and a predator. If we see the puma has the same associations as the jaguar, the following shows how dreams show how such creatures inhabit our inner life.

Example: It was a large building, but my main impressions were of a huge – seven foot – butler type character who I immediately thought of as Lurch. He came apparently to assist me and lived or existed in the place. I noticed he had a huge knife stuck in his belt and I thought he might use it to attack me. This didn’t worry me too much, but I asked him why he had it. He told me there was a big Puma in the place that leapt on one and you had to guard against it. So he gave me a knife to do so.

We walked off to explore the building and the beautiful big Puma leapt on me. But at this point I knew that nothing could harm me in the dream state. So I caught hold of the Puma in my arms and held it. As I did so I saw it was the beautiful, powerful, female and wild untamed aspect of a woman I loved, and treated the she cat lovingly.

In exploring the dream the dreamer said, “As Lurch I am the Guardian of the Threshold, and I am the guide to what is beyond. My task is to produce fear in those who reach this place. For only those who can face fear can go beyond here safely. I also test the traveler, as I did with B. by giving him a knife. I attempted to frighten him by my appearance – half alive – and by carrying a knife, and also by telling him the puma would harm him. But he passed the test by loving the puma instead of killing it. To pass beyond here you need courage and love.

“As the puma I am life. I am love and the untamed expression of being alive, of feeling passion and love. I am both a test and an opportunity in B’s life. He was not afraid of me, and so I become his companion. I am a native of the America’s –  the inner world. I know this territory. I can survive here. It is what I do, what I know. I can hunt for you B, but I need something from you too. Take the lead and we will be of good to each other.

I am the influence of your woman in your being and in your direction. I am her energy and spirit playing upon you and within you. Together with the Guardian we can walk into new experiences to claim what is there for us. This was a beautiful experience, full of promise of a companionship that has real meaning – entering new territory of inner and outer life – and real companionship – out of having qualities to share that are complimentary to each other and important in what we are journeying to – and a love that has been tested. See Guardian of the Threshold

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I imagine myself as the jaguar, do I feel anger, power or fear?

Is it a male or female jaguar in my dream – and how does this link with me?

What is the jaguar doing or trying to do – and does this relate to any of my waking activities or feelings?

See Stand in Role Settings in DreamsLife’s Little Secrets Edgar Cayce

Jail Jailer Gaol Gaoler

This can point to any of a range of attitudes such as – guilt, self criticism, a sense of alienation, intellectualizing life – anything restricting the way you express yourself. So the jailer is the attitudes or concepts you imprison yourself with, or hold yourself back with. See: prison. Feelings of being restrained by your environment, morals, philosophy.

What we believe or imagine about who we are, or what we are not, is for many people an incredibly potent torturer and jailer. But many of what people call their demons are unbelievably subtle, and capture us, restrict us, shut out the possibility of a full life, or being able to respond with our own creativity. The real problem is that we often accept this as normal or barely notice them. See Archetype of the Paradigm – Masters of Nightmares

 Example: I now lives in a state in which I am constantly tortured and put down by seeing that unlike my sisters I have never had a child, have not achieved any lasting success in my life and live in a tiny bedsit which I might have to leave due to not being able to pay the rent. There is also an inner ghost haunting me through my feelings that I have not lived up to my father’s hopes. I long to earn enough to own my own house, and to have a loving partner who closely my life. The lack of all of these pulls me down to frequent feelings of despair and hopelessness.

All of what Lisa feels about her life – no child – no external achievement – no partner – no house of her own – not measuring up to her family – are all true, but only in a certain way. What is devastating is that Lisa believes she is what she feels. Those beliefs are her jailers keeping her trapped.

Example: I was in a prison with several others – all in one cell. It felt as if I had been in the prison for years. I was standing near the bars angry and shouting about the injustice of my incarceration. As I stood raging I suddenly realised that all my anger was having no affect on the world. I was the only one suffering it. I saw that the peace and freedom I wanted from release I could have now by letting go of my anger. I would then be in peace, and would be free of my own negative emotions. I forgave my judges and gaolers, and a change came over me. In the following years I learnt to drop the other ideas and emotions I tortured myself with. I was filled with joy until my bliss filled the cell. In this way all had a changed relationship. In a strange way I was now utterly free.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I admit to myself what I am imprisoned by?

Do I use self justifications to avoid admitting the truth to myself?

Is there a way out of the prison I have created?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindSecrets of Power DreamingSumming Up

Jam Conserve

In a mess, a sticky situation. Conserved ideas. Fruits of labour. Pleasure, perhaps childhood pleasure or feelings. The sweetness of your life.

 Example: With Nan living in a monastery. Grounds and grounds were beautiful. I was feeling insecure within the relationship but could not know why. As I was walking through the grounds and I looked through a magazine and saw pictures of me, one holding a pot of jam. The article was about male chauvinism, and the jam represented my selfishness. I was so angry about it and where did they get the photos?

Here the jam is seen as selfishness, probably because he is pictured as holding it and maybe not sharing it.

Jam on my brakes: This can indicate a personal emergency that you need to be aware of. It might show a health problem, or saying you need to be careful in driving your car or yourself.

Log jams: If a river is bursting a log jam,it suggests blockages have been removed. It can indicate delays and confusion, and frustration, also feeling stuck with no way to turn. It is good to take time to look back at your life and reassess your life situation.

Traffic jam: This might link with many things depending on what you feel in the dream. Some possibilities are feelings of frustration about not reaching your goals; a life situation in which you are caught up in a public or communal activity or event and find it difficult to escape and go your own way and your own pace. This might also be an expression of feeling trapped by circumstances or other people. Or things in your life not flowing well with feelings of frustration, blocked emotions or finance.

Idioms: in a jam; in a terrible jam; jam packed; jam session; something jams; jam tart; jammed together; traffic jam

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of jam is being described, can I define it?

Do you feel in some sort of jam in your life?

Or do you feel jammed up?

See stuck in lifeSumming UpNorman CousinsTalking to Inner Self

Japan

The Japanese people are a mixture of great practicality and also the spirit of the East. Apart from being very creative they are also people who have an understanding of the hidden side of life.

The meaning, as always, depends on what your associations are with Japan and Japanese.

The difference can be seen in things like Eastern and Western beliefs. A case reports are presented in which Ss (a 40-yr-old Christian woman and a 55-yr-old multiple faith man) shifted faith and had families with multiple faiths. Ss’ dreams were characterized by concomitant multiple religious images existing without conflict. Japanese people seem to hold and embrace simultaneous polytheistic beliefs, while Westerners have difficulty believing in more than one religion. The japanese people often have difficulty in being able to directly express opinions. Otherwise we all have very similar dream themes.

A project was undertaken in the United States by Dr. Richard Griffith, and also by two Japanese scientists. Dr. Griffith studied the dreams of 250 college students in Kentucky and the Japanese gave a similar questionnaire to 223 in Tokyo; over 7000 dreams were thus collected. All the themes were very similar. There were 34 such themes, ranging from sexual experience to being nude, from being buried alive to swimming, missing a train, falling, flying, or seeing strange animals. The differences in dream content were often more marked between American men and American women, or Japanese men and women, than between American and Japanese men. Variations in dream patterns, it appeared, might depend more on distinctions of sex than cultural factors, even when the societies were basically as different as those of America and Japan.

But a Japanese man or woman in you dream may represent a more inner world feeling, cultural impulse from your inner self. Can even represent your own inner wisdom. But first see Associations Working With

 Example: a dream from last night or early this morning. I had got hold of a book of photographs of Japan. It was printed in the thirties or earlier and was externally worn and dog-eared. I opened the book to look at the pictures. They were all black and white. The first one was spread over the two open pages. It was of a beach, taken from a hillside. The day was cloudy but bright. One could almost feel or see the breeze blowing because there was a sense of movement. The beach was slightly curved, bay like, with the hill rising from near the edge of the sea. Here and there trees growing, not big. On the beach the rollers were breaking, quite big surf. A large rocky shelf ran into the sea from the beach, and this caused the breakers to roll up and around at one point, turning back toward the sea again. In the middle of this, quite small in the photo was the figure of a man sitting in the lotus position facing the land. Waves were breaking around and slightly over him, but he sat at peace, undistracted, in Zen meditation. It was so simple, so beautiful. I realised I had read somewhere of the man who sat amidst the waves.

I explored my Japan photographic book dream with a friend. It was very rewarding and I felt the emotion involved in the dream. I started as the man meditating on the beach. As him I felt I was in a state of ‘being’ in which I accepted the energy and movement of the waves. I realised that the ‘meditation’ could easily have been a conflict with the waves – a resistance or fight, perhaps struggle. I saw this as related to the way I meet life experience, or the way I am learning to meet it. By this I mean both internal experience of emotion and thought, but also exterior events and their impact on me.

I had my back to the waves because in this position I was not meeting the waves head on, but letting them move me. This relates to what is said above about meeting experience. I also sense this as to do with the ‘way’. It is learning to see the way of things inside oneself and outside. Learning to see how things live and function, and working with the process instead of trying to force things. The sea and waves I experienced as Life itself, not just the experiences but the process of life, as it flowed through me, and I was not turning my back on the land – everyday life. J asked me a question of how long I would stay there, and how long I had been there. My immediate feeling response was that I was still connected to everyday life and duties in a positive way. This meant that although I was bathing in the waves of the ocean of life, I had not lost my connection with everyday life and practical activities. I came and sat with the waves when I could, to bathe again in the ocean of life, to know the joy of ‘being’. There was no need to seek this joy or struggle toward it. It always exists, but is sometimes covered by the activities of the mind, the emotions or the attempt to reach goals.

 Example: I was by a bed in a ward, in which a young Japanese girl lay. Her father and brother were there. Screens were around the bed. The girl would not eat. I spoke to her, feeling love for her. It seemed she wouldn’t eat because only unacceptable food was given her. All she wanted was bananas. I believe this was going to be done. She would be okay.

The Japanese girl represents my soul, my personality, the softer side of me. The problem here is that my soul must be fed with the right things. The problem was I tried to direct to myself too much, and I lost the power of letting things happen. The strength I gained in this direction was necessary. I dream of bananas because presently I will live on the bananas. The bananas represent gods love.

 Example: A Japanese girl. I seemed to be working with her in a beach house connected with civil service activities. The girl was slim, and cultured as far as being trained in social life. She said, “Do you want a jump?” Meaning did I want to fuck her. I didn’t feel any need to in the dream, but felt very endeared to her because of her frankness. I knew such a question in her case did not arise out of sexual forwardness, sexual problems, or any attempt to be liberated. It was a simple straightforward question, and asked in exactly the way one might say, “Do you want anything to eat?” Or, “Have you got somewhere to sleep tonight?”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you experience of feel in the dream?

Did I relate to a Japanese man or woman, if so in what way?

Was there any feelings of finding inner wisdom?

See Techniques for Working your DreamsInner WorldJesse Watkins Enlightenment

 

Jar

See: Cup.

Jaw

In general the jaw suggests strength of will or purpose, sometimes called determination, or even stubbornness.

Jaws also link with your strength to stop anyone getting into you or at you – through your mouth. They are your power to hold onto emotions – by clenching your teeth.

Often we tense our jaw to refrain from showing our real feelings. The jaw can also represent being swallowed up – in other words a fear of losing your identity or will, thus being at the mercy of someone or something. The one idiom linked with jaws is about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. This shows jaws as a fatal end, being lost to something or someone. See: Chin.

Jaws often figure in animal dreams. For instance when dogs get their mouth near you it often is a sign or bonding as is licking, which is the way dogs beg for food. Or else they are showing signs of aggression. But jaws in general are often a sign of our feelings of fear. Such fear should not be taken without any response, as the following dream suggests.

Example: In the dream I was walking up several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it.

The point of this is that we do not have to run in fear from such dream images but can trasnform them by our own approach to what frightens us.

Example: At first I began to think he’d go to one of the lead singers (who I used to have a crush on) but then I see the dog go over to one of the more-in-the-background members. I watch as the dog leaps up and nuzzles its black jaw’s happily against the jaw of this band member. For some reason I notice the black hair of this guy, his jaw, and the dog’s jaw together and it seems a significant moment of clarity that ‘ah-ha’ the dog belongs to him, this is right. They are made for each other.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I noticing anything to do with stubbornness or tension in waking life?

What am I holding onto or tense about?

Is my strength emerging more fully?

Can I meet any fear in a positive transforming way?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation or Talking As

Jealous Jealousy

Often jealousy in a dream is the result of your self image or self esteem being low. It is often seen in dreams where a young woman feels that another person is more attractive than she is, or that her partner will leave her. So the person who feels jealous feels she is not lovable.

Having something or something that someone else has can cause jealousy.

If you dream of a jealous person it can signify that you have unconscious problems in a relationship.

Emotional pain or fear of abandonment may push us into childish or even baby levels of reaction and can lead to jealousy and rage. The pain of losing a love one are frequent signs that our infant or child self is still wounded or malformed, and needs the healing of being allowed into consciousness and thereby integrated into the adult personality. This is not often managed though, as it is a painful process to feel childhood fears and pains as an adult. As many of us avoid pain as much as possible, using painkillers and social drugs to escape from it, the process of meeting who we are is not a common undertaking. See Beware of Love; Life’s Little Secrets

 While governments fight wars and spend billions on armaments, the main work of human beings is left undone. This work is the task of growing up, of dealing with our childhood, healing it and emerging as a new and mature person who is moving beyond the need for aggression, jealousy, possessiveness and dependency. We need to take the energies locked in our old animal behaviours and our childhood and release them into the possibility of growth and transformation.

 Example: I married again when I was 41. Up until then I had never been in love, although I had been previously married and fathered children. In fact I had not been capable of love in the usually described way of really connecting with my partner. But I had been using my dreams to work through my childhood miseries and had begun to undo something that had caused me to cut off all emotional ties with my mother when I was about five. This had caused me to lack any growth in my relationship with a woman. I remained at the age of five emotionally. So when I did fall in love I did so with the emotional maturity of a five year old.

Fortunately I had some insight into what was happening as I experienced all the drama of feelings a child feels in relationship with its mother. I met intense feelings that drove me to want to be near my wife all the time. I would follow her from room to room like a dog for fear of losing her – not only had I cut off from my mother, but she had sowed the seed of terror that she would abandon me. Also for the first time in my life I felt intense jealousy and would turn up unexpectedly at the house to see if my new wife was with another man. The tricks of survival I had learned in childhood also surfaced. The main one was to shut down emotionally and distance myself if there were any threat to the relationship. And so with all of these and other powerful feelings I had to learn to recognise them as childhood feelings that were not good to have in my adult relationship and encourage the growing part of me to move beyond them. Of course that meant moving into and through emotional adolescence. Believe me, none of it was easy on my wife. Our poor partner gets hit by all the miseries of childhood we meet in our growth.

Example: I felt that I was angry about the fact that in my relationships with women I had constantly tried to satisfy their needs. This was always complicated because my own needs were often opposed to theirs. Their sexual need in contrast with my sexual avoidance for instance. But usually the feelings were less specific, and generally under the realisation that it took me a very long time to reach the point in life where I was not a victim of their or my own dependence, struggle to be in control, desire to possess, jealousy, and so on. As indicated, this worked both ways. It leaves me feeling that I should not easily change the way I live at present. It is so valuable to be able to live by myself, and not need to constantly try to deal with another person’s needs.

Example: I just had this dream where I was going to church with my family and my boyfriend and while he and I were walking there, he stopped and sat down and I got sidetracked as well. I was talking to my sister who started to sell cookies and I looked over at my boyfriend who was talking to one of the girls who bought a cookie and I instantly got a feeling of betrayal and jealousy so I called him over and he heard me but didn’t follow me. So I walked up the stairs and he then took notice of how serious it may be and followed me. I was crying and I was so upset and I just sat on the floor until he came next to me and held me asking what was wrong. Then all of a sudden we were in my room and I was upset because he had told me that before him and I started dating, he had done sexual things with other people and this upset me because I had never done anything sexual before and I’m a virgin. I wanted him to be the same way because I wanted it to be special for the both of us. Which this makes no sense because in reality, he’s never done a thing before.

 You start off going to church, which suggests that you had adopted the morals of the religion you belonged to which may give you a viewpoint that leads to your problems. Maybe not accepted but influenced by. The cookie scene could be an allusion to sharing or offering sexual favours. Has your sister had sexual experience? But then you get an uprush of feelings which leads you to act out being a child trying to get attention; which you got from your dream boyfriend. After going through a big release of such feelings you change direction. The feeling of being free and joyful comes when you have dropped any expectations of what you previously felt was real love. Then he wasn’t with you, and that may be a warning of expecting too much from him.

 Example: I had been living with a woman who was visiting me in my own home, where I lived alone. It was apparent that when I showed any signs of friendship with another woman, she became very jealous. So I stopped any sexual relationships with her and told her it didn’t work, but that we could be good friends. In fact it has worked very well since then, and I see that sex is a very big cause of jealousy.

Example: The counselor who is chopping up something on a lap board with a razor blade looks up and says happily to her, “I like the way you handled that. How creative you are.” I am filled with jealousy because he is noticing her and ignoring me!

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I felt fears of being abandoned or left for someone else?

Do I have any insights into what causes my jealousy?

What do I feel in the dream?
See Avoid Being VictimsTechniques for Working your DreamsConditioned Reflexes

Jeans

This often suggests an attitude of casualness, or relaxed social situation. This also depends on the condition of the jeans.

If you only wore jeans at a certain period of your life then they indicate that time, and what you felt and confronted then.

Example: I dreamt I was looking at and trying on an old pair of jeans. They were quite worn and had some holes in. As I put them on I wondered why I was wearing them as I had stopped wearing jeans when I was much younger, and it was a phase of my life I didn’t want to return to.  Zeb.

Example: He’s realized that I am wonderful and he loves me. He tells me this and we hug. Now he’s in jeans and tee-shirt, has black hair, and black framed glasses. I am lying down and when he and I embrace, I feel a pain in the genital area. He says he put cardboard there so he’d look and feel like he had a bigger penis. As we hug, I feel so happy to be connected with him and then I say, “I’ll probably wake up hugging a pillow.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you still wear jeans, ask yourself what situations you wear them in, and what this means to you?

Are the jeans  ones from the past, old ones or new ones? If from the past or old remember when you wore them, and what memories are connected with them. If new ones what feelings are connected with them?

What is activity or feelings are connected with the jeans in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Jellyfish

Feelings arising from the unconscious which might be painful – sting the dreamer, bring a sense of helplessness – spineless, or are from a non verbal level of memory.

Jersey Pullover Sweater

The style, period and colour of the jersey or sweater are important in understanding what your dream is depicting. There is also a difference in what the jersey means in a male or female dream. In general the female dream shows it enhancing attractiveness or as a means of attraction, perhaps emphasising the breasts. In a male dream it is more to do with staying warm and looking smart or well dressed.

Jerseys or sweaters can also link with a college or school, so in that case link with your associations with that part of your life.

Sometimes we hide things under our clothes in dreams, and they might hold things we didn’t know about, like fleas, snakes or mice – or even something stolen. This suggests feelings and attitudes that are being revealed and perhaps dealt with. (Look up the creatures if this applies.)

A jersey or sweater can be used in a dream to represent how hot or cold we feel. And thereby show the state of your emotions, your intimacy, and how you are feeling sexually or with your internal energy – life force.

It can at times also indicate the state of Jersey.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the main point of the jersey or sweater in this dream – is it to stay warm, to attract attention, to cover myself up, or to hide something?

What do I feel about this jersey, and what does that suggest?

Is there anything to be understood from the colour, style or period of the jersey?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Jesus

Jesus may depict in our dreams the social pressure we feel to conform to a norm, to other people’s ideas of what is morally right; a compensatory process in us to take the place of being able to live a full life externally.

A compensation for traumatised aspects of oneself which are therefore not functioning properly. Jesus may depict the social pressure we feel to conform to a norm, to other people’s ideas of what is morally right; a compensatory process in us to take the place of being able to live a full life externally. A compensation for traumatised aspects of oneself which are therefore not functioning properly. A compensatory force in you to help meet otherwise crippling pain. For instance a baby which does not receive love and contact may later in life create a powerful internal sense of Jesus or some other holy figure. From this figure love is received, thus making up for the earlier lack, and enabling the person to grow emotionally. See: compensation theory.

Jesus could also be, depending on the dream, a point of truth from which you can see the quality of your own life and your link with the living sentient universe, or the collective unconscious as Jung calls it.

In a general sense, free from institutional dogma, Jesus can represent the human experience of life in the body, in which we meet conflict, temptation, death – and our personal  consciousness meeting life in the body. Particularly our sense of humanity as a whole rather than as individuals.

If you have religious beliefs, Jesus would represent those beliefs. In many dreams though, Jesus depicts the link we have in our own life with what is eternally abiding in the world – with the one life existing in all phenomena.

Do not mix up Christ with Jesus; Jesus was a man, according to the gospels, who was Christed. In other words he was given a new form of consciousness. This is described as, “Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That was Jesus receiving the Christ. In other cultures it is sometimes called enlightenment. For example Siddartha became the Buddha when he experienced a huge change and vecame the Guddha. Both Buddha and Christ were ordinary men but became more than that when they achieved the next level od evolutiion, See Archetype of the ChristMeetings with Christ

Example: In the dream I met my “teacher”. It was a powerful meeting of two men who respected each other. I met him because of my own independence. I recognised his greatness because of my own success and craft in life.  Then I was a teacher among disciples. There were only about six. They were all capable and mature adults who were my pupils because they loved and respected me. They gave me great and practical support. One of them, a woman, came to me and said that if I ever needed to be held, I need only go to her.

In exploring this dream I uncovered a lot of emotion. I felt Christ was the teacher I met. The dream expresses qualities of Christ I had never seen clearly before. Namely that Christ is so many-sided. Christ is approachable or open to children – to fishermen – to scholars – to women in love – to the sick – to businessmen. Also, Christ is understandable by a child. As a child one feels as if Christ is a friend who is just a few steps ahead of oneself, showing the way. But as one grows, Christ is always there, just a few steps ahead.

Jeweller

The dreamt of jeweller is someone who understand the human need to have a symbol, such as a ring or brooch to represent important parts of themselves, important ties and relationships. The jeweller is also a person who understands the power and influence of crystals and precious metals. So the dream may point out important influences in your inner life.

The jeweller can also be representing the contact with the universal mind which holds information about all things. But don’t forget that this information is the summary of all human endeavour and thought, so is not all knowing, but it is a wonderful way of gaining insight.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing in relationship with the jeweller?

Did I have a problem with a piece of jewellery?

Have I had dealing with a jeweller?

See Jewels Beads Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

Jewellery

Things we, or our unconscious treasure; our integrity or sense of wholeness; the lasting parts of our nature, even the eternal aspect of self or the essential core of ourselves. For instance, ability to creatively work with others, is not just valuable in general, it also expresses the powerful symbiotic force in nature. It connects one with the universal. This might be depicted as a jewel. See Jewels

It can sometimes indicate love given or received. The desire to be loved or noticed. Relations with others. Particularly memories or feelings connected with the giver, or the circumstances of getting the jewellery. Sometimes qualities you can develop, or have achieved.

If the jewellery has a particular history, such as a family heirloom, then it represents what you feel about, or what you have gained, from your family tradition,

Because jewels connect with what you value, they can depict your sexuality. So losing jewels might mean loss of virginity, or loss of good feelings about what you are doing sexually. i.e. you have lost something of value.

Jewels and Jewellery

Things we, or our unconscious treasure; our integrity or sense of wholeness; the lasting parts of our nature, even the eternal aspect of self or the essential core of ourselves. For instance, ability to creatively work with others, is not just valuable in general, it also expresses the powerful symbiotic force in nature. It connects one with the universal. This might be depicted as a jewel.

Jewelery may represent the giver of the piece, or ones feelings about them; love given or received; something valuable in a ‘quality of our life’ sense, such as something we have learned through hard experience and ought to value; a woman’s honour, self respect, sexuality. If the jewellery has a particular history, such as a family heirloom, the first piece of jewellery given by spouse, then it represents what we feel about family tradition, spouse, etc. See: ring.

But jewels can be symbols of many things and have very personal associations. The can represent insight into the invisible of life. Also truths and wisdom condensed in the stone, and be symbol of the divine in us.

The searching for jewels depicts a search for the core of your being. To find them or dig them up shows that you, through your work on your inner life, have uncovered important part of you that were unconscious before.

To possess jewels is to know you have reached the highest in you. The cutting of jewels represents the work you have done in your attempts to grow and reach for the highest.

Jewels in caves guarded by dragons or serpents show you facing the immense power of the unconscious. The power can only be achieved by facing the dragon or serpent without fear. See Dragon

Jewels in crowns and necklaces show you that you have achieved recognition and enlightenment.

Jewels worn by royalty, especially women, and jewels kept hidden show you are in possession in great insight and wisdom.

In occult lore, jewels are ascribed various protective, curative and magical properties. In their negative aspect, jewels symbolise the material, greed for riches, and profane love. As always when dealing with dream meanings, it is you personal association that are important – see Associations Working With

Diamond: This is the hardest known material. It lasts forever, so the advertisements tell us. It represents the eternity of spirit, the gem or jewel at the centre of being. Spiritual consciousness. It can also represent human greed, hardness, cold as ice, anything for power. But is not often used as such in dreams.

Ruby: The feelings, sympathies, love, arising from the spirit, rather than material values. The ability to reach out and contact others.

Emerald: The growth principle, growth of consciousness, growth of spiritual awareness, harmony with life.

Pearl: Value, beauty, from the depths of our being. The fact that a pearl arises from irritation makes it the symbol of that beauty or inner wholeness that has arisen from the trials of life.

Sapphire: Religious feelings, devotion. quieting of material consciousness, peace of mind, protection from evil.

Opal: The inner world of your dreams, fantasies, psychic impressions. Protection against anger. Purification.

Amethyst: Bringer of dreams and visions. Protection against being carried away by spiritual elation or inner influences. Healing.

Lapis Lazuli: Sensitivity to inner impressions. Vitality.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If it is a jewel I own, what does it mean to me?

Was it something that was buried or hidden?

Did I receive it from someone?

See Inner World Emotions and Mood in DreamsSumming Up

Jinn Djinn Genie Shaytan

A force in the natural world that is invisible. Just as in the past illness was said to be caused by spirits but is now through having powerful microscopes are seen to be caused by bacteria or viruses, the Jinn are similarly caused but science has not been able to easily detect them.

But science also has not been able to detect the creative force behind our existence – God/Allah/Creator. Yet whatever name we give it IT created everything, including Jinn and Angels. So it can be dealt with by God’s power in your life.

It can be a good or a destructive force and usually is a manifestation of the thoughts, feelings and way of life you have led or harboured.

 

Job

The job in your dream has many connections. It can represent your feelings of social value and how you see or value yourself, as a following example explains. It can also indicate how you rate yourself as a family supporter, but remember that a dream is simply a reflection of how you feel about yourself and that can sometimes be a negative view of yourself, or a statement of where you wish to go or do with your life, or even an intuitive insight into your future. 

It can also be fears about ageing as this man says – The last couple of days my soul has been full of anxiety about what to work at, what job I am capable of. I felt middle-aged and in a young man’s world, with few opportunities open to me. Yet I know such feelings are only really due to ruts we get into and then cannot see beyond.

But what is the ‘job’ you are really involved in? Is it perhaps the most important work in your life, the job of working on your own life and improving your worth in the world – not your financial value but your value as a human being? Such things might be painful to face up to.

 Example: I am exploring a  dream and the weight bar is associate with what led me to weight training. It was a feeling of being nobody, of being weak, inferior, etc. So the bar is probably my attempts to be self-confident, self-reliant. This is interesting as I have felt far more of a real person in my own right lately. Not superior or better, but despite a job that gives the outer appearance of me being capable of little, I do not feel upset any more by this appearance in meeting the feelings of worth and capability.

Example: Mr. Erwin then offered to set me up in a photographic firm, I being the manager. It seemed vaguely tempting, but I still had the feeling that I couldn’t devote my life to any things such as photography. I felt there was something important coming in my life, which should be waited for. Meanwhile, I said to Mr. Erwin, I would consider the job if he understood I could not think of it as permanent, or possessing my whole interest.

Example: At my house I meet the new Russian Foreign Minister. He is lamenting at how hard he has to work everyday just to stay on top of his job. As an example, he tells me about the reading and studying he had to do before coming to Thailand. One interesting thing he says that he learned is that Thailand, Newport Beach, California and Isreal are the only 3 centers for exotic fruits in the world.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the theme of the dream?

Is the dream about my work or is it about my attitudes?

Did I learn anything from the dream?

See Plot of the DreamTechniques for Working your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Jockey

Ability to direct energy and instincts. The drive to win at what you are attempting. So being a jockey might link with success or failure. See: Horse.

Joker

Joker in cards represents the irrational inner self, that can take on any quality, and in itself is neither good nor bad, wise nor foolish, high nor low. See: Clown.

Journal

Especially if it is a dream journal it represent your past present and even your future. It is like a crystal ball that you can look into and see new things all the time – and of course remember the past with various emotions.

Journey

In general, the dream journey is a comment on what is happening in your life, and how you feel about it. It may also relate to undertakings you embark on; new experiences or ways of life you are entering. You can go on the journey of life, a spiritual journey, the journey into marriage, parenthood, but more than any thing else it is a magnificent  journey of meeting every aspect of your being, every life form and your particular past dwellings – for you meet everything. The journey cannot be undertaken unless you are willing to travel, to move from one experience, one attitude or way of life to another. So sometimes you meet hesitations or things to do before you can go.

A new undertaking, relationship or way of life. Sometimes it is the voyage of self-discovery into your inner life.

Throughout history we have examples of how such inner journeys were lived out. Mohammed for instance, describes his massive breakthrough into what he felt was a cosmic revelation as The Night Journey, which occurred in a dream. Siddhartha, after years of discipline and privation, finds a new way of experiencing life in what we now call enlightenment, and became the Buddha. Jesus transformed into the Christ at baptism through an opening to a new type of awareness. Thousands of people in today’s world have followed in the footsteps of those early pioneers and experienced for themselves the meeting with what Jung calls The Self – the emergence into an experience of greater wholeness or completeness; the falling away of the defences, resistances and fears that have held us back from our fullest and most profound experience of ourselves; an experience of enlightenment. It is not a case of developing an attribute we didn’t already have, but of bursting through the personal or culturally imposed barriers that have walled off this greater expanse of self from easy access.

A journey at sea cuts us off from our usual activities. It puts us in closer and inescapable contact with fellow travellers. It also offers the possibility of missing the boat, something that may be irreversible. This all points to how we are always in the midst of enormous natural forces, times and tides of activity. Your sea dreams will indicate your relationship with this.

A dreamt of journey often shows how we are feeling about our life and its ups and downs, goals and destinations, challenges and opportunities. It also can define undertakings we embark on, or experiences being met. The overall tone of our life is may be depicted by the dream journey and the direction our unconscious is taking us and our life and what it is achieving.

In our life we have lots of journeys, such as that through schooling; marriage and perhaps divorce; work; parenthood; and the overall journey of life and death.

In a similar way people have remembered their life from conception on, a life of tremendous change and wonder, a life of amazing transformations from a vegetative state of simple cell growth, into basic life such as a fish – for we go through a phase in which we have gills – and from that we pass slowly into a creature that is capable of life out of the water. In fact, we still carry the evidence in our body. See Levels of the Brain

Such journeys are all forgotten for most of us, and yet we are the result of them – perhaps unconsciously. But there are countless other journeys we have usually forgotten, for we are the latest stretch of a journey that is as old as life on this earth, and even older if present scientific discoveries are true. There has never ever been a break in the line of life that started in the beginning of life in an ancient sea. Some people remember it, see Jesse Watkins Enlightenment

We tend to name them past lives but could be better thought of as forgotten journeys.

Forgotten journeys: We have been on a long series of journeys, and the series make up our present life, or at least underlie it. For instance most people cannot remember their birth – yet that was an important and often dramatic life journey. Yet thousands of people have recovered such memories, often because they were able to face the enormity of their emotions – as a baby you could not think and so all you had was feelings and instinctive responses. See Programmed

Interrupted or difficult journey: Expresses difficulties and anxieties of present life situation; symbol of the psychological journey of self-realisation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of journey was it – walking, but, train, bicycle, car or plane, or even space flight?

Were they difficulties on the way?

Did you reach your goal?

See: Where applicable day and night, for time of journey; cartrainboathillaeroplane. Also it is important to see individuation; Travelling; Boat; Journey; Archetype of the Night Journey; Journey Through The Mind ; Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death; Journey Inwards.

Judge

Your sense of whether you have acted in harmony with your best self, or with the people around you. The judge may be an inner self-criticism that you carry with you, and need to re-evaluate.

Sense of guilt or self judgement; conscience; decision making. May depict the ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’, we apply to ourselves, or our moral code. Sometimes, the way we judge others becomes a harsh judge of ourselves. Feeling what a failure our parents were in raising us becomes a difficult judgement of our own state as a parent – we accuse ourself as harshly as we accuse others.

In the end we are the judge of our own life in our dreams. To quote a dreamer, “To not judge others I think I have to choose not to judge myself first and that would require some conscious, deliberate work.”

Do not judge yourself harshly, for such judgement stands in the way of learning from our failures. Learning from those lessons is to be understood and treasured, not condemned.

Judging something can also be a way of weighing the value or usefulness of something, “Judging by the noise of the brakes the car might not stop in time”.

As for how God sees us, well it is not as an outsider who judges or condemns us. People are so mixed when they consider God. My experience is that Life/God, when we really open to our core, is the very self that we are and we have kept projecting it outside of us. It is something that is beyond description but is Love, Power and Insight without judgement, without blame; and it is there all the time. We do not have to be wonderful paragons of virtue to know it. We are, after all, little life forms, seeds of Life struggling to grow. All we have to do is to say, “Life/God, I love you and please help me to know you.”

Example: I am a male, 19, single and live with only one parent and my new born son. I live with my father who is paralyzed from the waste down. My parents recently split up and its been really hard to deal with my dad. Since my son has been born my dad constantly nags at me and judges me about the way I take care of my son. I am a college student and have accomplished few positive things in my life, and I could assure you I don’t completely know all the aspects of fatherhood but I know my son and I believe he’s been giving to me for a reason. My mom and dad are so critical on me, and my girlfriend.

Example: Now here it was, I the human parasite. At first I wouldn’t let it into consciousness. A moral judgmental attitude held it in the unconscious. I had to say to myself, “Okay, here is a part of myself I have judged as unpleasant and pushed away. All right, I have judged you. Now I drop my judgment and love you. Come and show yourself.”

Then up came the realisation about my own parasitic a relationship with my wife and her children, and life in general. We are all takers. I saw how I had led her to look at the children critically so I would appear well in her eyes. I saw how it is a pattern of a parasite such as I, to gradually make its host feel it is needed. So actions and words are done from the aim to produce the feeling of value. And things are done to build up usefulness and someone’s need for us. Meanwhile we satisfy our own needs. But a parasite always feels insecure. It depends so much on its host it fears the attempts to be helpful and useful will be seen through to their true parasitic nature.

Idioms: Judge not, that ye be not judged; sit in judgement.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I judging or being judged in the dream?

What was the conclusion in the dream?

Have I lernt not to judge myself too harshly?

See KarmaMartial Art of the MindSecrets of Power DreamingEdgar Cayce

Jumble Sale

See: CharityShop.

Jump

To take a risk, a leap into a situation that is uncertain. Taking a chance.

See postures movement and body language

Jungle

Eruption of urges and feelings from the unconscious – could be negative or positive depending on dream. It can be a representation of confusion, or an experience of  ‘uncivilised’ or unconscious area of your mind; maybe non socialised feelings and urges, therefore may contain unmet anxieties – snakes and lions – or sexual urges – native men and women. It is similar to forest, except that dreaming of a jungle you may meet more exotic creatures, and be lost in the tangle of nature. The jungle can also be an area of your experience in which you meet the wisdom that lies usually unconscious in your body and mind – wisdom collected from millions of years of life on Earth.

Example: Jungle woman: My dear lovely woman – what are you in the end? An instinctive lovely creature that has moved out of the jungles, forests and plains, moved away from the rural settings of early human beings into the modern world. You haven’t yet got instincts that inform you as to what you should do here. That is, apart from the fact of your fundamental drives, to love, to care for those that you love, and defend them and yourself from what is sometimes a harsh environment. And this is the great wisdom of today. This is what you need to nurture. If that love extends to the strangest of beasts and people, well, let it. If you feel comfortable with it, if it does not injure some part of you, let it.

Eruption of urges and feelings from the unconscious – could be negative or positive depending on dream. Or a confusion; an area of ‘uncivilised’ or unconscious, maybe non socialised feelings and urges, therefore may contain unmet anxieties – snakes and lions – or sexual urges – native men and women. Sometimes it represents a change in the way you are dealing with life and your inner world, so it can be an initiation into new areas of experience.

Example: I had my first lucid dream when I was quite young, maybe 5 or 6. In it I was myself at the time, a small child and I was alone in a jungle in the daytime (I knew it was day as I noted that it was somewhat light through the deep tangle of lush plants). I was alert in this exotic environment, but not afraid. All of a sudden a large adult tiger appeared directly in front of me moving towards me. I was quite startled and aware that I was in a very dangerous situation. But I just calmed myself from within, and at that moment, I was able to tell myself that it was ok; I was in a dream and the tiger would not really hurt me. Then I was able to face the tiger directly as an equal with no malice. I don’t know what happened after that, or if I simply awoke, but I know I never considered that dream a nightmare, and I have always remembered it. P.

This dream of a young girl shows enormous maturity. It indicates not only lucidity, a condition that many people never attain, but also that in the jungle of her fear and instincts she masters her fears and meets them. It promises the girl will become a woman who will have a lot to offer.

Example: I’m in a car. A bad man with a gun tells me to drive. He has the gun in my sides. I feel helpless, paralyzed, afraid. He’s going to kill me. He has a bag full of millions of dollars. I kill him, so that he won’t kill me. We are in the South American jungle. Then I decide to take the money. I run, fearful that someone will find out and too greedy to give the money up. Trapped in a life of fear by my own greed.

A very different effect from being in the instinctive urges that the jungle represents. This time the dream feels the urge to grab all for itself, like the monkey who to get a handful of food puts it hand into gourd with a narrow entrance. It’s greed makes it unable to let go and so it is trapped. Children are often living in the jungle of their natural urges.

Example: Having missed seeing my young son on the way to meet him after school, I then carried him and told him how I was so sorry I had not seen how I had frightened him, and how he had needed me to pick him up. I told him he was mine and I loved him, and I had run all the way to find him. I said Merlin was my hunting dog, and we had lost his scent on the road, and so ran all the way hunting him till we found him, because he was somebody to me. I explained how roads were dangerous parts of the jungle and showed him how to cross.

On the way back home, while I was holding him in my arms, my son was saying, “L …L …L” I said, “L..ove – L..onging – L…aughing.” He said, no, “Liar. Cheat” meaning me. He hit me a lot, and I understood he needed to do this to see if I was strong. If I could stand lots of banging about; see if I was strong enough to look after him. Despite this he expressed loving closeness to me.

Example: But slowly I got into the mood I entered last time, of being an animal – human animal – just the same as my primitive forebears, but now confronted by the complexities of modern life, with its subtle and ingeniously devastating values. This business about the house was one of these values. A house was a modified cave. It was so easy to get lost in this jungle of values and forget that. As a (primitive) man I recognise what are the basic needs – food, shelter, and human and physical warmth. A cave without emotional warmth was deadly and even if it fitted the modern “values” was deadening. Love was a food that we all needed to face the outside world with outgoingness and pleasure. Without it there was no flowing radiating charge in us to transform the outer world into a place we could meet with courage. Example: Then I was standing looking along a road edged each side with jungle, stretching straight off into the distance. I knew that lions sometimes waited hidden to capture travelers walking the road. I stood trying to decide whether I would take the road.

In exploring his dream, the dream said he had been offered a great opportunity, “But because I have no degrees, official training, or backing, I have to decide whether I have courage enough to say what I see – i.e. take that road alone, despite the possibility of attack or censure from others.” He imagined the lions jumping out on him and realised they were his own anxieties that could easily have made him give up on the opportunity.

Example: I am a man! What is a man? What is it to be a man? I really feel this isn’t a way to be. It is too strange to be a man. I am really something odd. It is odd being a man. It is frightening. I am not like the other beasts. The other beasts haven’t got this difficulty. They don’t carry this difficult – consciousness. They don’t carry the difficulty all the time. Why should I be different? I don’t like it. DON’T like it. There is something I am looking at which is to do with how human beings got to be in the situation they are in today. Part of it is this feeling of wanting to turn back – wanting to go back to being unconscious – to being asleep. A lot of them did it. They turned back. Hundreds and hundreds turned back. That was the story of Noah. Hundreds turned back because they didn’t want to bear it. A lot still do it today, feeling crushed by being conscious, so use drink and drugs or any means to avoid bearing this awful consciousness.

This is sometimes the awful result of emerging from childhood without the support of real love and support. They experience the jungle of their own painful meeting with conscious life. That was the real meaning of Eve and Adam who felt cast out of being animals without self awareness. It was a shock, they/we felt naked. And below is the positive transition.

Example: I felt a great peace and my being became quiet and still. There was no need to strive, it was wonderful just to exist. In this stage I realised that although I had come to India looking for Sai Baba and Shaktipat, they did not in fact have what I was searching for. What I sought I was already finding, and had always known. It was in me and around me in everything and everybody. It was life in all its forms and conditions. I had met it everywhere. Now I saw the mystery of the jungle – something coming out of the jungle as I sat in existence. It was my own connection with all things, and I felt myself melting back into it. This was very gentle, and I realised it was deepening as I got older.

Idioms: Law of the jungle; gods of the jungle;  it’s a jungle out there.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my experience of the jungle?

Did I feel any emotions or meet anything new?

Was I able to meet the fears and anxieties met in my inner jungle?

See Temple of the AnimalsVoice of the JungleProgrammed –  Techniques for Working your Dreams

Jury

Conscience, ideas of right and wrong, attempts to make decisions.

See: judge.

Letter K

Kaaba

This cube, holy to Islam, represents an expression of the divine will in material affairs. See: Cube.

Kangaroo

Because of its pouch the kangaroo may depict the safety of your mother’s womb, or protection. Or conversely, the safety and protection you can give. But kangaroos are also things that jump around, and could be associated with something that you cannot get hold of or is changing too fast to connect with. If it is a male kangaroo it might represent a male in your life or a facet of yourself as whatever attitude the kangaroo illustrates. Kangaroos can also be very aggressive and attack by kicking. If this is what you dream it would mean a vicious attack by somebody or yourself reacting without thought. If you know the habits of kangaroos this might be about the family group you are in, or the social group.

Useful questions are:

What is the dream kangaroo doing, and how does this translate into your everyday life? See: themes.

Is there something going on in your life to do with protection or mothering, or wanting to return to that sort of protectiveness?

Is there any group involved in your dream, or any aggression – if so what does that reflect of your life?

Kayak

It probably represents your ability to survive in rough stretches of your experience. But it depends on what happens in the dream and whether you survive even in rough water and upside-down.

 

Keel

Similar to foundation, or basis upon which your life is built, but also represents that which holds you steady against opposing conditions. Basic personal strengths. The foundation of your personality or identity. Perhaps also the strength to built a new you from.

Kernel

The inner truth, inner value, innermost self.

Kettle

 Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.

The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy.

 Example: Steve, my lover, gave me a copper kettle, same shape as the one John, my husband, took to bits and then never put back for me. I was very happy with the gift.  I saw the kettle was clean, with no dents, not highly polished, but with a homely glow.

Considering that a kettle can indicate a woman’s feeling of wanting to provide a good home for her lover, and also her ability to bear a child, the gift is a symbol of the deep feelings that create love. Unfortunately her ‘lover’ didn’t understand the depth of a woman’s feelings and her put a ‘dent’ in the kettle.

Key Keys

Any attitude, thought, realisation or feeling which opens up areas of memory, experience or motivation previously ‘locked up’. A realisation or information which allows solution to a problem; also depicts an effective way of doing something. But a key is also for locking things, making them unavailable, so suggests losing or holding back on parts of you. Also very often represents the penis or sexual intercourse.

A key gives you entrance to things you would not otherwise have access to. It allows you to open things that would otherwise remain closed to you. It represent confidence – the sureness that you can go somewhere or access something.

 Example: My response to this as I felt it was/is that my relationship with a woman I love, and the things that have arisen from that relationship, and are arising from it, have produced a new sort of sureness about the inner life, and the outer life. I experience this as linking with so many things. For instance some beliefs would prevent one from building something together. This because the belief might be that this is a lot of “bloody nonsense.” So that would lock out whole areas of experience, speculation and creativity. So the key has been forged out of much that I have done in the past, and finely shaped by my lover and her unique qualities, enthusiasms and insights.

Example: I went to an office in Tottenham Court Road. Then I woke up in bed in the office. A woman was in bed on my left. I was about to get up, and she said for me to touch her breast before I got out of bed. I did so and drew near to her, but thought it would all end in sexual intercourse, and I didn’t want that to happen. Next thing, I was in Woburn Walk, trying to unlock the front door, but I did not have the right key. In fact the keys were for a different house entirely. I was in a dazed condition and someone else opened the door for me. I realised that I had only just awoke to this part of my life after a lapse or split of some weeks, where I lived in a different house and a completely different life. I knew this had all happened before, unknown to me. I could still remember the woman in bed, but I did not wish to explain this to anyone, and made out I had total loss of memory.

The dream illustrates how we can live two or more separate lives by creating a split – in this case between his sexual feelings. But being unknown to him shows how it had been unconscious and only just being realized.

 Example: Dreamt I suddenly felt the key to the hall in my pocket – left hand. I realised the hall door had been left open.

In seeking an understanding of the dream, this was produced: The dream brings you the memory that you left the door open. The real love that you are beginning to feel is coming into your life. When you remembered the door was left open, this is that you have now left your life open to Life. The key is no longer necessary. The key was your trying to meditate, your efforts to meditate. The key represents my thoughts, that you were your giving yourself to Life. Throw the key away, you will now think my thoughts, the thoughts generated by your unconscious wisdom.

 Example: Now I had the key to the whole puzzle. All the years of my adult life I have been looking, examining, trying to understand. It was all so much like the game of Master Mind. The answer actually exists in the ever-increasing information gathered. If only we could put it all together. If only we could see the pattern of our life experience, our education, our relationships. And then, when we actually solve the riddle and uncovered the code, it is all so simple. So was the whole process of life and death.

When I stood in the role of the keys I didn’t get a lot of feelings with them, but defined them as the ability to gain privacy in my own dwelling, and to enter into the lives of a few other people whose houses I have the keys to. So I felt the keys connect with my ability or desire to enter into or have insight into other peoples lives. They also depict the ability to keep people out or let them in.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the key open a door – if not ask what quality or insight do I lack?

What does the key give you access to?

Is it to new realisations or to your own inner life?

See Being the Person or ThingClicking OnProgrammed

Kick Kicking

Self assertion; self expression; protectiveness; aggressiveness. It can indicate a tantrum, anger, and feeling hurt emotionally. See: Hostility

 As you can see from the amazing amount of ways kick and kicking are used in idioms in our language, it shows how different ways dreams can portray kick.

 Example: “It’s so good for children to be alive. They’ve got to be allowed to be alive and feel it is good. To play, to laugh, to argue, to hit each other, to fight, it’s all part of it. I never knew how to do it. You never knew how to do it. The fighting, the kicking, they love it. Even if they end in tears, it’s all a part of it.”  I saw how the fear or shock felt by children was usually only if their parent or comrades felt that falling over, shouting, fighting, was something to cry about instead of enjoy, then they started feeling apprehensive about the tumble of life.

Example: I kicked you all the time Pat (mywife). It was because you faced me with this insoluble problem. The problem was, why couldn’t I love my wife and children? And every time – like the dog licking me now, that’s what helped me to see it – I couldn’t take your affection because it was this pain here again, insoluble problem. Why can’t I love my wife and children? Why can’t I?”

Example: Some weeks prior to the this I had been verbally abused on the telephone. The caller had threatened to come and kick my door in, kick my face in, and generally assault me. In confronting the sort of feeling I met then, I see that the aggressive response, the animal attack response, is actually not the most efficient or satisfying. I gradually worked through to a feeling of remaining poised in readiness for any form of response as the best way of meeting such an attack. This was the sort of openness of being one has when surrendered during inner-directed movement. It does not exclude attacking or even killing the person, but it does not hold those as its aim. In fact it has no fixed aim, only an openness to respond in a way that meets the present situation.

Idioms: For kicks; kick-back; kick over the traces; kick in the teeth; kick the bucket; alive and kicking; better than a kick in the ass; get a kick out of; get my kicks; get your kicks; kick a habit; kick ass;  kick at the cat; kick butt; kick myself; kick start; kick the weed; kick up a fuss; kick up your heels

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where you kicking or being kicked?

Have you ever kicked anybody in waking or in dreams?

How would you react if someone kicked you?

See Active PassiveThe power of HabitsTechniques for Working your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Kidnap Kidnapped

If the dreamer is the victim of kidnappers: The forces of our own fears and negative feelings are often presented as an external force or organised gang who victimise us. If such feelings are recognised for what they are, self created emotions, they lose their power. Being kidnapped also suggests loss of security or feelings of security, or someone else forcing their will on one.

 Kidnapping family member or friend: Because the family member or friend is probably used in your dream to represent your memories or feelings about them see Characters and People in Dreams.

In many cases it represents feelings of your own vulnerability, that your own fears or your anxiety about being trapped is holding you hostage. Also that because you feelvulnerable you may become captured by someone else’s forceful manner of approach.

Kidnapping someone else: Influencing someone else against their will. This may of course be about oneself, referring to forcing oneself to do something that ones feelings are against.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you recently felt influenced by someone else or by your own anxieties?

Has anyone been bullying you or browbeat you?

Do you feel anxious about family members being badly influenced?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindSimple Truths

Kill Killed Killing

Being killed: An interior or exterior influence which you feel is ‘killing’ – undermining, making ineffective, strangling, choking – ones self confidence, or sense of identity.

Killing oneself: In the example the dreamer has killed himself in some way and is becoming aware of it.

 Example: It was something like a semi detached and sited on a slope. I was outdoors and I think felt or knew that we had just taken over this house. But I felt uneasy as if something from the past was linked with it.

Then I was at the back of the house, on the part sloping down from the back wall of the house. I noticed things covering what turned out to be a big hole dug against the back wall, deep into the soil. This was where I felt most ill at ease about the place.  The hole had been covered with bits of board and other odd pieces of junk. I lifted these at the left of the hole and looked in. Sticking out from the side of the hole, about three feet down was the dead body of a young man. I could see the back of his skull had been smashed in. But although he had obviously been under the soil for some time, and had now been uncovered, the body was still in good condition, being slightly dried out or mummified.

I felt really guilty and connected with the body, as if I had been part of his murder, and was wondering frantically what I could do to hide or get rid of the body. Part of the problem was that pulling it out risked being seen with it.

In ‘being’ the body in the dream the man said, “But it wasn’t until I got into the role of the dead body that any depth of feelings emerged.  Almost as soon as I was in the role of the dead body I began to think about and feel things connected with the way I had killed my sexuality as a teenager.  Gradually these feelings deepened and I was describing my feeling hatred in regard to sexuality and how the masses were pulled along by their genitals into some sort of conformity and performance.  I felt anger and loathing for what I felt at the time were the cattle human beings were. At the time I despised and hated them.  I also felt repugnance at the way people talked about sex or appeared to enjoy it.  It has to be understood that in that period in history in the UK, most of sex was depicted in terms of smut, dirt, animal desire, hidden pornography, or loveless fucking.   I wept deeply, at times hardly able to breathe, with the pain of seeing what I had done to myself.  I said sorry over and over.  I saw that I need not have killed my love and sexuality, but could have expressed it in a tender and loving way.

Killing: Repressing or stopping some aspect of oneself – as when we kill our love for someone.

Killing parents: In the example below Audrey’s height shows her as a child. She is releasing anger about the attitudes and situations her father forced ‘down her throat’. To be free of the introverted restraints and ready made values gathered from our parents, at some time in our growth we may kill or bury them in our dreams. Although some people are shocked by such dreams, they are healthy signs of emerging independence. Old myths of killing the chief so the tribe can have a new leader, depict this process. When father or mother is ‘dead’ in our dream, we can inherit all the power gained from whatever was positive in the relationship. Also is is a lesson on standing on ourown feet alone.

 Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.’ Audrey V.

Sometimes a dream about our family is a literal statement in symbols, of what we sense is happening in the family.

Killing animals: This shows you killing urges or needs you have that are natural and instinctive. Mostly this is injurious to your wholeness, but occasionally needs to be done to deal with special life situations. The killing might also point to feelings of pain and conflict, as when we kill out something in us that is natural or even beautiful; like when we trained to be nice to everyone even though our instinctive reaction is to avoid them. The same applies to reasonable anger.  See: family and relationships; animals.

 Example: ‘When inside the house I dream of recurrently, I am terrified of someone, a man who is trying to find and kill me.’ Barbara T.

As a young woman Barbara discovered the dead body of her father he had shot himself in the house of her dream. Being killed here shows Barbara feeling overwhelmed by the feelings about her father – the man.

 Example: ‘Some two weeks before my dear wife died of cancer of the oesophagus, at about three a.m. in the morning, she shot up in bed screaming ‘No. No! No!’ On questioning her she said her mother, who had died in November 1981, was trying to kill her.’ Gerry B.

In this unusual dream the wife feels the approach of death, depicted by her mother. As dreams suggest death is as much a new area of experience as adolescence was, it would have helped to meet the mother of this dream and find a more positive relationship as described in Processing Dreams. See: death.

Example: A big man, with several gunmen, came into the house at Woburn Walk, threatening to kill my father. I held them off by threatening the leader with the 410 shotgun held at his head. There was no definite conclusion one way or another at the end of the dream. I thought afterwards that there was a great deal of fear of persecution in the dream, and wondered what would happen if I let myself be persecuted, i.e. if I dropped the fear of threat.

Being threatened by gunman again. But this time there is no sense of fear. However the dream does not end conclusively. During a borderline state today, I saw that I (we?) had got to the “pockets” of trouble, and it was now being worked on.

Another interesting dream because the next day he dreamt: “That I had been having treatment for mental illness, but I didn’t know it. My wife somehow drew my attention to it, and I realised that there were great gaps in my memory, signifying the times I had been insane. I also thought that since the treatment I was worse, as I had several symptoms of a troublesome nature that I had not had previously. The dream left a very strong aftertaste.”

The pockets of trouble that were being met were in fact his previously unmet fears and trauma. So the threat of death by the gunmen was showing his fear of persecution, which he then was willing to face. This led to feeling that at times he had been completely unaware of his problems. That led to his troublesome symptoms that could now surface.

Idioms: dressed fit to kill; if looks could kill; kill a penalty; kill an elephant; kill for; kill me; kill off; kill ourselves laughing; kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; kill time; kill two birds (with one stone); time to kill; curiosity killed the cat; killer instinct; killing me; make a killing

Useful Questions and Hints:

Considering that each person dreamt of is usually and aspect of oneself, what was being killed?

Did you feel a connection with the death or feel guilty?

How did you react to the killing?

See Summing UpCharacters and People in DreamsBeing the Person or Thing  

King

Ones father. As the father the king may depict our need for approval and loving acknowledgement or what you are ruled by so authority. This may involve feelings of inferiority / superiority.

Also: In times past the King represented the group, the overall collective psyche of the people. He
therefore became synonymous with God, as the Pope is today. The word God was here equivalent to ‘the collective psyche’. So the King or Queen may represent our relationship with our fellows; our sense of identity, or depict the way we feel in relationship with the society in which we live. The acclaim or lack of notice given by the monarch in our dream also deals with this theme – of how we see ourselves in connection with the public – our public image of ourselves.
See: people; queen.

Example: I was engaged to be married to the Emperor. I then discovered he was in love with another woman and planned to marry her. I was devastated. Sally LBC.

Sally felt unloved by her father, and the drama of her dream works out this theme of feeling rejected.

 Here is another dream of a woman which she explored: I am the unseen. I cannot be seen. I am the natural way. My kingdom is the natural way. Those who seek me, like Ayana, will find me. I grant audience to all those who seek me. The tank (the wreck) entered my domain and was promptly destroyed for being unnatural – just as white cells in one’s body destroy invaders in order to protect its environment. That is the way it is. It is a self-regulatory process.

Here is king used in a different way: My wife had screamed due to some trouble with her period. She was pregnant. The troubles she was having were the traditional signs that she was pregnant and bearing a King Child. I felt that the whole pregnancy would be difficult due to these signs of kingship, but the delivery would be easier. I didn’t feel too pleased about her having a baby, but soon adjusted to the idea.

The woman was in fact having a baby, but it was not diagnosed at that time. The baby turned out to be an unusual child, and could walk at 5 months, and at school outstripped all his peers intellectually.

Example:  I was being presented to a Persian king in the grounds of his palace. As we talked a group of happy, laughing young girls came into the garden, followed by a rather sad looking middle aged woman who I thought must be the king’s chief wife. This woman was obviously in charge of the harem and was sad, I felt, because the king no longer wanted her sexually and had relegated her to the role of household organiser. One of the girls came to Sally and said, ‘Don’t you recognise me? We were together in a previous incarnation ‘.

From Dream Power by Ann Faraday.I realised the king represented my husband, and I was the chief wife. In the early years of our marriage we had been joyously sexual, but this has faded in recent years, and we have grown apart sexually. But I felt he was too inhibited to have affairs with other women, as the dream suggested. The past life I see as referring to the early years of our marriage. Some months after the dream however, my husband brought home a young girl from work – in the film industry – and said she needed temporary accommodation. There followed a long series of affairs with different girls, while I cooked, cleaned and looked after them all.

 

Kiss

Acceptance of what is being kissed – Pat in the example mentioned below, accepts or allows her sexuality depicted by the cat. It can also be a sign or sexual agreement, tenderness or a movement toward unity.

Occasionally a sign of betrayal or duplicity, as with Judas kissing Jesus. This would be depicted by the feelings in the dream.  The kiss is also the flowering of love, and your dream response can be an indication of how you are meeting such love.

In a sense, a kiss is always a merging with the person or creature who is the dream character. Because we are always inside of ourselves male and female and also everything we dream about, it may therefore show merging more fully with these other sides of you. Or if it is the same sex kiss, then you are merging with your own self image.

If you look at lips you will see that they are the softer and more vulnerable and inner part of your body. Kissing is like exposing your soft internal self or organs to another person. That is why it is so intimate.

Expression of love, passion, sympathy, union, becoming closer in sympathies or understanding.  The kiss is also the flowering of love, and your dream response can be an indication of how you are meeting such love.  Also a kiss is often an adult way of going to the breast, and in doing so – kissing – you are starting the flow of sexual feelings.

Example: I felt, still young, inexperienced and a bit clumsy, but laughing and happy, the flow of pleasure to Janice, leading to a kiss. The deep internal pleasure of kissing gradually widened until it led to genital feeling. I realised so many things as this lovely gentle growth of feeling and flowing occurred. I realised that I and most teenagers have too much technical sex instruction, so it is portrayed as an erect penis entering the vagina. But I was seeing it wasn’t like that at all. First of all came the gradual relationship with Janice. As that deepened it led to touching, being happy together and kissing.

The kiss, oral pleasure, was our first area of loving with our mother. From that original centre of pleasure, it grows into anal and genital pleasure. When that happens the body begins to move. But there was still no erection. The movement was the forerunner of the inner pleasurable urge to thrust and penetrate. So there was a slow and internal growth through escalating feelings, and not an outwardly ordained set of movements that lead to “sex”!

Example: Dreamt I was in the basement of our house in London. I was lying on a camp bed (I think) with Sheila and another woman, perhaps Ann. I was being quite sensuous with them. Then another woman came in and lay on the bed on my right. She was sometimes like Win’s friend, but also like other women. She seemed to settle as a dark haired young woman. I climbed off the bed and lay on top of her. I made love to her, but it seemed to be by kissing her breast and mouth. The sensitivity was so great there seemed to be no need for anything more. Yet there also seemed to be genital intercourse as there was an underlying thought of her/we going to Australia, and that our intercourse reached into the future via the as yet unborn or unknown. This latter was very strong. Pete

 Example: Then I arrive at the preschool where I am doing a field study, and I am a teacher and my students and I are playing a name song. When it gets to one of the male volunteers, he leans in and kisses me. I don’t recognize his face, but I seem to know him. I have a strong physical attraction to this person and throughout the dream I hope he feels the same way.

Example: Tumble words, like couples in the woods. Please each other at each touch, And yet be free to look upon the sky. Or at the pigeons starting from the trees As I pass by. Kiss her warmly on the cheek And on the breast, my words.

Example: I felt I had to go back for something. I went back and the woman was crying. I understood that our conversation had awoken her youth – in the sense of her desires for love and a willingness to face sexual experience, and give herself in it. This was very beautiful, but difficult to explain. We went to her bedroom, where we embraced and kissed. This was wonderful as I felt great tenderness, and willingness to lose myself in her need, which I did.

Example: I was kissing S. but her breath smelt, and I was put off. Also, her skin felt like putty.

Example: My father had asked to use a telephone in one of the factories. He had phoned his father, who was old, and had been put in a nursing home. His father was then with us. We were in a room, still in the central area, and my father was in a bed with his father. His father looked old and weak, and like my uncle. Then my father put his arm around him and kissed him. I felt uncomfortable because I could feel the emotions becoming so powerfully loving they would be difficult to cope with.

This is about the enormous and often unexpressed love between family members.

 Example: I find my husband along with Ashton Kutcher (famous actor). I become very excited to see Ashton and we start talking. Then I see my husband run up to some girl who walks in and start kissing her. I run up to him, screaming, “What are you doing?” He looks at me and tells me that he doesn’t want to be with me anymore and just walks away with this girl. I’m feeling very sad and confused when Ashton walks up and comforts me. He takes my hand and we walk outside into this tunnel.

A part of the dream not quoted included an earth tremor and terrorist attack. It shows the dreamer facing enormous changes in her relationship and even life direction. To quote from ARE dream interpreter, “You may need to sit down and talk about your relationship with your husband, your hopes for the future, and even any communication issues that may be occurring in the present. I hope that helps.”

 Example: ‘I went to the fridge to get out some mincemeat to feed the cat. It came in. As it fed I had a strong urge to touch it, such strong feelings of love were pouring out of me. The animal looked up at my face as I wanted to kiss it. The lips had pink lipstick on. I kissed it, it’s paw came up around my arm, I could see the black claws. We were rolling around on the floor, it felt very sexual.’ Monica.

This is an expression of the enormity of our natural ‘animal’ urges.

Idioms: blow a kiss; kiss ass; kiss curls (hair style); kiss it better; kiss of death; kiss it off; Kiss of life; kiss off; kiss something/somebody good-bye; kiss the blarney stone; throw a kiss

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the kiss express fondness or passion?

Is it with a dream character or someone you know?

What does it signify to you?

See Characters and People in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsBeware of Love

 

Kitchen

A place of transformation where you can change parts of your nature. It also links with how well you provide for yourself or neglect your body needs. It might also portray you caring for others, or in the mother role.

Oven: The place in which you make the unpalatable parts of life experience palatable and sustaining.

Pots and pans: What enables you to prepare and change food to something that is attractive and edible – your cooking skill or otherwise.

Kitten

Feelings about vulnerability or babyhood. It could refer to feelings about caring for someone or something or someone vulnerable. Also parental urges, perhaps protectiveness, or signs or having a baby, maybe in the womb.

Kittens can also indicate a woman’s sexual feelings and emotions that are still developing, and may be felt as an urge to care and nurture.

 Example: Jane dreamed that she had opened a drawer in a cupboard and there she had found a little kitten half crushed and nearly dead. She took it in her arms, and gave it milk and coaxed it back to life. Then she took it into the garden, where a cat sat looking at it. She was afraid of what the cat would do and told it not to hurt the kitten.

Jane realised at once that the dream was a showing what had actually been happening. Eileen, a you woman who constanly irritated Jane through her never ending small tolk, was the little kitten and she herself the sinister cat. Until late in life Eileen had been at the beck and call of her invalid mother and had never had a life of her own. Then her mother died, and the half-crushed little kitten struggled back into life again. But the cat was a danger. It disapproved of the little kitten’s first efforts to make new and independent contacts, its own contacts, with other people, and disliked its gushing ways, now that at last it could say what it really felt without fear of mama’s displeasure. Quoted from The Way Within by Wyat Rawson.

So Jane came, after feeling so much hatred for Eileen, to realise the situation emotionally and thus could really sympathise. She no longer felt irritated, or, if she did, could laugh at herself over it, so that the whole situation was changed. So the kitten represented what she had been doing to a childlike person.

 Example: She dreamt she was in her brother Dan’s apartment, on the bed with a lion. It was purring and snuggling up to her like a kitten; she had complete control over it. Since her brother didn’t share her enthusiasm about dreams, she associated the Dan of her dream with Daniel in the Lion’s den and his ability to control the lions, a symbol of her emotions. She was greatly encouraged.

In this dream the kitten aspect of the dream with her young emotiosn that because of a love expressed for her animal self was now fully integrated. See Mammal Brain

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream kitten have any feelings of your own vulvearbel femininity?

Has the kitten been neglected, and can you give it care and love?

Do you ever feel like sexual kitten?

See Mammal BrainProgrammedGeniusTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Knapsack

The resources and difficulties you carry in life; your past experience or karma; a burden – perhaps of nursed anger or other negative feelings – if we feel parenthood a heavy load you may see your child as a burden. These things that we carry in the knapsack/haversack are often unconscious traits or faults. Although we may also be carrying life skills or tools to use in special situations.

It can also depict resources and abilities to meet changing circumstances and needs. See Karma

 Example: I am in the courtyard of a castle full of people dressed in the Tudor fashion. I go down a staircase as if I were a ghost with no weight, able to do the most extraordinary gymnastic feats. My friend (a tall, well-made young man, rather like an American college man in Elizabethan dress) is with me. We want to get out of the castle. We make for a small gate which is closing and at the last minute slip through. As we go, my friend gives a sheathed dagger to one of the men at the gate, who receives it in a haversack. Outside my friend turns to me and says, “You see what that means, to get out of the castle you must give up the dagger.”

In this dream I had little difficulty in understanding what was meant. I am again in prison-this time the prison of two besetting faults-hyper-critical intellectualism on the one hand, sentimental romanticism on the other. In the romantic castle I can do the most marvellous things, but I have no substance, no weight. To be free I must “give up the dagger”. The “dagger” I understood to be my inveterate intellectualist habit of stabbing my friends, colleagues and fellow-technicians by the “faint praise and civil leer” method. “The other point was equally well-taken: an inveterate tendency to be infatuated and make a fool of myself over mere femininity, summer frocks, hats and clothes. Once out of the romantic castle I was enabled to see these for what they were. The haversack was what I carried unconsciously within – my critical stabbing intellectualism.

 Example: Dreamt I was walking past the churchyard in Old Amersham. This was on my left. I was aware of carrying my car toolbox on my back, arms through the handles like a haversack. When I reached the corner shop, the weight was so intolerable I fell over backwards. For some time I lay on my back held down by the toolbox, struggling to release my arms from the handles. Eventually I managed this and stood up, holding the toolbox in my left hand. I made some remark about, “I must be getting old.” This referred to falling under the weight.

Here there is direct mention of the tools or life skills we may be carrying. But it shows how heavy and difficult they are to bear. The dreamer says, “I was struggling at the times with so much intellectual baggage, conflicts within myself that had in fact floored me”.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was it a heavy thing or a good thing I was carrying?

Did I feel it was useful or a burden?

What do I feel I carry with me on ‘my back’?

See Autonomous ComplexThe power of HabitsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming Up

Kneel

Humbleness, a receptive condition of mind; a state of awe, or acknowledgment of dependence or even defeat. See postures

Humility, sometimes because of being betrayed or hurt so much you are on your knees and are thrown down because to it. An acknowledgement of dependence or co-operation. Or sometimes from a tremendous sense of awe. It can be a sign of defeat, a recognition of a superior force.

Also often used to get closer to or examine someone or something.

 Example: On my right in the hedge I found my manuscript of my present writings scattered, wet with rain, and jumbled. I gathered the manuscript out of the hedge, realising this was what happened when one left it to other people to look after and circulate ones work. Now I was in the foyer of a large well-kept hotel. Kneeling on the floor I sorted out and set into order the manuscript. Despite its fate it now seemed undamaged and complete. None was lost. I was now going to care for it myself.

Here kneel is shown as an indication of being humble enough and close enough to sort out his own problems.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was being expressed in the kneeling?

Did you feel defeated or were you examining something?

Have you ever been on your knees – was it in prayer in  being thrown down?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Questions – Visions and Hallucination

 

Knees

The meaning depends upon what you associate most with your knees. Do you kneel in prayer, have you been forces onto your knees by hard events, were you begging for something or to someone for something? Do you view them as an idiom such as the bees knees; sitting on my knees; crawling on hands and knees; covering my knees; on my knees; knee jerk reaction; my knees knocking; knee high to a grasshopper; bring to your knees; weak at the knees.

Try ‘being your knees, as described in https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

Knickers Panties

Mostly associated with the most intense feelings about sex, about being female, menstruation and also covering the genitals. But often covering in a way to entice a male’s sexual attention.

In a male dream the knickers, their removal, or getting a hand under them is usually linked with intense sexual feelings – or intense difficult feelings if the male has trauma around sex.

Example: As two air hostesses go by me, I see one of the girls kick her legs into the air and hold them there for a long time. I can see her panties. It is very sexually exciting to me.  Later, I follow them to a hilltop villa where they are having an orgy. When it is over, I express an interest (desire) to join in their activities and with one particular girl. She isn’t very good looking, so I feel some disappointment, but we begin fucking in the swimming pool.  P.G.

There are of course different types of panties or knickers, and old fashioned ones could suggest morals of the past. So the various types of panties need to be considered to arrive at what meaning or associations they have for you. See – Associations Working With


Useful Questions and Hints:

What type of knickers are these, and what type of feelings or sexual response do they suggest?

What feelings accompany this part of the dream, and what part in my life do those feelings play?

If they suggest anything other than sex what is it?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Knife

Sometimes it can represent painful or aggressive sexual intercourse or the penis. Also a cutting intellectual insight or aggression, depending on how used in the dream. An attempt to wound someone. A knife is also a daily implement for eating or cooking with, so can indicate you everyday activities.

It can be a “two-edged” thing that can be defensive or as a forceful attack. A knife can be a force for destruction and aggressiveness and hostility. It can sometimes represent a piercing mind.

 Example: I recently had a dream in which I was with a group of Americans wearing full body suits with roller blades fighting war in South Korea with children and grown men. They only had knives and I could really feel the knives stabbing me. Through all this I saw my brother walking through with lollipop in his mouth. I kept screaming at him but he did not know where it was coming from. Then all of sudden he was be killed. I wanted to wake up because I knew it was a dream but it felt so real I did not know what to do. It really scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t help but to run over to him but by that point he was gone. I need someone to help figure that out.

First of all it sounds as if you are in a situation which creates a lot of feelings about surviving by fighting, and even killing. Sometimes this type of dream occurs if you feel anxiety in the place you live. The stab wounds are the hurts you feel, the negative things that are said to you that really wound you. And the death of your brother is difficult to understand unless I knew what your brother means to you. But obviously, from your dream, he represents a vulnerable part of you. That is shown by him walking with a lollipop in his mouth, without noticing the danger. So to me it all says that you feel hurt and angry about the environment you live; hurt so much it has killed your childhood – in other words the innocent and childlike attitudes. That is a nasty place to be.

 Example: I was visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, entrance to which was through a bazaar lined passage. We were given knives to protect ourselves. The mosque was lit solely by a huge furnace at one end. Devils were jumping up and down in the flames. My companion said “The fires of the Apocalypse”. Some Turks said they would kill us if they saw us again.

Because of the passage and the Blue Mosque, this dream refers to your experience prior to birth. The rest of the dream suggests you have fear of dying and are very defensivenss. I imagine this would make you afraid of women at a very basic level of relationship. Any closeness beyond the superficial could lead to fear of losing your identity – i.e. death.  That you are dreaming about this says the feelings connected with it are surfacing in your everyday life. So you will recognise what I am talking about. In fact the threat at the end means that if you dare to meet these feelings, you will confront the fear of death powerfully.

 Example: He said that there was a large puma that sometimes jumped out on you unexpectedly from the shadows, and you needed a knife to protect yourself. Having said that he handed me such a knife, knowing somehow that I had come to explore the house of my ancestors. The suggestion in handing me the knife was that I killed the puma if it leapt on me. Then he and I started to walk into the shadowy areas of the house to begin my search. We had only gone about ten yards into the dim space stretching before us when a very large puma leapt on me. As I felt its impact on my chest I held it firmly in my arms and realised that I had no intention to kill or hurt it.

The dreamer realised that he had been tested to see whether he would feel fear because of the large knife, or would kill an animal. So he had passed the first test of non violence, and of loving the animal. Something we need to learn in order to deal with the inner world well. We are only killing aspects of ourself or repressing them by the action of killing them.

Idioms: Get one’s knife into someone; on a knife edge; under the knife surgery; cut it out; cut the air with a knife. See: Arms; weapons.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the knife used for or intended to be used for?

Were you threatened by a knife in the dream?

Were you feeling you could defend yourself?

See Summing UpMartial Art of the Mind – Dreams are Like a Computer Game

Knitting Nitting

Something you are concentratedly working on or creating in your life; knitting a relationship together; consider what garment is being made and refer to Clothes.

Creativity: ideas or thoughts you knit together. You can knit your brows, suggesting concentration or worry. It can be a way of relaxing or even an expression of love.

 Example: Perhaps one of the biggest causes of bewilderment is that the outer world does not at all conform to our inner instinctive life. In a certain sense, because so much of our inner life has been formed out of the experience of millions of years of survival in very different conditions, the external world of today often does not reflect the close knitted group life of the past. The home/cave does not provide the emotional and social warmth it once did; the isolation within huge cities has no connection with our inner needs for being a meaningful part of society.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings or associations are connected with this knitting?

Am I expressing love by creating a garment for someone?

Is it many parts I am knitting together?

Or is it mending or repairing like a hole?

See Key WordsSumming UpAssociations Working WithInner World

Clothes.

Knob

Penis or ones hold on a situation. Knobs may represent a situation that is a turning point in life or that the dreamer can get a handle on things again. The knob is also a symbol for a threshold, for passing from one condition to another.

A knob can be something that gets in the way of a smooth ride or feeling. It can be an experience of meeting something that wakes you up when things seemed to go so smoothly. You can also injure yourself on it, or use it in a pleasurable way.

 Example: I walked into a classroom or conference room set up with tables, there was no one in the room but me.  I noticed that the door closed behind me so I walked back to open it (the door opened into the room I was in).  As I touched the door knob, it started to turn from the other side and a former friend opened the door and walked in.

Example: “Well, slit my drawers, if it isn’t Henry, standing up for me like a gentleman!”  What is that all about? It is something to do with how the dark and light tussle each other.  The creative and destructive rub shoulders and recognise each other. “Hello dark brother, what are you doing in this place where all the knobs hang out?” From Black Power

Doorknob: Turning point in opportunity, sexual or otherwise. The ability to make a change or to enter into a new situation.

Knobs on radio or electronic equipment: Do you have the power to make the change you want? What are you aiming to do with the equioment? It could be about getting what you want or desire to happen – or are you simply searching for something to satisfy you?

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you want to change a situation or trying to?

Did you msnsger to get the result you wanted?

What was on the other side of the door?

See Secrets of Power DreamingKey WordsQuestionsThe power of Habits

Knock Knocked

This shows something is trying to get your attention. It might also mean that there is a change, or something new coming into your life. Occasionally links with sex or desire for sex. Some aspect of self, or a realisation is asking to be let into consciousness.

A knock at your door can be an opportunity of any sort, or a demand or even an attack. It might be your core self wanting your attention, so an opening to a wider life. 

You knocking can indicate that you want someone’s attention, or that you need to knock harder if there is no response, for you may miss and opportunity.

As can be seen from the idioms and examples, knock can be used in many ways, and because dream images are created by our collected impressions, language is important in understanding our dream and the many images it uses.

Knocked down by a car: ‘Killing’ or injuring some part of yourself or someone else through misplaced drive or ambition. If it is an aggressive act then it suggests a desire to hurt.

Being run over or a threat of being run over sometimes suggests getting in the way of events, ‘traffic’, that is part of the social or local action. So a small privately owned store could be ‘run over’ or knocked down by a large supermarket opening near it. But it can also mean someone is ‘bulldozing’ or threatening you in some way.

Sometimes it is an animal that is knocked down in our dreams, and this probably indicates that in our ‘drive’ to do something or get somewhere, we have not been aware enough of our basic animal needs, such as food, sleep, sex, or companionship. A similar thing might be said of running over a child – not enough care to deal with our dependent or vulnerable emotional needs. See: Accident.

Knocking: Trying to get attention; wanting to be allowed into someone’s life; sexual act.

Knocking down a building: Something that is passing away or has passed. This can refer to a way of life or a particular personality style. For instance one may be very moral and rigid at one stage of ones life and then a major change happen and one can be more mobile and adaptable. This could be depicted as a building or house that has fallen or been knocked down, or ageing and the process whereby one loses some functioning or sexual attractiveness of the body in ageing.

 Example: “I can remember being dressed as a heroic warrior running through crowds of people or soldiers who were trying to stop me. I pushed or knocked them aside and ran toward what was a huge caldera – the mouth of a volcano. It was hugely deep, and in its depths was a massive glow from volcanic lava. But I knew that this was the core of oneself, so I ran and leapt into the void falling into what I knew or felt sure was the light at the core of my being.”

Example: ‘The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches.’ John P

Example: And remember that there is always creative action. If you fought the establishment head on you might get knocked down – but a singer can criticise the establishment and be acclaimed.

Example: So if I came in the door cowed by the difficulties of life I was saying to my children – “God it’s hard out there. It knocks me down and I can’t deal with it.” But if I come in buoyant and smiling, then I am saying, “Hey, that was interesting. There is so much to do out there that is fascinating and involving.” I knew that the confidence or lack of it my children had in growing up and entering the adult world depended a great deal on how they saw me come through that door. Because in me they saw reflected what the world might do to them.

Example: ‘I find my way to a door and knock. It is at the end of the cul-de-sac. An old woman of about sixty comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and have sex with her.’ Patrick S.

This is an example of a Freudian view of knocking. The cul-de-sac is the inside of a woman’s legs. The door and knocking is an opening to sexual pleasure, and the old woman is the dreamer’s mother.

 Example: Overprotection is as dangerous as under protection. Children need to be faced with as much as they can bear as fast as they can take it, for hard knocks are bound to come and they must be prepared for them. The answer here does not lie in the extremes of fashion, the patterns set by previous generations, or the actions of impulse. It is to be found in understanding what each age and each child can bear in terms of pain, confusion, and disillusionment, and a gentle but firm insistence that he face it. This is a fine line, but concerned, sensitive parents can find it.

Idioms: don’t knock it; knock against; knock around with; knock flat; knock it off; knock me over with a feather; knock off; knocked off my feet; knock out; knock the wind out of his sails; knock them down, drag them out; knock up;  knock you down a peg; knock you out; knock your socks off; school of hard knocks; the knock against

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What the knock answered or felt as a threat?

Was I knocking and did I get attention/

What did I feel in the dream?

See Secrets of Power DreamingQuestionsThe power of Habits

Knot

A problem, or a relationship tie. A tangle of feelings. In Buddhism, there are three inner knots that have to be untied, before Nirvana or Liberation can be reached. They are the knots of passion, emotion and intellect that bind us to limited and illusory awareness of self. We may be tied to our work, wife or husband, to mother’s apron strings.

Tangle of feelings or tension; relational tie such as dependencies, pain or anger which knot us to another person. Or a problem; the ties we have to work, family, mothers apron strings or viewpoints – in this sense can be the umbilical cord, or tie to mother during pre-birth life. Through association with its sound can mean ‘no’ or ‘not’. See: rope.

A knot in a dream might also refer to not enough, not able to, not allowed to do or be. It could  also indicate that you are a highly disciplined person, every item in its place, no loose ends dangling, no nonsense.

An expression of the energies tied up negatively in the female love energies and the emotions. Dreams show these are often knotted in the problems women face in love relationships. But one can work on the feelings. So it is important to see if you can feel any connection with the thing or person. Perhaps using Talking As will help.

The shadow cast by the knots tied in your heart, your head and your belly, by belief in the Devil. Like children’s hands held between a candle and the wall, your pains, desolation’s, and terrors have cast grotesque shadows upon your consciousness, which you took to be real, and you lived according to their demands. See Summing Up

Perhaps you will have to accept this on trust, but love is not something you possess or develop. It is like life itself, like breathing, given to you as a part of your existence. It flows through you, and that flow may have been damaged or twisted during your life, but it is still fundamentally there in you and can be released by undoing the knots caused by past experience. Then it is yours whether you are with a partner or not. Love is then a meeting of equals who shine the precious flow of this wonder on each other and magnify it. We do not claw at each other trying to get what is missing in ourselves.

For modern humans the freeze response triggered by our fight or flight instinct means that the muscles remain tensed and poised for action….action that is never really initiated. That’s why we often get “knots” in our backs, shoulders, neck, and arms. Meaning we  have not discharged the tension. (Help from the USAhttp://cmhc.utexas.edu/stressrecess/index.html ) See Life’s Little Secrets

 Example: I worked on this dream. To begin with I felt a knotted feeling in my stomach. In exploring this by focussing my attention inwards and allowing spontaneous imagery and emotions, I found a lump that I had kept deep within that no one could touch or ever has. I split the lump and two halves of a walnut appeared. There was a picture of my mother in one half and my father in the other, as they were when I was a child. As I looked, the two halves crumpled into dust.

This was the secret I have carried since childhood, that unlike the other children in the orphanage I had parents. Yet I too was left. The emotions came to the surface and I really cried. After this wave passed I was left in a very passive state. I then saw myself go into the telephone box and try to make the call to reconnect with my parents. Again another shock. There was nobody to connect with. So once again the realisation came that I am an orphan. This brought another great wave of emotion that tore me apart.

Example: I am on this island with this JFK look-alike and his girlfriend. It is very romantic on this island and I envy this couple very much. I swim in the water, following them who are walking on land and see how much in love they are. Afterwards we go to a nightclub. His girlfriend is drunk and I have to carry her (she is knotted up – her arms and her legs – like a contortionist into about half of her real size). I carry her downstairs to a shower. (In the shower, the JFK guy sort of ignores his girlfiend and I have to take care of her. I realise that she is knotted up – unable to express herself freely.)

Example: Cules had been bewitched due to the ignorance of his parents in not protecting him from the evil practice of tonsil pulling. It is a dastardly cunning scheme, one of the many practised by Them, of tying one’s soul in knots at an early age.

Idioms: get your shirt in a knot; don’t get your knickers/panties in a knot

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you felt knots of tension in your body or emotions?

Do you have knots tying you to family or partner?

Do you experience the knot of fear, or the painful knot of losing?

See  Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsBeware of LoveTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Know Knowing

Even the many people who ‘interpret’ their dreams have seldom moved beyond the level of thinking, and know nothing through the experience of the deep waters of the unconscious. In looking up Know or Knowing I found this definition – “most people know that CFCs can damage the ozone layer”.

That is completely false – to know something is to understand it from personal experience. I have read that CFCs can damage the ozone layer, but I do not know it as a truth, only as a belief.

If we are to move with some certainty into the mental and subtle areas of dreams and psychological phenomena we must be careful of how we use words to think with. We misunderstand the difference between belief and knowledge – and even what we call knowledge has to be understood when many people say, “I know” when their knowledge is built upon a belief through reading it.

Knowledge is built upon personal experience tested against the outer and inner world we all live in. Some people therefore say they know the truth, but we could only know what is true if we were conscious of everything happening in the universe – and even before our universe existed; for time and space were created or arose from a condition of timeless and spaceless existence. Most of us cannot even think about timeless or spaceless existence, and so thinking or understanding through thinking is not in the equation.

People say that God revealed the truth, but unfortunately many religions say that they have the latest and best information about truth. Maybe we can say that the universe is so vast and varied that our different views of it are like the blind men approaching an elephant and describing its different feature. Sure they were describing it well, but they did not have the whole picture. Also, the universe, like the elephant, is always changing.

All we can do is to give the best we can in our little world of knowledge.

See Summing UpInner WorldJesse Watkins EnlightenmentArchetype of the Paradigm

Koran

Expression of spiritual insight.

Krishna

The Indian Christ. See: Christ.

Letter L

Label

A description, or ‘label’, you may be applying to yourself. So the label might be about an image you have of yourself. You may also have unconsciously labelled somebody else. If the label is obviously about an object, then it can be describing a quality you have, negative or positive. Sometimes the label might be about information you hold unconsciously that is helpful.

Self image; how you feel others see you; your view of what is labelled; definition of your feelings if labelled to someone else. If the label is obviously about an object, then it can be describing a quality or purpose in your life of that object, or what it represents. Sometimes the label might be about information you hold unconsciously that is helpful.

If the label is on a letter then see address. If the label is on you or another person, it may be some sort of judgement you or others have attached that needs re-evaluating; or it may be bringing something important to your attention.

If we label our beliefs, religious or otherwise, and our scientific findings as sure knowledge, we are on a slippery slope. The reason is that history shows us that knowledge and beliefs are always changing. Even if an old piece of knowledge still stands, the new will certainly shift our view of it. See Enlightenment

Be careful of the labels you put on yourself, because they are usually restrictive, and medical and psychological labels often pathologise the situation.

Example: At first with laughter, then with pain, I saw that this had made me suspicious of my own mother. I had not fitted the ‘norm’ in terms of size, strength or behaviour, so not only had I lived with a ‘danger alert’ process going all the time, but also with the realisation I was not up to scratch. Instead of the full term child who is more adjusted to the environment I had emerged still in a condition adjusted to the womb. My psychological state was also, I felt, quite different, a sort of experience of the death world, the world before birth and after death.

Society, I felt, has a sort of labelling or measuring system. It has emerged out of biological criteria of survival and fitness, and is largely unconscious. People haven’t even acknowledged they are acting under such drives. ‘My genes are best, and everybody else’s are abnormal. But only the best of mine are going to get through’. Out of this I sensed that mothers who have children who are not ‘the best’ suffer a great internal struggle about their child. Part of them cries out, ‘That is no child of mine!’

So the child/person who is not seen as ‘fit’ are not given social rewards, starting with such rewards as recognition and warmth from ones own parents, and escalating from there into recognition and rewards from social groups and organisations. I personally felt as if I were not seen as fit for several reasons. My premature birth led me to be slightly less robust, and also my mixed cultural background during a time of war made me less fit. I didn’t have the right label attached.

Example: Bernard said that as he felt what it was like to be a new born baby, he experienced what he called an instinctive expectation of being greeted by warmth and welcome. This wasn’t provided by his parents. The greeting seemed harsh, as his birth had complications for his mother. The absence of warmth and welcome led to a feeling of not wanting to emerge, of wanting to ‘stay in the egg’, as he put it. This decision of not wanting to get involved in the new environment of life outside the womb had persisted unconsciously all his life, causing him to be an introvert who did not want to be involved with other people except as necessity dictated.

Bernard had always explained his tendency to withdrawal as his natural character. He had never thought of it as neurotic behaviour. This is often the case. We rationalise what pushes from unconscious sources. It is only when such behaviour becomes very disturbed, or continually thwarts our attempt to love, or create, or lead a life free of depression or panic, that we might begin to re-label our behaviour. An important point to remember is that at the time of it original occurrence, the links or decisions we make are rational and perhaps a very important part of surviving.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I unconsciously label myself as?

Do I put labels on other people?

What was the label in the dream?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Labor Labour Labours

For labour connected with pregnancy see Breathing in and out of Labor and Birth – It’s HappeningA Method to shorten Labor

 Example: ‘I am 48, have two children in their late teens and definitely DO NOT want another baby. Nevertheless I have a recurring dream in which I am always in labour, experiencing no pain, and although there are nursing staff I am in some sort of laboratory, although everything is very pleasant. I never actually give birth and when I wake I always have a vague feeling of disappointment.’ V. I.

This dreamer’s conscious decision to have no more children may be in conflict with her biological urge for another baby. But the dream might also suggest there is something she deeply wants to give birth to in her life but has not yet achieved. Her creativity did not end with her children, there is still more for her to bring out of herself in some way.

 

 Labour/labor can relate to a political party and their principles; a labour of love; a piece of work done and finished; a description of collective workers; physical work using the body; the labours of Hercules. There is also the labor and laborers mention in The NewTestaement.

The labours of Hercules, and much of the New Testament, can be understood if we realise it is all about the trials, tests and things we meet in our own life, our inner work, as we mature in becoming a whole human being.

Music and the arts, poetry, social struggles, are all an attempted understanding of man’s real nature. For we constantly struggle to be and know what we are. If we wish to fully understand our dreams, then we must see that many of the symbols appearing in our dreams also appear in the religions of the world. They appear in art and literature of all times and all nations. And what is so striking is that when we review Hercules’ labours, or Odysseus’ quest, or Mithras’ slaying of the bull, or Christ’s baptism, or Shiva’s relationship with Shakti, we see that the heroes are struggling with things of our own dreams. The only difference is that in the great legends, myths and religions, the hero has arrived at a conclusion. Hercules procures the golden apples; Odysseus brings home the golden fleece; Christ reaches eternal life, and so on. While in our own dream series, we are still struggling with serpents, or unable to face the lion-headed giant caterpillar, or get past the disgusting man. It is therefore obvious that we can learn how these other heroes (for we are the heroes of our own dreams) have won through. What have they done to pass through their own social and inner difficulties as symbolised by the monsters and trials of their adventure?  See Individuation – The Interior Castle by St Teresa of Avila.

Everything in nature and the universe works. Those who do not give something of themselves in the labours do not share in the wonders of Life’s inner world. But there are some who live upon the labour of others, and become awful and fat upon their riches.

Work and labour and all the struggle and effort we have put into life, what we have given and taken, gives us skills we have learned or created in the work and labour of life and love. In fact difficulties we have faced give us the ability to learn strengths.

 Example: A powerful wave of emotion flushed through me leading me to bang on the floor with anger and frustration. I was shouting out that I was pissed off about forever chasing a carrot or rainbow and never getting the reward. A fucking carrot dangled to keep the workers labouring on till they are too old to work. And at the end of it no satisfying reward for their life of labour. They are just dumped. If it isn’t sex that is dangled as the reward it is financial riches or some dream. Politics, religion, all dangle these dreams in front of us and give nothing – just a fucking mirage. Nothing real at the end of it.

Example: I was looking everywhere for some green stuff to eat. I saw a field of cabbages, but, as they were not mine, could not eat the leaves.’

A couple of days before, the dreamer had prepared a salad for dinner, as it was winter, and the family were getting few ‘living’ foods. So we see that the conscious concern over ‘living’ foods has been used as a symbol in the dream. Thus the search for green leaves represents a search for something of her own that is living. The woman had been wondering what her own personal capabilities in life were. As the dream shows, she will not be satisfied or feel happy by simply taking or copying what others have done, or eating the rewards of their labours.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I think labour is?

Is work a pleasure or a pain?

What have I laboured for?

Do I see fruits of my labour?

See Key WordsGeniusKarmaMartial Art of the Mind

Laboratory

Sometimes, because of many films showing laboratories as places of awful experiments, we might use the image in our dreams to mean show how we are torturing ourselves with fears and ideas. But it might also reflect what we sense about our relationship with the prevalent world viewpoint and way of life. See Archetype of the Paradigm

If you have worked in a laboratory you will need to find what you associations are. See Easy Dream Interpretation

The laboratory can also indicate your own ability to test ideas and life experience to arrive at a clearer view. Also it can be a way of dealing with ones own problems, as the following example shows.

Example: Remembered a short dream. In it I was holding a test tube, in the setting of a laboratory. In it was my own shit, and apparently I had been eating a little of my own shit each day, but this was the last of what I needed to eat. I realised this with much relief, but still found it difficult to face eating the small amount left.

Example: Then I drop out of the dream scene and it changes such that it shows there’s an upstairs part, the building that this laboratory is in — which I haven’t been to or any of the other search party either — and there is my sister-in-law along with several other females that this man has kept prisoner. They’re up on a second story and they can’t get out, and they don’t even know that we’re searching for them, even though we’ve gone past outside. It’s a foggy day and they couldn’t see thru the windows that we were outside on the path.

Human experience leaps beyond the laboratory. When we put together the massive information gathered from people’s experience of dreaming over the centuries, the mystery of sleep and dreams speaks to us of many possibilities. Tens of thousands of hours have been spent by individuals exploring their dreams in therapeutic settings. From their experience we can see that dreams link with an internal process that attempts to move toward the healing of internal trauma and tension. For many people such work has been life transforming. From it they have learned that the dream process continually attempts personal growth. They have remembered life before birth, they have realised that their awareness is a thing of many dimensions. See Answer to Critics and Levels of Awareness

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I part of an experiment or doing one?

What was happening in connection with the laboratory?

Have I ever worked in a laboratory?

Is there a Because Factor in your dream? Or can you be the person/yourself in the dream – Stand in role

Labyrinth

See: Maze.

Ladder

This shows you attempting get somewhere that is presently out of reach, difficult to attain, or perhaps involves risks and anxiety. Depending upon your feelings in connection with the ladder, it might show feelings of achievement through effort and daring.

The ladder is sometimes a symbol of social success or failure, so if there are such feelings involved, it would seem you are meeting feelings about social or work standing.

Freud also describes the ladder as a symbol of sexual intercourse, the rungs representing the physical movements of sex and the mounting orgasmic feeling represented by the climb.

Ladder Your feelings – whether anxious or secure – about reaching situations or opportunities in life that are new, presently out of reach, or not easily attained. Attainment through effort and daring. Or the heightening of insecurity, anxiety or feelings in life or sex – getting up – getting it up. Sometimes it represent reaching a new realisation.

Rungs: The separate stages or efforts or skill necessary to ‘climb’.

 Example: I am at the fairgrounds in my hometown. People are all over carving stuff of stone. I go up a ladder to a second story and a woman there is even carving a cradle of stone. There is some type of art show they are getting ready for. Also a book has been published with several different stories by people but there is nothing of mine in the book. I don’t know any of these people except one man.

The woman has climbed up the ladder for at least two reasons. One is to get a better view of where she is in life, an understanding of what she has achieved, also to see of she has climbed higher is social recognition. The fact nothing of hers was in the book shows that she rates herself as not important.

Idioms: Top of the ladder. See also: stairs under house.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the ladder going to be used for?

Was I involved or just watching?

Did I realise anything new?

Was a relationship involved?

See DecisionBeing the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesCharacters and People in Dreams

Ladybird Ladybug

See Insects

Lagoon and Lake

The inner world of our feelings and fantasies; the unconscious. The mysterious waters are a powerful symbol of female sexuality, especially if the dreamer is male.

Sinking into: Becoming introverted; giving up on trying, or expressing oneself.

Looking into depth: Self awareness; looking into oneself.

Dirty water: Difficult feelings; being unsure of oneself; depression. See: water.

Drowning in a lagoon: Can indicate sexual difficulties. But it more likely shows the dreamer finding it difficult to deal with a rush of fantasies or feeling of losing touch with reality.

 Example: I am watching a dirigible (blimp) full of people in the gondola trying to escape. It is shot down over a lake. I have a lot of problems getting through the soldiers who are surrounding this lake. Finally I succeed and I see that they are pumping the water out of the lake to get to a truck full of gold down at the bottom. When they have finally succeeded I realize that only a few people must have died as there are few or no signs of death around the scene.

This illustrates that deep within us in our unconscious is a great treasure if we are not afraid of death and can dive deeply into ourselves.

 Example: I realise this was my place with them, to help them understand themselves.

They then asked me if I would get some water for them, as there was no water in the house. To get water one had to wade into the middle of the lake. They explained that only in the middle was the water suitable to drink. Even in the middle it looked murky, but I thought we could boil it. I waded in and suddenly realised that something strange was happening. Visions or hallucinations occurred stronger and stronger the further one went into the lake. I also realised that all the others had been in the lake and immersed in the visions. As I pressed on I knew that most people became so involved in the visions they lost grip of their purpose to walk on. I had the visions, but found I could maintain the decision to go forward – i.e. most people lost sight of physical surroundings and became absorbed in the visions.

The dream shows that because the dreamer was willing to help and because he could face his own inner difficulties, he could pass through the usual fantasies and neurotic influences and get the precious water.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were my feeling about the lake?

Was there treasure to be found?

Did I manage to get under the surface?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Lama

See: Guru.

Lamb

This may refer to the childlike, dependent, vulnerable part of yourself. There are other possible meaning though, such as new life. This might link with your own child or childhood, and with innocence. See: Animal.

In Christianity the lamb has always been linked with Christ. As innocence and purity the weakness of the lamb has enormous power, and can defeat evil. In ancient societies who bred sheep, the spring lambs were a sign of survival of the often harsh and hungry winter. At last there was food. So the sacrifice of the lamb was linked with the feeling of being given life and redemption.

The childlike, dependent, vulnerable part of self; new life, and so perhaps ones own child or childhood.

Innocence; Christ, as innocence and purity; the weakness of the lamb has enormous power, and can defeat evil.

In ancient societies who bred sheep, the spring lambs were a sign of survival of the often harsh and hungry winter. At last there was food. So the sacrifice of the lamb was linked with the feeling of being given life and redemption.

Useful questions are:

Does this remind you in any way of your own child, childhood or a child – if so who or what?

Is there any suggestion of sacrifice in the dream, and what would that link with in your life?

What is your relationship with the lamb and what does that suggest?

Lame

The difficulty, or lack of confidence or strength you might face in making your way through the events of life. It can represent any impediment in your being that makes going difficult. Lameness can also represent uncertainty about how or where you ‘stand’ in life.

Lameness if often associated with the ‘wounded healer’ the one who in finding their own wholeness receives a wound that does not heal , and may cause them to be lame in one leg. See Archetype of the search for self

The symbolism of Jesus healing the lame man, Math. 11:5 is the power of wholeness healing the difficulty. The contact with our own wholeness enables us to face life with the energy and capacity each event demands instead of being ‘lame’ in the way we face people and opportunity.

Left leg: Weakness in the feelings and ideas out of which we gain support.

Right leg: Weakness in dealing with our external activities.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel an obstacle will hinder me from achieving?

Have I been wounded in myself in some way?

How have I dealt with the lameness?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindProgrammed

Lamp

Your focussed attention and what it reveals. See: Light

 The lamp seems to represent awareness, consciousness or way of viewing life that gives insight into what would otherwise be missed in the darkness of ordinary sight.

Lamps were originally with flames lighting a wick, so were like a small fire that lit ones home or way. Because of the wonder ancient people felt for fire and light and because it was for them a symbol of their life, needing fuel/food to keep it alive, it was felt as having special or magical qualities. Thus the story of Aladdin’s magical lantern.

This gave rise to the eternal flame that must always be kept alight, and represents the eternal that lives within the transitory human body. Fire was not only essential, but sacred to the ancients.  Whenever the Greeks emigrated to foreign lands, they brought a portion of their home fire with them as a link to their homeland.  Similarly, women leaving their family at the time of their marriage brought part of the fire from their mothers’ hearth to their new home. It is a very important inner link that exists within our dream life. See conjuring trick

Lamps are also representative of enlightenment, awareness, insights, perception.

Lamps also symbolise birth, as in lighting a lamp or candle and death extinguishing a lamp or candle. In a dream, these may represent phases of your life or influences that are either coming into being or passing away.

Seven lamps or seven candle are also often used in dreams, and represent the story and mystery of life. See chakras; kundalini

 Example: I am in a very cramped office talking about a light or lamp that I have in my home. My office mates don’t think I have this lamp, but I have had it for a long time. They are surprised and happy. It seems to have some religious significance.

The dreamer obviously is dreaming about his inner light, which he has had for along time, even though his outer life – the cramped office – does not show what he has.

 Example: I was peeling brown paper off a hanging lamp, it came away very easily. I was saying to my self, There it looks much better, gold and shining, instead of brown paper all over it.

The woman is discovering that under her rather tatty exterior she has an inner light that is golden.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I seeing or discovering by the light of the lamp?

Do I feel any inner or religious feelings about it?

Am I using the lamp to throw its light on something?

See Myths Legends and Fairy StoriesBeing the Person or ThingLife’s Little Secrets

Land Landed

Potential; the opportunities you meet to make yourself real in the world, to create something from within yourself. This might sometimes represent the undeveloped parts of your own nature that need attention and cultivation or character building.

A land of opportunity and freedom: This probably shows a turning point in your life, or it is about your future because you know deep down where you are going – to a brighter future.

A new land: This may require attitudes and activities which when we get there are no longer needed. The farmers who travelled West in America needed to drop their nomadic life once they had arrived. It can also be about a new area of you that has been uncovered – not unusual considering the amazing potential/possibilities we all have.

Difficulty landing: Difficulty achieving goal or making it real in a down to earth way; anxiety about where life events are taking you; or feeling out of control or not being in control; difficulties or fears about being in someone else’s hands.

Landing: It could be a landing from a sea journey or by air. By sea it could be about starting a life independently of others, or the end of a relationship. By air it means a new opportunity in a new place. Often such things take time to appear. See A Dream is Like a Seed

Land the job: Often this about something you wish to happen and is not about a reality. But if the dream has a feeling of success about it the wish might be true.

Land of subjugation: This about the way you feel or about the way you have been treated and so are shown in your dream. In our dreams we can fight back, even though there does not seem any hope for that in waking life. By learning to hit back in your dreams it often changes the situation you face. See Summing Up

Undeveloped pieces of land: This is a sign that you have a great potential that if you work at it will provide rich harvests. The opportunities you meet to make yourself real in the world, to create something from within yourself. This might sometimes represent the undeveloped parts of your own nature that need attention and cultivation or character building.

 Example: The plot of land had something of the feeling of an allotment. It was well tended, and I had the sense the young man had been doing most of the work on it. The soil was rich but at the moment dry. A few shoots were just breaking the ground from hundreds of bulbs which had just started shooting.

Example: I went out to go downstairs. It was a huge staircase. Lounging at one of the landings were four youths. I knew that they were thugs intent on beating me up. It was too late to run away, so I charged at them uttering a terrible scream like a roar of fear to destroy their morale. The scream woke Brenda who woke me.  

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing in relationship with the land?

Was it cultivated or needing working on?

Where did I land and how did I get there?

See Martial Art of the MindDecisionTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Landscape

Landscapes particularly depict your feeling moods and attitudes. They show what habitual responses of feeling you meet the world with. This is because in dreams you create your own surrounding and environment out of your unconscious attitudes, fears, or wisdom. These surroundings, like your dream houses, show what attitudes or feeling atmosphere you live in most of your life. See: Countryside.

If the landscape if urban, it often reflects whatever you feel about it. Do you feel a buzz of excitement or a feeling of being lost in a massive concrete jungle?

If the landscape is of natural surroundings, forest or open land, then it often reflects you own relaxed and natural feelings. Try using Being the Person or Thing 

Gloomy: Pessimism; self doubt; depression; a gloomy view of life which could rob you of motivation.

Sunny: Hopeful; optimistic; something to look forward to. Life-giving.

Recurring scenes: Habitual attitudes with which you approach situations.

Recurring scenes of past residence: A stance or attitude you developed from that period of your life.

Recurring landscapes: Areas of our feelings or psyche we often return to or experience.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you ever go to a place to recover or feel good in?

What sort of places do you avoid and why?

Have you ever felt the presence of something more than human there?

See Conditioned ReflexesMeeting a godBeing the Person or ThingEmotions and Mood in Dreams

 

Language

Communication, and therefore understanding or misunderstanding. The unconscious often uses mysterious or foreign languages to express what lies within yourself that has never been thought about or put into words. Much of your most fundamental childhood experiences were pre-verbal, and so only accessible as powerful feelings and feeling responses. Even from babyhood you can make profound decisions about what you will reject or accept. These decisions are formulated entirely as profoundly potent feeling responses. Dreams sometimes express these, and intuitions about your own wholeness, as strange words or a mysterious language. If you play with the sounds and let them develop what they contain can become verbalised.

But everyday language is often taken by people as if the word they use to describe a cat or a person is somehow the cat or the person.  But such words are simply sounds we use that are different in hundreds of world languages, and in no way give us any real understanding of the cat or the person. They are simply sounds we make to indicate to others that we are trying to tell them something we have seen, or are refer to. that we have given the sound ‘cat’ to.

See: language – foreign or strange; Language And Dreams – How it Flows; Using the Voice.

Language – foreign or strange

One function of dreams is to bring aspects of our thinking and feeling which may be ill defined, toward clarification. Foreign or strange language may therefore illustrate something which is being communicated to us from within, but is still not clear. The unconscious, as in speaking in tongues – glossolalia – and of course in dreams, frequently moves toward clear awareness in stages. The strange language is a halfway house toward focused critical awareness, as is a dream. If we bring focused attention to these, as explained in processing dreams, the next step, clear verbal expression, can be reached. See Glossolalia  – How it Flows – Learn About the Different Levels of Your Mind

Speaking in language we are learning: The language is becoming habitual, making it possible to think in it. See: speaking  and using the voice.

Lantern

Unlike lamp, the lantern is usually significant of what shines out from yourself, perhaps as feelings, understanding, or wisdom. Also, it is the insights or understanding that you use to guide you in your life journey. See: lampLight.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I seeing or discovering by the light of the lamp?

Do I feel any inner or religious feelings about it?

Am I using the lamp to throw its light on something?

See Myths Legends and Fairy StoriesBeing the Person or ThingLife’s Little Secrets

Lapis Lazuli

See Lapis Lazuli under Jewels

Larder

Hungers; sensual satisfaction; your store of memories or feelings that satisfy or nourish you. See: Eating; Food.

Large

If something is big it usually says you have a lot of feelings about it, or perhaps you feel threatened by something. It can also mean it is important, or you feel inferior to whatever it represents. See big

How important we see something, or what feeling impact it has on us, or how we feel in relationship to the person or object. 

Importance, or to do with a relationship – as when we feel small beside somebody with a ‘big’ reputation.

Idioms: Big of somebody; big brother; big fish/noise/wheel/shot; big guns; big head; go down big; big time; too big for shoes; big time.

Larva Larvae

A larva is a living thing that usually lives under the surface, in the unknown part of oneself. It is something that is in process of change as it moves toward it adult self. So, it suggests, as it surfaces, that something new and still forming is arising – maybe an idea of feeling that needs to grow more, or needs more food/experience or information to reach its adult form.

Late

Feeling you have left something too late or you have missed out on something. Or perhaps you realise you have not acted quickly enough to avert a situation or take advantage of it. It can also mean an avoidance of responsibility.

Lather

Cleansing, or fuss, working ourselves up into a lather.

Laugh Laughing

Release of tension, effort to sympathise or calm, ridicule of another or self, taking things lightly, misunderstanding, depending on dream. Sometimes much laughter can hide tears or sadness.

A spontaneous eruption of joy, merriment or sense of the ridiculous. Sometimes a form of mockery at the expense of others. Release of tension; attempt to put others at ease; ridiculing or feeling embarrassed by some aspect of self; taking things lightly; attempt to hide the truth. Sometimes much laughter can hide tears or sadness.

Fast full breathing is an accelerator. It speeds produces the sort of physical state of excitement, high activity and high emotion such as laughing or crying. It reduces the muscular and psychological barriers we may habitually hold to prevent ourselves openly expressing emotions through the physical movements of sobbing or laughing. This is why it is used a great deal in popular therapy movements such as Rebirthing and Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork. Its use may produce the release of long held emotions or spontaneous fantasy, including powerful body movements and emotions.

Laughing also gets rid of seriousness or stiffness of soul, as this description shows “I tell them that I sense too much unnecessary stiff seriousness here. Such a situation only imprisons mind, I say. I ask the group to get up and move to the sunny part of the room, where I am standing. As a perfect example and symbol of the whole teaching I suggest that everybody kick each other in the butt. I ask them to not forget, as they are doing this, about mutual respect and the oneness of everything. I call it a lesson in perfect connection and liberation. With every passing moment of this unusual activity the feeling of stiffness disappears, being replaced with a sense of mutual understanding and fun. At first it is just myself, but after a short while all of us in the room, burst out laughing loudly while carefully kicking each other in the butt. I stagger with laughter in the middle of the room, watching the other people also laughing intensely. I see how they are enthusiastically raising their long colorful dresses, jumping around on one leg while aiming hearty kicks with the other. They jump and kick each other, laughing, while the sunlight shimmers on the rainbow-colored patterns of their costumes.” Quoted from Working With Dreams By Marek A. Kowolik

Example: There was a young girl on the bus who seemed equally confused. She was either Hawaiian or of Asian descent. I couldn’t tell. Then the bus driver, a man, turned around and laughed maliciously, like he wasn’t going to stop the bus or crash. Finally we came to a narrow cobblestone street, and I grabbed the girl by the hand and jumped off the bus.

Example: I pushed down and “plop,” the baby was born. “My 4th one,” I thought, “so it was easier.” I lay there exhausted. The doctor, who only stood there, didn’t even catch the baby. For that matter, I didn’t even see him. I just knew he had to be there. The nurse started to do the after birth things. The man pushed my table around fast, in circles. It made me dizzy and frightened. I cried out and clutched the table. They laughed. “Don’t be so silly,” they said. The nurse then repeated it. She rushed me on the table across the gym to the opposite wall. I got off the table. They were taunting me.

Example: I felt terrified (I realised afterwards it was terror that I was dying). Then I remembered reading about experiences such as this and was laughing uncontrollably through release from terror.

Example: I realised that our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

Example: I can remember that in the dream another person and I, a male but very indistinct and shadowy, were facing mythical creatures in some sort of odyssey. A strange sort of crocodile or alligator type creature was supposedly attacking me. I had mixed feelings about this. Partly I felt there was nothing to fear about the creature, but another feeling was that it might be able to do some damage. In fact it was biting me across my chest, but all I felt was a very strong tickling feeling that made me laugh.

Example: I feel like a powerful ape at the moment. I am not holding myself back in regard to my fellow creatures. I am ready to fight, play, love, laugh. All the different bits of me are available. This wonderful experience of existing, of being alive with all the powers of a living creature – physical strength, emotions of anger, tenderness, passion and sexual excitement, curiosity, awe and wonder in meeting life and the stars.

Idioms: a barrel of laughs; don’t make me laugh; for laughs; laughing gas; laughing stock; get a laugh; have a laugh; hollow laugh; laugh in somebody’s face; laugh it off; laugh up ones sleeve; laugh on the other side of your face; laugh your head off; laugh yourself sick; laugh yourself  silly; kill ourselves laughing; laughing stock; the laughing stock

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What type of laugh was in the dream?

Do you laugh often?

Do you have fun in your dreams?

See Avoid Being Victims Dream YogaUsing the VoiceTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Launch

The committing of self to some direction or project. The launching of new venture, a new interest. The start of something, such as a relationship. It can at times also suggest the finishing of something and allowing it to have independent existence, as with a child being launched into university or work.

The launching of a boat or ship, if it is the launch of a newly built vessel, it indicates planning and work that is now coming to fruition. If it is a large ship the work involved has been enormous and includes many other people your launch touches. It is a major thing you are doing and has enormous outcomes. Launching a boat can indicate desire for a new departure, and frequently holds in it exciting adventures.

Launching into space is often about something with a carefully planned goal. Space is endless and so involves much desire or interest in what the goal is. If there is no planned goal then it is like letting go and falling, and falling , and falling into that immensity, and fall, until there is no more falling – for we fall only in space, in moving from one place to another, but here there is no beginning or end, no landmarks to pass or space to cover. When we dream of space we dream of opportunity, the opportunity to explore, to build in the space, to explore our imagination in creativity. See space

Launching a study suggests the beginning of a new view of yourself or a new talent, and exploration of the new.

Launching into another dimension of life. We often fail to see the many dimensions all of us live in and how we often fail to see or recognise them. Yet each of the dimensions gives us a different view of ourselves, our life and its possibilities. It is obvious that as we leave childhood and enter into adolescence our whole view changes, and it opens up tremendous changes such a sexual feelings, desires and ambitions and longings – a whole new dimension of experience. Many dimensions we do not enter because we do not believe in them or do not have the courage to explore them. We all have an inner world that includes creativity, imagination, the unconscious and the reaches of consciousness. Life itself is often not explored except as an intellectual idea – yet life is the most miraculous thing that any of us can conceive of. And are you not an expression of Life, which had it genesis in the unknown? Have you ever asked yourself the question Who or what am I, and really answered it, avoiding all the ready made answered we are fed that are really no answer at all – none that satisfy us.

Anger or violence that can be launched into an attack, or explode as powerful emotions.

We have not learnt to launch ourselves upon the waters of our inner self. See Inner World

 Example: Driving on this road fast, I suddenly I find myself launched into space and make a spectacular, bone rattling drop and crash to the highway below. Later, I make a joke with the people I am working with, asking how many of them want to go sailing because for a few moments there I really felt like I was sailing thru space.

Example: Then I went to sleep and dreamt I was in charge of a ship … this was a sailing ship on land … it had to be launched down a very steep slope but straightened up and floated .. it was going through a terribly high stormy sea and I was steering .. I was outside the boat, swimming, holding on to its prow, yet steering it….  There were people on the boat dependent on me as I steered it and kept it afloat….  It turned right round in the water, faced the wrong way, but I pulled it round and kept it going …

Example: Then I was flying out of the window of a very tall building. I flew around the rooftops and came to one with a sort of tunnel in it. I went in and down on a large shaft. It led to a room where a sort of school was held. The children were watching screens, like the new “learning machines”. We all now seemed to know that there was a dangerously high level of radioactivity. Everybody except myself seemed to go, and I knew that the shaft was a spaceship, and I set about trying to launch it to save myself and family.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Into what was I launched and what was my reaction?

What was I faced with, and could I cope with it?

Have I launched any thing new recently?

See Jesse Watkins Enlightenment Edgar CayceSecrets of Power DreamingQuestions

Laundry Washing

Attitudes that need to be, or have been, cleansed. See: Washing.

Clearing negative feelings such as despair or self doubt; fears about health – neurotic phobias about ones own wholeness. Sometimes this is shown as a healing of past hurts or tensions, even a warming of cold emotions.

Hanging up washing: Allowing change to come into your life; letting other people see your new attitudes.

Lava

Deeply buried past experience which has pushed to the surface; heated emotions and sexuality; sometimes physical illness such as fever. Unconscious contents that have emerged under pressure and heat of emotion.

But the lava is often your own deep centre or core self pouring up its energy into your daily life. Jumping into it is a way to face and meet any fears connected with your huge potential. If you do it several times the fear or difficult feelings will gradually disappear.

Lava pouring over a landscape is a sign that huge inner changes are trying to emerge, and if not dealt with could cause difficulties.

 Example: I noticed that the river wasn’t water and that it was lava. I watched as the lava was emanating from the center of the river and I knew I had to cross it but I didn’t know how I could. Just then, to my surprise, an elephant’s trunk emerged from the lava. At first I thought it was dead, but then I learned it was alive and moving and beginning to ascend. My fear from the lava diminished as soon as I saw this and somehow I made it across. I wondered how the elephant was immune to the lava and admired its strength.

Example: I can remember being dressed as an heroic warrior running through crowds of people or soldiers who were trying to stop me. I pushed or knocked them aside and ran toward what was a huge caldera – the mouth of a volcano. It was hugely deep, and in its depths was a massive glow from volcanic lava. But I knew that this was the core of myself, so I ran and leapt into the void falling into what I knew or felt sure was the light at the core of my being.

Example: I realised that hell is hell and will never be anything else. I felt that there was some thing deeper and so I kept to a centre line, again there was no feeling and so I turned toward the god dream that I had. The look of total love for me in his eyes gave me the strength to trust my own process. I then went into fantasy, God holding my hand and picking up all the people and events in my life and placing them all together on a stone alter, which he then placed me upon and told me to surrender and allow myself to die. This I did and images of great water falls, and molten lava flows filled my being. Then the crisis broke through, and there I was in the kids home, the orphanage, as my father was leaving, I saw my self, or I should say my being go out to him. I felt that if I loved him he wouldn’t leave us. I then saw that I was already bonded to my mother and in that moment of transference there was guilt and I was caught in the middle, then he left creating a schism in which I was left in my spine with a personality on either side. Schizophrenia is the word that covers this state: Schizophrenia a mental disease marked by a breakdown in the relation between thoughts, feelings, and actions, frequently accompanied delusions and retreat from social life.

I then felt what I would call the primal scream emerge from my being and then I was through. I then saw the dogs as my anxieties that have taken up two thirds of my being constantly tearing me apart, also saw that as a kid I didn’t have enough information to redirect the energy elsewhere.

Example: I saw the whole village covered in lava. I explored it both watching panic as well as while all the people were asleep. Afterward there was a period of quiet where everything was still and then life came back…the soil was renewed and some of the people emerged from the village as new glowing beings in human form only not human as before, and others didn’t emerge at all. The past had been burned away – transformed and I intuitively knew that they were going to create a whole new village and community based on their new way of being…new ways of perceiving and doing things…all wonderfully new and evolved. I see these as aspects of myself and this whole process of change underway. Also, just after recording the dream I sensed that the lava erupting was really some kind of eruption of love from within that just needed to be allowed. ~DT

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I frightened of the lava?

Did any emotions show during the dream?

Are you meeting any big changes?

See Summing UpQuestionsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Lavatory

See: Faeces; toilet.

Lawn

Part of yourself that need frequent attention lest it becomes out of hand, overgrown. If you have concerns about what the neighbours would think of an unruly lawn, then this would figure as your dream association. It can also suggest feelings of relaxation or family life, maybe a play area. In some people’s dreams it links with their feelings of being exposed, to things like the rain, lightening and birds so suggests anxiety. See: Grass.

Also in some dreams it is shown as a place to wait for someone, or even a place to love. It is often used in describing a house – Where horses and crumbly barns used to be, now there was a beautiful house, stone barns and lawns.

A happy feeling described as a party, wedding reception, or a celebration for guest taking place on a lawn.

There can be marks on the lawn as signs left of an activity.

 Example: ‘A flying saucer dropped a man on our lawn. He was seven feet tall and stood in a ring of light. The sky was vivid pink and a peculiar aeroplane flew over. It was the shape of a cross.’ Mrs A.

Example: I had found the secret way to Wonderland or Shangri-La. The baddies were coming to get us, so I led my wife and children down to the ground floor. There was a lawn with a hollow in it. We all jumped into this hollow, and I said the magic word, and we sank down into the earth. But the baddies were still after us. We walked along a road until we came to huge gates. This was the entrance to Wonderland. I said the magic word, Shazam, and the gates opened. We all went in, but two car loads of baddies got in too. But I felt it didn’t matter as I was sure the place would change them. I said the word however, and the gates closed.

Example: A girl and I danced on the sloping roof of a house. It was by the light of the moon, and the dance was a sort of exuberant twirling about. A horse that loved us, seeing us dance, wanted to be like us and share our humanness. A lawn sloped near to the top of a shed roof, and the horse jumped on the roof and tried to dance. But the roof sloped badly, and its hooves were too slippery, and it fell.

House lawns: It can show the state of your home life or personal habits through it tidiness, rough use or neglect.   

Lawn mower: A means if keeping the weed and undisciplined grass growth – the weeds of negative thinking or an untidy mind. Or it could indicate regular care.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way was the lawn portrayed?

Was I with others – if so who were they?

Do I have or did I ever have a lawn – what do I rember about it?

See Associations Working WithBeing the Person or ThingCarry the dream forward

Lawyer

Often links with feelings of uncertainty or difficulty involving another person or group of people. You may be trying to clarify action to take in the dream, or sort out your feelings about an issue. The lawyer may also represent inner certainty or confidence, an authority figure, maybe even a desirable lover.

Laxative

Something you are doing, or can do, to loosen up tension, and release emotional blockages, undesired feelings, or memories. Or perhaps this is all too much and you need to slow down? So you can experience a laxative of the mind and emotions.

If you often think you need a laxative or dream of laxatives, it might mean you are worried that you cannot perform in some area of your activities.

 In the ageing process some people, because they are less active, and so do not need to eat so much, get constipated. This is because it needs a lot of food to stimulate the bowels, and without movement taking place often the stools tend to dry out. The bowel constantly draws water from the stools, so a mild laxative is a good tool to have. But a preoccupation with bowel function and laxatives was found in over 50% of patients aged 65+ yrs, suffering from a functional psychiatric illness, and was seen at far higher rates than a comparable group of elderly inpatients with physical illnesses.

 Example: What I see is that I don’t want to live in suburbia. As the positive feelings arise outside of the dependence on my family, I feel as if I want to move around and not tie myself to any one place for a while. I think this is possible at a practical level if we live fairly cheaply and possibly in poorer countries. I feel shut in and restless just sitting here writing. So living in suburbia has been like an effective laxative to get rid of some concepts I had of what would satisfy me. No doubt this will change again. One thing that burnt me up inside intensely during the height of my difficult feelings was that my whole life had been built around dependence.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I suffer from constipation?

What does my dream say about the laxative?

Can I use the information in any way?

See Allowing the Body SpeakLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Lead

Metal: – Heavy hearted; a weighty situation; feeling burdened; materialistic attitudes. It might also represent something, perhaps feelings or situations that are malleable and can be shaped with only a little effort – or if there is a sense of danger or anxiety, it may be the poisonous aspect of lead you are dealing with. Ask yourself what you are taking in that is harming you. It may simply be opinions.

To lead: To feel sure in a way that creates confidence for less certain parts of your thinking and feeling to be motivated; some strong feelings or ideas that motivate you.

Following leader: An influence from something such as a belief or even a need to feel confident. The leader might therefore represent either the confidence or the need. See leader

To be on a lead: To direct something, as when you control your feelings, or give yourself certain boundaries to live within. To have a measure of control. Restrained or controlled urges; urges we have trained or directed; holding back or restraining or directing parts of oneself.

 Example: At the tip of the cliff is a band, and it seems like I’m now the lead singer/screamer of the band. We then start playing, and there is a huge gathering of people, all in dark clothing, at the bottom of the cliff rocking out to our music.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I sometimes feel as if my limbs are as heavy as lead?

Have I ever dreamt of being a leader, if so how did I cope?

Have you a tendency to follow a leader – or are you a loner?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsSettings in Dreams Secrets of Power Dreaming

Leader

May be the part of us from which we presently take our lead. Or parts of us we should take direction from, depending on dream.

Our relationship with authority figures, or the generally accepted ideas that people take to guide their life; the relationship with the leader might show how much responsibility we are taking for our own life; feelings of being responsible, as in parenthood or professional capacity.

Example: Working on the car dream I realised I have a pattern of destroying my own energy of expression if it does not succeed as well as I would like. As I worked today I felt the tremendous anxiety aroused by deciding a course of action that offers no certainty. I felt that leaders are those who can cope with high levels of stress situations. A successful person is one who can get into situations that place them in exposure, open to criticism, likely to fail, uncertainty, and to manage the stress and press on.

Example: ‘Walking alone along a road through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment. Then I walked on and came to an open stretch of ground.’

Leak Leaked Leaking

Wasted or lost energy; or something being allowed out or expressed. The energy leak might arise from any number of past traumas, using energy to keep them unconscious.

 Example: I am very dissatisfied at the lack of progress that has been made on the construction. It is nearly impossible to get to the 2nd floor, the plumbing leaks, many places are unpainted, etc.

Leaking roof: There is something about your attitudes or strategies you use to keep yourself feeling secure that is not working. The family atmosphere under which you all live is at fault, probaly in a minor way – unless the leak is enormous. So the leak in the roof suggests something that has attacked your sense of security.

Gas  leak: Because a gas leak could at times lead to an explosive situation, be aware of emotional situations. Gas can also indicate enormous energy release; or seomthing opoisonous but usually invisible entering your lfie.

Water leak: This can mean that your emotional energy is be used unwisely, possible through such things as anxiety or fear, especially if the water is coming through a ceiling or wall.

Energy leaks: Although we do not often think of our energy leaking out of us like water pouring away, dreams often show that we often have such leaks. These are usually shown as bleeding, as a pain in our body or even as holes in our body. The causes can be an attitude that is causing us to either block the usualy flow of our emotions or sexual energy, hurt of some sort such as an emotional shock, or that in some way we are ralting to our life process in a harmful way.

Idioms: Leak out – be revealed.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream clearly show how and what the leak is?

Do you feel pains or difficult feelings are a leak of your evergy?

Is there any solution shown in the dream?

See Energy Sex and DreamsActive PassiveAvoid Being Victims

Learn

I believe all dreams are part of a learning process, but unfortunately it is blocked in its progress as the symbolic or allegorical level. It is much like the way we often try to understand the meaning of the bible, we often fail to see it as an allegory with a hidden meaning.

This becomes clear once we recognise that the human mind does not work from the top down, but often from the bottom up. Our waking self usually only thinks in ways it already knows or has been taught. Most people when asked, “Who are you?” reply by saying their name or what they are known for – I am a housewife – a steel worker – etc. But who are you? Your name was given you and can be changed – it is not you? We all live in ready made phrases that are put there by words or things we have learned or seen – but do they reflect truly you?

In fact it is the most difficult question to answer, and has been used for centuries in methods of helping people cut through to realising their core self.

It helps to be clear about this point of allowing fantasy if one understands the way completely unconscious inner events gradually emerge into consciousness. W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through levels of our mind:-

a] The deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness, but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through.

b] As the physiological or psychobiological process moves nearer consciousness, its next level of expression is postural or gestural. Thus we may express our deepest hidden feelings in an unconscious body posture or movement. Not only our feelings express in this way, but also our physical tone or health shows in our postures and movements. Even the plant droops if it needs water.

c] Next, when something moves from the gestural to the next stage of expression it becomes a dream or a symbol, which although it may not be understood, is now entering the arena of awareness. It is still a part of the move toward consciousness. This is sometimes called the mythic level, and is something we see working in producing religious thinking or myth creation. It still remains at the symbolic level.

d] At this stage, what had been deeply unconscious, then symbolised, now rises into consciousness and is capable of being verbalised or thought about and analysed. If one had attempted to verbalise something in level two it would have been so far outside of consciousness as to defy description. Also, when looking at these levels or stages, they suggest that the dream process is a means by which deeper stages can be portrayed to awareness in order to make them known. Therefore, by working with the dream process we can tap deeper levels of awareness and make them known. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

When this level is reach you can describe a dream in a way anyone can understand.

I hope you can see from this how an unconscious formless and non verbal gut feeling can gradually become conscious and verbal. It is the way we learn the new. It als o shows how dreams are a learning experience.

An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.

As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the mans conscious attention, and the spontaneous dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

Learning the brake, gears and accelerator

There is a very necessary lesson we must learn if we do not have it already – the full breath. You can easily see by places your hands on your chest and your abdomen below the rib cage. With your hands there breath deeply in and out a few times. Does just one hand rise on the chest – or do both hand rise alternately? If it is just the hand on the chest it suggests you have a massive tension that stops you breathing fully and also suggests you are unable to fully experience your emotions and feelings. To move beyond it, first learn to move the hand on the abdomen by full expanding your lungs by using your diaphragm muscle. It may at first feel as if yiu have to force yourself to breath, but you must continue until anew habit of breathing is established. Also see 1-4-2 Breath Control and The Breath Meditation

In 1927 Buckminster Fuller stood on the shore of Lake Michigan contemplating suicide. He said to himself: ‘I’ve done the best I know how and it hasn’t worked.’ He was still grieving the loss of a daughter who had died five years earlier; his business had just failed. He was penniless and 32 years old. He wondered how he could support his wife and newly born baby, but, after struggling with his despair for hours in the dark and the freezing wind, he decided to live the rest of life like an experiment. He wanted to discover whether the golden rule of life was dog eat dog. He would find out by seeing what could be physically demonstrated. To free his mind of conditioned thinking and reflexes he stopped talking for a year. He is now known for many, many achievements.

Fuller said that at that time he had experienced a profound incident which would provide direction and purpose for his life. He felt as though he was suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in a white sphere of light. A voice spoke directly to Fuller, and declared:

“From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.” [10]

 

Leather

Basic or instinctive responses, instinctive drives, or toughness. If wearing the leather as a coat for instance, it might suggest feelings about fashion, animal welfare, or that you are expressing yourself in a fundamental way. See: animal.

 Many dreams in which leather features indicate quality or even wealth. But it depends whether it is a leather jacket worn by men who have a thuggish feeling or a person showing quality. So it depends on the context – Context/Theme

 There are some image clichés, such as men or women dressed in black leather – meaning they are possibly dangerous or adventurous as in the film Matrix; the gay men’s leather pants, showing their identification with homosexuality.

 Example: When I rang his doorbell, instead of him coming to the window, it was my brother and 3 other men who were all dressed as stereotypical ‘gay men’ leather pants, handcuffs etc lol……in real life, my ex accidently set my budgie free which never returned and I think my brother is ‘in the closet’. Is this dream just because of real-life events or could there be another meaning?

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is it a cliché image in my dream?

What do I feel about the leather in my dream?

Do I disagree about using animal products?

See Key WordsSecrets of Power DreamingQuestionsBeing the Person or thing

Leaves Leaf

The living, growing part of you. The part that is still vulnerable because of its newness, or outworn (depending on colour of leaf) part of your thinking or feeling. You can also be blown like a leaf, suggesting separation from your roots and main growth; or you can take a leaf from someone’s notebook, thus following their example or idea. The leaves as a whole, if falling, can represent the end of your life, the passing ego that dies, but leaves the trunk, the process that gave life. See: tree.

The leaves on a tree may represent your personal life, this particular life with its many activities and desires, that may fall off the tree – die – but what gave it life continues to exist. The leaf may indicate something in you that is living, growing, or outworn (depending on colour of leaf). This may be part of your thinking or feeling. You can also be blown like a leaf, suggesting separation from your roots and main growth; or you can take a leaf from someone’s notebook, thus following their example or idea.

Leaves also can indicate new life that is flourishing and expanding, so a new part of you growing. It is also linked with the mystery of Life, as it emerges from unconsciousness into a new being. Often it is a deep cellular or inner growth

 Example: And I look upon the wayside flower, reaching through the grass, and see in its petalled face a peace and a great prayer, for flowers can pray. Within me I hear the echo of its worship. “I am here! I am here! Out of the dark into the light, I am here. Out of nothingness the mystery wrought me. Out of the pieces of its being I arise. In surety I live, until I die, back into the mystery, to be lived again, or be forever that which lived me.”

Example: Walking to the lake which was behind the huge rock column all in open ground and very swampy, we tried to cross. A tree trunk lay over at one point. Some people went to cross but one of them rocked the tree, and I think dislodged it. Now I looked back at the column, and was very surprised to see, on the strange design, little fronds of green leaves. The column was, I suddenly saw, a huge tree, and the leaves were sprouting at the top. To the right was another such tree, but smaller. The shape of these columns was like massive spacecraft cylinders pointed at the top. I believe I now looked across the hills, and saw a track leading off to where I seemed to know our home lay.

Example: The awakening interrupted a dream, which was extremely lucid and logical. I knew clearly, during it, what it meant. I was simply watching leaves, like a fern, grow and expand. As I did so I realised this was an expression of something taking place in my being. Namely, the vegetative (vegetable) forces had been released to greater or more powerful activity. It was very clear in the dream, but I quickly lost much of the accompanying knowledge. But I knew, or experience, that the release was linked with consciousness and will. In some way I cannot yet explain, the power of this process streamed through the will or consciousness, and awareness expanded as the leaf grew. In other words consciousness filled the leaf being grown.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the leaves growing from an old tree?

What were my feelings when I saw the leaves?

Were leaves falling or new grown?

See Sacred TreeSumming UpWriting it DownTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ledge

Depending on what you feel in the dream, the ledge can show feelings or insecurity, risk or danger, as when you are balancing on a ledge and not feeling safe. Or it can be a place of safety or refuge as when you escape from something to the ledge, or find support there after a difficult climb or fall.

If you are standing or sitting on the ledge it suggests an insecure or precarious situation, even though it may give a wider or ‘bird’s eye’ view of things. It can also suggest you are at a place in your life where something that previously was unknown or unfelt, is now available or accessible. There are often feelings of fear or of falling in such dreams. The ledge can represent a difficult situation in your life.

Meeting someone or being with someone on the ledge shows a relationship that is difficult to avoid.

 Example: I had a dream the other night about a cat upon a Tomb, and to pass this poor bedraggled cat you didn’t get much room. You had to walk a narrow ledge high up on a wall and if you looked on either side, you knew that you would fall. I crouched right down with head on knees and grasped a drainpipe tight. I knew right then that I was safe and shouted loud with fright. With shivering fear I called and called but no one seemed to hear. I rubbed my eyes and sat up tall I was so pleased to see there was no Tomb, no ledge at all…. just Moonlight on the bedroom wall.

Example: Dreamt I was sitting high up on the outside ledge of a building. I held some small object in my hand. 

The ledge represents the precarious position you are now in. The past few weeks have been very difficult for you. You begin to feel this period is leaving you. The thing you held was the symbol of wholeness, or the whole. Leaving the ledge means leaving the precarious situation you have been in.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I feel fear or difficulty being on the ledge?

Was I able to have a good view of things?

Was I climbing and the ledge was a higher point I climb to?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power DreamingContext/Theme

 

 

 

Leech Leeches

Something or somebody that is surreptitiously draining your energy. The leech might also, because of its past use in medicine, have the association with a healing process, In this case it might be showing the draining away of ‘bad blood’ bad feelings. See: Blood.

 Our energy can be leeched away by emotional conflicts, or mishandling our own major energy expressions – unloving sex, emotions tied up with love, conflict over decisions, extreme worry about our children, consuming alcohol, chasing after fantasies, spiritual quests that lead nowhere.

 Example: I realized I had been unkind to my dog by trapping it with the creatures, putting myself first, and felt guilty; I went back to my dog, which was on the verge of death from all the bites it had incurred. Somehow, the “wasps” had transformed into leech-like animals that were sucking out his blood; as I brushed them off, his hair fell off, revealing bloody naked skin underneath. Also, weirdly enough, he had leeches on his penis, which was engorged and sore and resembled my own penis.

Example: The winds kick up. An object that looks like a string green bean lands on my arm with a slap. It sticks on my right arm and begins the damaging process. It is like a leech. Henry’s wife grabs at it and pulls it off. It leaves a red open wound. She is relieved it was taken off quickly enough so that only minimal damage was done. She had saved my life.

Example: Let us not condone this way of life that sees us as merely statistics and units to be moved by advertising and other subtle pressures. Let us not buy into it by purchasing these lumps of farmed meat; chicken breasts from animals that have no natural life and whose normal cycles have been manipulated for sales and production. The profit motive unfortunately taints even those areas that attempt to be organic and to care for the land. Nature is only after protecting itself, it is not trying to make a profit. The profit motive is so built into many people that they cannot understand something that doesn’t have the same drive.

 If you think about it, if you think about a woman’s body, every little bit of it is claimed by a commercial interest. From the moment she is born the commercial interests say, “She he is ours!” It is strange that we can’t see how we have locked nature in, trying to own it and gain a profit from it in every way we possibly can. The huge corporations and political organisations carefully design your food, your education, your hormones to move you toward exactly what they want you to be.

How do we detoxify ourselves from something that is so permeating our lives? How do we detoxify ourselves from our own society? Feeling these feelings, exploring these issues, meeting these very powerful influences arising from deep within me, the question I asked myself is, am I crazy?! Am I crazy, or am I just waking up?  I am pro life. I don’t want parasites hanging on my back. I want to give my blood to my children, not to the parasites. I know I have a thing about, or feelings against, cigarettes and alcohol. I see them as very obvious ways that some of the big guys behind the corporations lead people toward a dependency that leeches away in them their will.

With eyes open you will see how so many people are trying to lead you by your fears, by your dreams, by your sexual drive. Ask yourself, where are they leading me? Basically they are leading you toward spending your money and putting it into their account. It is possible to say no. It is possible to make your own sexual decisions. It is possible to learn how to deal with your fear response, your fight or flight instincts. Who are you? Why let somebody else steal it? You would be angry and active if somebody stole your credit card or your cheque-book. How can you let them steal your real inner identity?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you have leeches on you or just see them in the dream?

Is there an indication of what the leeches are taking from you?

Are you fighting back?

See Summing UpAvoid Being VictimsLife’s Little SecretsBeware of Love

Left Behind

If you are the one who is left behind, it suggests either that you feel rejected, or have a sense of not being the same as other people, or perhaps that you want to go your own way. If you leave someone or something behind, it might mean you are ready for change of some kind. That is, ready to let go of something or someone that may have been important at some time. In some cases this suggests changes in a relationship, if the person left behind is your partner. If what you left behind was your handbag – purse, see Bag.

Oneself left behind: Feelings of rejection or inadequacy; sense of waking up to what you have not done or experienced in life, as Patience does in her dream below.

Leaving something or someone behind: Leaving the past behind; break-up of relationship.

 Example: ‘In my dream I woke up and had the feeling that a lot of time had passed. I felt I had lost all this time. A group of friends I was with had gone ahead, left me behind, and I wondered if I would ever catch up.’ Patience. C. Example: I had a dream where I was excluded from a party and left behind to care for everyone’s dogs. I locked them in the garage along with a baby that was dropped off. I found out the baby was my ex-husbands (my husband in the dream) and no one would tell me who the mother was. Anyway I put the baby in a box and left it there. It was not crying, it was quite happy actually.

So your dream husband was all the things you absorbed in the relationship and after the divorce. Therefore the father of the child is the good things you got from the relationship. And the reason no one would tell you who the mother was is because you are the mother of your own dream child. So something good has arisen now out of the past. Maybe you have digested something about the relationship that now opens up a new part of you – the baby. Perhaps you parked the baby in the garage because you did not realise its importance in your life – for it is important.

Idioms: Fall behind; put it all behind me. See also: bag.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever felt left behind or missed the bus or plane?

Who have I left behind in my life?

What was the situation of being left in the dream?

Did I leave anything important?

See HabitsBecause FactorAvoid Being VictimsActive Passive

Left and Right

We each have a side of our body and brain that we use more often and is dominant. So in the following descriptions you decide whether you are dominantly right or left. 

Dominant side of body: The dominant, confident, conscious, exterior or expressed side of self. In other words it is your capable and active self which if working well is creative and doing most of the work. It is the hand we reach out with most often and use it in touching, leading with and sensing.  Also it can indicate what we have been taught or absorbed about what is right or wrong. So correct social behaviour and morals.

  Example: My mother is an emotionally positive person. What she feels is right. She has no doubts about the rightness of what she feels. Thus she is able to display a social temper, angering shopkeepers etc, (who she feels, or thinks), have done her wrong.

Dreams also use a play on what is right and left to illustrate polarity or opposites: But if you are left handed you might need to reverse the description.

The right – The ‘right’ choice at the time; the moral, right action; your conscious known self. Your external world of activity and environment; a secondary choice.

Right arm or hand: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do.

The Left – parts of self that are unconscious or shadowy; the immoral, selfish, wrong action. Your internal world of feelings, memories and values. See You Are a Dual Being

Left arm or hand: The left is those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm – our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represents confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish.

  Example: ‘On my right are three monks, on my left sits a beautiful, shapely blonde. I am in the centre and I see a road, which leads to the right and into a beautiful sunlit valley in the distance.’ From Dreams Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist, published by Cowles.

Here right and left represent not only choice between sexual pleasure and the dreamers sense of right and wrong, but also the polar opposites of inner life and materialism. Although in the dream there is a movement to the right, to find equilibrium we often have to take a way between the opposites, both of which are probably extremes.

Most of us interiorise our morals into our dream life. In other words, we take as a truth that what is important outwardly is also as important inwardly. So you are as upset by a dream as if it had actually happened in waking life. An example of this is a person who dreams their partner is having sex with another person. Such mistakes make us feel things that are ridiculous. This happens with the morals we live with, or by, and may be necessary in waking life, we try to make them fit to our much bigger and freer dream/inner life and that causes conflict because the two worlds are completely different. So right or wrong are very different in the different levels of our being. See Morals; Inner World

Some other views of what it means to be left or right handed

Left: If you are left handed, it suggests you have greater spatial sense, better intuitive sense and awareness of gestalts – i.e. arriving at meaning through putting together many small bits of information and feelings.

“In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand, Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is increasing and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers’ brains are structured differently (in a way that increases their range of abilities) and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain.[29]

Writing in Scientific American, McManus states that, Studies in the U.K., U.S. and Australia have revealed that left-handed people differ from right-handers by only one IQ point, which is not noteworthy … Left-handers’ brains are structured differently from right-handers’ in ways that can allow them to process language, spatial relations and emotions in more diverse and potentially creative ways. Also, a slightly larger number of left-handers than right-handers are especially gifted in music and math. A study of musicians in professional orchestras found a significantly greater proportion of talented left-handers, even among those who played instruments that seem designed for right-handers, such as violins. Similarly, studies of adolescents who took tests to assess mathematical giftedness found many more left-handers in the population.

According to 2014 study right-handed people have higher cognitive skills, less behavioural and speech problems, less often have learning disabilities, and more often graduate their school. Quoted from Wikipedia

 Example: I felt completely in opposition to this, and grabbed his hand with my right hand, levering it off the torch. This woke me because I was in fact struggling with my own left-hand. I had hold of my left little finger, and was bending it backward viciously. This amused me because it was so obviously a personal conflict – a struggle between my left and right hands, between my more refined and less refined self.

Example: I have had a few wonderful dreams lately. Very short though. In one I was leaning over a person who was sitting. It was my left arm that dominated the dream (I am right handed). It was gold and glowing. The other I reached into a glass of pure clear water with purple petals through it and I felt pure joy.

Being right handed I found that my right side of my body has many more injuries of difficulties than my left side, and I feel this is because it faces and has to deal with more stress than my left side. I also felt that we unconsciously associate the different sides of our body with someone. I associate my right side of my body with my father and my left with my mother. Of course it could be anyone you are deeply rooted in.

To sum up – you may be more holistic, intuitive, aware of body language, synthesising, integrating, emotional, interpersonal, feeling-based, and kinaesthetic.

See Jill Bolte Taylors extraordinary experience when her usual ‘right handed’ personality was knocked out. See Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor.

 

Most of us have been raised to believe in absolutes of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. We are taught that there is a wrong way of doing things and a right way, and if we get it wrong we will be sure to end up a failure. But dreams have no fixed sense of right and wrong, like a baby which lacks any awareness of having an ego, lacks any sense of time and concepts such as approval or disapproval, right and wrong, the infant lives in a paradise where there is no (concept of) time or death. Without time it lives in eternity, especially while in the womb. It feels itself not an individual but an undivided part of an immense ocean of sentience. It and the animals are one. There is no striving or working to gain survival, no pressure to sexual procreate.

Dreams often show us this aspect of human consciousness existing beyond the opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong. When we access this view and accept it, it gives tremendous liberation to the dreamer, freeing them from restricting rigid concepts or habits of thinking, responding and relating.

In meeting a ‘big’ man in his dreams, a man who was not afraid of death, he met his own undammed life, his flood of loving sexuality, the strength to burst through social rules and regulations because love or life pushes. When we find it in ourselves, in dreams we don’t give a hang about bullets, death, right or wrong, because we have a sense of our own integral existence within life, and our own rightness and place in eternity.

 Example: As I looked at my impressions and rising feelings, I saw how powerful has been the realisation that within ourselves we are nothing. That our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self-judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

But it is a frightening realisation too. For it brings us to the realisation that nobody else creates the hell or heaven we experience life to be. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in our creation. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the Nothing is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of our life.

 Example: In a dream a young man saw himself walking up a dimly lit cobbled street. The street was going up a hill, and on the left was a pub with two young men standing outside. They were holding pint jugs of bitter, As the dreamer drew near them, one turned to the other, looking at his bitter, and said, ‘Shall I let him have it?’ Being encouraged, he threw the bitter over the dreamer. Naturally the dreamer was very annoyed, and tried to brush it off his overcoat. He wanted to retaliate, but felt himself no match for these two, who walked back into the pub. Someone with the dreamer said that there was a policeman at the top of the bill, why not tell him. So climbing the rest of the hill. and turning to the right, he found the policeman and told him. The policeman very officiously took out his notebook and asked whether there were any witnesses. There were, but the policeman maintained his air of doing only what he was forced to do by law, which upset the dreamer and he walked away.

In exploring his dream, the dreamer realised that to climb a hill in real life is not only to expend energy, to face a difficulty, but also, if successful. to benefit by seeing the view from the top. A hill, in fact, gives him a wider view of things. So in climbing the hill he faced the energetic task of widening his opinions, rising above narrow limited views, he gained in growing up. In fact, he was going through a period of finding new ideas and outlooks. The pub and young men, on the left, represent the pleasure loving, down to earth, rough and ready side of himself. Something on the left of us in a dream usually means that it is unknown, or little used.

The dream was saying these parts of him are not expressed much in life. This is quite true, as the man was a quiet, serious person, religious and somewhat introverted. The dream shows that his pleasure loving outgoing side, due to his quiet nature was drinking the bitters of life, and in fact, this stifled side of his nature causes him to feel bitter about himself. He tries to ‘brush this bitterness off’, rather like one might say, ‘I feel depressed, but I’ll soon overcome it.’ Due to his retiring temperament, he does not feel he can face these other parts of himself. In a similar way, a person who inwardly wished to be noticed, might through shyness, not even he able to converse. Thus two parts of oneself may war against each other.

The dream goes on to show the dreamer’s present conscious efforts to deal with the conflict leading to bitterness. The policeman is on the right, representing his more conscious attitudes. The policeman usually represents our sense of right and wrong, conscience and law-giving. So the dreamer, in his efforts to deal with his attack of bitterness, tries to use his morals, his sense of right and wrong. But this side of himself is shown as unsympathetic, only really worried about the rules, and the dreamer realises he will not be helped by that attitude. He has to find a wider view which includes the aspect of himself which includes both the good and the bad and finds a middle way.

This realisation might lead to going the way of the razors edge, which depicts any behaviour or attitudes that are one-sidedness and would lead to imbalance within the individual. But at the same time it is not about being perfect or a saint, but a balanced and whole human being with very wide choices. Walking it we balance between the opposites facing us. See The Mountain Path

“Environment is a tremendous thing in the world, and frequently shapes lives regardless. If one proves that theory, one makes room in heaven for all sorts of souls, notably an occasional street girl, who are not confidently expected to be there by many excellent people.” Stephen Crane

The right and left hemispheres of the brain to generalise, if your approach to life is dominated by your left brain hemisphere, which is largely rational and analytical, your best way of learning would be in learning facts in a sequential and logical order.

If you are largely a right brain person your approach to learning would be to understand details by gaining an overall picture of what you are studying. The details then fit into this concept of the whole and make sense to you. You would also be more open to learning through your feelings and intuitions, and through hands on experience. You would be more about living in this present moment. It thinks in pictures and learn through experiences of our body. This explosion of information comes through our senses, and our right brain forms a picture informing us of this present moment. We are energy beings connected to each other through these amazing inputs.

The left brain experiences life completely differently, and it is almost like two different people living in one body. It sees things linked on a long line connecting our past with our future.

This side of the brain takes in the enormous pictures and experience of the present moment and reviews them in enormous detail and then categorises them, organises them, then protects them into the perceived future and forms an impression or picture of our immense possibilities.

Also it is what gives us identity and says, “I AM”.

More information about brain hemispheres

In a very real sense each of us have two distinct ways of relating to and perceiving the world and the people around us. This is because our brain is split into two hemispheres, and each hemisphere has very different ways of dealing with incoming information and its different abilities. But it has other divisions also. See Levels (Brain)

On a recent radio interview a man and woman were described who created lively musicals. The way they worked and how they were such an amazing team were discussed. The man would lie on a couch and let flow with ‘stream of consciousness’ ideas, and the woman would write down what was said, but pulling it into structure and careful use of appropriate language.

This is almost a direct expression of how the left and right brain lobes can work together if we can easily access their different abilities. In people with a healthy brain the two halves of the brain work like two people in a happy and creative partnership. Each of the partners can perform its own special tasks most of the time, but each is able to take on, partly or fully, the skills of the other when necessary. This may be necessary in people who have experienced brain damage.

Although research has not arrived at definite classifications of what the lobes of the brain deal with, in general they are as follows:

 

Although if we are healthy we are not dominated by just one side of the brain’s action, we nevertheless may be oriented to left or right, logical or intuitive.

In terms of creativity the left brain follows rules of logical thought and does not easily move beyond the boundaries of what is rational. Its talents are in organising, planning and sticking to the task in hand, and in rational analysis of facts rather than feelings and speculations.

The right brain follows a more holistic approach, gathering many diverse bits of information and experience and leaping beyond the obvious to arrive at an insight into the nature of the situation. Its talents are in being aware of body language, the feelings involved in a relationship or situation that are influencing it behind the scenes. It takes all our life experience and summarises it into a grand view of who we are, our life journey and place in the scheme of things. See Using Your IntuitionOpening to Life; Arm Circling Meditation.

In fact, this last aspects of the right brain gives us a clue as to what your ‘brain type’ is and how you approach life. The left brain subject will have a sense that their life is not part of a grand scheme of things, but is subject to the agreed and rational rules of the dominant science and social rules of their culture. The right brain subject will know from their inner awareness that their life is part of the way the cosmos works, and has emerged out of a timeless continuum carrying all ages of the past into their present existence.

Returning to the theme of creativity, in test carried out through the 1970’s and 80’s, subjects who were known to be creative were given tasks calling on non rational thinking. EEG’s of their brain activity showed the right brain flooded with electrical signals. Less creative subjects given the same task showed much less activity in their right brain lobe.

One researcher, Martindale, noted that we mostly associate efficient performance with the ability to focus attention and be highly ‘awake’. Martindale observed that brain activity during such times showed cortical arousal is linked to the ability to fo­cus attention. But he also saw that cre­ative subjects diffused their attention when performing creative tasks. They were able to shut down concentrated focussing and diffuse their attention at will. In this way they created a mental state that perhaps can be likened to listening, or what I have elsewhere called a ‘keyboard’ state of mind and body, in which they are open to any inflow or up flow of experience. Martindale noted that this un-focusing proc­ess, rather than dampening mental acuity, actually enhances it. See The Keyboard Condition

Connecting this with dreams, our night time drama tends to express these different facets of us in the different characters we meet. The following dream clearly shows a ‘right brain’ character bringing something to the dreamer’s attention that his usual left brain way of looking at life would probably have missed.

 Example: I was on a plane or a journey. On my right sat an American, very flabby, with a paunch. I was eating an apple, (I had been on a fruit fast during the day), and my elbow sometimes touched the American’s paunch, it felt lifeless, lacking vitality. I told him he ought to eat only apples for a while, and all the dead flesh would fall off him. Then a young Chinese man came to me and pointed out a line marked on my apple, on the green, less developed side. He said every apple had such a line if one looked, and under the line was a hair, “the hair of discontent.” He said this was poisonous, and best not eaten. I slid my fingernail under the line, and pulled out a long hair. I thought this was wonderful, and that I had been given real wisdom of the East. Ian R.

In fact, Ian was far from content with his life at the time, and it led him to look critically at other people. The wisdom from the East – the left brain global view of life – pointed out how poisonous this was.

Here is a dream illustrating a very different stand:

 Example: I was walking home at night under a magnificent starry sky. I thought perhaps this was the Milky Way, as I had never seen it before. But there were distinct edges to the massive concentrations of stars forming the shape of people. I felt very enthusiastic and uplifted by this sight and wanted other people to look at it. Then I seemed to be at home, perhaps where I used to live as a child, and my father was there. I told him about the figures and wanted him to look, but he seemed quite uninterested. I also felt somehow that he was locked into an intellectual cynicism that could see no wonder in the stars. To him they were simply random shapes in the sky. To me they expressed something that, perhaps, I would find it difficult to put into words, but nevertheless was very moving at a deep level. Heather R.

Heather uses her father to depict her more rational way of looking at the world. Nevertheless, the dream shows balance as Heather herself feels the impact of what she has seen.

As is often the way, the right brain tends to express in symbols, as it does in dreams, but it takes the focussed enquiry of the left brain to work like a detective to unravel the clues and bring the creative impulse into real clarity and fruition, something that wasn’t happening in Heather’s dream. Exploring the dream would provide the creative spark between the intuitive and the rational. See: Characters and People in Dreams for further description of dream characters; brain.

Idioms: Two left feet; keep on the right side of somebody; in one’s right mind; in the right; mister right; set somebody right; right hand man; right in the head; start on the right foot; give one’s right arm; the customer is always right; right away; bark up the wrong tree; get up on the wrong side of bed; push the right buttons; play my cards right; darn right; dead wrong; don’t get me wrong; don’t go wrong; heart is in the right place; you’re wrong; you’re in the wrong.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do my dreams make reference to turning right or left?

Or are there mentions of left or right sides of my body?

Do I often feel a big difference between what is right and what it wrong?

Is there any suggestion of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the dream?

Do you have a fixed idea of what is right and wrong?

Or do you have a more mobile view allowing you to make fewer judgements?

 

See Razors Edge – Acting on your dream – Ox Herding – Dream Yoga – Summing Up – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Identity and Dreams

 

Leg Legs

This points to the things that support you in life. Your support may depend upon parents, job, money, religion, friends, your own confidence. Sometimes an event occurs, or we receive news, that knocks away our support or self confidence, and dreams represent this by a problem or injury to your legs. Legs can also depict the ability to get about in life. Ambition for instance, may give us drive and confidence to stand up and do something in life. If your business fails though, ambition may crumble, represented by your legs being kicked away from you, or being injured.

It helps to know which leg, because although most of us are aware if being right or left handed, but few people realise that this applies to legs also. It makes a difference in interpretation. See: LeftRightGrowth

 Dreaming about your leg or legs usually connects in some way with what motivates you, the emotional and physical strength you use to get about in life. To have one’s legs knocked out from under one means loss of confidence and ability to carry on with life.

Although you may depend upon someone like partner or parent for support, or on work or position for self value, ultimately the legs represent your own emotional or conceptual support system. So in your dream about leg or legs you may be considering what state your own confidence, your own self value is in. When trying to understand legs in your dream See: lame.

In some dreams legs are shown as having the qualities of roots, and bringing strength from the earth. This shows you drawing on deep reserves of your strength and wisdom from your connection with the Earth’s processes and chain of life. See

Example: ‘My Mother asked me to go and buy some butter for her. A chain on my left leg prevented me from going very far. I look down the road and see my Mum, Dad and my four brothers in the back of a car. I wave and call and they drive right past me, going over the chain I am wearing on my leg.’ Lorraine. LBC

Example: I was in a very loving relationship in which I had developed powerful emotional links with D. We communicated many times each day while apart at work, etc. But one day there was no communication. I felt tremendous anxiety and emotional pain and shock, really frightened that she had dropped me. In fact she hadn’t, but my fears were very real and difficult to deal with. A real shock.

Having no legs: This shows a serious lack of confidence or the inability, perhaps sometimes, to stand up for yourself.

Injured leg or legs: Feeling insecure or unable to stand up for yourself, or to be independent.

Left leg: If you are  right handed this indicates that your less dominant or less conscious motivation, the emotional and physical strength you use to get about in life is involved. (Reverse if you are left handed.)

Right Leg: If you are  right handed it indicates  that your dominant or conscious motivation, the emotional and physical strength you use to get about in life is involved. (Reverse if you are left handed.)

One leg shorter than another: This links with whether you are right or left handed. If you are right handed, then the right leg represents your outward activities, and your left represents your feelings and attitudes – possibly vice versa if you are left handed. So a short left leg would suggest you lack confidence, therefore your outer activities are not fully supported. If it is a short right leg, then you have not developed enough skill or strength to be outwardly as effective as you are capable of.

Putting hand on leg: An approach to sex, or a warm friendly sign.

Smooth or hairy legs: Smooth legs show a more feminine strength, hairy a more masculine.

Trying to run but legs will not respond: This may simply be because while dreaming all your voluntary muscles are paralyzed so do not respond to you attempts to move. Or you feel as if you do not have the ability to do what you are asking of yourself.

Another reason might be because you are trying to go in a direction you feel anxiety about, or have no desire for. See: paralysis while asleep. 

Idioms: a leg up; cost an arm and a leg; felt like I had a ball and chain on my legs; I couldn’t stand up for myself; last legs; leg over; leg work; legless; didn’t have a leg to stand on; my legs went to jelly; my legs were paralysed; on his last legs; pull your leg; tail between his legs.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

Are my dream legs/confidence shown to be healthy, or do I need to work on them?

 

Am I ‘standing up’ well, or do I need to work on my confidence?

 

Where are my legs taking me in the dream, and how do I relate to this while awake?

 

See The Life Will  – Acting on your dreamTechniques for Exploring your DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Lemon

Possibly symbolises the feelings of bitterness, sourness. In some nations the lemon also has strong associations with health, so it might show a suggestion to use for your health.

Length Long

The length of something in a dream usually signifies its duration or perhaps its importance. The size symbolises its impact upon you. If something is very long, it might also link with boredom or loss of interest.

Dreams often take a long time to really become a recognisable part of your life. They are like   a seed, it is something that comes from a deep part of you; it is something that is working upwards toward being conscious. As such it often, like a seed, takes time to break through to the surface, and then it has to grow. See How it Flows

Some experiences stretch time until it seems there is no end to it. Like an endless journey we cannot see where it leads. That often happens when we confront a childhood experience where time in the child’s mind doesn’t exist. See Programmed

As can be seen from the examples below, length and long appear in dreams in many ways.

 As can be seen from the examples below, length and long appear in dreams in mnayt ways.

 Example: Dreamt last night that my dog went to the toilet and passed a large piece of three ply wood, like a long sided triangle, about eight inches long. As I looked at it, I thought, “My God, old Tramp really is tough, he has swallowed that, and now he’s passed it through none the worse.”

Example: I see an elephant fixed by harnessed to other elephants. He catches my scent, and with terrible power charges along a narrow riverbank that is at the back of dwelling houses. Two other elephants are dragged helplessly with him, but all, by some miracle, stay on the ledge, though his rush is frightening to watch. I, with two others, enter the front of the pub. It is old and long out of use, rubbish and rubble lying everywhere. Over the rubble, from the rear, the elephants trunk reaches out for me, and we touch with real love, and unafraid.

Example: So smitten are we that we cannot bear to have our children near us long, but must leave them behind, buy them a toy to stifle any attempt they may make to relate with us, shut them in a room or a school or any damn place so long as we don’t have to face them as they are. To take hold of their natural stream of life and twist and kick it until it is so well and truly buggered it hurts itself.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression of having been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity. Suddenly I realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was myself. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. I dropped the attitudes and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I dropped other habits of emotion and thought with which I had trapped and tortured myself. I realised I could be totally free within myself. One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. So intense was it I cried out. The cell mates called a warden. They stood looking at me as I experienced a radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was mad. Nothing would ever be the same again. Andy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was it a long way I travelled or could I see a long way – what was my dream showing me?

Was it time that was stretched or was it your vision of things?

Do I feel as if I am alone and a long way from others?

See Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentHabitsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Lens

Concentration, focusing of attention or understanding. May also represent something becoming bigger, or more important.

Leopard

Sometimes represents libido or sexual drives that appear as threatening. It also depicts anger, passion – in caring or protecting, spitefulness and power of response. That is, responses without too much thought.

As with any of the big cats, anger, temper; spitefulness, cruelty; courage; passion – even passion caring for your children. Because of the leopard’s spots, which can be seen as eyes, the leopard has represented The Great Watcher – i.e. wider awareness. See: wider awareness.

Useful questions are:

What attitude or feelings is my dream leopard expressing, and how does that relate to me?

If I imagine myself as the leopard, do I feel anger, power or fear? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

Is it a male or female leopard and what does that lead me to feel or associate with it?

What is my relationship with the leopard and what does that suggest?

Leper

Uncleanness, disease, decay, loss of social acceptance, or feelings of being unloved and unacceptable.

Leprechaun

See: Fairy.

Lesbian

See: Homosexuality.

Letter

Communication or lack of it. Feelings, intuitions or hopes in regard to something received from another person, or a group of people, Hoping to have contact with or news from a person or company. News of opportunity, or love coming to one.

This is about the giving or receiving of feelings and thoughts. But is it a letter received, a letter waited for, a letter already sent and regretted or answers hoped for? If you can look at your dream and see what your relationship with the letter is, then see where this applies to your waking life, you will have a direct connection with what the dream is dealing.

If you dream about old letters, who are they from and what do they say? They are probably connected with memories and how they are still influencing you – or a relationship that is still meaningful.

What is it you are waiting for in your waking life? What do you want from someone else? If you know, perhaps there are more direct ways you can go about getting results. Or perhaps your dream gives some indications.

Who are you writing to and what are you saying? Is it something you have thought about and said already, or is it something new? Sometimes your dream letter reveals things you might not say generally.

If the letter is not opened it usually refers to things you know but have not let yourself really become aware of. Try opening the letter and observing what you feel or think.

Blacked edged: News of or feelings about death.

Letter from particular person: Thoughts about or intuitions concerning the person letter is from; unrealised feelings about sender; hopes – perhaps to have contact with person.

Opening letter: Realising something; receiving news; sexual intercourse.

Unopened letter: Feelings, thoughts or intuitions that have not been made conscious or recognised; opportunity that has not been taken up or recognised yet; virginity.

Sending a letter: The thoughts or feelings you radiate to others, perhaps unconsciously. A prompt to contact the person you are posting the letter to. Desire to be in contact.

Waited for letter: Hoped for confirmation of love, friendship, plans.

 Example: I had felt something of a past traumatic incident arising, and had phoned my wife saying to her that I felt something strange going on and deeply needed to know when she might be coming back. She said she would let me know. So I waited for a telephone call, a letter, some indication, having pleaded with her for this support. Nothing came. No call. No letter. No support. Then the crack widened and all hell broke loose from within me.

Example: Someone had brought him a letter in which were several sheets. On one of these there was a portrait of a former teacher, whom he much admired, holding a torch. Another sheet looked like a big invitation card, seemingly addressed to this same teacher, and having on it the words ‘Request for your Presence’. On the back of a third sheet the teacher had drawn the picture of a liner, and his voice could be heard saying: ‘Here are the cabins you are having, eleven, seventeen and twenty-three.’ As he spoke, he marked them off on the side of the ship, eleven at the top, seventeen further down and nearer the stern, and twenty-three still lower and further aft. The boy then awoke, feeling very unsettled and thinking, ‘I must ask mother which cabin we are going to have.’

The associations came at once and without any hesitation. The three numbers were connected with three different people. Number twenty-three reminded him of a friend of his own age with whom he used to play about in the streets, picking up the fag-ends of cigarettes and smoking them. Number seventeen was connected with another boy friend, who was cheeky, fat and lazy, and loved ragging about. They used to go on camping expeditions together. Eleven was the number of his own home and made him think of his mother.

The dream sketches the possibilities before him. He looks for his teacher’s help in planning the future, and the teacher appears holding a torch in his hand to clarify the situation. There are three directions in which the boy can go. The lowest and least worthy way is to become a guttersnipe, picking up fag-ends in the street. On a higher level, he can become a playboy like his fat friend and live an easy and self-indulgent life. Or, finally, he can follow the urge represented by his mother, one connected, as he explained, with ‘music, mechanics and ideals’. He decides to ask his mother which way to go. Quoted from The Way Within by Wyatt Rawson.

Idioms: chain letter; French letter – condom; letter perfect; love letter; dear john/jane letter saying she/he is with another person; poison pen letter; red letter day.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was there a message you understood?

Do you depend upon communications for you well-being?

Do you write to people often – and if so for what purpose?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Level Levels

In some dreams much is made of different levels, or of a particular level. The meaning can differ vastly depending on the context. The different levels may deal with feelings of class, superiority, worth or power. Or they might suggest different levels of response, such as a mental response, a gut level response, a sexual response, etc.

When the levels are in a building: This often refers to the different ‘levels of ones personal experience such as physical sensation – ground level (first floor in U.S.A.); sexual feelings – can be middle floor or ‘downstairs’; emotions – upper floor; the head and thinking – top floor; memories, being apart from other people – the attic. These building levels might also suggest levels of importance, or clarity-practicality.

Levels can also show the fear and difficulty one faces in making a change from one way or level of life to another. For instance we may have lived life as a nine to five worker, and so we see the world through those needs. But a totally new way or level of seeing and responding might suddenly open, as when we become self employed or out of work. In dreams this might be that a hole opens suddenly, and we see another world going on below, or above us. Or a person appears out of nowhere from another level. Sometimes with shock we realise life has many other ways of being. Perhaps we even explore them. See: Levels in Waking andDreaming

Levelling

Smoothing feelings or pains. Making the going easier.

Levitation Levitating

Ernest Wood in his book Yoga says, “Levitation, or the rising of the body from the ground and its suspension a few feet up in the air above the seat or couch, is a universally accepted fact in India. I remember one occasion when an old yogi was levitated in a recumbent posture about six feet above the ground in an open field, for about half an hour, while the visitors were permitted to pass sticks to and fro in the space between. Princess Pena Choki, second daughter of the Maharaja of Sikkim, related, regarding her uncle: He was the most extraordinary man I have ever met. I remember that when I was a little girl he … did, what you would call exercises in levitation. I used to take him a little rice. He would be motionless in mid-air. Every day he rose a little higher. In the end he rose so high that I found it difficult to hand the rice up to him. I was a little girl, and had to stand on tiptoe … There are certain things you don’t forget.’”

These are quotes from books, and unfortunately I have not witnessed anything like it myself. But in dreams it is a different matter. Dreams of levitation are quite common and usually are the result of uplifting feelings, often of a religious nature. They usually indicate the dreamer has touched a level of consciousness that has given them such dreams. Levitation should not be confused with flying in dreams. Sometimes it indicates that the dreamer has broken free of the sense of just being a physical body.

An explation that is the cause of many levitating dream is that the dreamer is having a hard time, and so dreams of getting away from the difficulty.  See FlyingLevels of Awareness in Waking and Dreaming

Of course the person’s attitudes create much of what one dreams, so if a person had a sense of themselves being special or ‘above’ ordinary human beings, it could also result in levitation in one’s dreams.

 Example: I was floating on the very tender tips of a tree in a sort of effortless levitation. The tree was about 30 feet high and was standing in what looked like walkways near a shopping mall. One walkway was rising so it came to about halfway up the tree. A few people gathered to look at me and wonder how it was possible for me to maintain my position. At first they thought it must be a publicity stunt and were wondering where the cameras were. But as nothing happened in that way it led them to question further. Suddenly one of the people watching – I think it was a woman – suddenly realised it was not a trick or to do with publicity. She realised that this meant it was possible for a human being to do this, and was immediately floating beside me. Shortly after that another person was with us, floating effortlessly. Then there were several more, until there were about six of us in a circle at the tree tip. We reached out to each other and held hands, then we lifted upwards, climbing to an enormous height, leaving a trail of smoke behind us as a sign for people to see from miles away.

Example: I am a worshipper in a group, gathered together in one accord, in praise and supplication. I am lifted up, levitated, floating above the heads of the assembly. From within I am moved, as by the spirit, to sing a beautiful Polynesian chant. It is clear and lovely, and signified the spirit is entering the assembly. Prior to this we were only praying for the spirit, now we had contacted the spirit.  Then suddenly I was rushed upwards at great speed until I was unconscious. Then just as suddenly I was rushing downwards and came with such force that when I landed on the courtyard of the assembly a force shot out of me and etched letters into the statue of a man fixed on a wall in front of me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you feel and sense of inspiration in the dream?

Have you in fact been levitating – lifting up your emotions of thoughts beyond normal?

Did I realise anything new during the experience?

See ASCBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsEdgar Cayce

Liberate Liberating Liberation

Being able to take risks, not be afraid of illness and death in a paralysing way. It suggests going beyond the boundaries of one’s own limitations, concepts, present experience. It represents the enormous personal potential lying beyond already formed conceptions and experience. It is the aspect of human consciousness existing beyond the opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong. Access to this gives tremendous liberation to the dreamer, freeing them from restricting rigid concepts or habits of thinking, responding and relating.

But when liberation or liberate is shown in a dream it is wise to ask yourself, liberation from what? For example, you might encounter tremendous unleashing of aggression if you are liberated from constraints. You would confront destructive and self-destructive tendencies within yourself if you have an inner experience. There is also liberation of repressed sexuality.

An insight into the impermanence of the ego, and the experience of liberation arising from it. Going beyond paradox. If this state of consciousness is reached where all the opposites of life are resolved, where everything is true and untrue at the same time, it is a tremendous liberation, and in fact is the base of enlightenment. It is what Buddhists call the Void, in which there is no form, no ego, no certainty, no past, no future, no beginning to move from and no goal to reach. Although it can be a disturbing experience when first met, it has the possibility of bringing enormous liberation. This is because our ego and our usual values are usually embedded in concepts that can only ever be either this or that; only ever be partially true; only ever be a fragment of reality. One might for instance develop ones identity out of being male or female, out of being honest or a villain. The Void strips all that away.

Sometimes people say ‘I have never expressed myself like this before, and I wonder if I am bizarre’. The answer is that only whole human beings are capable of a wide range of expression which they can choose to end at any moment. It is the unhealthy person who is locked into compulsive and limited patterns of behaviour. Liberation is a sign of health.

We can understand how ordinary men and women can be liberated from their personal miserable life and find instead they have almost superhuman powers. Such a feeling will sustain them for a long time and give a certain extra quality to their life. A remarkable instance of this can be found in the Eleusinian mysteries, which were unfortunately suppressed by the Christian era. They expressed, together with the Delphic oracle, the essence and spirit of ancient Greece. Christian ideas have their roots in the archetypal Osiris Horus myth of ancient Egypt.

 Example: The pain of divorce? Well, I had never loved my first wife in the way people mean when they use that word – love. There was agony, but it was about my children. But the agony led to realisation and finding of the life beyond – liberation. Unconditional life. Freedom. I am not perfectly in that liberation as it is a strange place. However, I am not sure I can ever love again in a way that leads to pain. Emotional dependence melts away. I love people but it doesn’t seem to matter if they come or go. Death is the same. I have not felt grief or loss at the death of my parents. Whether that applies to my children I don’t know, as I have not been tested. My best friend died a few years ago and I never experienced grief or loss. At his funeral though I wept with great feeling because I could feel the heartbreak of some of the people there.

Example: With this dream in which there were no real images, just a feeling sense going on and on, which I was experiencing and trying to understand and clarify. I never quite arrived at putting the feeling into clear imagery, but as far as I can describe it, it was about having been in a relationship in a particular way, and now this had radically changed. As I think about this I realise that for what felt like hours, I was trying to find clear dream imagery in which to express or personally realise this change, but never quite got there. The point about the change in relationship was that in the first state I felt restricted and bound in some way. The nearest image I could get to this was prison, but that wasn’t right and so it never flowed fully into that image. The second state was felt as a state of liberation, of being able to move and be released from the first state. So the nearest image, but not fitting, was coming out of prison.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I struggling to get or find liberation?

Can I describe any liberation I found?

How was the liberation created?

See EnlightenmentMethods of Awakening – Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor – Avoid Being Victims

Libra

See Scales

Librarian

Faculty of memory or contact with universal mind. The creative or linking process of your mind. It can link with research, finding answers to questions you have.

A library has films and tapes, so it might suggest ways you either entertain yourself, or are finding ways to block out feelings that trouble. So a librarian could be the guiding, knowledgeable or parental influence in your life.

Example: Someone I know is raped and sodomized by someone I know. I am a policeman and I don’t know what to do. I am the one who commits the rape and sodomizes Wandee, a librarian at our school. When someone – the police, her mother? – comes to investigate, I see there is a pictorial illustration /representation of what I did (the writing is on the wall, so to speak). I try to cover up so they don’t see it – it is a poster on the wall, about top of the bed level opposite the bed in the bedroom.

Although I don’t want to admit it to myself I know that I am guilty. I just couldn’t/wouldn’t or didn’t control myself. Like not being able to control myself trying to see my wife’s customers undress in the bedroom.

Example: I go to the library, walking through the streets thinking, “I can write a story about a country I’ve never been in! I can do it.” I go in the library to reserve a room to do my research. The librarian leaves, is busy. I call up and reserve a room for Sunday, very pleased with myself because the librarian said there weren’t any available. I start to write it into her reservation book and realize I’ll get in trouble, so I wait until she returns and fess up to using her phone, etc.

Example: Mary who is also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, had come to him with a disturbing dream in which she’d had sex with a man who, she said, she heartily disliked because he was such a terrible liar.  Mary  then  confessed  that  she’d recently been guilty of lying herself. She’d borrowed the tape of a lecture from her local library in order to duplicate it, but had wiped it instead. and then handed it back without admitting what had happened. Her dream had highlighted the fact that she too, was a liar.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with the librarian?

Did I find what I was looking for?

What sort of figure was the librarian – stern, helpful, etc?

See Characters and People in DreamsBeing the Person or ThingMartial Art of the Mind

Lice Fleas Bugs Worms

Things said, thought or done that make you feel uncomfortable or ashamed; feelings that one is, or someone else is a parasite in a relationship. See Fleas lice parasites

These are not simply ideas or feelings as many believe, but are inextricably woven into the structure and cells of our body. So bringing them out of the body is like tearing out from the fabric of our intellect, emotions, and body, a growth or structure that is built into them. So they can be fear of illness, attitudes that are life denying such as jealousy, envy, or even anger turned inwards.

These may even be apparent to our imagination as dark frightening shapes or creatures that have been living in our being like parasites. One man in class during the vowel sounds (chanting) said, “As you began the sounds I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.”

Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness for that part of his body, and the “dark shape” was probably a representation or embodiment of his fear. The fact that the sounds seemed to call it out of him would suggest that an initiate would actually be able to call these dark shapes out of us by his word and the power of his own conquest that lay behind it.

Large parasites such as worms are something that has got into you somehow, and is living on your energy. It helps to get rid of them by recognising what it is.

Lick Licking

Because of the way the tongue and mouth are sometimes used in oral sex, the tongue can depict the penis, or at least, the drive to penetrate or to make contact through that sensitive organ; this sensitivy is a way of touching the core of another. Another side to this is that we can express a lot of care and love through the tongue, as when a mother animal licks its child, so can express healing. But the tongue in all mammals is a way love and care is given, and so kissing is probably a return to this.

Mothers Tongue: Because we are a mammal and have arisen from a long line of mammals also because all mammals give caring love to their offspring with their tongues, as humans we too, if we are caring mothers, we have tongues that have enormous healing abilities. For our tongues and the saliva are excellent for healing cuts on our children and ourselves, for the tongue spreads saliva which is a natural antibiotic. Because of this the tongue and saliva serve as a natural means of cleaning the teeth.

Licking: If an animal is licking you in some way it is an indication of love. But if it is an aggressive type of animal it might suggest anger is being transformed into love, or strength being expressed as love or care. When dogs or mammals get their mouth near you it often is a sign or bonding as is licking, which is the way dogs beg for food.

 Example: I pulled the child out from his attempts to hide. He had no idea of his danger. Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing. D.G.

There is an obvious reference in this dream to the unconscious urges some people have to hunt and hound others. The dogs especially depict this unleashed aspect of human nature, harmless when not set into motion. It also shows how such actions by others threaten the child in us, or the areas of personal vulnerability.

 Example: ‘My lover Terry, myself and another woman were all on our bed. The other woman seemed very sure of herself and kissed Terry in a very intimate way, he doing the same to her as I lay very near to both of them. Then Terry stuck his bottom in the air and started to lick my chest and breast. I found myself licking around his penis, felt I was under some kind of pressure from both the other two to do so but didn’t feel too shattered as I did it with love for Terry, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth.’ Sally P.

In talking about this dream Sally said she often struggled with what she wanted, and what her partner wanted in sex. She might go along with his needs, but not find it palatable. Even if she did do it with some love, it might leave a ‘bad taste in her mouth’.

 Example: A shadowy man led a small horse from out of the building. It was to draw a cart. When the horse saw me it ran to me and become very excited and loving, rubbing against me and licking me with a very long tongue. I was both pleased and slightly threatened. Threatened because it was so intense. At one point though we rubbed against each other with a degree of sexual pleasure.

Example: My husband was making love to me and our dog was in the room. When my husband was finished I was still lying with my legs open and our dog began to lick my vagina with great tenderness. It felt wonderful and blissful and I and my husband allowed the dog to carry on.

Idioms: a lick and a promise; lick your wounds

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I lick or was I licked – and where?

Was it with care and love?

Have I felt love when an animal licked me?

See Active PassiveLevels of the BrainAutonomous ComplexBeing the Person or Thing

Lie Lies Lying

Lies are like jailors that imprison the mind. When we lie consistently we suppress truth and therefore cannot assess anything clearly.

As an example of lying you may not have the strength to say no to someone who is manipulating you through your sexual desires or fears. This means you also become involved in that person’s deviousness and corruption too. A basic reason for this might be that there is something about yourself you do not have the courage or strength to admit. This passive lie opens you to being influenced in ways you later regret, or leaves you open to responses to others that disturb you. For instance you may feel inadequate as a man or woman for some reason. Hiding such an inadequacy leaves you weak and open to corruption or manipulation.

As one dreamer says, “I tell someone that I was in Mexico City at the time of the draft. This is a lie, but once I tell it, I am forced to keep lying again and again. I have to be in some long line and repeat this lie because of this. I feel like I am forced over and over again to be something I am not”.

 Example: As much as we would like to think of ourselves as civilised and refined humans, we are still governed by patterns of behaviour obvious in animals. We fight, kill, lie and cheat for the sake of sex, follow leaders and generally are obviously still animals. Part of becoming a really mature human is to meet and transform the animal in us. That does NOT mean kill or suppress it.

 Example: Mary who is also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, had come to him with a disturbing dream in which she’d had sex with a man who, she said, she heartily disliked because he was such a terrible liar.  Mary then confessed that she’d recently been guilty of lying herself. She’d borrowed the tape of a lecture from her local library in order to duplicate it, but had wiped it instead. And then handed it back without admitting what had happened. Her dream had highlighted the fact that she too, was a liar.

Example: Taking Christ as a symbol of the cosmic web of sentient life, people can love it, wash their hands of it, crucify it, ignore it, be healed by it, lie about it, offer themselves to it, worship it – and so on and on. The stance we take in our relationship with this larger life we are an integral part of, is the basic stuff of how we live, and the quality of our life.

Example: When somebody says they love you they are usually telling a big lie. What they really mean is, “I will be nice to you and share myself with you as long as you do exactly what I want you to do.”  In detail this means that I will have all those exotic and erotic feelings about you as long as you don’t dare look at another person, and as long as you fulfil all my needs of dependency, fear, and all the other hang-ups I don’t really admit to myself.

Example: Dressing as a woman helped. In private of course, because I looked so bloody ridiculous. Dressing was my panacea. I would tell a lie if I said it was never sexual. (How could it not be?) But that aspect passed away very early on. Dressing was about tranquillity. When fully dressed, I could relax and set my mind free. I could function.

Idioms: a bare-faced lie; a pack of lies; let sleeping dogs lie; lie down on the job; little white lie; without a word of a lie

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I see signs of negative emotions in my lie?

What prompted me to lie?

Was I protected myself of someone else by my lie?

See Inner WorldBeing the Person or ThingAutonomous ComplexAvoid Being Victims

Life After Death

Lifeguard

Your ability to deal with the rough patches of your life, and recover from occasionally ‘going under’ emotionally, or being submerged by your problems. It can also be a real teaching person, an expression of your best wisdom.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do I deal with rough times – turn to drink, drugs, or open to full life experience?

What wisdom or help did the dream lifeguard offer?

Did the dream make a difference to me?

See Life’s Little Secrets – Avoid Being Victims – Life Changes – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Light and Dark

Being aware, being seen, waking as opposed to sleeping. Light means being able to understand and have insight, to see. Lightness of heart, hope, confidence and release from dark feelings and fear. It can also at times indicate becoming aware of how others might see one. But it needs to be understood that darkness is necessary for light to be recognised. If you lived in a world of just light you would have no shape, no colour, no dimension, for all those things come from the ‘mating’ of light with darkness. Colour, awareness of shape are all aspects of darkness.

Apart from ordinary dreams of light, there is a much deeper meaning in some dreams. This is clear in Genesis

The Universe/God was originally the darkness of night. Universe/God then created light. Science says that it look 300,000 years for light to finally shine in our Universe.

“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. “And God said: Let there be light; and there was light.” Genesis is a scientific treatise – See The Hidden Bible

For the Creative force of our Universe was Everything and everything cannot take a shape or form, for then it would be something, a thing. The spiritual worship of light is misplaced, for we were all started in the darkness of Everything. Light is for the human recognition of what we sense in the Hugeness we hold within us in Darkness. If everything was light you would not be able to recognise yourself, for colour and shape exist because kight and darkneess mix to give us our experience in the world. But people have been led to fear the dark – the witching hour shows how we were told to fear witches and the dark of midnight. See Witch

It says that the heavenly lights, the stars were for signs and for seasons. As all old religions saw the stars as a great influence on human life, so do our dreams. This was made real to me when I dreamt a great dream with the Star Beings. It was a dream about things we call Gods, but not the sort of gods shown in films about them, but beings whose bodies were the stars and creative forces of the universe. We have called them the Astrological signs. And in some dreams they may be an intimation of such wonderful powers. See The Star Beings

Dim light: The clarity of daytime consciousness is dimmed.

Very bright light: Intuition, enabling you to see things more clearly and often including so much of your life and its meaning; the Self; a mega concept.

Spot or searchlight: Focusing attention on what is shown.

Flickering or dimming lights: Uncertainty; struggle to understand; loss of power or mental clarity; feelings about approaching death. Also can show a change of normal awareness, from darkness to light, saying something unusual is about to be experienced.

Projected light, as with a film or slides: See: projector.

 Example: ‘I am alone in the house. It begins to grow dark, so I switch the light on, but the light is very dim. So I go to another room and try another light, but this light is even dimmer. I carry on like this all over the house until I am in virtual darkness and very frightened.’ J. W.

J. W. was six at the time of the dream, and here light depicts feelings of sureness or confidence, which give way to anxiety. The light is the opposite to the emotions of fear which arise from within.

 Example: “I had that experience you were talking about”, she said. I had been talking about awareness of the eternal – cosmic consciousness. “There was great light. Light was everywhere.”  Again she was like a child, an Oriental child, full of wonder at what it had seen.

Example: I got out of bed and went towards the mouse. As I did so I saw that it was not just white, but shining. It also seemed to grow larger, first to the size of a rat, then to that of the cat. I was now close to it and it looked enormous, shining with an inner light, white and radiant. It was a thing of great beauty. Its eyes especially struck me. They were pink, but also shining.

Idioms: Bright lights; cold light of day; come to light; hide ones light; in it’s true light; lighter side; in a good light; see the light; light at the end of the tunnel; throw a light on. See:  DarkGlow.; day; flames.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What happens to the light in my dream?

Does the light affect you in any way?

Did you feel any inspiration of fear?

See Dreams are Like a Computer Game Colour and Energy in DreamsClicking On

Lightning

Sudden discharge of tension in a possibly destructive manner. Sudden enlightenment or realisation. Fear of fate or punishment from conscience. Revenge. Sudden and disturbing change or release of emotions or sexuality.

Sometimes information leading to a realisation builds up over time, but in a flash is put together forming a new, perhaps life changing, insight. The build up toward a change in life style or direction might similarly occur, and so may be depicted by lightning. It is the build up of tension, whether of insight or emotion, and its sudden breakthrough into consciousness that lightning represents. See: aura.

Killed by lightning: Life changes occurring. These changes may be arising from within through the expression of aspects of oneself previously not released. The energy of the lightning may be repressed powerful drives – such as teenage sexuality – and may be felt as destructive. The repression of oneself in this way feels like death, or that one is not fully alive.

Lightning struck tree: Death in some form. i.e. the loss of love, the ending of some part of ones personality, etc.

Lightning striking someone: Pent up emotions or sexuality in connection with the person. If the person is a male, it may refer to tension or held back feelings being expressed in connection with a male friend or partner.

Example: My husband and I were walking around a rocky area. We were on a flat part, but there was rocky hillock on our right. My husband was ahead of me. We were each carrying a child. Mine was female and my husband’s was male. I looked down at the rocks we were walking across and saw they were covered in a bright yellow substance. At first I thought it might be gold, but then smiled as I realised it was probably paint. It was shiny and I was worried it would be slippery and I was walking carefully, but it seemed okay. The scene changed and we were now in a poorly lit room, no children but with a shadowy male figure. We were chatting amiably. Then I noticed my husband was wearing a pair of light coloured trousers and he was fidgeting as if he wanted to go to the toilet. He was almost squirming and a fart escaped. I said he had better go to the toilet. He got up and went out of the room. Suddenly a big shadow seemed to come over the place and a great force attacked the place. I felt it was lightning or some power descended and wrecked the place. The walls crumbled, a direct hit. I was then swept along by the force horizontally above the ground outside. I was very frightened and scared that my body was damaged. I was swept passed the shadowy man who was in a corner. I saw I was heading for a brick wall and didn’t know if the force would smash me against it, over it or through it. H. K.

This dream is interesting in that it not only illustrates lightning in a dream, but because of the dreamers associations shows how such dreams are formed. HK had travelled abroad and was trying to establish herself in the new country. After some months she had managed to get a job, but was sacked at the end of a month without warning. The employers refused to tell her why, but from information gathered, it appeared to be money problems in the company, as they could hire someone else for a third of HK’s wages. So it seems likely the rocky ground is the life situation she and her husband are in – rocky in that it is a new country and quite difficult to establish themselves. The going is not easy. The child they are carrying is their own vulnerable feelings. The lightning is the sudden event in H.K’s life. She feels carried along by events she appears to have no power over. Lastly, in their bedroom a rather attractive bare brick wall faced their bed. Prior to the dream, on the morning after her dismissal, her husband had woken, looked at the foot of the bed against the wall and jokingly said, ‘It’s looks like were up against a brick wall’ referring to the Idioms ‘Back against the wall’ and ‘Bang ones head against a brick wall.’

But the lightning and the house being smashed depicted big changes.  And that was what happened because the woman quickly found a much better job with a millionaire family where she worked for many years. But shortly afterwards her husband did get fidgety and left the marriage. At the time she saw him as a fart.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did the lightening hit or damage anything?

Did it produce any changes?

What do you associate with lightening?

See Associations Working WithBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Lily

Has the same significance as the Indian Lotus. Its roots are in mud, it reaches up through water, and opens in air to the sun. This symbolises the roots of our consciousness in the deeps of the unconscious and material experience. This unfolds into feeling values, emotions, the psychic realm, and eventually blossoms into intellect, self realisation that realises the Sun, or spirit. In the Indian scriptures the petals of the mythical lotus unfold to reveal a jewel at the centre. This represents the unfolding of human consciousness to a realisation of the eternal nature underlying all its activities.

Limp Limping

Limp in the sense of not firm, suggests feelings of mild depression, loss of enthusiasm, or even sexual anxiety, the inability to respond to sexual stimuli. This afflicts men and women, and may be due to excessive pressure of personal expectations on ones own sexual drive. It can also in women be due to the ageing process, so they have to use lubricants because they cannot produce their own. 

Limping See: Lame.

Example: Sarah, my best friend, said she was sorry and put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Her body went limp in some sort of basket chair she was sitting in. I had went to go towards her when I saw the gun but it was too late and I clenched my eyes together when it happened.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was limp, and why did it happen?

Plants go limp from lack of water, do you take enough clean water?

We often go limp when we feel life isn’t worth living?

See Avoid Being VictimsNorman CousinsLife’s Little SecretsLife Changes

Line

Distance; movement; movement in space or time; a dividing force, or a division such as a boundary. This is expressed in the phrases ‘At this point I draw the line’ – ‘This is the bottom line’. If there is a suggestion of this in the dream, someone drawing a line for instance, then it suggests their decisiveness, or their boundary.

Tangled line: Changes and decisions in life; indecision or confusion.

Zigzag line: Movement; change; the basic pleasure or achievement of leaving ones mark.

Link

See: Chain.

Lion Lioness

Lions appear in many dreams, and usually signifies anger, desire to hurt, aggressiveness; or fear of these feelings in others or ourselves. We may feel fear of our own anger due to it threatening injury to others in a way that would reflect upon self, and devour our other feelings and desires. The lion can often express feelings of love that cannot express normally, and become aggressive instead. If we see someone we love showing interest in another, or if we feel ousted by brother or sister for parents’ love, our feelings may seem to us like a terrible lion. Daniel in the lions’ den is a beautiful symbol representing how these feelings may be calmed and changed if our life is given to the influence of love.

The power of our physical strength, of our temper, of our emotions or sexuality; love that has become anger through jealousy or pain; leadership; ones father or fatherhood, or mother if it is a lioness; an image of the father/mother God; leadership; watchfulness or guardianship; self assertion or boasting because of the power of the lions roar. The story of Androcles and the lion shows how the pain felt by our ‘animal’ life process, if tended by the conscious personality, brings a loving relationship between conscious and unconscious.

Many children experience recurring dreams of a lion chasing them through their house. This is most likely due to a developing struggle with their natural feelings of anger and aggression. This because their parents might attempt to quieten or control the child’s temper, or criticise it as ‘bad’.

Being frightened of an attack or possible attack from a lion suggests an ‘attack’ of anxiety or fear about something. Consider the rest of the dream to define what.

Many people dream of being chased or run in fear when they see a lion in their dream. But your dreams are simply a projection of your own emotions or fear upon the screen of your sleeping mind. So why don’t you rerally express those emotions instead of being afraid of your own feelings. Why not roar back!!?? But please see Nothing can Hurt You in Your Dreams

 As an example of what you can do in your dreams, here the dreamer ‘roars’ back!

 Example: When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms. Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Example: A huge black panther chased me. I fell and it clawed my back. I/it was about to chew my back to bite me. I didn’t know whether to relax or struggle. After being floored by the Panther I managed to get up. I later did active imagination. I allowed the panther to eat me, and I thus became the panther. Then I, as the panther, noticed a tiger. Feeling enormous temper – anger – hate I leapt upon the tiger to claw and devour it. I really felt strong temper. It kept really appearing to get smaller and smaller. Eventually I saw it as just a toy cuddly tiger. Then its head came off as a pantomime horse does, and I was amazed to see that my cousin Sidney was inside it, who I felt had mercilessly teased me as a child. The panther was my own feelings of anger.

As an astrological sign, the lion is the sign of Leo, a ‘Fixed’ ‘Fire’ sign. In the dream of a person born with the sun in Leo, the lion may represent their basic character. It is said to be the heart of the Zodiac. In it all the activities of Aries have been concentrated and given purpose, permanence, passion and a certain nobility. It is the Royal Sign denoting Love, the Ruler of Life. Subjects of this sign are said to be proudly ‘faithful’ and scorn what is weak, small-minded, or mean. It is the sign of the Sun – the physical and also the Divine Sun. In terms of human evolution the sign of Leo represents rulership of the animal kingdom, to become a dominant creature, expressing the best of the instinctive and natural within human nature. Thus in The Witch and The Wardrobe, the greatest strength and unifying influence is the lion. But there is a step beyond this into independent awareness where one recognises oneself not only as the powerful and creative universal animal life, but as an individual human being as well.

Useful questions and hints:

Are there signs that this is about anxiety or anger – if so can I define what they connect with?

If the lion suggests strength and protectiveness, am I relating well to it?

What do I feel if I imagine myself as the lion?

What are the key words I use in describing this dream?

See: key wordsBeing the Person or ThingMammal Brain

Lip Lips

It mostly indicates speech and sharing of intimacy like kissing or licking. As such any problems with the lips would most likely be words that you spoke that are critical or not well intentioned. And also it could in some way indicate your inability to show intimacy well.

 Example: Last night dreamt I was talking to a series of different people (possibly selling them something) and my lip hurt, felt like a small blister on upper lip slightly left of center. Saw it in mirror and it looked like a pustule but would not pop. Continued to talk to more people and then saw it again, it was about the size of a large blueberry but whitish-yellow in color. Tried to squeeze while looking in mirror trying to see a head/weak spot that would burst, there was none. Woke up. If you have time, try to give me some explanation for this.

This is obviously what you have been trying to say/sell about yourself or something that isn’t quite your truth. I do not know what you have been telling people but you will know when you think about it.

 Example: I am in a room with 3 other women. I’m tired. It’s late at night. I sit on a woman’s lap. We are wearing costumes of some kind. She has her arms around me and kisses me. She tries to “French kiss” me. At first, I don’t let her. Then I do. It’s not a French kiss, like with tongues. It’s like touching the core of something. The lips, a regular kiss, were there and in the center, like in the center of a flower, was a moist, tender, and very sensitive to feeling something. We touched “cores.” I felt slightly repelled but allowed it to happen. Something in my mind was assuring me this is O.K. It’s always been forbidden but now it is O.K. and nice to do. It is important to do. She holds me in a caring way.

Example: The vivid part was that the cat spoke to me. It spoke in a rather female voice, very clearly. As it spoke I felt great amazement. I had lots of thoughts about how it had learned language – that it could speak because of human language – what did language do to its mind – and so on. I didn’t reach any conclusions. I noticed as it spoke that it had tiny lips, but they were perfectly formed like a woman’s. They had lipstick on – or at least were red and attractive.

Idioms: a fat lip; a stiff upper lip; button your lip; don’t give me any of your lip; lip; lip off; lips are sealed; none of your lip; read my lips; rented lips; there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip; your lip; lippy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you attracted or repelled by the lips?

Did you want to or did you kiss?

What feelings were involved in the dream?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsInner WorldAges of LoveBeing the Person or Thing

Liquid

As the examples show, liquid can represent many things, from blood to amniotic fluid. It can indicate the delicate flow of nervous energy, the flow or losses of sexual energy, urinating, even the pouring out of your self to others, or its restriction. See: Water.

Because feelings are often felt to flow within us, as when we listen to rousing music, or notice a feeling in the chest which moves to the throat, then may become crying or some other expressed emotion, they may be shown in a dream as fluid.

It depends very much on what the liquid is – medicine, acid, poison, alcohol, water.

The heart, or courage, can turn to water, meaning that resolves have become soft. Or the heart can melt, suggesting a change of heart, opening to sympathy. To become liquid is usually to change, to become soft, to realise your innate formlessness and flowing nature. If your legs turn to water, then your motives have let you down.

Liquid in bottle: A change of feelings, as when we drink wine or medicine; influenced by exterior emotions; contained or withheld emotions. Look up what the liquid is in the dictionary

White liquid: Milk of kindness, self-giving; or sperm, the magic fluid out of which life emerges.

 Example: Finger and feet began to get cold. An icy coldness slowly spread all over my body. A liquid warmth was then all around me. I thought I was haemorrhaging. A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L.

Example: I have a two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to inject him. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage.

Example: I dreamed I was urinating. (BTW, I am male). In the dream I was having severe pain in my bladder and genitals. As I urinated, I began to pass bright red blood only ….forcing out all liquid from my bladder. As the flow ceased, I could feel my bladder refilling with blood and it would start over again. This went on for a few cycles until I woke myself up. Unfortunately I have had pain now there since the dream (for about 4 days).

Example: “I was looking at a little match box shaped thing and one looked into it like a window. I looked at my arm through the window, then my vision was full of patterns of my energy going up and down my arm. It was very beautiful, leaf like shapes with glass like balls and clear liquid but even the liquid making patterns on the move up and down.” Wendy O.

Example: Not sand coming out but liquid, mucous membrane. . . . . pouring through. . Smash the walls –look in –semi transparent. Step in, fluid is warm, I lay in it, I can breath under it. . I am a seal (the baby who can emerge from the water?). This is the, way of lightness. . I want out. . Just fluid. Hold me here forever. The essence of life. You can live and dwell in this. . I want out. . . I‘m still in the bubble, but standing up. . Fairy land, sparkle & images. . Uncertain. Fluid stuck to me still attached.

Example: Suddenly a bottle in the bag my wife was carrying the picnic lunch in fell over and spilled a sticky brown liquid on the floor and on me. It was a large cider bottle. I tried to stand it upright, but my wife had hold of the plastic shopping bag so tightly I couldn’t, and the liquid still ran out. I shouted at her, “Let go. Let go!”

When the dream was explored the dreamer found the part of the dream carrying the picnic lunch represents a social occasion. The place is somebody else’s home – anybody. My wife carries the equipment for this. The bottle is the pouring out of your own soul. Being sticky means you do not enjoy the feeling of this. You try to prevent this because you see it as a loss of power. Love brings so much energy you will have more than enough. The struggle is the pushing against the outflow of yourself. The cry of let go is to break the hold others have over you. They demand your feelings, your love. You do not wish to give. You bring the wrong attitude to this.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do I react to the liquid?

Do I take it or refuse it?

Does the dream explain it in any way?

See Associations Working WithClicking OnSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

List

The list may be a personal reminder of things that need doing, so may refer to changes you need to make in your life, or things to attend to at work or in a relationship, depending on the setting of the dream. The list may refer to personal qualities, a sort of summary of your abilities or potential. It may remind you of important realisations, important facts or situations which you need to be aware of. List in dreams may also present you with choices to make, so refer to decisions you are facing.

Are you on a list of people – if so is it a waiting list, or a list with the ‘best’ at the top? What feelings do you have about the list? A healing list, or a list to be included or not included in an activity, a mailing list, or a list of people you fancy?

Some people have a list of things they want to do – in life or before they die. A list of places they want to visit or spend time in. Doyou have a list of what yu want to achieve?

 Example: We were looking over lists of concerts (rock). He said, “You’ve probably not been to many.” I said, “Ha. I certainly have.” He showed me his arm. Two rock groups were engraved in red on his arm. “The Million Dollar Kid” and the “Crystal XXX.” We strolled down the street. I told him how the people had kindly re-hired me and that I was feeling pretty good now and I could handle it.

Example: He was jealous of my interest in this other man. I told him, “Hey, I’m 21 years old.” He looked hurt and scared. He sneered and said, “If you see this man, I’ll cut you off from my money. Ha! How will you support yourself?” I felt confident, strong. I said, “I have skills and talents.” I listed some and added that I could type 70 words a minute and if I had to, I could be a clerk-typist. I wouldn’t starve. I left him.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was your dream list about?

Did it list particular things?

Was it about you as a person or someone else?

See Summing UpBeing the Person or ThingCharacters and People in DreamsMartial Art of the Mind

Listen Listening Listener

Many of us never learn to listen but keep up a continuous conversation that has nothing to do with what was said by the other person. I get the impression that they have said it all before and do not think up something new, just old tapes playing.

Listening is important because if we do not learn it we could miss hearing the intuition that would guide us in the most satisfying direction in life. Perhaps we miss hearing the many things the person we are going to marry is telling us, or even what our body is telling us about how it feels when we eat. Often we are so busy thinking our own thoughts that we completely do not hear what our children or those near us are telling us.

As an example my youngest son Quentin had been asleep so I left him to take the dog for a walk. When I came back I found him awake, sitting in the boy’s bedroom in the chair by a sleeping Mark. He had obviously found an empty house and sorted out the only company he could find. His comforter firmly in his mouth, and a bag of toy animals in his hand, he was sitting quietly. When I came in he scolded me for having gone without him. Later as I was getting the boys sandwiches and taking Quentin to the toilet, he said his legs had gone off and he needed to be carried. I refused and said he could perfectly well walk downstairs. We argued this out and he gradually walked downstairs shouting, but at the kitchen door he refused to walk any further, and feeling irritated I said he could jolly well stay there then.

Later in the day I suddenly saw so clearly the meaning of this little drama. I saw how because I had left him alone he had been afraid and had sat with his sleeping brother as his only armour against this fear. He was really saying, “Dad I was frightened and alone when you weren’t here. Please come to me to show you really want me. Come and pick me up so I can see you love me.”

Blind fool that I am, I couldn’t see this, and now my tears of regret poured out in deeply felt sobs. I wanted to get to Quentin so quickly, to tell him I was sorry, and show him I loved him.

When we dream of listening it is important to ask yourself what tone or voice, what attitude it was spoken with. Also was someone trying to persuade you, or was it something you could understand that was good.

Example: When I started walking down the aisle, my father grabbed me by the arm. I was startled. Then he followed me up to the front of the auditorium saying that I had to come with him. I tried to tell him that I was in the middle of something and I couldn’t. I hadn’t even gotten my diploma yet. He got upset and started to lecture me about not listening to him, and said that he was trying to give me something and I should pay more attention to him. So I went up to the stage and got my diploma, went back to my seat, which was in the front row. I put down the end of my rope on my seat and went to see what he wanted. I was upset because I wasn’t able to see my friends graduate. My dad gave me my graduation gift. He gave me a piece of paper that told me what my graduation gift was. All I read was Theta Chi Theta, Spring and the word Baseball.

Example: They refused to listen to my feelings…what I needed.  I ended up feeling devastated, hurt, angry, resentful…acting it out… carrying the baggage of the situation for the whole family.  They turned their backs on me; there is nothing I can do to change that.

Example: He listens for the sound of me with his ears, and watches for the sight of me with his eyes. In the stretches of woodland by the road he waits for me, in the dusk and in the morning he seeks me out, even in the midday and in the rain. Expectant of heart, I await the coming of the elephant, for I loved him even in my fear.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I playing ‘old tapes’ or was I listening?

Did what was said fully engage me?

Was it a new thought or idea that I heard?

If I was talking what was the response from those listening?

See listening skills Martial Art of the MindSumming UpBeing the Person or thing

Lithe

Emotional or mental adaptability, lack of bigotry or obstinacy.

Little

Does not impress your conscious self. The feelings of childhood. The ability to avoid notice. To feel small or insignificant.

Little People

But there are very real little people and maybe you are one of them, for without them the human world would and could not function. For the little people are the hidden and often overlooked and miserably treated miraculous power in the world

Yes, I am talking about you, who stacks the shelves in a supermarket for hardly any reward; you the farm labourer who with good will provides for so many; the housewife and mother who gives her very body to raising children and often alone and unrewarded carries on. You the factory worker who is paid just enough to keep up with costs, the nurses who work and care; and you the millions of middle men who are the truck drivers, the load carriers, the unheaded and unknown wonders of the world who make it work, who are the salt of the earth.

You are the little people who without being really recognised and understood actually are the ones who stupidly make the breakfast, create the enormously expensive house and car of the Big People who could not even get their breakfast, or wipe their arses with soft paper without your work – you Little People.

Why do you carry on when they are earning not just twice as much as you – but thousands of times what you are rewarded? What silly beliefs have you been fed to not see that without you the human world would not work – that without you they would all be helpless.

As much as we see ourselves as the top of the rung as human beings, we actually depend entirely on the little people to survive – the bacteria, the plant kingdom, the insects and the wonderful animals, just to live. It is all the Little People who create the conditions for us to survive.

Lived Living

See Life Living; Life’s Little Secrets

Liver

Apart from being a body dream that may be pointing out some dietary need, it often symbolises a state of irritability or long suffering.

Irritability; suggestion for health or diet changes, perhaps in connection with alcohol. See: bodyDream Body.

Livers were often used in the past by diviners to tell the future.

The liver also carries a lot of glycogen. If you eat far more carbohydrates than you need, glucose and glycogen can be turned into a long-term storage form – fat. If really starved of fuel the body can break down protein in muscle tissue to use as fuel. Sugar and most sweeteners including honey, malt, maple syrup, molasses and very refined foods, like most biscuits, cakes, white bread and cereals, whose processing and overcooking has already turned their complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, are fast-releasing. Hardly requiring any digestion, they release their sugar content so rapidly into the bloodstream that they are akin to putting racing fuel into a mini. The blood sugar level rises rapidly, often giving a noticeable boost to energy, then the body races to lower blood sugar levels to avoid flooding, and blood sugar levels plummet, often too low, causing a drop in energy one to three hours after eating. This is called low blood sugar or hypoglycaemia in the blood often causing headaches).

Glucose levels in the blood are our short-term storage of fuel. The more even this supply, the better our cells can function. They are neither starved nor flooded with fuel and can call on reserves when needed. The blood sugar balance is carefully controlled by hormones, chemical messengers released from endocrine glands. Insulin from the pancreas helps lower blood sugar levels by helping to transport glucose from the blood into the cells. The manufacture of insulin depends upon vitamin B6 and zinc. Drinking alcohol is bad for the liver because it uses up the B vitamins the liver needs.

Around fifteen thousand deaths and two hundred thousand injuries associated with drunken driving occur yearly in the United States. Alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver is one of the major causes of death; vast absenteeism, accidents, and job loss in business and industry occur, with an annual estimated loss of $500,000,000; many, if not most, divorces and broken homes occur in connection with excessive drinking; one-third to one-half of all traffic arrests are for drunkenness, far outnumbering any other category of arrest; 60 per cent of all arrests are for offenses directly related to use of alcoholic beverages, and 50 per cent of those in prison committed their crimes after alcohol consumption.

Example: I go out of my house to get in my car and discover the side has been bashed in. “I know who did that,” I say. “My father.” (My father stilted my ambition, my motivation to be/do something by always putting me down, making me feel inadequate/not good enough. My body the side of it=the liver, weakened from drinking – a legacy from my father?)

Example: Dreamt Ann had become my lover. Also, as I drove back to Welcombe from marketing, I realised I had recently several times mentioned Prometheus chained to a rock and having his liver devoured – by, as I added, guilt. My liver and large intestine have not felt comfortable and I wondered if there was a connection.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does my dream point to – a physical or psychological situation?

Have I felt guilt recently?

Do I drink a great deal?

See Avoid Being VictimsLife’s Little SecretsDefence Mechanisms and ResistancesLife Changes

Lizard

The lizard usually depicts your most fundamental and inbuilt responses, such as the fight or flight response, drive to procreate, territorial feelings, ritual behaviour. These are part of your primitive brain functions, and are very necessary. Because of this, the lizard and more so the snake, can represent the very process of life in you. This life activity flows through your functions and expresses as what you experience. So emotions for instance, are a particular expression of this life process. But emotions can be crippling when they are all to do with fear, guilt and self-incrimination. Therefore the lizard or snake can be shown as deadly, poisonous, and it then needs to be led in another direction. i.e. your emotions and anxieties, those basic responses, need re-channelling.

Llama

This is simply another animal unless you live in South America, so will have the basic associations of less restrained or socialised impulses, emotions and sexuality. But its special associations might be that in its native country it is a beast of burden. It lives at high altitudes, so might represent hardiness or rarefied life. Also it looks so mild and gentle, but in fact can be quite aggressive. So it might be something that looks like a sheep but has more aggression. See horse.

Useful questions are:

Am I riding the llama – if so what does this say about my relationship with my body?

What is my relationship with the llama and how does this reflect on the way I relate to the natural urges in me?

Am I going places in my life I haven’t attempted before?

Lobster

Sexuality when it appears aggressive and protective; being protective or defended. .

Lobsters are a favourite food for those who can afford them, and if you are dreaming about them it may reflect you appetite for a night out or new acquaintances,

 Example: I had a dream where I was in a room with a big window with people I cannot recall. We felt something, and I said, “Did you feel that?” then we hear noises and someone said it was the crabs or lobsters. I look around and they were everywhere! They were making human noises. A light turned off for a moment, and then when the light turned back on they had passed us. I could still hear the noise they were making. Someone pointed out they were migrating. This was not a nightmare, but it was a very strange dream that left me with strange feelings.

This one may be about a slight infection at the time of the dream. I suggest this because the crabs or lobsters could be representing an infection leaving you. But something is leaving you, and another possibility is that you had let go of hard emotions, the sort where you have shut others out of our life. Maybe even protecting yourself in some way.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings or associations do I have with lobsters?

Do they frighten me?

Do you wish for the extravagant life?

See fish/shellfishAssociations Working WithSecrets of Power Dreaming

Loch Lochness

A loch is a strange and magical place, as it is set amongst legends and history of the highlands of Scotland. So if it appears in your dreams it can be linked with the mystery of your own life and the forces of nature and the waters around you. In this state nature, your own inner nature, can speak to you in its own language, the language of the elements, wonderful, threatening or uplifting.

 Example: Wanted to share a strange experience I had, I did a canoe wilderness camping trip on loch Morar, in Scotland. It was a rare day, as believe it or not, it was not raining, the sun was shining, loch flat calm like a mirror, I was happily paddling along, felt as if I was floating in an in-between world as the sky and clouds  were reflected in the water. On my right side, I became aware of a shape skimming along side of me, only about 3 feet away. I was amazed to see that it was a buzzard; it was so close I could reach out and touch it, wing tips actually touching the water. It stared at me as it flew past, and then let out one of those high pitched ki noises they make, which made my whole body quiver, partly due to being startled by the noise. I am not sure what was actually going on, but it was a special moment, one that  will always be with me, I most certainly felt blessed, just wished I could understand buzzard language.

Loch Ness: Can indicate the immense depth and age of the land and water. The Loch Ness monster is about the most ancient part of you being realised again. See dinosaur

 Example: I dreamt I was on a ship and we were jibbing and racing through very dangerous tropical waters and we came up to an island and docked and as we docked, I jumped into the water next to this animal we were all fascinated by. It was a plesiosaurus – like Loch Ness monster I think – a water dinosaur and it had a tattoo on its neck – it was somewhat indifferent but not unfriendly.

We were all like ‘number 23xxx it really does exist’ and it was like a science experiment, lab animal, we had read about, that we didn’t really believe existed, but we found it in this strange land – it was very cathartic and triumphant. I really want to go on more adventures and this dream was soooo nice, I just want to understand it better and find out about the dinosaur.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can you go on the grand adventure of exploring the ancient land of dreams?

Was fear a part of your dream?

In what way did you react to the Loch Ness monster?

See Secrets of Power DreamingLevels of the BrainBeing the Person or Thing

Lock Locked Locking

A problem, often of a logical nature, that can be unlocked, if you have the key. Also the female sex organs. The lock or locking can depict emotions or physical tensions we use to keep others from ‘getting at us’, or to prevent our own urges or fears from being experienced or expressed; desire to keep something safe or protected – such as ones honour or emotions; feeling trapped; vagina; sexual tension. See: Key.

The emotions or physical tensions we use to keep others from ‘getting at us’, or to prevent our own urges or fears from being experienced or expressed; desire to keep something safe or protected – such as ones honour or emotions; feeling trapped by ones own emotional responses; vagina experiencing sexual tension. Occasionally it can be a problem which needs a specific solution – the key; our ability to choose – whether to let someone into intimate relationship.

A key may lie in being able to express ourselves beyond the often iron wall of social normality. These are some of the spectrum of inner qualities you are healthily capable of as a whole human being. Sometimes people say ‘I have never expressed myself like this before; I wonder if I am bizarre’. The answer is that only whole human beings are capable of a wide range of expression which they can choose to end at any moment. It is the unhealthy person who is locked into compulsive and limited patterns of behaviour. Liberation is a sign of health.

Example: I was in a large house – probably the kitchen. I discovered a lock, bright and sparkling, that had its keyhole covered up. On it were drawn pictures of a young woman. I felt it was a part of the puzzle regarding the big house, and belonged to a room that was now so locked, and even the keyhole covered, that it had been forgotten and lost. Finding the lock was rediscovering the mysteries of the house. The room and lock associated with love for the young woman depicted on the lock – a very sentimental love. I felt very emotional just looking at the pictures.

The dreamer, on exploring his dream realised he was a latent homosexual who kept his female self locked up.

The next example so from a man exploring his feelings of being old, incapable, without creativeness and also without a female partner. His statement is important because it deal with a huge conflict that is not only his but is one that society itself has never dealt with.

Example: The sense of being lost, of hopelessness and of not going anywhere got so strong that I could see no way out of it. It was like a real environment surrounding me, a real perception of what was happening in my life, rather than a FEELING of what was happening. It was so real that I started to feel that maybe ‘this is it’. Maybe this is real and therefore I have to adjust to it, to accept it as the reality of old age and my life. This must be what old age is about and therefore it is escapism not to meet it and accept it. No wonder I wanted to die. In the end, as one ages, one has to take second best. If this is real, and at this point I was feeling it was, then there is no creative way out of the situation. I had missed the boat in career, in my teenage years, in my adult life because I had spent years trying to climb out of the pit of depression and psychological distress.

I know I am capable of creative resolution of any problem, of any life situation. I know we are all capable of creative resolution – if we are daring enough to feel, to explore, to sense, to be capable of change and adaptation. So why have I been in this situation for years now? Why am I stuck in this place? Having asked this question I had an insight that I had got into a negative feedback loop. Because I had got stuck in this place, then I feared I was stuck in this place, which produced the certainty I was stuck, which produced the inability to move out. We feed back to ourselves images of failure and feelings of unattractiveness, and all the other negative feelings we all meet during the week. Instead of looking at them and seeing them as passing feelings, we take them as impressions of reality and drown in them. We accept them as true and start to live them. When that happens we see conformation for the negatives and so it goes on.

I tried to find the way out of the loop. The only way out I could find was the realisation that the loop has no end. There is only one thing to do, stop it playing. Grab it and stop the crazy record. To help with this, to help grab the thing and kill it, we obviously have to realise it is untrue. I can’t remember the connections, but this led me to wonder what was happening in my relationship with Hy, and what part this negativity was playing in our relationship. I remembered the time we spent together, and the last night where I had rejected her reaching out to me. I saw that I didn’t have anything in me to respond to her. I was empty as I have been so often empty of late – empty and defeated – empty and pointless.

This was a very important question, and an important moment in the session. The event and the question sum up a huge mass of my experience and events in my life and in relationship with my wife. Suddenly the whole session opened up and I began to feel I was breaking through the restrictions and negative feelings I had been locked in for so long. This appeared to arise almost fully developed as an insight, as if it was already formed from past experience and realisation, but was being received and acknowledged now. It was that the whole difficulty arose around my sexual relationship with my wife and other women. The insight had many aspects.

It was because I had slowly killed myself to live a non-sexual life with my wife, and I wanted something more than that. Although this was obvious and I had admitted such to myself many years ago, yet it was such a difficult thing for me to accept fully. I could accept it as a fantasy. I could accept it as an occasional temptation from which I would recover. But it was hell to accept it as a fundamental fact of my nature, and as something I wanted to live out. That was so difficult that I had strung myself out in this difficult place for years. I had been creating a sort of self-torture, self-immolation, for years. I had hoped the pain and conflict would resolve in some spiritual way, but it hadn’t. In fact in the past two years it had got worse. But now I couldn’t lie to myself any longer. I wanted a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

I felt that I had locked myself in a prison of denial, and I could not admit to myself that our marriage had failed. I felt myself emerge from the difficulty, and be capable of admitting to myself and others that I wanted, and was ready to move toward, sexual relatedness. This was accompanied by a release throughout my body and feelings. I felt confident and creative. I felt ready to write and put down this dilemma we face as a society. It is a dilemma that creates prostitution. I felt that the issues I am writing about are strong and I have a real place in the world when I define and communicate them.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream showing me I have locked up?

Have I discovered what the key is to unlock myself?

Are my tension and depression signs of my locked position?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Locomotive

See: Railway.

Loft

See: Attic.

Log

It can either be old opinions, or old habits of feeling, or it is something that was alive and growing in you at one time and has now become dead wood, fixed opinion. Sometimes it represents what you have inherited from the past, perhaps from your family or forebears. It might even suggest unresponsiveness. See: Wood.

 Logs can appear in many ways in dreams:

Dream Log: See journal

Firewood: See firewood

Hiding behind logs: It may suggest you are feeling you are not one of the crowd and so hide so the ‘crowd’ will pass you by. Or if you are in natural surroundigs are you hiding from an animal? Are you hiding from an enemy, if so see enemy and animal

Huge logs: Represents a huge natural resource. Depending what your interests are it could be for building something, making something like furniture, or even for burning. See wood

Log bridge: Something that you have built out of your own natural resources that give you a link with others, provides a solution to a problem, or allows more ‘traffic’ through your life.

Log cabin: Usually represents a quiet and secluded state of mind and built of ones own thoughts, longings and effort. A natural environment to live in or to raise a child. A place you built with love and spirit. A place to make love in or have a honeymoon in – indicating thoughts and feelings about getting close to someone.

Log in: Represents an attempt to contact or influence or partake of or get something shown in the dream. It could be an introduction to a relationship, and attempt to ‘connect’ with them or communicate with them.

Example: I am currently unemployed and looking for work in my waking life. Last night, I had a dream that I had got off from work and I got my paycheck. My mom took me to the grocery store to use the ATM machine to get some money, while she buys something. I was trying to log in and to get some cash, but the machine never came on. Then, I read on the note on the side of the ATM, and it said that the machine was not working.

Log out: An attempt to not continue with whatever you were logged in to. A goodbye to someone, or an opportunity.

Log jams: This usually indicates something that is holding back your free flowing energy or motivation. It could mean blocked sexual feeling, emotions, ideas or plans

 Example: I have two powerful dreams to solve: in one I meet a giant and his son. He is clearing a log jam in river I abruptly come to at the end of a long drive to find my way home (or to relatives).

Raft: See raft

Ships log: See ship

Weapon: A log can often be used as a weapon, so represents using an old an established way to hurt or even kill something within you, or venting aggressive feelings. See weapon

 Example: We get into a van and drive up a freeway exit the wrong way and cut across wooded area to park next to the original campsite. Ginny has money in her hand. I say, “There isn’t any wood for the fire,” and then I see some split logs and sticks.

Example: I feel a bit odd not knowing exactly what is happening, so I decide to step off the road into a little gully and conceal myself behind a big fallen log to watch this massive migration of people. I don’t seem to belong with these people, although a few glance at me, no one takes any particular notice of me one way or another. A young man comes along, maybe in his late teens, and he sees me and chooses to step off the road as well, and joins me beside the log as an observer. I find that somewhat strange , but he is not threatening in any way. I don’t think we exchanged words, yet somehow we knew that we were not like those others, and we just sat together for awhile watching. the hoards slowly pass by.

Idioms: drop a log; log off; log on; saw logs; sleep like a log

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the log being used for?

Do I use logs to heat my home or to build a fire?

What associations do I have with logs?

See Associations Working WithBeing the Person or ThingClicking On

London

Like any large town, the meaning in your dream depends on whether you have lived or visited London. To understand your dream then you will find it useful to read Associations Working With

 Or see city and towncapital

Example: I was in an area of flats, like in London. I realise that I have been in this dream area many times before. An old man, rather Merlin magician type, lived in an open area near the flats. His house was disguised, rather like camouflage on the outside.

Example: Dreamt I was in London and flew from somewhere near Fleet Street. I flew toward the river and saw lovely streets, old but attractive, with many interesting shops. Flying on I came to the river thames itself, huge and wide. I landed in a street full of open fronted shops, like a market. I felt what a wonderful place London was – so varied and full of life and creative trade and people.

Example: The war was on. I was in London. I drove off in a Jaguar car that I knew was not mine. Bombs had blasted buildings. A baby had been injured, and an elderly man with black hair (father?). He had a piece of shrapnel in the lower abdomen, and two men were trying to help him, sitting him up. I rushed up and looked at the man, telling them not to give him any water. Then I asked them if they had phoned the doctor or an ambulance. They said they had.

The dreamer had lived during the war, and after it finished had seen the damage in London, where whole miles of buildings had been destroyed. So the injured baby was probably a trauma he had experienced.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening to you in the dream?

Where any memories involved of being in London?

Did you have any preconceived thoughts about London that shaped your dream?

Quite a number of Americans do not have any sense of where London is and what it is like.

See Visit LondonSecrets of Power DreamingContext/ThemeClicking On

Lonely Loneliness

Loneliness is most keenly felt when we miss being with or have lost contact with a partner or friend. It is probably normal when young and seeking a life partner, as it is the push we need to overcome barriers.

But unfortunately many of us never grow to our full potential, held back by many circumstances that are possible to overcome if we apply ourselves. To become a whole human being we need to become independent in many ways – which means we are not haunted by depending on another person. Obviously there is a lot more to it, but please read Life’s Little Secrets; Individuation; Habits

 Many of us also fail to realise the changes we face as we age. So often we are still living in a baby or childhood level. These are so full of dependencies and often we blame such awful feelings on other or even ourselves. See Ages of Love; Every 7 Years You Change

Our Core or whole Self, that is free from many dependencies, often appears as a deer, or woodland creature in dreams. Below is a quote from Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbols.

 Example: “I am your child and your mother. They call me the ‘connecting animal’ because I connect people, animals, and even stones with one another if I enter them. I am your fate or the ‘objective I.’ When I appear, I redeem you from the meaningless hazards of life. The fire burning inside me burns in the whole of nature. If a man loses it, he becomes egocentric, lonely, disoriented, and weak.”

Example: I felt lonely, terribly lonely, for it, longing for the nearness of someone I loved. My face was against my left bicep. It was the only human comfort I could find – myself. I rolled my head back and forth across the softness of my bicep. Then, as my aloneness became more intense, I suckled my bicep like a breast, longing for the warmth only I could give myself at that moment.

The person felt this as they were remembering a childhood feeling of being hurt emotionally.

 Example: I had, or was, a deformed baby, having four eyes, and a somewhat distorted face. The eyes were operated on, two being removed. But the baby grew up a dwarf, very lonely, and shy.

The dreamer commented on his dream saying, “I spoke mentally to the four-eyed dwarf. I asked, “Why were you born deformed?” He replied, “I am the part of you born deformed, not fully developed, you’re sin from the past.”

“Why did you have four eyes?” “Because I looked four two many things. Through trying to look in too many directions there was confusion.”

“What does it mean that you stood outside my door?” “It means that we were so close, and yet had never met.”

“When you met the larger dwarf, what is that?” “Now we have met. You are but a larger, not complete, dwarf. Together we make wonderful person. The large dwarf is two-thirds grown, I am only one-third. Together we are complete.”

The dreamer was in fact a very shy, lonely and retiring person, but the dream was one footstep on his path to become whole.

 Example: The following dream has a very deep meaning and a clear guidance-message: The dreamer is in a dark, swampy forest. It is night. He has lost his way and is desperate, not knowing where to go, wallowing in the morass . . . He is not religious, but he falls on his knees and begins to pray, imploring the Higher Forces to help him out of this predicament and to show him the way!. . Suddenly a clear ray of light appears from the black sky, moving and showing a stable way among the boggyness. He rushes forward! But after several steps on the right path — he loses it and feels very frightened and lonely. He falls on his knees again, praying and begging for guidance and help. . . The golden ray reappears from above, leading him out of the dark and swampy dangerous forest. . Three or four times he goes astray, losing the right way. The helpful golden beam always reappears after he offers a sincere and deep prayer to be shown the right direction, where to go, the way out of the darkness and bog. . . His prayer was right: he asked no favors, no gifts, only the right way.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you still dependent on others to make you feel happy?

What do you need in you life?

Can you accept yourself – if not what is it you find difficult?

What makes you feel whole and happy?

See Methods of AwakeningAvoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Long

See length; time; time of day

.

Longing

Longing for the thing we don’t have, the more we long for it the more we suffer. And the minute we step back into the consciousness of love and wholeness, the better we feel. It’s an old magic and it works and it’s foolproof and it’s easy. We wouldn’t feel the longing if it wasn’t for the fact that we know of love.  All we need to do is sense the love beneath the longing, it is that love that drives the longing, and to really own our own loving, to honour our own loving, we will then be immediately free.

So we suffer all sort of heartaches because we cannot control it and make it do what we want it to. We mistakenly say, “I love you!” What we really mean is that love bubbles up in me when I see you.

Very often we fail to see the love that is given or offered to us, and pass on still longing for love or sex. I remember when I was young and blind walking though a wood longing to meet someone to love me. Suddenly a large Labrador dog rushed up to me full of enthusiasm and love. I patted it and passed on still seeking love. We do not open to it for it comes to us from all living creatures and if we let ourselves feel it as it is offered instead of demanding it from a certain person, or from certain sources, we might feel wonderful satisfaction. But also longing for it suggests we can only receive it from other people and need someone or something else to get it from. That means you will never really find it, because you have repressed it bubbling up within you.

If you cannot feel that, it may be because you have strict rules or beliefs about what love is. Love in nature does not have rules, but is like sunlight, lighting everyone.

But longing can be about many other things than love, but it still involves a sense of not being whole in oneself. Many people are deeply depressed when what they do is not recognised or  praised. A lack of praise in a relationship beween parents and a child can be as severe as any beating. Many people long to be famous, probably because of all it brings. Women I have met have such a deep need to be sexually adored that without it they do not feel complete. Many men also cannot last long without having sex with a woman – any woman.

Example: But the greatest impact came as I went deeper into the dream.  I realised with absolute certainty that there was no way out of my desperate longing to be free of my pain.  It was quite terrible to realise I was forever trapped. But at the same time I realised that love was like breathing. I couldn’t, didn’t want to, stop loving either my children or my wife. As long as I could, I would suffer the pain the conflict produced.

The realisation that there was no escape had a profound effect on me.  My whole inner being collapsed.  I had completely given up.  There was no more point in making any effort.  Then everything went quiet.  Even my breathing slowed down, until, breakthrough. Then everything fell away and I entered a new relationship with myself that lasted for three days.  I recognised it as what the Buddhists call moksha or liberation.  During those three days I experience total freedom from pain, total freedom in regard to every choice I could make, and I existed all the time in NOW.

Of course it disappeared after the three days.  But I had seen clearly what was creating the pain, and what liberation consisted of.  I, like most of us, had created a world, inside and out, made up of habitual responses to events, relationship and situations.  These responses were like buttons that were pressed again and again by events and circumstances.  When pressed they would play the same feelings over and over again, as many times as the button was pressed. And the buttons I habitually kept pressing led to pain.

Some of my buttons were to do with the culture in which I had been raised, a culture full of ideas about guilt, right and wrong, success and failure.  In leaving my children to go with my new wife I had been guilty of all of those.  I was guilty of being a bad father.  I was a failure in my first marriage.  I was wrong to do what I had done.  I was being torn apart by all those feelings of guilt and wrongness. But realising it with so much certainty led me to begin new habits. See Avoid Being Victims

Example: When R asked me if I wanted to write something on longing, I said, “I could do it, but it’s not my specialty.”  He looked at me. Of course.  Longing is my middle name. I long for love, for community, for connectedness, for a partner, for someone to share my bed or my neighbourhood or my mind, for anything that will heal the elemental feelings of loneliness and separation, anything that will bring me into myself, into my wholeness, into my being a part of something larger. Out of that longing has arisen not only lifelong pain, but also my spiritual life, and indeed so much of my creativity. What was S. H. but an impulse to create the world of intimacy, authenticity, beauty and warmth that I so longed for? Yet paradoxically, when you create community for others, you are the only one who doesn’t really get that. You are alone, behind the scenes, making sure everyone else is okay.

Example: I have accepted that principle again and again and again and again and again.  Every time I go through the longing and the feelings of loss and self-attack and vulnerability and pain that go with it, I come back to this truth.  As people say about smoking “I’m good at giving it up.  I’ve done it so many times.” Here and now, I acknowledge publicly that the love and wholeness and connectedness that I long for must already be there for me to imagine and know it.  And I can create it in an instant.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I long for – fame, recognition, escape or love?

How have I managed to avoid or not grasp it for so long?

Can I imagine myself having it and really feel it inside?

Is there any way I can allow it to be given to others – recognition, praise, love support?

See Life’s Little SecretsWoman’s Creative PowerDreaming about an ExQuestions

 

Look Looked Looking

Searching for something; realising something, feeling impressions, or concentration.

See seeing – saw – sight; eyes

Looking At A Dream

Lorry Truck Van

Like a car, it is your means of getting about in life, i.e. vehicle of expression such as music, drives, longings, ambitions, but the lorry connects more with commercial associations or projects. So it might link with feelings of major change, commercial ventures, of moving house.

Similar to car, but it indicates drives such as ambition, what motivates one – but usually your abilities, confidence and energy in connection with practical work, or getting things done in the outer world. It can be the inner qualities or strengths that support your outer activities. For instance ones personal motivations or activities meeting the influence of big unified groups such as the police or large businesses. But also your efforts to get something done, to get things moving. See: car.

A van can also be connected with work, but sometimes can indicate a family or group.

 Example: ‘I was a passenger in a very large eight wheeled lorry, my husband being the driver. We stopped at a pedestrian crossing in our town and my husband got out of the driving seat and went into the local town hall near a crossing. I waited in the lorry for what in my dream seemed hours. The next thing I remember is that I was then riding a bicycle on the other side of the crossing and cycled away up the road.’ Diann R.

Her husband’s involvement with social and work activities – the lorry and hall – make Diann decide to become more independent rather than wait for her husband to be ‘with her’. 

 Example: Dreamt I was driving to work in my car. Just as I was opposite our house a lorry – bread – hurtled out past a parked car, it didn’t seem to see me, and smashed straight over me. I was left standing by the roadside, the car smashed away from me to about the size of a bike. My right leg was slightly encased in the smashed car. I thought I had lost my leg, but it was not smashed off, only bloody and perhaps broken.

I remained standing by the road and shouted for my wife to call the ambulance. I thought I would have to be in hospital for some time and quite liked the idea, and decided to meditate while there. I seemed to have an inner realisation about the crash. I knew that my karma had led me to death at that moment, but because of the work I had done over the past eight months, this had been escaped.

Using various methods I gradually worked out the dream as follows:  “Going to work is the steady, persevering work on myself – the daily facing of difficulties and patiently pressing on.

The car is, because it keeps going wrong, my sense of failure (when I dreamt this the car was in the garage for repair). It is all the past things that have driven me, or carried me along out of my feeling that I was a failure.

The bread van was a connection with work. It was the great power which had been released by the persistent facing of myself, and which now smashed away the failure drives. This left me standing on my own feet, but outwardly insecure. The injured leg was the causes of the failure drives being revealed – my psychological inability to stand strongly on my own feet – my lack of confidence.

Going to hospital meant that in the healing of these causes or root problems, much more inner peace, or chance to enter deeply into self would arise. I would have died as a person, not being able to progress beyond this point, this problem, if it hadn’t been for the many things learned in giving myself to others at the place I worked. If I had not followed the inner drive to start activities that led me to give of myself, during which I learned to open up the whole inner mess of my life. I might not in this life have gained, developed or being given the necessary qualities and tools to melt and pass beyond the problem. Not going to work is not having to work any longer in that way. It was now my choice.

 Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Being in the driving seat also means you can see all the instruments on the driving panel. This means being in an observing situation with yourself. You can if you wish, observe all the instruments of your being. You can watch and acknowledge what is happening to you sexually, what is happening with your fantasies, what is going on in your physical body – am I tired, am I relaxed, am I stressed, am I confident? You can observe all this in the driving seat and you can make changes. From the observations you can slightly shift, change, make adjustments, and so keep balance and direct the process of interaction and where you are aiming to go in life. This self observation also means you can more easily observe others and understand their needs.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where you the driver or passenger?

What was the theme of the dream?

Was there any commercial side to the dream?

See Plot of the DreamBeing the Person or ThingLife Changes

Loss or Losing Something or Someone

A lost opportunity; forgetting something which is important. Depending on the dream content might also suggest actual, or feelings about, loss of virginity; loss of health; losing a lover-partner, or whatever the lost thing depicts. If one dreams often about losing things, like handbag, car, children, it could show that the dreamer is deeply uncertain about themselves. In other words they are feeling a loss of identity, wondering where they are going in life, who they are in the present situation, or what value they have. Often such feelings often come about from losing contact with your deep feelings and passions. Without them we may feel we have no rudder, no place to head for.  See: lost; lost husband 

Dreaming about the loss of a child or partner can cause a lot of emotional pain. It helps if you can open to the emotions and feel their depth; for sometimes it feels as if a part of you has been torn out. Withholding the emotion doesn’t get rid of it; a woman in a therapy sessions burst into tears about a child she had lost 17 years previously. A neighbour hearing her cry at the time told her she should not cry and so it took 17 years to release it.

A dream of loss might also indicate being frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. Such dreams are often about meeting some massive apparent threat, such a huge wave or creature. The dreams sometimes have great fear in them. Some dreams about losing control are about sexual relationships and how much control you have. See Meeting the Huge – Being in Control

Fear or experience of being left or losing someone? Fear of abandonment can lead to great feelings of jealousy, rage, withdrawal from everyday life and depression. The pain of losing a loved one is frequently a sign that our infant or child self is still wounded or hurt, and needs the healing of being allowed into consciousness and thereby integrated into the adult personality. See Beware of LoveInner Baby and Child

Dreams about loss can arise through anxiety about losing friendship, or of illness creating a loss. It can also suggest that you feel unloved and unwanted. These hells and heavens we each carry within us in the form of fears such as losing the person we love are sometimes habitual attitudes such as that of feeling our partner is out to trick us; chips on our shoulder such as conflict with the society we live in or the authority figures we confront, and genuine childhood or birth traumas.

Many people have a real fear of losing their identity. People relate to this threat in two major ways. They either fight to keep control, and employ all manner of techniques such as keeping their attention focused outwardly by such things as talking, walking about, drawing, holding their breath or dancing – or they surrender to what is being experienced. To meet the parts of one’s nature that has previously been pushed into unconsciousness, one needs to surrender in some degree. If the person fights the loss of control as the new material from within is emerging, it sometimes feels as if they are disintegrating. Their body may feel as if it is changing or dying, and they are losing themselves. Such struggles arise out of the fear of losing oneself, or at least losing the sense of oneself connected with appearance, work, success, or financial standing – the loss of identity. See  Identity and dreamsIdentity and SexStuck in life – unable to move or grow – How do we change?

Death is often felt as a losing. The change that takes place in this experience of an inwardly felt death, may at times feel like losing everything, shedding the past, becoming completely insecure. There is not in the end a loss of anything, only a gaining that requires one to let go of the dominance of what was previously important. From this arises a feeling of wholeness and connection with the world and self in a new way. See Dreaming of Death

 Example: The other night I had a dream that my ex-boyfriend was killed in a car accident. I was mortified and became hysterical. I can only remember little bits of it now, but I do remember seeing him in his car, dead. I think I started crying in my sleep. I have been thinking a lot about him lately, before I had the dream. I’ve missed him so much and this worries me.

The woman in the example had actually parted with her boyfriend. The dream is therefore most likely an expression of her deep feelings about losing him.

 Example: My husband died over a year ago, and I live alone, no pets. Yet I dreamt I opened my front door and there was a cat waiting to be let in. It was my cat, and I knew I hadn’t fed it for ages or looked after it. I felt awful that I had neglected it for so long. The strange thing was that the next day as I walked around the supermarket, I kept wanting to go to the cat-food section to buy food. – Winnie P. – Exeter

In losing her husband Winnie has lost her source of giving and receiving affection and is feeling her need for this.

 Example: Suzanne told me my voice changed as I cried out again and again as I released the pain of losing all my children, my husband, even my parents.  My hands were clawing my legs in an effort to express the misery, and I was screaming that I could not bear to live any longer with such pain.  I cried out to God to take me, for there was nothing left for me to live for.  “Why?  Why did this happen to me?  Why has everything I loved been taken from me?”

Such an awful feeling of loss can be caused by the person having no or little connection with their core self in which there is a feeling of connection even after death. See Touching Your Core Self 

Being lost: This links with feelings of confusion, lack of direction or conflict, of not understanding what is involved in the present situation you are in. The dream environment you are lost in will define what the confusion or conflict connects with. Sometimes this lost feeling arises because there are issues or changes in your life you have not acknowledged or do not want to acknowledge.

Losing something or someone: This probably relates to feelings about a lost opportunity, something that you have forgotten that you need to remember, or the loss of an important personal quality like confidence or virginity.

Losing ones husband-wife: Often dreamt by people in middle age. It shows them fearing-exploring the possible death of their partner. It is not a prediction, only an awareness of a likely situation.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel was lost and what feelings were involved?

Have you recently experienced a loss in any way?

How do you deal with loss?

See Opening to Life – Self helpMartial Art of the MindKarmaAvoid Being VictimsBeing the Person or Thing

 

Lost

Being lost depicts confusion; loss of motivation or ability to make clear decisions. Sometimes suggests issues in your life have arisen and have not been noticed and you are being negatively influenced. In which case consider the environment in which you are lost. See Losing Something or Someone

But feelings of being lost are simply that – feelings – not facts. The only reality is what you feel is real or what you believe. If you believe you are lost, well, that is a world you are creating. Without consciousness the whole world and cosmos disappears for you. So the only reality is actually your conscious awareness of your experience.

Years ago as I started my second marriage and felt like hell I visited the local fortune teller. Her puzzled response was that she could see no future for me. It was so true I sank even deeper into the hell I felt. Then after a day of that I realised that all the fortune teller was doing was reflecting back at me what I felt; that I had no future. But I realised we create our own future and I could change the way I felt and so create a different future. I did and I have.

If lost in an unknown place: It suggests you are in a new area of experience, a new situation or period of your life. You need to calmly take stock and get your bearings.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what environment do I feel lost – in work, in a crowd, where?

Can you see that this is just a feeling and you can change it by recognising it for what it is?

What led me to feel lost – did I lose contact with my passions?

See Avoid Being VictimsLife’s Little SecretsBeing the Person or Thing

Lottery

About winning or losing, so about lost hopes or the wonder or getting what you wished for. It is also about gambling in order to hope for what you think is a better future. Or else you are financially in difficulties and the lottery is probably just you wishing for something better. For example, if you feel the pinch financially, dreams won’t usually provide the number of a winning lottery ticket as a way of solving financial needs; but they can help discover talents that are lying dormant and that could be used to improve your situation.

There may be an indication if you do the lottery often that you are leaving yourself open to fate, rather than working to improve your life situation and future. Is it the whirl or lottery, the win or lose of love and seeking love.

I believe that a form of super-augmented hero figures are being developed by the large corporations – figures who will have enormous power to sway peoples interest and allegiance and take the place of monarchs. Not only are these figures being presented as having a god-like life, living standard and power, but the public are also led to believe they can share this life, perhaps through a contest or winnings such as a lottery.

Lottery ticket: This can indicate that you are hoping for a win, and that you wish life will reward you. You are putting your faith in fate, and you have it in your hands to win.

 Example: I buy a lottery ticket, but because I wasn’t divorced, just separated I don’t cash it in right away.  I go to a lawyer get a divorce first then cash the ticket in.  My husband finds out and sues me for half the money.  I took it to mean that me still being married was blocking some type of blessing or something good from happening so I finalized my divorce.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I buy lottery tickets often?

Am I aware of what makes me buy them?
Do I dream of winning?

See Avoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Loudspeaker

Something we have heard; something which is trying to gain ‘a hearing’; how we receive aural information – in one ear and out the other, or is it received and understood?

Also the voice or music of your inner self, usually giving a message that is important to receive. The loudspeaker therefore represents ones greater ability to communicate with ones self. If a group of people are involved or listening, it involves many aspects of your nature, many parts of yourself, so it is an important dream.

 Example: It being dark outside. In the window were displayed a number of colour transparencies that Bill had taken of an artist’s work. They were abstract paintings. On the left a panel of the window was opened and we entered the showroom, looking at the transparencies. Then suddenly a voice spoke from a loudspeaker on the ceiling. It said that we had set of a burglar alarm, and police were on their way. We hurried out the way we came, hoping to escape the police, but as we did so the voice said, “You can’t escape. I have seen you and know what you look like now – that porcelain one with a broken nose.” I knew he was referring to me, and felt he must be watching through a closed-circuit television.

The voice was the voice of the dreamer’s conscience, saying he had done something wrong and couldn’t escape from his feelings of guilt.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I remember what I hear or was doing with the loudspeaker?

Was I working on or mending the loudspeaker?

Did I talk in front of an audience?

See Being the Person or thingPlot of the DreamMan in your Dream

Louse

See: Lice.

Love

Without love none of us would have survived physically or psychologically. And without someone there to meet us, and in meeting give years of their life to supporting and nurturing us during infancy, we would not survive. Not only is the giving of food and protection necessary, but also, if we are to grow into a reasonably well adjusted and happy adult, that caring person, and many others, also need to give a lot of themselves to the new born baby. That is love.

A baby attempts to form a living bond with its mother. In all mammals this level of connection is vital. Without it the baby will die unless it forms that bond with another adult who will act as a guide, an encourager and someone who has wider sympathies of awareness than the missed mother/father. If that is disturbed in any way by a lack of love at any time, it leaves great pain and inability to love. Literally the baby or child fears it will die without that love. That is how it learnt to love.

Love does not usually last long in the romantic ‘I’ll die without you’ feelings many of us associate with love in today’s world. For many of us, having our instinctive love injured either by parents who themselves didn’t know how to really connect physically, we do not know how to love fully – except maybe in a very dependent, needy and painful way. As such perhaps we need to learn how to ‘make love’. Not being able to rely on our rather disturbed habitual responses that were put into us as we grew; put in by a society that in no way demonstrates real lessons of love and survival; we need to form our own loving relationships out of an awareness of what is fundamental.

Pain in relationships, tremendous dependence, fear of abandonment, jealousy and desire to control or constantly reject or hurt ones partner, can all be understood if we recognise and work with what has been explained about the fundamental process of love. This is often a projection of our injured childhood love on the adult person we say we are in love with, we are hurting those we ‘love’ out of our child hood pain. Unfortunately we usually blame it on the new partner, saying or belieivng they are unfaithful, cheating on us. If you are in that situation, ask yourself when you first felt like that, and trace it backwards.

To really understand love and how and why we dream of it, we need to see how and why love exists and expresses in many ways. For example we have the love of or for a baby; a mother’s love; the love of teenagers; the love of grandmothers and grandfathers, even the love for a dog or horse – or any animal. When we ‘love’ someone we may choose to stay with them as a life partner, but that usually does not end there. Our dreams show us loving many people, for love knows no boundaries and reaches out to many.

I believe if you are a keen observer you will have seen that love is everywhere and is an aspect of life, even the cosmos. Some people will say that an animal only does what it does out of instinct. But we too are largely driven by our instinct – we have sex, we over eat, we fight and kill each other, and we follow leaders, exactly like animals. But of course we say it is different because ‘I love’, as if having an ego somehow makes it so different.

You have to understand that as a human being you are largely a creature of instinctive urges. The urges toward ‘love’ and other instincts are tremendous. Have you ever stopped eating for a few days? Well your feelings about the loved person are as difficult to control as eating – yet many people can do it.

Of course you have every right to move toward a relationship, but be careful, because your feeling of ‘love’ is instinctive and it doesn’t mean it will be exactly as you imagine it.

But consider the bird and its young, working and flying all day to provide. If we saw a person doing that with such energy we would say their love for their children drives them. All nature, according to its condition, loves.

We could even say the sun loves the earth. For a condition of maleness is that it reaches out in space as a mans penis does, to fructify the earth. And a condition of femaleness is that it takes the male impulse into her and nurtures it producing life. In fact the sun is dying as it gives itself to the earth, and its energy has certainly penetrated and brought and brings forth life from the earth.

Of course we could argue about that, but I am only trying to show that sex, opposites in nature, and the giving of one to another is fundamental.

Example: I experienced a huge ocean of love at this deeper level. Whatever we experience of love personally, I could see that it was a tiny part of this ocean expressed in our life. There seemed no need to worry about whether it was one’s own love, whether one was capable of love. This seemed pointless. We are not capable of love. There is no love of or our own. By trying to claim it, the saying I love you, seemed ridiculous and limiting. The love belongs to life, it is not ours personally. Because we don’t own it, there is no need to be possessive. All we need do is to allow it to flow through us. Blocking it creates pain and sickness. And for goodness sake do not put a price on it. Do not sell it! It isn’t yours. If you sell it you will need to repay the source.

To look at the very fundamentals of love in human life, we only have to look at the togetherness of a woman and a man as they move to help to produce a new living being. The man projects into the woman and leaves his seeds. When a seed reaches the fertile female egg it gives itself completely. In fact they die to each other to produce a new being. It is that dying to each other that is the physical foundation of love. The death of one form to allow growth into another form is fundamental. See this wonderful demonstration of love https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gvwHHMEDdT0

Love at the human level

Like seeds planted in earth, mammal females have taken the ‘earth’ into their own bodies, and the seed puts down roots into her fertile body to succour itself – the placenta. Again I am only describing an overall view of how nature and love works. It is a picture of how love works. Whenever we ‘love’ another, we put down roots into that other person and a mutual exchange occurs. This occurs because  we are often totally unaware of the experience we take in and how it interacts with us when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Read this wonderful example, it will show how much we take in from those we love or lived with.

At the birth of the new baby the female creature becomes a mother, and often a wonderful change occurs in a woman’s or in female animal’s nature. A bonding can take place that for human mother’s can last a lifetime. In the male, at the sight of the new baby a similar change can occur, leading him to work week after week, year after years, often for poor pay, just to feed and care for the offspring. That is love and it happens even though in some ways the mother or father is not seen as ‘loving’.

Between the mother and baby something similarly wonderful and mysterious occurs. In our times we have developed a rather strange definition of love. Somehow we have, in our literature and drama, and of course in our personal experience, believed love to be some sort of magic relationship, a sort of soul mate, that if we find, we will live ‘happily ever after’. But in fact few if any of us find such a mate, and ‘love’ relationships are usually only partly satisfying, or often deeply painful.

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot more, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’ or accept as part of our own experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or space to live in.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

Most of this was spontaneous thoughts and movement through the experience, so that was how I was led to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother even after he died. Then I realised that I was linked with Rita, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Rita – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the alien beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything, because their life pattern was now part of me. Then with a rush of wonder, I realised that the more people and creatures I loved, the bigger I became. See Digest

Somewhere in this giving and supporting of life lies a more fundamental definition of love. Birth demonstrates to us some wonderful things about the mechanisms of love we might take for granted, but that are true at many levels. The forming baby links to its mother through the umbilical cord. This remarkable link brings nourishment to the forming child, and is an enormous self giving of the mother’s being to that of her baby. In a very real way, the umbilical cord is the flow of life. If it were cut without any substitute the baby would die.

So we can define love as the giving and receiving from each other that happens through vital connection. Having been witness to many births a very obvious event is the cutting of the umbilical cord. What is not always so obvious is that the baby almost immediately tries to reconnect. It does this in two ways.

Firstly through the mother’s breast. Through that connection it again receives nourishment, but it also receives in the milk things that help it meet the infections and threats confronting it in the external world. Again, connection means survival. As a new born baby it needs skin to skin connection and a nipple near its mouth for a long time. We see this happen in what are mistakenly called primitive societies. Also having watched dogs and cats give birth their babies are kept close and the mother never leaves them for days. Then gradually they are weaned to being left. That is love. As I said, we have a developed a rather strange definition of love.

 

At an even more subtle level another connection is attempted that isn’t always achieved. The baby attempts to form a living bond with its mother. In all mammals this level of connection is vital. Without it the baby will die unless it forms that bond with another adult. However, the bond is not simply that of having someone to feed you and protect you from harm. That simply feeds the infant body. But within that body is an infant consciousness, a living, feeling, learning and wonderful being. This ‘consciousness body’ also needs feeding to survive and grow. Babies abandoned and brought up by animals never become a human being. They remain at the psychological level of the animal rearing them. Such connection means a sharing of caring love, of ideas and thoughts, and a way of helping the infant consciousness to find ways to learn, to explore, to be curious and adventurous. See Programmed

 So far we have seen that love is a purely physical giving of self to the point if dying; an emotional giving and mutual sharing which involves changing each other by memories and lessons learnt and such lessons are not things we can get rid of but we can digest and integrate them. See digest Also love is also a giving what skills, learning and care that can be shared or given to another as a mother and father, as a teacher, carer, nurse, doctor or spiritual guide. See spiritual

 So love always gives and receives. It is often the giving of oneself in honesty, and such giving doesn’t always mean ‘sweetness and light’, but can be sharing of anger, fear or frustration, in a way that actually stays in the other person as a life lesson. And such anger or fear is usually given because one has links of love with the other person. Such lessons of love can survive death as the following describes –

 “For I saw, nothing of us survived, in death, except what we had given of ourselves, or been given by others. And of the latter, what gave life was not what we had been given, but what we had allowed ourselves to receive of another.

In this way my new being began, with my dead father near by. And my first awareness was of love in its many forms. The shy love of a child, tender love of a woman’s care, or the passionate love of jealousy, a baby’s devouring love, or the unexpressed love of one who simply sits and waits.” Quotation from Death Was The Loss

 

Passionate Love

The passionate love that often leads to marriage and for people saying, “I loved him/her but they left me. I am destroyed and hurt,” is often our mamma animal self flooding us with hormones that cause such feelings. Or else it is because we have never matured into love. I know it is awful to tell a teenager or a marriage partner who feels they cannot live without the one now gone out of their life that they haven’t matured beyond baby love. But it is mine and other people who deal with relationships experience that we often remain in a baby level of love.

Baby love is completely dependent upon the loved person for ones needs, physical, emotional and social. Great anger, jealousy or pain if the loved one relates to anyone else, is lost, or threatens to leave. In an adult this enormous feeling reaction may also be felt at a time of emotional withdrawal of the partner, even if there is no sign of them withdrawing physically. There is a desire for unconditional love and a need to be always with the loved one. In an adult with this level of love, sex may be a part of the relationship, but the main need is a bonded connection. This is sometimes felt as a need to have the loved person want you as much, or as desperately, as you want/need them. Obviously many people never develop beyond this level. Possibly the greatest fear, that can trigger great anger or an enormous desire to placate or earn love, is the threat or fear of being abandoned. See Beware of Love

Often we make a satellite character of the person we “love”. In other words we try to make them swing around us in the way that suits our emotional and physical needs. Notice how many people have breakdowns, depression, or even commit suicide when their partner leaves them, goes with another person or dies. Those things point to pretty desperate internal situations – in other words the baby level of feeling response.

To grow up and become a mature lover takes courage. Each time we try to possess the other person, lash out at them through jealousy, curtail their life through our fears and insecurities, we need to stop and say, “This is childhood behaviour. I will not let this anger, possessiveness, jealousy or emotional blackmail be perpetrated on the person I presumably love. I will face this and deal with it as a problem in my character, and will not rationalise and excuse it by saying to my partner that I love them. That is an underhanded excuse. It is not love.”

Love for someone can be a strange thing, wonderful but sometimes painful. I have traced love back into the deeps of dreams and myself, and I found that although love has many faces, your mother or  partner for instance, it has in the end only one source and it flows through all if we allow it. So don’t be hard on yourself, but let love flow through until it becomes one great love that is everyone – it is Life itself.

So, how about it? How about growing up to love?

“My grandmother told me, that God has given us the gift of love, and that was a special thing, like a gift of the spirit. She led me to the sense that this gift is like a potential. It isn’t something fully formed. It is a rare thing, and difficult in our world to fully live it, to make it real in the physical world. But this is what the gift is for, to make real, to live and let it shine. She said that although we will have to work at it, it can be done, and that this love can bring us a sort of happiness few have.”

 

Love of self

The love of self does not mean the egoistic self love which drives people to preen and advertise themselves and hoping that everyone will see them and admire. The love of self as far as our inner being is concerned is the acceptance and integration of all aspects of oneself.

To do this we could start with our parents – not the outer parents who may have given us hell, but our inner parents. We often forget that we carry within us fantastic amounts of information about anyone we have lived with, loved or hated. Even an absent parent is a huge figure in our inner life. We have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Read this wonderful example, it will show how much we take in from those we love or lived with.

In dreams we meet them again and again in ex’s, in lovers lost or in the figure of parents. For we are not dreaming about them but the memories, hurts, lessons and experiences stored within us. Everyone we have known are in fact figures of our inner world. To become whole, to love ourselves we must meet, acknowledge and integrate the people we carry within us.

You can only love others when you love all the aspects of self, everything from the lowest to the highest. That sort of love balances itself. You can only love others when you love in that way, because other people are so varied, from sinner to saint, and even the ordinary person is different to you, and so to love them you have to love all the differences in yourself otherwise you cannot love another person completely. See Love – DigestLife’s Little Secrets –  Dreaming of an ex – Beware of Love

Lover

Your feelings, fears and hopes connected with the lover. Occasionally an intuition about them, or even an intuitive link. See: Love; Learning to Love; Growing up to Love; Beware of Love; Dream Lovers; Boyfriend; Girlfriend; Archetype of Lover.

Low Lowly

Something that has escaped notice, or that you have left behind at some time. Or something beneath you, morally unsound, cheap, vulgar, depressed, little awareness or understanding.

Something that is not very apparent, is not much of a hurdle or barrier, or is not of great impact. It may indicate that you have as low view of yourself or your abilities, but we all have fantastic potential, but it has to be worked at to make real.

Sometimes it can represent what Carl Jung wrote in the book Man and His Symbols, “Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days. When I hear such questions, it always makes me think of the rabbi who was asked how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the olden days while nowadays nobody ever sees him. The rabbi replied, “Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough.”

Low neck line dress: For a man it probably represents a desire to hold the breasts, or at least a temptation to unless he is very neurotic and wishes to harm the beauty. For a woman it is, despite her protestations either her desire to show how desirable she is or else difficult feelings about other women.

Flying low down: Possibly depicts difficult feelings about not being able to ascend higher. Or feelings about your own inability to feel good about yourself. It can also depict slight depression.

Low in life satisfaction: A drive in many people is in some way to actualise themselves, to express themselves in a satisfying way. If we use the analogy of a plant, it is as if they have grown and reached full stature, but for some reason have not flowered and spread seeds. They have not produced fruit. This lack of satisfaction is shown in that such people recorded more negative dreams in their diary.

Low power lines: It depends on how capable you are to deal with the enormous power we all have as a potential. Obviously it could burn out any problems you have, or it could give you a tremendous boost to attain wider awareness.

 Example: We both noticed that the power lines were slung very low to the ground about chest height. I was feeling drawn towards touching them, knowing what would happen. Sure enough once I had hold of the power lines my body started to burn up. My body rose to the height of the house windows and I could hear the yells from my burning body, I thought it must be a hell of a shock for everyone looking on. H. C.

Example: I was down in a low bit of a village, was trying to get to a road high up on a hill where the sun was shining. I was walking through dark, empty houses that were something like a store house, not much light, a musty smell about the place.

 

Idioms:  fly low; keep a low profile; lay low; look high and low; low on the totem pole; low-ball him; low-down; lowlife; the lowdown; ears lowered

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

When have I felt low, and is it reflected in the dream?

Have I ever been able to bow that low to touch the centre?

Has there been a time when I felt connected to the low-life?

Do I consider myself to be of low status?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindMeditation with SeedLife’s Little Secrets

 

Lucifer

See: Devil.

Luggage

The duties, religious or moral feelings or the emotional environment we have created in our life. It can represent the past we still carry with us, things we can’t let go of in life. Sometimes a baby is felt as something we can no longer lug around with us; or our feelings about being a parent.

The habits or attitude, duties, or the emotional environment we have created in our life. It can represent the past we still carry with us; things we can’t let go of in life.  See: bag; knapsack

What we “have in hand” in ones life, and something you are carrying with you. Or it could connect with a holiday or getting away from work or home; freedom or the ability to move.

The womb or vagina. What one carries inside oneself, such as longings, attitudes, fears. How we see ourselves socially – the luggage might be a sign of status, how we rate oneself; also a symbol of independence or going somewhere. Sometimes what we are hiding from others, or what others cannot see; a secret and perhaps dangerous thing, but certainly often unknown.

The dream luggage might contain the personal skills or tools one has, or is carrying with you, such as a laptop, mobile/cell phone. Another possibility is the association with protective attitudes, as when one might carry something precious in a bag – such as a baby, small animal or objects; secrets or what is hidden, so unpacking it may bring revelations or the unexpected, so ones hopes or dreams.

Example: ‘In last nights dream the baby I dream about incessantly had been locked in a suitcase but was quite unscathed when taken out, except that it was very dirty, but still not crying. I do not have any memories in connection with these babies and the only feelings I have are those of remorse that I have neglected the baby. I have had four children of my own, none of whom were ever neglected in this way.’ Mrs C.

Mrs C. uses the suitcase in at least two ways. One is her womb, or reproductive ability. Although she has had four children, this does not stop her unconsciously desiring more. The second is what ‘luggage’ – emotional feelings, urges, thoughts – she carries.

 Example: I am in the airport waiting for my luggage. And I are smuggling in a bunch of junk from the States. I am worried that I will be recognized, as it seems I have done this many times before. One of the things I have in my luggage is the manuscript of one of the books I am working on. I plan on telling them that I was doing research on this book in the States if I am stopped, questioned, etc. I spend a lot of time anxiously waiting in the airport.

Example: A female lover of mine is trying to get rid of my leather handcrafted luggage which costs thousands of dollars. The luggage was from my first marriage. It makes me so angry that I slap her. She is getting rid of a lot of old clothes, particularly socks with holes in them which I carefully go thru too, but agree to throw away.

The dreamer’s anger is because he still has feelings about his first wife, so feels a conflict.

Dragging heavy luggage: Problems we have that have not be dealt with and feel as if they are holding us back.

Finding lost luggage: A difficult feeling or loss is now overcome. Remembering memories and past events.

Getting rid of or sorting and throwing away luggage: Discarding or sorting through habits, memories or attitudes that you can see are no longer suitable to carry around.

Packing your bags: It may represent a desire to – or a need to – get out of some present situation or fear of having to do so. Perhaps your unconscious is hinting that it is time you ‘pack your bags’.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does what you are doing with the luggage give any idea about its meaning?

Did you know where you were heading with your luggage?

Are there things in the luggage that connect with the past or another person?

See Being the Person or Thing Plot of the DreamSettings in Dreams Because Factor

Lumber

See: Wood.

Luminous

It usually signifies that you are allowing a greater amount of your life energy to be expressed. It is expressed outwardly as a feeling of enormous pleasure, excitement or realisation, even enlightenment. So it is an expression of what was previously held back or your power and potential. Unity of many aspects of ones nature. See: holy; aura; lightGlow

It can also be a meeting with what is considered holy.

 Example: This living bust of Jimi Hendrix shot out from my head, which now became the beautiful mother earth (the blue/green orb as seen from space) and his spirit/image flew off on a straight path with incredible speed (like a rocket being shot off the earth) and out of the solar system and on through the Milky way into the dark purple void. His (?) trajectory left a luminous trail of lightly glowing, softly twinkling tracers as he departed the planet/universe. It was startling and surprising, mesmerizing and intoxicating to see that vision and then as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared, and I realized I was lying on my back in my bed in my own room and that I had been dreaming.

Example:  I dreamed that I was in my house looking into a new mirror at my face. I reached up to rub the skin on the left side of my face and began to peel it off. It came off in one thick piece. There was neither blood nor pain and I seemed to be acting purposefully. The skin beneath was luminous, reminding me rather of something metamorphosing but not yet “ready.” There was a straight red line across the cheek, which reminded me of the red ochre used in ceremonies for the living and the dead among ancient peoples. I was awed but not afraid.

Example: In intense light, I was walking around my childhood playground. Whispering tender words, I carried in my arms a little boy. In the dream, I knew that this was my son. Two days later I met his future mother. The child from the dream looked identical to the boy who was born a year and a half later. Throughout the first few days after Lukasz’s birth, the doctors claimed that he had no chance of survival. Against this medical diagnosis, clear and luminous with every detail in my memory, that night vision was my assurance that my beloved dream child would survive.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I see that shines?

Does the luminescence leave me feeling something?

Was I shining in some way?

See Interview with Jill Bolte Taylor – Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Lungs

This dream might relate to tension, feelings of being ‘suffocated’ in a relationship or situation, as one may have been with one’s mother or home life. Often to do with smoking or what you are taking in from others or the environment in a subtle way. The idioms linked with breathing explain other possible connections – Catch one’s breath; bated breath; hold one’s breath. See Breath Breathing

Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking. B.K.

As can be seen B.K’s dream refers very directly to her smoking habit and was a strong enough experience for her to stop smoking.

Example: I heard someone say upon awakening, “Be careful of a lung infection.” Unfortunately, I ignored the warning, and after several late nights and cold weather, I ended up with double pneumonia.

Example: Jane S. had a series of frightful, recurring dreams. “I dreamed I was hemorrhaging from both lungs. As time went on, the dreams worsened; for I began coughing and choking, meanwhile bringing up increasing amounts of blood. I always awakened panicky.”

I learned Jane was going to a tuberculosis sanatorium daily, visiting a friend in a ward, where the active cases were housed. Jane admitted there were times when the coughing of her friend left sprays of sputum on Jane’s face. A suggestion was made that she go to a doctor for an X ray. The results of the X ray were negative for tuberculosis, but the doctor told her she had a case of bronchiectasis, which made her more susceptible to tuberculosis. Hence, the warnings were valid. From then on, she made infrequent visits to the hospital, and her nightmarish dreams ended.

Example: For nearly an hour, I laid on the floor while my pelvis rocked and bumped in different ways, my chest popping and rising. I asked what would help my breathing be more easy and free, and long, humming tones erupted from my body, I was making sounds I had never heard myself make before. I was slightly startled to feel some of the vibration resonating in my pelvis. I made gurgling sounds, and more and more long, humming, tones. Several times all of the breath squeezed out of my lungs which was really uncomfortable, but I trusted it and eventually the breath would always suck back in on it’s own. From a person practicing LifeStream

Idioms as relate to breathing, such as: Catch one’s breath; bated breath; hold one’s breath.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting about my lungs, and is this physical or symbolising something?

Do I feel suffocated in any way in my life?

Did I feel anxious in the dream, and if so what is this anxiety about in real life?

See Body and also Easy Dream Interpretation

Lure Lured

There is an aspect of the unconscious and dreams which can have the effect of luring one along a path of fantasy and illusion. Some of the ancient myths tell the story of the hero or heroine being lured into difficult situations – Odysseus for instance, lured by the sirens.

Many people who look to dreams for inspiration are actually walking this path of being lured along by a powerful imagined world of experience which does not validate itself. We have a friend who was deep into dream studies and meditation for many years. She went on vision quests and was a spiritual advisor to a tribe of Indians in the Northwest where she and her family lived. One day we heard that she was hospitalised with psychological problems. Many months later, she visited us. The subject of dreams came up and she said, ‘My dreams betrayed me.’ M.S.

Such situations arise from people intellectually interpreting their dreams, and doing so from a stand point of hope and fantastic ideals about who they are and what they believe in. If one actually explored their dreams by entering into them, not thinking about them, such ideals are knocked on the head and the real person revealed.

 Example: Dreamt Pete Taylor was in my father’s shop in London. Someone had shot him in the bicep and I was trying to help him. I had a small box on the counter and there was antiseptic or blood in it, and I put the hurt muscle in it hoping to heal it. When the gunshot flesh was in the antiseptic the blood bubbled and effervesced, becoming hot. I felt the flesh would not be of any use now, but wasn’t sure. In the end though I was considering cleaning away the injured flesh from the arm (left arm I think). All I could see were the sinews with a small amount of flesh on them – no muscle in between. But I began to feel that gradually new cells might grow and develop into a new muscle – granulate.

Here the dreamer explored his dream, and as can be seen it does not deal with fantasy or idealism but the hard facts of life that needed to be felt and dealt with.

“I realised I had met Pete on a walk a few days before and heard him shouting out about, “The Lord Jesus Christ,” in a mocking voice. I was in a wood with my children and stood still waiting for Pete and his friends to pass by – Pete being outside of the wood in a field. As I was entering into these feelings from the dream point of view I realised I avoided Pete because of pride. I hadn’t wished to be associated with Pete. Pete, who had a lovely daughter but who had failed at marriage; was a good musician but had failed to do anything with his skill; started businesses but failed at working for himself – failed. Pete, I felt was a failure.

Suddenly I realised with shock that I had tried to avoid meeting Pete because pride was my defence against my own failure. I was hiding away from my own sense of failure.

But Pete had actually come into the wood so we met, and I saw he was keenly ‘chasing’ a young French woman, Katerine.

My wife came up and I explained this, and the talking helped it flow tremendously. Pete, who failed at marriage but was chasing after young girls, as I had seen him chasing Katerine. Yes, no wonder I didn’t want to associate with that part of me, who couldn’t make it in marriage but chased young women. Pete was living out all the things in me that I despised and tried to keep hidden, even from myself. But now they were out in the open and it was painful. Then a whole mass more came. I saw Katerine as a little pro who was holding herself back, but wanted to wag her fanny everywhere.

Pete, the one who was in battle with his father and who constantly fought authority tooth and nail. He had got to make it alone to prove how much better he was then father/authority. What a waste, when one could have worked together to accomplish more. Conflict wastes so much effort due to the countless retreats. Now it was coming thick and fast so I went down to my wife in the kitchen as it was so helpful to talk.

Yes, it was my father. The shop was the important point in the dream. It was in that shop our conflict had come to a head. It had been there always. The thing already seen about how he used to show me his school books. He didn’t praise what I did, just showed me how good his work was, how neat, how few blots. But in the shop he had set my pattern of behaviour, stamped it out. Because I had got no praise or support from him – my symbol of authority – I had pulled away and gone on along a path of life that he had no understanding of. I went on to my wife about how I had stacked the potatoes in the shop for him as well as I could, but never a word of encouragement – always wrong.

What a fucking waste. He was so desperate for success himself he was trying to squeeze out a few drops from me too for the sake of his pride, to prove to England how much better he was. He was still fighting the battle of the school room, because he was too scared to punch the kids on the nose, so he wanted me to be a success to prove his own value. So from then on I was in conflict with him, trying to prove how good I was, how much better than him, never able to co-operate at school, and work, or in my marriage. I had to keep on at my wife over nothing to prove how good we were. What I did for him was never good enough, never enough. What would get a word of praise? What would suffice? I didn’t understand what he wanted of me. So I kept on at my kids like he kept on at me. Trying to attain the unobtainable instead of a little warmth and love. Dad, you fucking killed me right back then. I sobbed uncontrollable with the pain of experiencing it.

What a waste. My schooling ruled by rebellion because I had to make it alone and “differently” not co-operatively. Anything to fight authority. And I had to fail too, even in my efforts to achieve, because if I succeeded dad would fall to pieces, feeling what a failure he was as a man and a father. I needed a Dad so I dared not succeed. I had to fail if I wanted love. And the reverse side of conflict with authority was the cringing underhand crawling to gain love and approval.

The damage to the bicep, to flesh was the whole area of my life that I was trying to save and heal, but which I needed to let go of, and wait for the new muscle tissue to grow. How does start again at 40? Is it with patience to let the new tissues and strength grow?

My left arm is my support system, my confidence to do things in the world. I am right handed so do things with my right hand, but support everything with my left – hold the paper as I write; hold the nail as I bang it in with my right. So the damage to the muscle was the injury to my supportive confidence through my relationship with my father. As all this was felt I sobbed uncontrollably. I wept for the lost years, the wasted years of my youth. I was convulsed with the pain of not having been loved by my father. Tears fell from me for the failure of my life. I would never have believed one could feel so much pain about something missing in ones life. I had always thought to feel that much pain you would have needed to be beaten or abused in childhood. My father was kind, but he showed no warmth. And that was as bad as being beaten, perhaps worse. I had been severely beaten at school, but it hadn’t scarred me like this.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I felt lured by in my dreams?

Can I recognise that lure is often used in a trap?

Do I really allow my feelings in exploring my dreams as in the example?

See Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power DreamingContext/Theme

 

Lynx

Keenness of perception – lynx eyed; vigilance; otherwise same as other large cats. See: leopard above.

Useful questions are:

What attitude or feelings is my dream lynx expressing, and how does that relate to me?

If I imagine myself as the lynx, do I feel anger, power or fear? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

Is it a male or female lynx and what does that lead me to feel or associate with it?

What is my relationship with the lynx and what does that suggest?

Letter M

Ma Mama

Feelings about your mother, receptiveness of mind, change, fertility. See: Mother.

Machine

Things like habits that are mechanical. Also some forms of reason or activity as when we say, someone is like a machine, acting without thought or feeling. So it could often indicate our habits that we are frequently unconscious of.

A machine may also be used to represent your body’s automatic processes, especially something like the heart that goes on pumping away year after year. The body’s automatic functions and drives, such as breathing and ageing; the mechanical forces of nature; habitual or mechanical behaviour.

In some dreams people use a huge machine, like the Juggernaut, to depict the relentless activities that take place in the world that can, with apparent carelessness, roll over people claiming their life through illness or other calamity.

Intricate machine: Brain or the thinking process in its mechanical habitual form. The habitual, almost mechanical fantasies we have or things we do. The word juggernaut is from Sanskrit Jaganatha, lord of the world. Devotees formerly threw themselves under a huge cart – a juggernaut – as it moved. Such a huge machine can represent the massive social organisations we are bound up in. Some of us relate well to this process that goes on its way blind to individuals; some are ground under by its demands.

Old machine: If the machines are inn good order, the it suggest that what you did or built with your life are still productive. But is there is any problems it may be best to get rid of the old habits or ways  of life, and built a new way.

Example: ‘I am in charge of a life machine which keeps the world going. Unless I tend it all the time it may stop, and I am terrified. I hear a pulsating noise, or imagine I do.’ Mr. P. E.

Here the machine represents the heart, and the dreamer’s anxious relationship with the body’s functioning and processes. See: Engine.

 Example: ‘I see a little girl humming an innocent tune, plucking daisies in a vast lush green field. Suddenly a huge machine or monster comes ploughing through the field over the girl.’ Debbie H.

Debbie sees life itself as a machine, unfeeling, mechanical, and blind in its functioning. The word juggernaut is from Sanskrit Jaganatha, lord of the world. Devotees formerly threw themselves under a huge cart – a juggernaut – as it moved. Such a huge machine can represent the massive social organisation we are bound up in. Some of us relate well to this process that goes on its way blind to individuals; some are ground under by its demands.

  Example: One of Medard Boss’s male clients, during the first six months of his therapy dreamt only of machines and mechanical things. Boss saw this as an expression of the man’s complete sexual impotence and depression. They reflected the man’s inner sterility, his lack of anything living within his feelings and inner life. As the man gradually recognised and dealt with this condition his dream imagery changed to include living plants, then animals, and eventually human beings. When this stage was reached the man fully recovered his sexual and emotional potency.

Idioms: Cog in the machine. See: engine.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I recognise any associated ideas or memories about the machine?

Am I capable with machines or do I avoid them?

What task was the machine doing?

See Working with associationsAutonomous ComplexHabitsBeing the Person or Thing

Mackintosh

A protection used against emotions. As when someone tells us we are hateful or a liar. Some people get terribly upset or drenched, it rolls off others like water off a duck’s back.

Mad Madness

(For USA meaning of mad see anger)

This sometimes represents fear of the unconscious drives and images. It can also represent the torment of a difficult birth, or the search for identity amongst shattered perceptions of the world and people. The dream madness is often a partial expression of feelings that might be sane if we could allow them expression in their fullness. Pain and inhibition tend to twist and malform what might otherwise be healthy. See: Idiot.

Until recent times madness was an enormous threat. It seemed to attack people without warning, and people couldn’t deal with it except by awful incarceration. There was awful fears that it might be catching and people would often put their relative ‘away’ from them in one form or another.

A dog running across a busy road to chase a bitch isn’t acting rationally according to human standards. He is still acting on old drives which have not integrated, so no fresh information has been learned n about the environment – the traffic.

Being mad or irrational in a dream, or meeting a person or animal which is mad or insane, usually shows us facing urges to behave, or emotions which feel very threatening, or we cannot understand. Perhaps like the dog, they are drives which were sane in a past environment. The dream madness is often a partial expression of feelings that might be sane if we could allow them expression in their fullness. Pains and inhibition tend to twist and malformed what might otherwise be healthy.

Also often people who do not understand what is happening to you judge you as insane.

 Example: Suddenly I realised that I had had an unconscious fear of insanity for many years. It had only cropped up occasionally, once here when some very rational Americans visited me. I remember this event very clearly. They had come to look at my collection of spiritual books. The meeting left me feeling very shaken. It was, I think, because contact with them led me to look at myself from their viewpoint, which was that I was a loser and to be interested in such things pointed to being crazy. Sometimes this also occurred in earlier years. It usually revolved around my interest in the occult and irrational, when a sudden feeling of being wrong, unbalanced, or mad, came upon me. Its cause was not that I was mad, because later events proved I was sane; it was because the men had acted so sure of themselves it caused me to question my own sanity.

Example: I shrieked, screamed and contorted as these powerful words and fears came out of me. Madness was the last thing I had expected to come up. I saw how love had been so painful that I had almost cracked up when relating to S. I had to use yoga, fasting, prayer, to stop myself going over the edge. At the time I had read a comment about not editing what one allowed into consciousness. I started doing it but felt such terrible urges and feelings that I clamped down on it again. Also I saw the same pattern with P. When she left I had been near to a breakdown.

“So much pain. Nobody knows. Don’t love anyone, you might go mad. Don’t come near me, you’ll send me crazy. Love drives me mad. Mad! Don’t show it, no. Don’t tell anyone how you feel, or they’ll think I’m mad. I’ve got to hide it all. Hide it so no one knows. Find my feelings, how I’m going mad. Cover it up.”

Example; There is a tendency on the part of the public to minimize such reports because it is commonly believed that “miracle drugs,” particularly tranquilizers, have worked all miracles available and that there is no longer need for serious concern about the mental health problem. Actually, this is not the case.

What has happened is that tranquilizers have made it possible – to dispense with strait jackets, padded cells and other means of physical restraint. Also, these drugs and the energizers have made patients somewhat more accessible to psychotherapy, hence enabling them to be released in shorter periods of time than before. In New York State, which uses tranquilizers on a large scale, the average hospital stay has been cut from eight to four months.

When the patients return to their communities, they are able to obtain adequate maintenance therapy, primarily through prescribed tranquilizers and energizers. (Despite complicated side effects, the anti-depressants —monomine oxidase inhibitors—are now being used in the treatment of over four million Americans per year.)

But for all this, hospital admission rates for the mentally ill continue to rise. Therefore, it is clear that these drugs now in use, and some three hundred others being clinically tested, are not solving the problem.

With LSD, however, the psychiatric profession for the first time seems to have a means for dealing effectively with some of the deeper problems of mental disease which elude the tranquilizers and energizers. Medical reports indicate that LSD dramatically reaches into the roots of the disorder, rather than merely disposing of the symptoms and easing the patient. In some cases—with catatonics and autistic children, for instance—the therapist finds himself able to make contact with the patient for the first time since onset of the illness. As Dr. Gordon H. Johnsen * puts it: “During the first two years of our work with these compounds, LSD, we were in doubt of their value . . . We now consider that they give us therapeutic possibilities in areas where we were formerly powerless. In fact these drugs are of such great importance in our psychiatric instrumentarium that we can hardly think of doing without them. Indeed, this is a great step forward in psychiatry.

Except, a controlling government since this was written has banned all such use – so the mentally ill still are basically suppressed. But  recently there is a move to reinstate its use. See Scientists Find LSD Makes The Brain More Complete

Being confronted by a mad person or people: Meeting parts of ourselves which have not been integrated with our present situation; cultural fear we have about meeting the unconscious.

Being mad: Feeling threatened by the irrational and perhaps disintegrated aspects of the unconscious.

 Example: My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane.

Example: I dreamt I was involved with a place like Atam. It felt like a human swamp. If you got involved in it you became sucked down into an animal condition of loss of self. Feelings of hopelessness, pointlessness, and a cancerous attack filled those in the place. I walked alone. On the right were a pile of slabs. One of the inmates – because it was also a mental hospital – prison – (i.e. there was no cure. Once in you stayed mad) pulled out some slabs. Inside the pile were bodies of people who had been drawn into the place. Awful things had been done, like putting one person’s head on another body.  I was both an observer and an inmate. Lost in madness, the only drive was to draw others into the same state. As I was entering the place a couple walked past with their young boy. I looked at the child, and the madness in my eyes – terribly infectious – entered the soul of the boy. I felt he would eventually become an inmate.

Inside however, amidst the dirt and human wreckage, three young men, who were perhaps themselves inmates, were singing and playing a piano to the others. I felt that they had begun a healing process that was the only thing which would transform the place. They sang from their own pain and degradation, yet with a feeling one could change.

In exploring the dream the dreamer wrote that: I worked on the dream with my wife. It expressed a fear I have had of becoming a drop-out. During the past year, in sessions and life, the terrible power of pointlessness, of the human condition, of our inheritance of fear, pain and illusion, has been at times almost unbearable. I have often felt I would crack, and give up to become a drop out. I said to Anne that the price of failure to meet oneself in and out of life is to drop out. The urge to do this in the last few months has been strong and persistent – to run away from the difficulty and pain into an acceptance of being a smashed human being.

What has helped me avoid this is that: 1) I can see I have actually come through many problems, so I feel it is possible I can work through those that remain.

2) Running away does not remove the misery of the condition, it only removes ones reminder of it. Our problem is wherever we are.

3) As I wrote in a recent session, I see we are those disillusioned primitives. There is no way back. There does seem to be the possibility of the freedom I glimpsed in a session – not bliss, not worldly dulling, but aloneness, consciousness, self responsibility. It offers the joy of rising above all through the veils of illusion, pain, fear, ignorance and habits to a point where we can begin to create our own life. It does not seem to be easy, but it does offer some sort of real existence. The dream was a facing of this fear and a step toward moving beyond.  (The dreamer has managed to move beyond this state into peace.)

Idioms: boiling mad; don’t get mad – get even; don’t go away mad – just go away; get mad; go mad; hopping mad; like crazy/like mad; mad about; mad as a hatter; mad hatter; rip-snorting mad; spitting mad; stark raving mad

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where does my fear or dream of madness stem from?

How do I face such feelings?

Have I ever seen beyond such madness?

See Life’s Little SecretsMartial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Madonna

See Mary – Virgin – Virgin Birth – Virgin – How I Became A Virgin

Magazine

It depends what magazine and what you are doing with it. So it could be about wanting something like a recipe, it seeing things that interest you. Maybe you just want to look at the photographs, which can communicate a lot. If so what are they communicating or leading you to feel?

 Example: I pick up a Life magazine and see an article on Elizabeth Taylor. The picture moves; it’s a movie. The narration talks about how expressive and white her hands are. She has been in an accident and is a para. Her hands are lovely but are nervously clenching and unclenching one another.

Example: Other people are in the room, a man, maybe Chuck. I put a magazine up by my face, pretending to read it so no one will see my face and I try not to respond to the strong orgasm so no one will know this is happening. I’m embarrassed.

Maggot Maggots

Life or effects in your life, that have sprung from parts of yourself that are no longer growing or properly given life. The effects however, are usually efforts on the part of nature to cleanse, heal or deal with the situation. As an example, if there is a great deal of tension on the neck due to held back emotions, a dream might portray this dis-ease as an area full of maggots.

Maggots might also appear in a dream where there are fears about death or disease. This is because maggots often represent the negative view there is of death as the final decay. See: Corruption.

Impurities in body; sickness or sense of illness in the body; sense of corruption; feelings about death.

We are buffeted, torn by all the fears, angers, hates, prejudices human beings are heir to. There’s no creator we are told by our pundits. We are only maggots. There is no life after death.

Possible need to cleanse body of toxins or infection, or a sense of dis-ease emotionally in that area of self; something, like a fear or resentment, eating away at one. It could also indicate a decay or part of you lacking life, something ‘eating away at you’.  Remember that maggots only live on rotting things. Because of this they are sometimes used on humans to eat rotten flesh. As soon as they have eaten all the sick flesh the maggots drop off.

The unconscious telling us that a part of our attitudes is not wholesome or ‘well’. So repressed emotions causing tension in the chest might be represented as maggots. The secret witnessed in dreams is that if you dare stop running from these emotions and cut-out cartoons of death, with their maggots and rotting bodies, you will break through the screen the images are projected upon. The wondrous reality of life will be waiting for you there, ready to share the love and transformation that lies in death. Dare to challenge the mirage.

Maggots in ones body: The unconscious telling us that a part of our attitudes is not wholesome or ‘well’. So repressed emotions causing tension in the chest might be represented as maggots. See: body; corruption.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do the maggots appear on or in my body anywhere?

Am I aware of anything in my life that is rotten?

What does the dream point out about me?

See Plot of the DreamSecrets of Power DreamingWhat is your role in the dream

Magi

See: Guru.

Magic

Conscious attempts to direct or control the unconscious. underlying, or even spiritual forces of your being.

The child mind in us might see almost any process of life as magic. Also love has what some call a magical quality, as we often feel completely changed when the spell of it is upon us. See: BlackMagic; Left.

Might be the wish to accomplish something without effort or difficulty; desire to control situations; without knowing the underlying processes, our mind and emotions do things which appear as magic. To the child mind in us all, growth from a cellular speck to becoming a person is pure magic. Magic also represents the power of unconscious sexuality and how it can be hurt, bewitched, or we are controlled by it.

Because the unconscious will use any belief system or cultural symbols we have absorbed to express a theme, the powerful images of witches or evil characters we see on films or in fiction are often used to depict important experiences. For example a dream in which a spell or curse is placed on one can portray the influence a painful experience has left on one’s emotions. If you had been deeply hurt while in your mother’s arms, your unconscious would equate pain with being held close by a woman. This ‘cross wiring’ of associations could meaningfully be portrayed as a ‘spell’ which makes one feel frightened in the apparently loving situation.

But whenever we dream the images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

Magic words: Usually dreamt as a form of protection against the fears you are not master of, or else to give a form or magic power – in other words call forth the power of the unconscious.

Magical implements: Things such as wands or rings are all means of producing confidence in the magic we all have but do not usually believe in.

The magical Mass: The flesh of the hero or messiah would have given the magic power of fearlessness to those who ate this sacred meal. Therefore the person would have been killed, torn apart, and the flesh eaten and would have been like seeds of the new life, the new consciousness, which would take away the fear of death. We see this ritualised in Christianity where the body and blood of the saviour are consumed.

Woman’s magic: Adornment on men and women were probably first worn in ancient times when an attractive stone hung upon ones person caught the attention of others, so could be thought of as woman’s magic – probably to get a better man. The same with men, to show how different they were and as sign of being important. In today’s world they can signify the attention given to a woman, the memories attached to what is worn, or to attract attention as with rings in ones lips or nose.

Example: I felt immediately in love with this man, bronze skin, deep dark and noble eyes. We couldn’t stop looking to each other, like magic we make a bond and started to dance slowly a ballad, not music at all in the scene. I was so excited, and confused, the love I felt for that horse transform to more love now that he was a man, and same to him.

Love is a magic dreams can show us and open in us. It is our own magic that we usually deny we have, and it takes entry into our inner world to know and appreciate it.

 Example: I felt at the time, and still believe it correct, that I had fallen asleep yet remained awake. Waking, critical awareness had been taken through the magic doors of sleep into a universe it seldom ever sees – deep dreamless sleep.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel I have magic powers that other’s do not possess?

What was the magic I was facing or doing?

Do I understand what the magic was I was involved in out of symbols?

What confidence in my own magic of love or ability do I feel I lack?

See: Inner WorldVictimsDream Like a Computer GameTechniques for Exploring your Dreams spell.

 

 

Magician

Sometimes the Self – the magical abilities the unconscious has that are seldom tapped; ones potential.

Black magician: The negative or selfish ways we might use our power or internal insights and wisdom; the shadow or unacknowledged side of self. See magic

Magnet Magnetism

The influence – to attract or repel – we have on others or they have on us. Repulsiveness. Likes and dislikes, physical or personality charms, and the way in which they are used. The power resident in the body, that can be used for healing, or emotional psychic impact upon others; as in hypnosis, where one being has such an impact upon another that his suggestions are carried out to a greater or lesser degree. This is why hypnosis was often called magnetism. Christ is spoken of as the magnet that attracts and redeems and is also the highest common denominator.

Even matter shows a form of like and dislike in magnetism – like poles repel, opposite poles attract. A child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure – a pity to stop a child expressing its real feelings. In our dreams we often express our real feelings.

Also magnets have a formative power and might express is in dream – shaping iron filings for instance. There can be a magnetic force that can be very powerful between people, usually called love. But it can be very dangerous at times as the example shows.

 Example: I saw, floating on the water, many, many patches of hair – scalps. It looked as if the bodies had all dropped away, all rotted. I understood – lucidity – that as this was the dream world, something was wrong, as the people should have been able to change or deal with their dream surroundings. As it was, the water was like a higher dimensional trap. It was an image injected into personal dream images, that were not ones own, but an intriguing one. In some way it swallowed those who entered it.

Suddenly a youngish European man flashed to my side. He said, “Look away. You must not see what I do.” We/I, knew he was going to deal with the “trap”. This he did, while we averted our gaze. I knew that he could do this as he had the keys of about five levels of initiation of which I knew nothing. He was, in fact, an initiate.

I see that within each of us is the possibility of drawing another person into us. But it can only happen if we do not have a strong repulsive force. Also it seems to be that one is more susceptible if one was led to feel that without another person (ones mother?) you could not survive. The power that pulls one in is the fear of not being able to survive without the other person. In exploring how it could be dealt with I was shown that one has to recognise the power that pulls you and stops its action – by use of will and also be recognising its cause. That does not mean cutting of any feelings for the person, but it does mean recognition of what it can mean if it continuous.

Digital photos can be deleted by a magnet and this suggests things you have been impressed by, perhaps almost unconsciously, that are still awaiting development but could be lost.

But we are also all influenced by the enormous magnetism of our Earth. Life vibrates. As this vibration and our sense of it is known, we may experience the waves of sparkling radiance that are flowing through you, or maybe sense it as waves rolling around the earth, generating from the earth’s power or magnetism. These waves roll around and therefore through all of us.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way was the magnet depicted in my dream?

Did I or do I feel a magnetic force in some way?

Do I feel attracted or repelled by someone or something?

See Active PassiveContext/ThemeWorking with associationsInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Magnify

See: Lens.

Magnifying Glass

Making something conscious; becoming aware of something; making something bigger than it is and therefore making it more evident. Also it brings more details into our view.

A quote from Wilda B Tanner book Magical World of Dreams – One of the most important things we need to learn is that our problems actually serve as beacons of light or as magnifying glasses, emphasising or pointing out our most crippling fears, our most restrictive attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions which are holding up our progress-things we really must face up to and overcome if we are to grow.”

Using meditation could mean you are concentrating your thoughts and therefore making your aim more powerful – rather like magnifying glass focussing the suns rays.

Example: Walking down to old-time cellars. I went in and there was this old scientist grinding his knuckles into a glass dish. I forced the dish away from him and saw there tiny dots moving around. I put it under a magnifying glass and saw the girl surrounded by the horrible creatures. I started to try and kill them with my knuckles.

Example: So far the physiological symptoms and sensory impressions were like magnifying glasses and microscopes added to normal vision; they offered an extension of ordinary perception and awareness.

Example: Arnald of Villanova, a physician in the Middle Ages, compared dreams to magnifying glasses which could detect the small beginnings of physical illness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing with the magnifying glass, lighting a fire or looking at something?

Was what was shown in the dream interesting?

Could I take the dream beyond the symbols?

See How it FlowsSecrets of Power DreamingFunctions of dreams

Magpie

Desires caused by material possessiveness.

Mahout

The conscious self directing the mighty cosmic forces within.

Mail

See: Letter.

Mail Man

See: postman.

Make Making

 

 

Idioms: absence makes the heart grow fonder; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; don’t make a mountain out of a molehill; don’t make me laugh; don’t make no nevermind; don’t make waves; it makes no difference; make a beeline; make a big deal of it; make a big to-do; make a booboo; make a bundle; make a clean breast of it; make a clean sweep; make a comeback; make a difference; make a face; make a false move; make a federal case of it; make a fuss; make a go of it; make a good impression; make a killing;  a life for yourself; make a living; make a mistake; make a mountain out of a mole hill; make a name for yourself; make a pass; make a pitch; make a point of; make a scene; make a silk purse; make a splash; make advances; make amends; make an entrance; make an offer; make believe; make do; make ends meet; make every effort; make faces; make friends; make fun of; make good; make good time; make hay while the sun shines; make headway; make it; make it better; make it big; make it snappy; make it worse; make light of; make love; make me do it; make me sick/mad etc.; make mention; make mincemeat of; make money; make my day; make myself clear; make no bones about it; make of it; make off with; make out; make room;  make sense; make something of it; make something of yourself; make strange; make sure; make the bed; make the grade; make the most of it; make the team; make tracks; make trouble; make up; make up for; make up your mind; make war; make waves; make way; make whoopee; make your bum hum; make your hair stand on end; make your head spin; make your mark; make your mouth water; make your way; make yourself at home; make yourself scarce; makes no difference; need money to make…; on the make; the devil makes work for idle hands; there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; want to make something of it; you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink; has the makings; how are you making out; in the making

Make Making

This has so many possibilities because we can make sense, make money – in fact see the Idioms below to see how much we use the word.

If one of the idioms describe what you feel, and you ‘make out’, ‘make a scene’ or even make sure of someone then that is the meaning.

But if you are making something, then it is either indicating a creative action, or something you are in process of doing. Certainly doing something that may be creative. See Build Building; Create Creative Creativity

Example: Last night I dreamt my wife was trying to get me out of her life, and out of the house. It was as if she were attempting to push me into a feeling of tension and rejection which would make me leave.  At one point she was with another man and being very friendly.

Example:  I’m frightened but I want to make this journey.  I approach a stream with a very narrow bridge.  It’s dark and I’m afraid I may fall off the bridge.  But to continue I must cross the bridge.  Suddenly a young man appears to help me across.  I’m grateful.  He takes me to a small cottage where there are other young adults.  I’m a little nervous because these people clearly aren’t mainstream.

Idioms: absence makes the heart grow fonder; all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; don’t make a mountain out of a molehill; don’t make me laugh; don’t make no nevermind; don’t make waves; it makes no difference; make a beeline; make a big deal of it; make a big to-do; make a booboo; make a bundle; make a clean breast of it; make a clean sweep; make a comeback; make a difference; make a face; make a false move; make a federal case of it; make a fuss; make a go of it; make a good impression; make a killing; a life for yourself; make a living; make a mistake; make a mountain out of a mole hill; make a name for yourself; make a pass; make a pitch; make a point of; make a scene; make a silk purse; make a splash; make advances; make amends; make an entrance; make an offer; make believe; make do; make ends meet; make every effort; make faces; make friends; make fun of; make good; make good time; make hay while the sun shines; make headway; make it; make it better; make it big; make it snappy; make it worse; make light of; make love; make me do it; make me sick/mad etc.; make mention; make mincemeat of; make money; make my day; make myself clear; make no bones about it; make of it; make off with; make out; make room;  make sense; make something of it; make something of yourself; make strange; make sure; make the bed; make the grade; make the most of it; make the team; make tracks; make trouble; make up; make up for; make up your mind; make war; make waves; make way; make whoopee; make your bum hum; make your hair stand on end; make your head spin; make your mark; make your mouth water; make your way; make yourself at home; make yourself scarce; makes no difference; need money to make…; on the make; the devil makes work for idle hands; there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; want to make something of it; you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink; has the makings; how are you making out; in the making.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are you making or have made?

Are you a creative person?

What have you made of your life?

See Energy Sex and DreamsEvery 7 Years You ChangeInner World

Make-Up

Our ability to change the impression we make on others; cover up for our real feelings or situation. See: Cosmetic.

Example: The place was a seedy joint. I felt badly about the entertainment. I went down the stairs to the dressing room. I put on makeup and an evening dress. I got up there and sang my heart out. They liked it. It was classy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part is the makeup playing in my dream and in my life?

What do I feel about the makeup, and how does that relate to my present situation?

Am I trying to hide or cover up something – if so what?

See Identity and DreamsInner WorldAssociations Working With

Male Man

I suppose one of the most striking things I experienced in recent years is that a dream image is just a ‘front’ for massive data banks of experience and information. For instance, supposing we liken your memory to a huge filing system – rooms of it. Within those rooms there is a whole section marked ‘MAN’. Within that section of ‘MAN’ are countless folders with experience and information in about particular men in your life – from father onwards. Apart from that there is a big file or system of files dealing with what you inherited culturally about MAN, and also what you have absorbed from mother and other women. Then there is the media and books. So much.

What particular aspect of all this a dream is expressing depends on how the dream presents, clothes, acts, speaks and relates as the man. So the dream image is a communication between your waking awareness and those massive files of information, and dealing with a particular aspect of your life and development. There is a whole book here somewhere.

As for the female male, and the male female, this is one of those lifetime areas of growth we each face and achieve in lesser or greater degrees. Fundamentally we are without a particular gender, but in connection with our body we often have very marked female or male characteristics and responses to life. However, as we move through the major problems we are wrestling with we start meeting our other half and finding symbols of blending. Eventually the male and female are one in us, though we can easily continue to live as a male or female. A way of cutting through to direct understanding is to use Being the Person or Thing

One of the simplest meanings a man in your dream has is that he portrays your relationship, your feelings about, or responses to, a relationship with a man. The man in your dreams in nearly always an aspect of your own feelings, hopes and fears. Even if it is someone you know well, the dream image is never that person. It is certainly an image you have built out of your memories, your views of that person, your likes, dislikes and insights, the pains or pleasures, the things you learned in relationship with that man.

The man in your dreams in nearly always an aspect of your own feelings, hopes and fears. Even if it is someone you know well, the dream image is never that person. It is certainly an image you have built out of your memories, your views of that person, your likes, dislikes and insights.

The man is in general the polarisation of thought, of activity in the world, of invention and doing, even if you are a woman, you have these qualities that will probably be dreamt of under the image of a man.

In general a person in a dream shows one of your own character resources or problems, depending upon how you relate to the character. Each character trait is a part of the your repertoire of behaviour. If you are at odds with the person in the dream or threatened by him or her, then the trait dominates you rather than you being able to use it without fear. An important point is that the dream image of the person or object summarises the trait. Through the image the you can access the resources of the trait. Therefore it is an image of power. See Being the Person or Thing

Inner male: Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone or have lived with them. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship. Please read this wonderful example, it will show how much we take in from those we love or lived with.

In a woman’s dream: The man might represent your felt relationship with a particular man, or males in general. In this sense the man portrays the power of your own womanhood, indicating whether you can meet male energy with your full female energy. The man might also represent your ability to question social conventions and to attack issues with thought.

In a man’s dream: An aspect of your own character traits.

Man in black: Usually represents something we fear or a part of us we are largely unconscious of, but is coming to awareness if we allow it.  See shadow 

Mysterious Man: The mystery man can be a way of describing the mysterious life process or higher self. It can be scary because we are not, in civilised cultures, in touch with Life but are frightened of it. Nothing can hurt you in a dream, so even if you fear the man is dangerous, it is only your emotions clothed in a dream image. See What we Need to Remember About Dreaming.

Old man: This might depict some aspect of the relationship with your father, or it might be a form of wisdom you are meeting.

Half animal man: Urges and aspects of yourself that have not yet been socialised, or are at odds with today’s form of social life. See Archetype of the Animus – Ape-man Half man Half Monster

Malformation

Whatever is symbolised is not expressing its true characteristics.

Mall

A mall can be a place or a dream situation in which you are looking for something or wanting to purchase something, whether that something is an object, entertainment or food. But some people find the atmosphere of malls poisonous because they feel they are temples of greed and commercialism.

The everyday business of life. It might also indicate choices you are making, or being involved with people. Your relationship with the public – or how you relate to people in general.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing at the mall?

Was I looking for something or someone in particular?

When I visit a mall what do I usually do there?

See Plot of the DreamBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Mammal Brain

See mammal brain and realise the important part it plays in your own life.

Mammoth

Our personality is a young new thing. It grows throughout our life, but its roots reach into the processes of life and consciousness active in our own being, which are as ancient as life on this planet. Life on the planet is also only an extension of processes active in the cosmos. So in dreams we often sense this primordial past out of which our present self has grown, and frequently depict this meeting as a prehistoric animal such a dinosaur or mammoth.

When you were conceived you were at the very beginning of life forms. In fact we have to go to the very primal to reproduce. That may not mean much to most people, but in the dream world it means an enormous amount. Because from there we go through the whole process of evolution as we are in our mother’s womb. Again, most people say, “So what. I don’t remember!” You remember not in ordinary memories, but in ancient feelings of fear, or religious wonder or even intuitions of life’s meaning. But of course we do and such memories are seen in our dreams. So when you learned language you forgot all the past.

 

 

Man Male

In most cases an aspect of yourself – even in a woman’s dream – depending on the activity and character of the man in the dream. Any indication whatsoever in the dream gives a clue to what aspect of yourself. In the example below, the character of the friend, the role of the psychiatrist, and the feelings of the client, indicate which aspects of Bernard’s character are being dealt with. Therefore a man trying to rape a woman would be her fears about sex; a homosexual would depict those feelings; business man, ones work or business abilities; loving man ones feelings about love, and so on. See Characters and People in Dreams; Summing Up; Archetype of the Fatheranimus; male.

In general a person in a dream shows one of the dreamer’s character resources or problems, depending upon how they relate to it. Each character trait is a part of the person’s repertoire of behaviour. If they are at odds with the person in the dream or threatened by it, then the trait dominates them rather than they using it. An important point is that the dream image of the person or object summarises the trait. Through the image the dreamer can access the resources of the trait. One can call this an image of power. See Characters and People in Dreams

 A man in your dream can also represent all the influences taken into yourself from the important men in your life as you matured from childhood. Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship. Please read this wonderful example, it will show how much we take in from those we love or lived with.

 Example: ‘I was walking down the steps of a house, leading into the front area of the basement. I was with a man, perhaps a friend. At the bottom of the steps a psychiatrist was talking to a male client. They were having a session there in the open. I sensed the man’s feelings of embarrassment and exposure. But I felt it was necessary to be thus exposed. i.e. the psychiatrist was purposely holding the session in the open so the man could learn to relax.’ Bernard O.

Bernard, a practising therapist, is all of the men in the dream. It portrays the interaction between different parts of himself. The ‘I’ walking down the steps is the active, fairly adventurous person Bernard sees himself as; the man following – a friend – is a man Bernard knows who has sexual difficulties, and represents Bernard’s own sexual hesitations; the psychiatrist is Bernard’s therapeutic skill used in his own life; the male client is Bernard’s difficult feelings when dealing with groups of people – the public, which he is trying to ‘expose’ or get to know and transform. The following example shows some of the difficulties of being a man.

Example: Added to this I learned not to trust a woman. My mother taught me hard and good that the person you loved could just give you away, that she could torture you to make you conform. It’s a fucking shit. When meeting a woman who professes love I tend to say inside myself, ‘Yeah, yeah, you love me. I’ve got it. Yes, sure you love me. Sure, I understand. Join the queue. I’ll believe it when I see the payments. I’ll look it up next month when the accounts come in. I’ll see what you paid in. Okay love? See you.’ Anyway this is the shape I am, part man, part woman, the love part of me twisted up. What about down there, the sex organs? Can we get a dollop of love going for this poor bugger? So I’ve been sad. Finished. Have a laugh. Join the human race, the multi gendered, many shaped, distorted human race. ‘What is the name of this game?’ Being a human being is a new one on me.’ Sam, it’s not good enough being like that, with a slightly bitter feeling about the world. Even if I have to say so myself, it’s not right. You’ve got a woman who’s full of love, and you just don’t know how to get it out of her.

I went to the toilet at this point and felt confused about my role. I could feel the strong attachment to the female mother role. I had learn it when I felt my wife was not giving love to my children, so I took on the mother role. I even tried to breast feed them. I didn’t want to give it up. I had enjoyed it so much and got so much out of it I didn’t want to lose it. But this left me feeling uncomfortable about living as a male and particularly living as a male with my wife. What sort of arrangement was it to live with a woman but prefer not to be a man – at least, not sexually? There was no way I wanted to lose my seed, my eggs. While in the toilet however, I realised I didn’t want to be stuck either in the male or female role, I wanted to be whole. The memory of my dream arose again and I said, ‘I want to be a man, I want to be a woman, I want to be the young boy, the old man. I want to be an animal and a spirit. I am all those things, and it is wonderful. I love it. So am I genuinely a 100% male, or am I a fucked up version because of what my mother did?

I asked this of myself and opened to my inner feelings to test the truth, to see if I was hiding something from myself. I felt as if I were taken into the temple of life before the ageless ones and animals and they looked at me. In their presence I felt I was wholly male. They ‘said’ to me, ‘You are a man. You fight alongside the rest of us. You’re in there with the men. You’re in the men’s pack.’ So I got my colours from the man pack. I want to find out whether I am truly a woman too. Have I got my colours from the women’s pack for caring for my kids? ‘Tony, you’ve got a vagina, there’s no doubt about it. You know exactly what it’s like to be a woman. You know what a woman longs for. You are a woman. You know all about the cycles and all the periods of growth through puberty, womanhood and old age. I can’t distinguish you from a woman. In fact you are a fucking fine woman. You trained for it.’

Example: During the week, while at work, a spontaneous and powerful reverie began concerning being clear. It was as if I strongly experienced this quality of feeling of being a poof. It was just one feeling among the many that make up my nature, but I had never before felt it clearly like this. It made sense of my years of difficulty in relating to girls and women. I remembered so many incidents; the time the woman approached me at the Oasis swimming pool, and I recoiled in shock. The girls I had met and never touched or been a ‘man’ with. The redhead I walked around Soho fair with – the second Helen – and the sexual advances that shocked me because of their frankness. Also all the homosexuals I met and attracted. Also of having that (as Janov puts it) fag feeling. As all this rose into consciousness I felt such deep gratitude to life, God, for this healing activity as I felt it flow out of me and began to feel like an actual man.

Here is another view of being a male:

Example: The message to males is – you have a dick, and that is because you are a creature of evolution. You are an animal. Don’t deny that. You are an animal. You are beautiful living animal, and if you deny that, deny the source of your own life. Denying your animal is like denying the wellsprings of your being. Out of the wellsprings you will seek a mate. You will seek somebody to give your seed to. If you are seeking a male, honestly, your river of life has been diverted. There has to be polarity before there can be union. Therefore seek the foundations of your being. That may be painful. It may take you on the journey of memory out up your amnesia. “Except if you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Your journey, it will  they take you back through your childhood to your beginning. Take the journey. When you have taking the journey reclaim your feminine. This is not an acting out of the feminine by changing your body or wearing different clothes. It is an actual shift within yourself so that you know yourself as a male and as the female. Build her and become one with her.

Example: In entering the dream imaginatively and followed the woman through the water, now with my feet there. She turned to climb a small hill on the right and I followed her. As I did this I experienced a very wonderful feeling. It felt as if light were beginning to shine out of me as if I had a glowing aura. When we reached the top of the hill we were arms about each other, and I had the glorious sense of being wholly myself – wholly a man. I sensed that I had reached a new level of manhood by more fully accepting myself, by more fully giving and allowing more of myself to be available to others. It felt to me as if manhood is a glory, a shining out of life itself through a particular person.

But often in being a man – or woman – and defining an identity one can meet many pitfalls. Below is a mans exploration, in his fifties, of finding his manhood.

“When these emotions quietened I began to feel as if I were waiting for something else to happen. I didn’t know what to do in relationship with those around me in my group. Was there something I needed to BE, some role. I couldn’t find it. The waiting I identified with the sense I have of waiting to discover the ‘important thing I am going to do with my life’ – which I never find. Then the questions arose – what do you do to be a man? If I’m a man, and I’ve grown to that point, what do I do now? What does a man do with other people, how do you do it? I’m new to it so am just finding out. As this too passed I began to feel that perhaps one didn’t need to DO anything in particular – just to be there as myself. This came about because I turned to each of the people and realised that I was a different person with each of them – so who was I? Pete wasn’t anything in particular, yet was anything. So in the end I could be with the group and feel empty inside yet feel I was being something with each person. In other words, I am wonderful opportunity to be anything and everything, not just some stereotype of manhood – or womanhood, but a real alive and multifaceted being”.

Example: I remembered how I had felt about the girls and contributing all of my efforts, and earnings and time. I had felt really angry, and I got back into this feeling. Almost immediately I began to go deep into the feeling. I was somewhat slumped in the chair. I was angry because I was a beast/man, a wild beast, who had, for the sake of my wife’s children, disciplined my urges towards going to work every day to a job that did not interest me. I had restrained my desire for rest and pleasure. I felt enormous resentment that I had to restrain myself while they lived largely unrestrained. One child had not giving even a token of help when I had passed her, had brought this to a head. Also another holding on to the electricity money as I held my hand out to take it had led me to feel I was an outsider, alone in trying to work out what needed to be done, alone in disciplining my desires for pleasure and not using my money for myself. Yes, I said, as a beast it is natural to grab what we can for ourselves. She is an animal like myself. She too has the urge to grab and hold on. It is natural in a human child.

As I sat, the anger weld up and burst out of me. I roared out, “Why should I go on holding myself back day after day, year after year, disciplining myself, when my wife’s kids mock me, like a caged beast. I’m a man – I could tear them apart with my bare hands – but I’m caged. My body straightened up and I sat direct and full of angry power. Gradually this is softened. I wanted to create an area of protection for my and my wife’s children. But I do want some help from the children.

Big man: Ones basic beliefs or attitudes to life which test out against reality. The bigness is the certainties which arise from this, and therefore the sense of strength.

Dreaming the man is looking at other women or leaving: Usually the fears about being a decent husband, or simple an expression of a man’s desire for a woman.

Inner man:  Many people do not realise that they have an inner male equally as powerful as an external male.  A woman or man may have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your a male, a boyfriend, a husband or son, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your male was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘male’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner male can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot more, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’ or accept as part of our owm experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or space to live in.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

Most of this was spontaneous thoughts and movement through the experience, so that was how I was led to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother even after he died. Then I realised that I was linked with Rita, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Rita – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the alien beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything, because their life pattern was now part of me. Then with a rush of wonder, I realised that the more people and creatures I loved, the bigger I became. See Digest

Man giving birth to a baby, or dreaming a woman is pregnant: In dreams we are no longer limited by our bodies, so men often dream of giving birth to a baby. The baby is often the synthesis if the mans life – the best he has out into a new form – the baby. If it is a woman pregnant in a mans dream, it is still his baby because he dreamt it.

Man in woman’s dream – man she knows or loves: Feelings, worries about relationship; your summary of what is happening, or what you fear will happen in the relationship with your man. In either case it is still information about the relationship. The simplest meanings a man in your dream has, is that it portrays your relationship, your feelings about, or responses to, a relationship with a man.

Man in black: Usually represents something we fear or a part of us we are largely unconscious of, but is coming to awareness if we allow it.  See shadow; Being the Person or Thing

Man in woman’s dream: Fundamentally about the dreamer’s relationship strengths or difficulties, either with a particular man, or with men in general. A woman’s ability to question conventional behaviour and social habits; her strength to look with insight into her own life and change it thereby – but not her feeling values, emotions and intuitions. It can be her creative or business ability in the world and power to be competitive and challenging. Or her defence against ‘just knowing’ out of the power of her emotions and inbuilt prejudices; depending on how she deals with the male figure, it show her ability to meet a male. So it may show her feeling the power of her womanhood and meeting the man with strength, or her lack of self assurance along with the difficulties this produces. See Archetype of the Animus

Older man: Father or ones accumulated experience and wisdom; perhaps even wisdom from the unconscious if man is white haired or holy; sometimes, if you are male, it is the person you can or will grow into.

Primitive, coarse, wild, ape or half animal man: Urges which have not yet been integrated and socialised, usually pertaining to sexuality in today’s social attitudes or natural social feelings at odds with present attitudes. He can also represent energies that have been pushed out of place by something – instinctive aggression and sexuality entering the rational mind for instance.

Two men: Might be triangle situation.

Idioms: Man to man; be a man; front man; hit man; make a man of; odd man out; right hand man. See: Family; Woman; Ages of Love

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you found what you associate with the man in your dream? Does he remind you of your father?

Is he a dream character, so maybe your way of exploring your sexual self?

See Working with associationsfatherapemanBeing the Person or Thing

Mandala

If one could produce a graphic image of the whole of human nature, many different forms might be integrated within an overall shape, such as a circle or square. Also, if it were possible to have a visual presentation of a person’s inner world of mind, weaknesses, strengths, order, confusion, and quality, each person would appear differently. Some would be internally jumbled, divided and ugly; others symmetrical, integrated and beautiful.

Because the unconscious produces dreams, and because dreams are imagery that give form to the otherwise abstract elements of internal human nature, there arise in some dreams shapes or patterns which depict an overall view of ones own inner condition. Carl Jung drew attention to the circle and square designs in some dreams, calling them mandalas – which is a Sanskrit word meaning circle, and referring to religious symbols – and seeing them as representing the nucleus of the human identity. Although we are, in our everyday life, the magical and mysterious process of life, it is difficult for us to actually answer the question ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ with any lasting conviction. See Life

The mysterious essence of ourselves is met in dreams as a circular or square object or design; as the sun, a flower, a square garden with a round pond in the middle, or a circle with a square or quartered design within it, a circle with cross within, a revolving or flying cross shaped object. Classical symbols from all nations use this theme, and we can find it in the Round Table of king Arthur, in the centre of which the Holy Grail appeared; the healing sand paintings of the Navaho Indians; the zodiac; circle dances; stone circles; the Buddhist wheel of birth and death; and so on.

The circle usually symbolises a natural wholeness, our inner life as nature has shaped it. The square shows wholeness we have helped shape by conscious co-operation with our inner world or the healing power of the Self. There are two main reasons why one produces this theme in ones dreams. It occurs in children or people meeting internal or external shocks, and produces a strengthening of the vulnerable identity in meeting the varied influences they face. It arises in people who are meeting and integrating the wider life of their being existing beyond the boundaries of their usual interests, or what they allow themselves to experience. The contact with the Self is then part of an extending of awareness into what was dark or unknown, not only in ones own unconscious, but in external life. In touching the nucleus of ones being in this way, one becomes aware in some measure of the infinite potential of ones life. There is often an accompanying sense of existence in eternity and the many different ‘mansions’ or dimensions of experience one has within the eternal.

Jung says of it “The mandala serves a conservative purpose-namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique. The second aspect is perhaps even more important than the first, but does not contradict it. For, in most cases, what restores the old order simultaneously involves some element of new creation. In the new order the older pattern returns on a higher level. The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point.

Example: The first waking dream was looking at the green wall and seeing the huge moving mandala. At the centre of it was emptiness. Out of this nothingness poured forms of living creatures, all moving and dancing out from the centre in time with each other – though making different movements. These emerging, dancing forms went out to a periphery – the edge of the circle – then they danced back to the centre and merged back into the nothingness yet at the same time new beings were born from it.

See: The archetypes of the self and search for self; yoga and dreamsarchetype of the mandala.

Mane

If on an animal, it suggests power, strength, wildness or freeness of feelings and urges. If on a human See: Hair.

Mansion

The mansion, like house, shows all the different departments of your life, such as the bathroom for cleansing, library for mental growth, etc. The mansion however, is sometimes used to show just how big you are, how much you hold in yourself, and perhaps the amount of work you have put into becoming who you are. See: House.

Although a house represents all the aspects of self in which our identity lives – a body, emotions, creativity, etc. – a mansion is depicting the same thing with a different emphasis. It is ourselves as we are plus features still latent, possibilities not yet developed or explored.

Example: When I identified with the house it took a while to really experience it as a living process rather than simply an intellectual interpretation.  But when I did I become the structure and experienced the extent of the house, I realised it as my body.  But it was not my body as I had been taught to see it through my training as a nurse.  I did not experience it simply as a biological process, or a physiological machine.  I experienced it as an incredibly ancient thing, carrying or incorporating in its form and functions lessons of life gathered over millions of years of human and animal evolution.  I felt that it holds within its darkness – the presently unconscious areas developed and lived in the past – enormous amounts of information or memories.  We fail to be aware of these because our attention is so fixed on the world outside of us.  But of course, even there, if we look carefully, we can see we are the result, our culture and language are the result, of the events and lives stretching back into the ancient past.

Mantle Piece (fireplace)

Homeliness and often the place of comfort or family gatherings. Sometimes indicates the comfort of the womb.

A mantle  piece in a home is often like small shrine to family memories or people. If not on a fireplace shelf it is often elsewhere. Sometimes it is to hold precious objects. It represent in a way ones religious feelings about family, about beauty or about things one has realised and so one represents them in some way. Such things are the real pieces one uses inside to build a real centre or self. See Archetype of the Self

Example: I chose to ignore the kitchen and go straight to the living room to find something. As soon as I stepped in I could feel spirits thick in the air, and I wasn’t afraid! I started to search the mantle piece above the fire place. It wasn’t anyone I could identify, but there was a spirit who was encouraging me who I knew as an old friend. I suddenly realized what I was determined to find, it was the spirit’s freedom. During the dream I felt older than my body. 

The dream from a teenager is about beginning to realise her independent direction in life. The spirits are the subtle influence she feels guiding her. The mantle piece is the olace she finds the family or inner influence directing her to greater freedom.

 Example: Growing bored, I began to clean the gothic area where I was placed. A fireplace leading directly to Hell did not frighten me, but presented an effective place to burn all the trash I was picking up! Eventually in cleaning the stones around the fireplace I discovered a loose one. I pulled it out and found a fortune!!! Nothing in the dream impressed me as much, or evoked any emotion such as this.

By facing her fears – the doorway to hell – she was able to clear away the rubbish of ideas and values – burning the trash she had picked up. That clear the way for her to find the treasure that she has within her. The fireplace is again a guiding influence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you think or feel when you see a good mantle shelf?

Do you use it as a place for photographs or objects?

Does you dream mantle shelf have things on it, or are their secrets involved?

See Working with associations – Being the Person or Thing – Magical Dream Machine Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Manure

The things you no longer need, that no longer nourish you, but can now be used in new growth when broken down. The manure might be new ideas or a new encounter that stimulates growth. See: Faeces.

In some ways our personality or identity is like a plant which feeds from the most unlikely material to produce beautiful leaves and flower. The plant can transform manure into living leaves and petals. Our identity feeds on experience and information – some of which may appear uninviting, painful, or unwholesome. In fact the experience may be all of these, and be shown as manure, and if not put to our roots – our process of becoming aware of things in an intensely felt manner which links feelings with intellectual insight – remain a disintegrating influence. Like manure something that is rich and needed for or holding in it the potential for growth.

Learning processes which pile intellectual information on children or adults without helping them to allow their deep feeling responses, are piling manure on the psyche while cutting off its roots. Personal disintegration is the result.

 Example: Example: I was near a lake in the countryside. Everything was frozen. I saw some horse droppings still steaming and this seemed to be the only living thing around. Kevin K.

Kevin’s comments on this are that the frozen lake and countryside express his feelings about the world around him. He sees it as cold and uninviting. It is frozen and there is no life in it for him. That is, he cannot find anything in life to excite him or have meaning. The horse dung he realised is the resources he can use to change his life. The dung can be manure or food for growth, or fuel to burn for energy and heat. This made him feel as if there is a way to transform his old unsatisfying patterns of ‘frozen’ emotions into something growing and satisfying.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening in the dream with the manure?

Is it seen as useful or objectionable?

If I have used manure how have I used it?

See compost Settings in Dreams Dreams are Virtual RealitiesTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Manuscript

Could be about acceptance or rejection of a project you have worked on.

Handing it over is like exposing yourself in some way and is a sort of courage because of peoples response.

Does it contain other people’s work and has it been credited, if not you may be judged badly.

What does the manuscript contain – your life story, a fiction, or a text book?

Waiting for a response from publishers – can represent anxiety or hopefulness, depending on feelings in the dream.

Working on someone else’s manuscript is probably about judgements of some sort. Sometimes things come alive and even beautiful.

Example: I was walking down in a lane with a mixed group of people. On my right in the hedge I found my manuscript of my present writings scattered, wet with rain, and jumbled. I gathered the manuscript out of the hedge, realising this was what happened when one left it to other people to look after and circulate ones work. Now I was in the foyer of a large well-kept hotel. Kneeling on the floor I sorted out and set into order the manuscript. Despite its fate it now seemed undamaged and complete. None was lost. I was now going to care for it myself.

This is obviously a dream about how he feels others will care for work that took him many years to gather the experience to write it.

Map

Clarifying ideas of direction in life. Understanding of what one has or wishes to do, and how to do it. You might be wondering what direction you need or want to take in life, or where your present course of action is taking you.

 We can be lost and need a map for many things. For many of us are without a map of our life, or we lose ourselves in love and get terribly lost in the experience, even in childhood we can lose ourselves, or become lost in ourselves because of troubling experiences.

 Example: We give ourselves all these names – like God – Christ – Allah – Buddha – Soul Mate. We find that wonder in ourselves and then project it externally. We cannot believe that what we see as God, or Allah and a great love is a glimpse of our own potential, is a vision of what we are. So we project it outwards and kneel before it.

Example: Of course this didn’t mean that my sense of time was fully developed from there on. The experience of being lost in the world of Michaelmas daisies and sticklebacks, shows how slowly the sense of time creeps into our soul, and influences it.  It is difficult to map the gradual encroachment of time into our worldview. Even well into my school years, summer holidays felt like an eternity.  At that period I had no concept of the holiday ending.

There is a view that there is a map of the way forward. When we can realise something of our Core Self, then we can begin to feel we have achieved some level of mastery in the physical world. Therefore, if we see enlightenment as the extension of self-awareness through a further maturing of our individual self, just as adolescence arises through maturing of the child self, we will look to those around us who have achieved some degree of enlightenment as our older brothers and sisters. We will move toward the map of our life though the processes of growth and maturing, especially understanding our dreams, which give many maps for us to follow if we take note of them.

Likewise we need a map of the hugeness we are within us – the unconscious. An introduction to this is given in Levels of AwarenessFunctions of dreams

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

When have you felt lost and in need of a map or guidance?

What or who have you felt guided by in the past?

Have you a map or assurance of the way you are heading?

See EnlightenmentLife ChangesCollective UnconsciousTechniques for Exploring your Dreams 

Marathon

Participation in life, in the human ‘race’. What happens may sum up your feelings about how you feel about life. It might also have tones of winning or losing. See: Race.

Mare

A mare in you dream is your powerful instinctive womanhood. Or if it is a male dreaming it, then you relationship with a powerful female. See woman

 Our awareness of the inner mammal we all are can be frightened because of a pain experienced in the past. That is how animals function. They experience immediate primitive pleasure pain or fear in their body and emotions, enough to turn them away from possible danger or move toward pleasure. And that is exactly how our own animal brain communicates with us still. Such communication results in what we call psychosomatic illness, irrational fears, and panic attacks. Or on the positive side the great exuberance and pleasure. See horse

The horse or other animals are a part of you that if you took the time to really feel the feelings they provoke, and get past the blockages you have as protection against you knowing yourself, then you become more whole, saner, and with more powers. See Mammal Brain

They are the natural urges in you that have only been slightly broken in, or socialised, so we may feel them as urges that may react against what we ask of them. A horse for instance is broken in, or socialised, when it is young, as we are.  For we are ourselves largely a mammal and this part of us still has to be cared for. A horse for instance is exactly as we are when first born. But if we are caring for our inner mare – a horse – we must still make sure it has proper food, exercise and rest, as well as an expression for its herd instinct and desire to reproduce. Please see Programmed

So the mare in your dream can sometimes be about being a mother and giving birth.

 Example: I dreamt two great wolf like dogs were on a headland. They had to be killed for some reason. I shot them. They seemed to take a long time to die and I felt compassion for them. Now horses seemed to be lying with them. The death struggles became the horses – mares – struggles to give birth. I saw the vagina parted to show a head. Birth would follow. Nathan.

Nathan explored his dream and had the following intuitive response to it as if someone was explaining it to him: “When you were trying to murder the lower forces in yourself they would not die, they only thresh about. Try the bringing of life to them. The bringing of love is represented by your desire not to have them suffer. Great love turns the destructiveness of the lower forces into creativeness. The gun was the destructiveness of the fears and angers in you turned against yourself. The love redeemed this power, directing it in a new way. Love enables new life to emerge from the whole. The new life promises strength where there was only fear. When you love yourself, you lift parts of your being into new life.”

 Example: I saw a beautiful dappled grey mare. It was exquisitely shaped, and had the look of great sensitivity and intelligence. Its front left leg had been snapped off below the knee in a recent accident. I went out and called it gently. As I laid my hands on it the mare quietened and lay its head against me in obvious relief to be near someone in its pain. It so needed contact it put its injured leg around my shoulder, pulling me closer as a woman might who needed to be held and loved. I felt great contact and love for the creature. In waking I felt it wanted me to make love to it.

Such an exquisitely beautiful dream shows you are a person who has created or crafted your own mental and emotional clarity. The lovely horse is in fact your own natural feelings, your own emotional responses. They have been hurt in some way connected with love, and you are managing to care for this pain in yourself, but there is a longing in you for the physical tenderness of a woman.

Becoming a mare: This is a very primal and important dream. It shows how much you have integrated the mammal into your conscious self. It brings great power and wonder to you.

When this happens you are one the ancestor of the tribe and the clan, your family. Therefore you have become more than human and have begun to see Life, as most people are blind to.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel about or in connection with the mare?

Did you feel any connection or links with it?

Can you imagine yourself as the mare?

See Being the Person or ThingClicking OnAnimals

Mark Marked Marks

A mark may suggest the influence that created the mark. We may be marked by certain experiences of life, or leave a mark through our actions. A mark may also have arisen by intention, or by accident. The mark may represent a sense of ownership or a connection, as with a trade mark. The mark may indicate quality or lack of it – the mark of Cain, or a goldsmith’s mark.

The huge transitions or changes we meet in our life leave a mark on us which may be shown in dreams. For instance, “Today I noticed for the first time a small brown mark on my left hand. True I have been out in the sun, but I never grow freckles. This is one of those marks old people have on their hands”. So this was an indication of ageing.

Also our parent and forebears, as do the culture and language we are born into leave enormous marks or influences in us. See Programmed

 Our body – as with finger prints – always leave marks of our presence. Your activities and work leave an observable mark upon the world. The Y chromosome in each male holds in it markers showing ones ancestral history back to the beginning of human development – 300 million years in fact. See Ancestors

Blood on the ground can be the mark that someone has been hurt or killed or as a sign of danger.

A brand can suggest ownership by whatever has branded you, or it can be a marking of you socially as a warning of some sort. In some cases it is a mark of recognition, as in tribal branding, or a mark of love.

 Example: The pain in my chest started in earnest in connection with my struggle in relationship with Sonia – again the love connection. In later years a great many things that I uncovered in exploring it were to do with my loving and conflicting feelings regarding my children and with my wife. What have I done to love to create this pain? Why has its branded me like this?

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise how I got the mark and what it means?

What have I done to leave such a mark on me?

Is it a mark of things I have faced and met, like scars?

See Being the Person or ThingLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Market

Everyday reality. Your contact with the world in general, the hustle and bustle, the commerce of life, the commercial instincts, the unsympathetic mob. Trade, the buying and selling, even of yourself, perhaps in your skills or labour. In some dreams the market place is where you meet a person who represents the highest in yourself. This might be in the form of Christ or a being you know is radiant with love.

Reality of everyday life; the push and shove, give and take of relating to people in general, but particularly ‘the public’; the wide range of experience one meets in exposing oneself to more than ones close family and friends; the buying and selling of things or self, therefore the self interest in oneself or others. It is also a place of choices and decisions, so maybe you are looking for or seeking something.

There are also the huge markets in goods, sex slaves, prostitution, the black market, the stock market and the marketing of beliefs or ideas – such with religion or politics. These are dealt with in our dreams.

 Example: In fact I am still learning. My body, and I guess part of my emotional structure, was formed out of generations of forebears who were Roman Catholics. Some of my inner journeys showed me that this has actually changed aspects of the biological and physiological processes in my being. It has been a struggle to grow, and it is still not easy.

Dreams sometimes show you marketable ideas of projects, so may be market research is needed.

In the Chinese Ox Herding pictures the last one shows a man who has made the whole life journey in the market place as a common man, without any special robes, or religious dress, or even any followers. You can be special without any outer show.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of market was it in the dream?
Was I seeking something or buying?

Did I feel comfortable in the market?

See DecisionSimple TruthsMeditation with SeedTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Marriage and wedding

Feelings about being or getting married; uniting two different aspects of yourself such as intellect and feelings, practical and intuitive self; the ‘marriage’ between conscious and unconscious self – any children of the marriage would be flowering of new abilities or qualities. But children of married partners can often indicate the state of the marriage, its problems of wonders.

Sometimes it refers to what our energy or drive is uniting us with – such as a new business venture or creative scheme – any children of this type of marriage suggest our intuitive assessment of the likely outcome.

There are many urges in a woman or man other than getting a good partner. There is also the urge to find recognition in society, to move toward independence, to find a comfortable place in life – probably alone, to achieve financial independence, or to have children.

In some cultures dreaming of a wedding signifies a death in the family.

But from the viewpoint of the unconscious marriage is not about a church or civil ceremony. As the most orthodox church Catholicism states, you are not married unless you have had penetrative sexual intercourse. If that has not happened there is no need for divorce because marriage never took place.

The unconscious sees it similarly. As soon as you have penetrative sex with anybody you have formed links that are not physically visible but make a form of marriage. But it has to be between a woman and a man, for marriage is a holy rite leading to the wonder of procreation, the giving of life, which is what we are all about being life forms; which is  holy, not because the church says so, but because Life itself is a holy mystery.  So a man can never be married in the true sense to another man, or a woman to a woman. They can have a civil ceremony but not a real marriage.

But although the point of marriage is procreation, in dreams the creation of a child still takes place as many woman and men have dream children – which is the birth of a new part of oneself. It is a bringing to consciousness a new part of you that has been developing but remained previously unexpressed. Such births need to be honoured even though there is no physical sign of a child. So the new dreamt baby is a vulnerable part of you that needs care to grow and become a real part of your waking life.

But from this viewpoint there are two types of marriage, the first is through sexual intercourse between a woman and man. The second is through a complete union of the whole couple. Some believe that the spiritual marriage comes through the agreement to abstain from sex which should be a free mutual decision, rather than resulting from impotence or the views of one party. But experience shows another view which arises as one is able to open one’s life to the divine within you. This leads to the full marriage which includes the body, the personality and the divine impulse.

Example: I was led into the experience of my merging with Divine Love in marriage – when I married P. Gradually I was led to realise that it wasn’t me and P. that were married, the marriage was between the duality if Life meeting itself in wonder and love. This went on to a visionary experience of knowing the birth of each of us was the birth of wonder, of light and transcendence. I realised that we are all then ‘put down’ by those who raise us, and so the light we are is dimmed to an extraordinary degree. And I carried this light to my own spiritual self and all the women and men – including my children – who I loved. This felt incredibly real as if they would realise for themselves that they are married to the Highest. Example: I wanted them in some way to share what I had experienced – that the most high had incarnated into us.  God was not outside of us.  We are it, living this strange, often difficult, but wonderful life.  To have experienced that divine union in myself in the images of the divine female and the divine male as we join in a wondrous union, still moves me deeply as I write this.  To be shown once more that I am, as we all are, an incarnation of that very mystery of life, is a very great gift.

Dreaming of wedding if single: As in the example below, Mary could equally as well have dreamt she was the bride, but being in her thirties and unmarried it is easier for her to consider or experiment with the idea of marriage using the image of her friend. Should she marry whoever offers? When single one often dreams of marriage as a way of clarifying – what it would be like; could one succeed in it; is the present partner okay; how shall one achieve it? Man dreaming of marriage: For a man marriage faces him with something quite different to a woman dreaming of marriage. It is a woman’s initiation, and a man may feel as if he has to give up his manhood. So he may be facing such fears in his dreams – although marriage is a meeting and often a merging with his feminine self. For a man it can also be intimating the uniting of his female characteristics. See hermaphrodite; archetype of the anima Marriage: When a woman and man marry, something that often happens is that the woman interiorises the man and feels she is now complete. She has her man in her life and in her. The man can do the same thing. That is fine when it works by them staying together faithfully. But if the man leaves the woman, or the woman leaves the man, because they had taken their partner into them to become whole, the leaving feels like something has been ripped out of them. It is a terrible shock. See Archetype of the Animus Wedding dress: Feelings and hopes about relationship and wedding; in a negative dream it represents anxieties about ones relationship or the future. Wedding dress given by mother: Qualities and strengths or problems absorbed from mother about relationship; letting go of external mother by expressing her qualities in the present. 

Example: I am at the wedding of my best friend. The groom doesn’t turn up and she decides to marry the first person who comes along. I wonder whether this is a good thing to do.’ Mary T. Example: When I was engaged to my present husband I dreamt we were married and I looked down at my wedding ring. It was twisted and bent. In fact I now see it as a warning because we have not made a good marriage.’ S.W. Example: I am a gay 20 year old woman. I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about four months now. Previously, she had been my best friend for six years. Last night, I dreamt that we were married. I didn’t dream of a honeymoon, or announcing our marriage, or even proposing or anything of that nature. In the dream, I just…knew that we were married. My girlfriend’s hair was significantly longer than it normally is, if that means anything. In the dream, she insisted that she wanted to have a baby, and she wanted to do it by becoming pregnant through a sperm donor. It was a little strange, because neither of us are really keen on the idea of having kids at all, much less actually becoming pregnant. We were both excited about it in the dream though. Example: It was the realisation that in the little community I live in I am the only single male. I am feeling, or guessing, that the other males here are curious about that. This led me onto spontaneous speculations about what this meant in my life and whether it was a problem I was not looking at. I saw that some of the women in my life have wanted me to be more fully involved as their partner. I sometimes puzzle why I don’t have the same need, or I don’t feel the same need in reverse. As I explored this it felt as if I didn’t want to be contained within a woman’s needs. It reminds me of the proprietorial aspect of male female relationships.

See: Integrating the female in the male; Integrating the male in the female; bride; bridegroom.

Marsh Swamp

This usually indicates feelings of being bogged down, held back, or retarded in some way. You may be stuck in attitudes or feelings that are holding you back, or even threatening your wellbeing. It occasionally appears to depict the cloying relationship existing between mother and child; or sometimes, though not so often, between father and child. The marsh here represents the difficulty felt in breaking away from parental control, the emotional hold over you, and the ties of security and protection. Or the difficulties faced in becoming real individuals.

The swamp may show feelings of despair of great uncertainty in a relationship.

The marsh or swamp can sometimes represent a meeting with what is lying hidden within you, and so it may be felt as threatening or frightening. It is a place where the ancient or primeval may emerge. So it may be an experience of being held or swallowed by the swamp, which indicates strong feelings of being overcome by difficulties or losing your power.

 Example: Now a huge unknown creature began to enter into my awareness. I felt the presence of an enormous creature rising to the surface of something like a swamp or a body of water. At first I thought it might be a whale, but as I paid attention to what was happening it defined into a huge crocodile. This huge creature looked at me and said, “Mathew, join me.”  I laughed at this because it was so huge, and with so many associations of swallowing things, that I said something like, “What do you mean join you? Don’t you mean that you want to eat me?”  The creature replied to me, “No. No, it’s not like that, I’m just like a submarine. I have all these lives in me. I have many, many lives in me. I am life. I contain the many. 

The great crocodile represent both the threat and fear we may feel when meeting our own hugeness. See reaction to the unconscious 

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.

Don explored his dream and says – I realised that through my internal digging into myself I had uncovered some feelings I had never met consciously before. Seeing these things helped me understand what was behind my difficult feelings and fears. For instance I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience, and I needed to meet it and help it to enter into the modern world instead of be repressed and remain primitive.

Example: As I looked I realised it was the road to the hospital here I experienced such trauma as a three year old – and in which I had my tonsils out/both. I felt a sense of an awful past as I looked at the road. Then I was standing on the edge of a precipice or cliff. My wife was about four yards away near the road. I stepped in an area of soft earth like a marsh. It gave beneath my weight and I sank in up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable, and the whole area would fall. I was thinking and shouted to my wife to help me. She was gaily walking about, and made light of my call. I cried out again. Still she ignored me. I shouted again for her help. She took no notice, and I sank deeper, the ground gave way, and I fell to my death

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you feeling threatened, and can you say what threatens you – not in the images of dream?

What is happening in your life what feels like you might get trapped or something emerging?

Is another person involved in how you feel and what you are facing?

See Facing FearLife ChangesDealing with FearTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Martyr

May suggest a holier than thou attitude, a reluctance to change opinions in the face of criticism or condemnation, rightly or wrongly. Willingness to suffer for convictions. The sacrifice of part of yourself because of convictions. As a dream symbol this is not really healthy, in that all aspects of the nature come alive and are useful in your wholeness. Moving toward wholeness brings a resurrection of the dead or repressed parts of yourself, made clean and harmonious. See: archetypeof the scapegoat/martyr.

One can be a martyr in giving oneself to a cause, or one can be a martyr in that one forever feels one is being abused or used by others. There may be a sense of being asked too much by those around you or by the events of life. In such martyrdom there may be a hidden belief that if one does what is asked, if one sacrifices ones life for another, then one will be appreciated and loved. If one gives enough, maybe one will be recognised and rewarded.  

Parents, but especially mothers, often have a sort of inbuilt martyr at work in them. It is from this they manage so many years of self giving.

P. W. Martin, writing in his book Experiment In Depth about archetypal influence and how it overpowers the person if they are possessed by it, says, ‘A man so driven will not necessarily be self-regarding in his action. He may be completely disregardful of his own personal interests, a fanatic, a martyr even, for the cause. But archetypal energy is inherently ambivalent, as destructive as it is constructive, a dynamic which in the end is self-annihilating.

Orpheus was a man, a prophet and a teacher of divine wisdom. He was martyred and his tomb developed into a holy shrine. Later he was seen as a Christ like man, who kept alive the roots of religious feeling connected with agriculture and nature, with its cycles of birth, growth, flowering, fertilisation, harvesting the seeds, decay and death. These were seen as natural and a reflection of human life, with its renewal in the spring that followed – a resurrection through a natural process, the mysteries.

Christianity as it developed into an organisation fought against anything which linked it with past beliefs such as the Egyptian statement that a virgin mother had existed before Christianity, as it had in the statements of Buddhism. So it killed out any beliefs in its connection with natural cycles – which are obvious because the birth of the sun/son takes place as the sun is born in its yearly cycle. The Son of Man is said to have its start in heaven, not in the body of a human child – and yet we are all the creations of the great creative act. Even Christianity says the same – “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” In his own image – it cannot be any clearer than that.

 Example: Although my father appeared to be passive in sending us away, his values governed our household, and these (as I interpreted them) included: – don’t give up at all costs because that is weakness; – if it hurts it’s worthy (martyr); – what you feel about something is not the point: what you are doing and achieving materially is what counts – don’t worry if you’re in a pickle because God will look after you: do what God wants and you’ll be alright (NB this tends to be the opposite of what you want because you’re sinful – another justification for why hurt is good for you).

Example: Rob is my son and he finds it hard to forgive himself.  I associate myself with Rob here.  I had always struggled with what God’s will is in my life.  Maybe I was supposed to stay in the marriage…be a martyr.  Back and forth I would struggle with this.  I had no one to talk to about any of this until my job change and meeting this supportive priest.  I know today, that by leaving the marriage it was the absolute best thing I could have done for every one of us.  We are all much healthier because of it.

Example: The mother of one man who goes to church every Sunday and labors every day cooking and sewing for charity. Her eyes are ever lowered in meekness and humility. In time of strife she dissolves into tears, and if things go too badly she has a heart attack. She is the most unfortunate, put-upon woman that ever lived—her face proclaims it. But she has driven her husband to impotence and drunkenness, and rendered her children helpless, dependent slaves to her every whim. Her whole family has literally been destroyed by the guilt she laid in its path.

Her son grew up obsessed with the idea of his own wickedness. Not until he realized that his sense of evil was a gift from his mother, not until he had ascertained that what she called evil was simply what displeased her or conflicted with her interests, did the pall of his self-hatred begin to lift. Finally, in one shattering revelation, he saw behind her mask of innocence the hidden monster, saw the transmuted fury and vengeance she had poured upon him, the cruelty of the psychic damage through which she had manipulated him. Only then did he learn to free himself.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel others have abused me?

Am I happily self sacrificing, or do I try to get acclaim or love in that way?

Am I ready to die for a cause – if so what cause or belief?

How would I describe the martyr in my dream?

See Archetype of the MartyrAvoid Being VictimsBeing the Person or ThingLife

Mary – Virgin

State of being which is free of preconceptions; receptivity; girlhood or innocence.

This represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and thus being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self. Christianity named this the holy ghost impregnating Mary. But older cultures also depicted this inner state of fertile receptivity as well. For instance Egypt expressed this human possibility in the form of Isis. The Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl was born by a virgin named Chimalman, to whom the god Onteol appeared in a dream. Also Buddha’s mother Queen Maya, is said to have dreamt that a six-tusked elephant pierced her side with one of its tusks. This produced an immaculate conception. She understood the dream to mean the resulting child would become a monarch whose domain was the world. What we usually fail to realise is that this is not about an external historical person, but an inner truth about everyone.

Example: I just turned 18 a few weeks ago and I don’t quite understand why I keep having this dream. I had a detailed dream about being pregnant, which I currently am not (I’m a virgin). In my dream I didn’t know I was pregnant, nor did I show any signs or symptoms that I was. While I was studying in my cosmetology class during the summer, I started feeling some pains that I couldn’t describe. At first I had thought I was starting my monthly period, but it was nothing like I had ever felt before. Once my teacher started to notice, she took me to the hospital and the doctors said I was going into labor. Later that day I had a beautiful premature baby boy named Noah. I didn’t quite understand how it happened, but I saw it as a miracle. He was so healthy, and somehow my parents saw it as a blessing.

Dear young woman, it is natural to dream of having a baby, and a beautiful one too. It is because you are a woman and have the wonderful ability to help Life create another being. And it doesn’t matter that there is no father – don’t you remember the story of Mary and the virgin birth? Unfortunately, the church has mixed us up over it, claiming it only happened once. But it is about the wonder of women and their ability to create – it is about every woman. You have brought forth something that only Life has given you – as the story says – and it is a special and holy inner child that will grow and mature if you care for it. Remember, you have the power of creation, and that was seen as holy in past cultures. So, please read Woman’s Creative Power

When we experience this personally as in the example, the child we conceive is the union between the receptive conscious self and wider awareness or Life. This receptivity and virginity of mind leads to the birth in oneself of a force or activity that gradually transforms and enlarges one’s life and experience. For it is your own enormous potential that often gets squashed by our education. In the west we call what grows in us ‘The Christ’. Other cultures give it different names. See Potential Virgin – How I became One

Mary represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and thus being receptive to Life, the unseen or unconscious side of self. Christianity named this the holy ghost. But older cultures also depicted this inner state of fertile receptivity as well. For instance Egypt expressed this human possibility in the form of Isis. Also Buddha’s mother Queen Maya, is said to have dreamt that a six-tusked elephant pierced her side with one of its tusks. This produced an immaculate conception. She understood the dream to mean the resulting child would become a monarch whose domain was the world.

Example: I think a turning point occurred when I was working as a photographer in London at about the age of 25, and was all alone in a darkroom. I had been puzzling about the symbolism of the Virgin Mary, and suddenly felt that it represented the ‘virgin mind’. In other words a state of mind that did not hold fast to its convictions or beliefs, but instead was virginal and ready to conceive of the new. In the case of Mary she is shown as offering herself without preconceptions and with all her heart and body to the invisible that gives life.

When we experience this personally, the child we conceive is the union between the receptive conscious self and wider awareness – between you and Life within you. This receptivity and virginity of mind leads to the birth in oneself of a force or activity that gradually transforms and enlarges ones life and experience. In the west we call what grows in us ‘The Christ’. Other cultures give it different names. See: How I Became A VirginVirgin; Lifestream; Archetype of the Christ; Meetings with Christ.

In a woman’s dream: Oneself if still a virgin; a daughter; that one has had sex doesn’t mean that one’s girlhood feelings actually were met and mated with. These might very well reappear in a new relationship or in a phase of one’s marriage.

In a man’s dream: One’s feeling self which is receptive; one’s soul or psyche; the aspect of oneself which can connect with expanded awareness because it can rid itself of preconceptions. See: Mary – virgin.

 

Mask

A false self you might put on in meeting others; latent qualities you can express or wear when needed – a mother might be a tigress when her children are threatened, but a meek person otherwise. Her tigress would not be ‘false’; ego less. An artificial front we have learned to develop since childhood. See Ground Zero – The Psuedopod

 We can mask our real feelings and guilt with other attitudes and feelings, perhaps because of ones work or relationship that is felt as disagreeable. So brutality or hurtfulness in relationship can be in the form of subtle accusations or criticisms masked as rational comments.

 A dream image is simply a mask you use to describe a feeling or a realisation. So if you dreamt of a mountain lion, and you imagine yourself in the body of the mountain lion/dream image, you will get behind the mask and you will feel the quality and reality behind the image.

 Example: When the masks of the dream images were stripped away, the woman sobbed so deeply because her daughter had never been independent from the mother’s love before and it was terrible for the woman to face life without her daughter. Her daughter had left home and gone to university, and the woman had dreamt her daughter had been murdered.

Taking of a mask could suggest people seeing you without the cover of status, vocation, lack of confidence or the pretense we use – or maybe reveal the real beauty or genius you have. Or putting on a mask might be a way of putting ones ego aside.

Animal masks may suggest either animal qualities being worn, or sometimes the person transforming into the spirit of the animals that we all have within us. See Levels of the Brain

Or sometimes another aspect of you showing itself yet remaining masked, or a dead person – trying to communicate with you. The clown shows us the wonderful and tragic human feelings underlying the masks we might wear in daily life.

An oxygen mask suggest you either have signs of breathing difficulty, or else you feel a life threatening situation is being dealt with.

I found that death has a beautiful face once we tear away the awful mask we put on it. Death is naked beauty. It is a mask we put on it because we have been assured again and again that death is the end and all we see are the marks of illness or bodies torn apart by war. We perhaps all have masks which hides our true being. For most of us have never be aware of the Life that moves us, and so are masked.

 Example: I had a strong fantasy of the head, which was severed from the body and skinned, coming alive it, was me and what I had done to myself, who I was that felt so much, I had torn my body and head apart trying to find a solution to the misery I had suffered for years. With enormous certainty I realised that there was no cure for my sickness and I had struggled in vain. It was a tremendous blow – and I gave up. I mean I gave up hope, everything, and simple lay there.

Then I saw flesh on the cheeks of the head. Then it was like a native mask made of various things, and feathers. The feathers predominated in the fantasy. The mask of me was made of many things, but behind it when I/it fell apart was the certainty of being. The mask kept breaking up, leaving only a few feathers, as if it or I were nothing. I remember saying – “There is not even a mask, there is no me, it’s just a few feathers!”

Then I had a vision of one feather tied to a twig by piece of wool, blowing in the wind – a feather blowing in the wind. This was very stable and persistent in the fantasy. Everything resolved back to the feather blowing in the wind. It seemed like a Red Indian symbol, perhaps tied to the suspended body of the dead, but I could not understand.  Then it came to me that I had to listen in deep stillness – not think, not seek to understand, not struggle, just listen. My whole being entered into silence, gently listening as one might listen to the rain falling on a lake. Then suddenly it was known – the feather blowing in the wind – the sound of one hand clapping – the essence of human existence. Open against the sky – emptiness – enormity. I was healed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was expressed by the mask or what was its function?

Was I wearing a mask, and if so what did I feel about it?

Do I ever ‘mask’ my feelings?

See Martial Art of the MindClicking OnProgrammedTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Masochism

“Certainly we don’t all go around writhing with exotic pains. But many men and women with ulcers, colitis, and headaches are expiating their guilt by inches. Some are so accident prone that they can hardly avoid the relief of a skinned knee or a good automobile wreck. Some talented people cannot resist undercutting their own achievements one by one. Others keep themselves in an ecstasy of anguish over imagined inferiorities and projected catastrophes. And most of us enjoy a little pain in bed, so long as it is combined with libidinous gratification. Masochism is not an isolated psychic tendency; it is a way of life.”

“If the crude bickering and fighting of children is splattered with too much guilt and suppression, hostilities go underground. The children resort to a variety of devious tactics of which, often enough, they are completely unaware, In the battle with mother, they refuse to eat; if forced to fetch and carry, they cannot see things directly before their eyes. With their siblings they are more lethal but equally devious. They learn in the most innocent manner to scare them out of their wits, humiliate them in subtle ways, and expose their slightest transgressions.

“But modern parents are quick to catch these devices; and cut off again, hostility and sadism proceed to the next level. Since in their environment children find it less painful to be wronged and blameless than guilty transgressors, they switch polarity. Renouncing the pleasure of open hostility, they pick up the bludgeon of guilt used so successfully by their parents. They become perpetual martyrs and draw from this what revenge they can. Suffering, imposed upon, and betrayed, nevertheless they damage everyone about them with guilt. With their own children, in turn, these unfortunates always win. They are usually the most destructive of parents. Outright hostility can be answered by the child’s hostility, and he may grow up relatively free. But guilt burns into the child’s psyche and creates permanent wounds of self-hatred. Defenseless, the next generation takes up the burden of guilt and, once grown, retaliates by throwing it upon the next.” Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by WV Caldwell See Pain

Mass

An approach to the sense of wholeness, the communal whole or collective mind, or to the Christ. See: Meetings with Christ; archetype of Christ.

In an inner sense the wine or spirit used in the celebration of the mass represents a life changing influence, an influx of power or potential – i.e. a deep self acceptance allowing new and often life-changing experience and energy both from within and from other people and events. In this sense the alcohol or spirit is probably used by the unconscious in dreams because the conscious self often feels helpless, or has to surrender control, in order to allow the up flow of what is potential or innate within you to emerge. It therefore relates to drunkenness – drunk with the spirit. See last example below. Here is a man’s experience of exploring his dream about being drunk because men had poured alcohol into him. See alcohol

 Example: As I allowed this I had a deep sense that this represented a profound self acceptance, but also an acceptance of my life situation. I can see this in that I am no longer struggling to climb out of building work or common everyday life. The men in the dream I felt as ordinary everyday life experience, and they were pouring the spirit of life on and into me. In other words the acceptance of everyday life opens to a connection with the roots of life within oneself – life that is both common and ordinary, yet profound. At this first part of the dream I also had an image that I was drinking the blood of thousands of human beings. I don’t mean I was drinking lots of blood, but that I was drinking the essence of their lives. This had in it the experience of taking in a huge realm of everyday life. It was the taking in, the acceptance of a wide range of human experience – everything from deep sexuality to religious realms of the supersensual. This I felt was what the wine used in Mass represented.

The lifting of the chalice represents the spiritualisation of the wine – but in fact it is only a symbol unless we feel inside us that we are taking in the blood – “drinking the essence of their lives”.

The bread is also a wonderful representation of what is holy in our everyday experience.

My experience of the meaning of this came about because my awareness was lifted up and spread over the immensity of time, and from this condition I was shown the beginning of things.

I cannot say I saw this, more that I experienced the condition of the beginning. And this condition was the gathering together of what I understood to be a whole universe that had previously existed. All that had existed had come to such unity that although this beginning was physical, it was also, in its unity, a being. It had awareness. This awareness did not exist in what we know as space and time.

As I experienced this I felt as if a resolution between science and religion had taken place in me. For here was something like the condition science suggests preceded the ‘big bang’. But what had been left out, I realised, was this consciousness, this immense being. For all life had here found a unity in one immense being beyond my comprehension. It was, in fact, difficult to grasp because I was overcome by emotion as I witnessed this.

This great consciousness had longed that other beings might exist. But in its present form this was impossible. Then I understood something that tore my heart to pieces, as it still does today when I dwell on the memory of the experience. This being purposefully went about destroying itself so that our present universe – we – might have existence. It was such a wondrous action for it was done in such a way, with such skill, with such love and self-sacrifice, such art and science, that its very death was a magnificent creative act. In other words its death struck into action forces and effects that created the universe in all its variety. This death is what we know as the ‘big bang’. It created time and space and the very special circumstances of the ‘death’ set in motion the forces that brought about a very particular universe. Without the particular influences set in motion there could easily have been a universe without any ‘space’ for individual awareness. It could have been a universe where everything was purely automated. It could have been many things.

As I experienced this, I realised that everything, every atom, every living thing that exists is a part of that wondrous being. There is nothing that is not of its love. So that whatever arises in the universe arises out of, and as, THAT. The human sense of God is a realisation of the very substance of our own existence. The awe we might feel is from an intuition of what has been given us as our own being.

So the bread, which represents the very ordinary and everyday source of our existence and nourishment, is in fact the very being of God that we eat. But we need to be aware of what we do in eating to make it holy. See big bang

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can you be aware that you are taking in and living the holy all the time?

Will you let your life reflect the holy that you are?

The bread and food you eat are all the creation of the universe?

See EnlightenmentSelf HelpLifeSumming Up

Massage Masseur

Healing influence, loosening up of rigid attitudes, tensions, preconceptions, repressions.

Being massage or giving massage in a dream is a very intimate relationship, and in fact is much deeper than many people realise. Our body is a wonderful and sensitive thing, and pressure or massage does not simply touch the surface of the body, but can touch the very brain, our memories and trauma. So unless we are aware of that we may not be doing anything other than a sensual or sexual stimulus, unaware of the depths we are touching.

Example: I dreamt I was massaging the feet of my dear friend. I was very happy and wanted to do a good job for him (he has helped me so much in waking life). His feet were smooth and well looked after so it was an absolute pleasure for me to offer love and gratitude in this way. I remember wanting to use a range of massage techniques but he was gently moving away after some time, I felt he was possibly overwhelmed or embarrassed by my gesture. He thanked me with his eyes and I smiled because I knew I would pick up this act another time. This person often makes appearances in my dreams and we always have lots of fun together. I feel he is deeply connected to magic.

Example: F. was kneeling behind me and began to massage my spine. This was an extraordinary experience because it felt that where she touched my flesh, or rather where she produced some pressure on my flesh, I could feel the nervous impulse cascade through my body. It was literally as if I could feel it passing from one set of nerves to another to another and another, cascading through different sections of me. I could feel that where my body was touched it connected with different parts of me, physical and psychological. I could see that F. was moving on too fast so it was stimulating other areas and other responses. So I asked her to slow down so I could explore what was stimulated by touching one area.

It is amazing how different parts of the body respond. I explained to F. that each time she touched there was a ripple through my whole body. I said this because she was moving across different areas too fast. The same one place could produce a prolonged enough response to discover what that part of the body connected with physically and psychologically. Then I asked her stay in one place, to keep the pressure on one area. When she did this I began to feel that the particular spot being pressed connected with my throat and my rectum. It has links downwards and upwards. I could also feel a small part of the brain lit into action as it was pressed.  As this was happening I began to feel that nature erected self-awareness because it was so wonderful for life itself to look back at itself and develop further understanding. It had the possibility of working with the other creatures, of being a part of the processes of life on earth. We could work with forces of nature. Instead of that it has become a sort of self idolatry thing. You know, look how great we are. Let’s do this for us! It is like that awful advert – “Because I deserve it!”

I asked her again to stay on one place so I could see if it were possible to explore the connections.  “I can experience this impulse going right into my brain. But it is also going straight down into the cellular level of my being. It seems to be stimulating different responses that my being is capable of. It is calling them into play artificially. I suppose it is like playing notes and causing a piano or musical instrument to respond in certain ways. So in a way it is like exercising my being. I can feel a part of me coming alive in some way. It makes me wonder what this conscious self of mine is; what part it plays in the body. It is lovely to feel it as part of all that is happening in my body at the moment.”  There is something going on in my body that I am barely aware of yet. Areas of sensitivity are touched that connect with past experience. Therefore the touch connects with those areas, with those feelings, with those memories. It goes on and on because those memories connect with habitual responses and the other levels of myself. F. was pressing on the lower part of my spine where I think there was not much sensation. But it was bringing about the response in which my body wanted to groan and move. There was no pain attached to this it was simply an impulse arising from the pressure on that area of the spine. I allowed the moaning gasping sound to be expressed. I could feel the memory that was being touched and stimulated linking right back into the womb. A distinct sense arose that my body was just being formed – that I was just forming my body. As I was doing this things happened. I could feel my body as an integrated whole. The moaning struggle went on, deepening. I began to make baby like noises. As this happened I experienced complete helplessness with the overriding feeling of not being able to move. Like a tiny baby that did not yet have the capacity to move its own limbs because of the impact of full gravity. I knew in some way that this was how I felt when I was born. I couldn’t move and was completely inert and dependent. Completely without an ability to do anything for myself. There was just a big hunger.

Master

See guru

Masters of Nightmares

How do we face and over come fear? By saying no to the urges of fear that make us run like frightened mice and hide from our own magnificence. We say no to what destroys our own best human self and live like tiny scared children in our own world of adults. We say no to the many shortcuts we constantly try  to take in diving into holes to protect us from pains we have ourselves created by our avoidance’s to face what we need to grow. We are so scared of our own emotions we run and fall into the fire of the pain it causes. We say no to the urge to gorge ourselves with what our basic instincts and human weakness pushes is to do with our hunger, our sexual urge, our desire to push and tread others underfoot in order to satisfy our small selves. For each day of each minute is ours to choose the way of meeting ourselves.

Example: ‘I am in my bed in my own room and I hear what I know to be a wolf wearing the sort of clogs worn in Lancashire. When the wolf gets to a certain point, there is a bang, and I wake terrified. My Mother’s reassurances do not help. Each night he gets a bit nearer before my panicky awakening. The night came when I know he will reach me. Sure enough he arrives, and the bedroom door – in my dream – is flung wide open with a tremendous bang, I shouted out, “You are not real”. There was no one there. I never dreamt it again.’

Example: I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs.

When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs like a sabre toothed tiger and with an awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary. Later I realised that I had often become something of a monster in real life, and that was how I knew how to become a monster in order to deal with my own inner monster.

Example: Had a very unusual dream last night. I was in an outdoor environment. It seemed a bit dark, or maybe morbid is the right word. I was with other people but none of them stood out to remain in memory. There was a definite awareness though of being near to a place that was haunted, and that a man was in trouble in the haunted place.

I decided to go and see if I could sort out the problem. I walked down a slope to where the centre of the haunting existed. It was an open space with an old double-decker bus in it. The only person on the bus was a middle-aged man who was sitting on the top deck leaning out of a window on the right hand side of the bus. I stood beneath him and looked up. He was staring in a glazed way and didn’t see me. I could see and feel that he was being hit by fantasies or hallucinations by whatever was the source of the haunting. This invasion of his mind was grabbing his attention so fully that he wasn’t aware of his surrounding or of me. I was sure that if he went any deeper into this mind stuff he wouldn’t be able to pull out. I waved my hand in his line of vision and banged my hand on the bus to make a noise and get his attention. At first it didn’t seem as if I would bring him out of it, but after a while he looked at me.

I shouted at him to pull out. I said that he had a wife and some more years of his life to live, so why lose himself into this entrancement. This didn’t seem to grab him so I shouted again and said that he would eventually slip into this empty mind world anyway – at death – so why not live with his wife the remaining years of his life. I was sure that if he lost awareness he would let himself starve.

I was aware that what he desired was to slip away into the Buddhist void, into the awareness of the one life in which he lost any awareness of self. But I banged and shouted and he became more ‘present’. I then felt I had to confront whatever was the source of the powerful ‘haunting’ that was pulling him into the inner mind. I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type – a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out.

This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body. But then it dived into me to devour me from within. The only way that felt as if I might deal with the creature was to have the meditative state of holding on to the nothingness that was my centre, and not feeling panic at it’s attacks. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.

But later I explored the dream and it aroused a great anger and hatred for what my mother did did to me, which led to this wild devouring anger inside me. It took a while to release it using what Tony describes as Lifestream, but when it was finished I felt I understood why she did what she did and I felt forgiveness.

Dreamt that at the same time I was myself, and had spent a long time following clues in my research into the unconscious. One particular line of clues had led me to go through a door in the house in which I lived. This house has no clear connection with any house I know, although it reminds me vaguely of G. L’s house. The door led to an area somewhat like a cellar or basement. It was certainly down some steps, but I felt more as if it were an almost secret place within the house rather than underneath it. It was dark, with no windows though, and was similar to being down deep.

I was like a detective following clues. To follow the clues I tried an experiment. I sat in this interior place facing a tunnel. It was maybe about five or six feet high. Where I sat was dimly lit, but the tunnel led into complete blackness and the unknown. I believe I repeated some keywords and looked into the tunnel.

I had neither warning nor expectation for what happened. I was overwhelmed by terror, as if the very darkness of the tunnel was a living force of fear that entered me and consumed me. I screamed and screamed uncontrollably in reaction.

Nevertheless, a part of me was observing what had happened, and was amazed and realised I had found something of great importance. Somehow I managed to turn my screaming self away from the tunnel. But on my right – it had appeared to be behind me – was another tunnel that brought about the same terror.

I managed to get to the door, open it and get back into the everyday part of the house. I remember feeling, as I did so, that I hoped no one would observe me coming out, as in some ways it was illegal to go into or be in such a place. I also feel as if I have had many, many dreams involved in the house, that I have never brought to consciousness before.

In meeting the terror of the tunnels I first felt two string connections; firstly I felt that society puts an authoritative stamp on the unconscious by considering that only psychiatrists, doctors, priests, or professors have anything useful to say about it. This leads to my sense of secrecy or illegality shown in the dream.

The second association was with feelings that I had a life long habit of retreat form adult functioning, this showed itself in a spontaneous movement of me burying my head trying not to be involved or to see.

But it worked out as my struggle to avoid the rectal anaesthesia as a child during a medical operation I experiences as a nine year old. I wasn’t experiencing the emotions of that, only the movements and intuitions about its connection with the dream. That is, I kept saying, “I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t.” This was expressive of a sense that the pain inflicted to me during the operation, must be because I had done something wrong. I could see that I associated inflicted pain with the punishment a parent gave because of some “bad” action. So, I could not understand why the pain had been inflicted on me.

Because the operation was on my nose I couldn’t be given anesthetic via the nose, instead the nurse tried to stick a pipe up my behind. She gave me no explanation about why or what she was doing, so I fought like mad and kicked the bottle of anesthetic out of her hands. But again without explanation she brought several other nurses who held me down as they applied the anesthetic. The effect of this made me feel I was being blown up and I felt I was dying, so was fighting for my life against what felt like women attacking me.

I screamed, struggle to and shouted, expressive of fighting with nurses. What I screamed was pleas to be left alone. What had I done to deserve such an attack? I screamed to my “attackers” to stop.

What arose from all this was the distinct reaction that people could not be trusted. For no good reason, and despite physical struggle and screamed pleas for them to stop, they yet persisted and caused me pain. So, I saw that out of my experience of people in those situations arose a powerful suspicion and mistrust of people. Also I developed a belief that people are purposely deceitful. This was because my mother, and nurses, doctors, say such things as, “This won’t hurt. Everything is going to be okay. You’ll go in, they will put you to sleep, and you won’t feel a thing.” There was no mention that nurses might attack me and subject me against my will to what felt like death.

The sense of death equated with pain and people hurting one. At the time of the anesthetic my conscious identity had been plunged still with some awareness deep into the unconscious. The loss of shape or senses was felt to be death. So, a conditioned reflex had been set in me lasting many years until I recovered the memory of it and so transformed the terror into understanding. The conditioned reflex was or is that when I get to the point of consciously entering the unconscious, my frantic screaming and struggling for life was triggered. It was the way I mastered the nightmare using such things as Dreams – Practical Techniques to explore them and Opening to Life

I was in an ancient room. It had the feeling of it being an old church. Then my wife and I were in bed in the room. A middle aged woman was in the room. She appeared to be a ghost. I felt afraid of her, but to confront the fear I reached out my hand to her. I was crying out in my sleep from fear. As she took my hand I was amazed and shocked to feel it as physically real. I cried out ‘I can feel you – I can feel you!’ She was also surprised. I had the impression this level or dimension was recognised by ‘them’. She said to companions I do not see how, ‘He is from the fourth level.’ I then said I wanted to understand. A.T.

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us.

Example: As I walked toward a house a number of demons or devils came at me menacingly, trying to stop me getting near the house. Although they made all the ghostly noises I wasn’t at all afraid of them. I felt they were a damned nuisance, and to show them I meant business I grabbed one and with my right hand I gripped its flesh and squeezed. It started to squeak in pain and I squeezed harder. The squeaking came from my wife. I had grabbed the flesh of her abdomen and was squeezing it. It woke me.

Example: Facing my adversary and becoming lucid in the dream, I allowed the adversary to kill me with a sword, knowing all the while that absolutely no harm could come from this experience. Fully lucid and looking at my dream attacker I said: “You can plunge the sword through me if you wish,” whereupon my adversary did just that. Then I drew the sword out of my dream body and very lovingly and wisely gave it back to the adversary and said: “Thank you.”

Last night I dreamt I was outdoors walking through open ground, maybe at times gardens. I was with others – not sure who, and we frequently came across large snakes which we reacted to as if they were venomous. Then I came across a lot of them and they swarmed onto me. I froze, terrified that if I made a move I would be fatally bitten. But they just swarmed over my body and got under my clothes without harming me. Gradually I relaxed and slowly began to move about with the snakes still on me. They started to feel like a built in defence system which would attack anyone who was aggressive to me. At one point several large and aggressive dogs walked past me. They turned as if thinking about attacking, then appeared to sense the snakes and ran off cowed. As time passed the snakes felt like part of my body – which of course they are, for we have a reptilian brain. See Levels of Awareness in Dreams

Example: I was in a hallway behind a door, pulling it against me to shield myself against a tiger. The tiger was large with bloodstained paws. Some people stopped outside the door to look at the tiger. I told them to move along, as it had a very uncertain temper, and it could easily attack. In fact it began to grow restless and growl. They went. I saw the deep colours of the tiger, and the blood. I was terrified that at any moment it would pull the door away from me. I then stepped out from behind the door and the  tiger attacked me. It then swallowed me. Now instead of feeling separate I was the tiger, and delighted in his movements and anger.

I was in a large motor vehicle with perhaps three or four other men. The vehicle was like a very large lorry or removals van. We were driving along an unpaved road in slightly mountainous or rugged countryside. As we were driving along we became aware of a huge vehicle trying to overtake us. This had caterpillar tracks on each side of it like some tanks. It was immensely wide and going very fast. We pulled over as far to one side – the left – of the road as we could to allow it to pass. But as we did so we got too near the edge of the road and went over a precipitous drop.

Quite a long period of the dream was taken up with the experience of falling. We seemed almost to go into free-fall, a weightless state, because the fall was so long that we floated in the space. It was long enough for me to think many thoughts about death, whether death would be instantaneous. I was not aware of any sense of fear or terror, simply an awareness of falling and what it might mean. Then we had crashed and I was still alive. I then had a memory of standing at the bottom of the huge drop waiting for someone.

As can be seen, when there is no fear there is no hurt or terror. Also even when there is terror in the dream there is no hurt. Like the computer game, you can get up again and continue the game – of life – until you learn to overcome your fears and go up to the next level of the game.

So, as I look at this nightmare scenario – these nightmare images – I recognise them for what they are and pass through them, seeing, as it were, the projectors that produce the images.  I can see that the images project from some of one’s most profound childhood terrors.  They can erupt all those old feelings about such things as their, torture, abandonment, sex.  And I look into these images to see what lies behind the outer form.

James explored his dream by imagining opening the door and meeting the Thing. When he did this, feelings from childhood arose – the young boy. He felt the fear of the German bombs he had experienced in his youth. He realised that this hidden – shadowy – fear had kept him from taking risks in life. In meeting the Thing he was now free of that fear. Most of the shadowy creatures of our dreams are expressions of similar fears or hurts, and if me, can be just as transformative.

A friend had recently visited my wife and I and had asked if the house was haunted. A couple of nights later I dreamt that my wife was asleep beside me and I was sitting up in bed with my friend’s words in mind. So I challenged any such ghost to show themselves, feeling I could handle them. Nothing happened so I lay down thinking I had solved the problem – there were no ghosts.

Quite soon afterwards, still dreaming, the sound of a door creaking open made me sit up. Then from behind me two black men who looked as if they had risen out of a grave with flesh peeling off them approached me. I quickly made the sign of the cross and said some sort of holy words and the figures disappeared. I lay back again thinking it was a good thing I knew how to get rid of them. But as soon as I settled to sleep again the door creaked open and the two figures appeared once more. This time all my hand waving and words had no effect on their advance, and their hands closed around my throat and I woke screaming in terror. My wife, feeling my fear, got up and we switched on all the lights.

Of course it took time and learning to use the techniques I now write about, but I found out that because I had totally repressed my sexual expression for 8 years, that part of me had been buried and was rotten in the earth. Working on and facing the dream content completely transformed the situation.

I was alone in a house and asleep in bed. Something materialised or landed on the foot of the bed. It woke me a little and I felt afraid. I had the feeling it was some sort of entity materialising and coming for me in some way. It moved up the bed a little. I felt paralysed, partly by fear but also as if the ‘thing’ was influencing me. This made me more afraid of it. Then it moved up higher, not on my body but on the bed. I was very afraid and struggling against the paralysing influence. I managed to shout at it – “I will destroy you. I will destroy you”. As I shouted I pushed at it with my hand. This felt to me as if I were going to will its destruction and use my hand to smash it. I still felt a little uncertain of the outcome but I was very determined to fight it. At this point I woke up or was awakened by my wife. She asked me what I had been dreaming. Apparently I had been pushing her and shouting that I would destroy her. David P.

I started by considering the recent nightmare of the ‘thing’ at the foot of my bed. Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing.

The feeling was that death was claiming me. So I wanted to face the truth about death, whatever it was. I wanted to walk right up to it and look it in the face and know whether death meant a final end. If it did I would rather know. As I approached death like this by imaging walking toward the THING, my feelings went through an amazing transformation. All the tension left me. I felt good, positive, easy to breathe and with a sense of hope about life and death. This was so surprising and sudden I wondered what had produced it. I needed to be aware of how this change had occurred. So I retraced my steps to look at death and try to understand why it had lost its power of fear.

At first I saw that my tension and sense of death being or giving a disease was due to a view I had of it. When we look at the world only through our senses, death is obviously a terminal sickness that claims everyone. Someone said on TV the other day – Life is a sexually transmitted disease that produces a 100% mortality. Seen in this way death is the rotting corpse, the skeleton. The path to it is disease or breakdown. But in looking it in the face I saw another view of it. I saw the dead body, the corpse, the skeleton, as a form left behind by the process of life. When I looked at myself to see what ‘David’ is – I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms. I am Life.

Matador

Conflict or struggle with sexual drives. Or it might show sexual tensions.

Or on the positive side the ability to dance with or relate well with the enormous instructive drive to protect, care for and mate. See: Bull.

Mattress

Similar to bed – the situation, comfortable or otherwise, one has created in life. You made your bed, now lie on it. See: Bed.

Comfort; sexuality; relaxed feelings.

 Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.’ David H.

David was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his present relationship. But he realised from the dream that he had slipped back into attitudes which had existed in his prior relationship, and might very well damage the present one.

 

Jung sees the mattresses as representing a marriage. A mattress can also be where we hide things such a money, books or magazines. So it suggests things you like or want but are afraid someone will see what you are doing.

 Example: I was aware of having a lot of money in a night safe that I had to hide from somebody who was coming to steal it. I knew he would look in the usual hiding place so I found secret compartment in the mattress at the top of the bed. But when I put it in it looked so obvious I was afraid he would notice when he made the bed.

Rotting mattress: Something very wrong with your life situation. Or a comment on your relationship.

Uncomfortable mattress: This suggests either a relationship difficulties or that something is troubling you while asleep. What makes the mattress uncomfortable, and can you define what the discomfort is?

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the comment on the mattress in the dream – comfortable, uncomfortable, alone?

What do I associate with the mattress?

Do I like going to bed?

See Working with associationsInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Maypole

The maypole is a symbol of this universal connection between all things. This is a sexual symbol, but not necessarily directly about genital sex. It represents the positive, dynamic, creative forces of growth and fertility in nature and in you. But it can also represent the still turning point around which all phenomena connect, or the point beyond time and space where all things connect.

It also represents the positive, dynamic, creative forces of growth and fructification in nature and man that cause the growth of crops in the spring.

 Example: We have dreamt of the Maypole with streamers (ribbons) in different colours leading to each member of the group. The colours seem to indicate what is occurring within an individual. Or we may see the Maypole with streams of light touching each member. At times, the Maypole will not be there, but instead light will be seen encircling each member, joining us in a larger circle of light. At other times there may be a fountain of water, overflowing and shimmering like hundreds of sparkling diamonds. These droplets then touch each of us in the group. These experiences seem to indicate a unification of consciousness, all members seeking and sharing the same Ideal. Norma Coles, Florida.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever danced around a maypole or swung around a pole or even spun around to make myself giddy?

Do I see the maypole as a sexual symbol around which maidens circle to become fertile?

What was the message of my dream and the feelings in it?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming Processing DreamsMagical Dream MachineQuestions

Maze

The maze is an ancient symbol often used in mythology. It can depict the difficulties of finding your way out of the entanglement of dependence upon your mother and cultural norms.

Also we are often lost in the confusion of ideas and feelings, conflicting urges and opinions and the difficulty in finding your way through the mass of apparently irrational emotions and images arising from within, or the variety of opinions and authoritative sources of information outside.

This area of self is sometimes an area of seeming chaos. It needs some other level of yourself, the intuitive faculty, in relationship with the rational mind, to guide you through. Sometimes you need to admit you are lost and need help.

This dream of someone is an example or this – Before waking this morning I had an extraordinary lucid experience that involved me in what felt like a real place. The clearest part of this was of me in a maze. The walls of the maze were made of hedges, as the whole thing was outdoors. But I realised, because I was lucid, that I had purposely created the maze as an experiment. The point of the experiment was that the maze was complicated enough to make it difficult for me to find my way out. So, confronted by the difficulty of emerging from this dream maze, because of the lucidity, I could understand that this was a dream image, a reflection of the actual world I live in, and in doing so I simply realised that I was not actually in a maze, but only lost in feelings of being trapped in my own mind, and was thereby free of the maze.

I then experimented again and again with this, moving to exist beyond the images I had been, or could be, lost in. This was such an extraordinary experience and realisation it is difficult to put into words with enough impact to make it real. What it led me to see was that all dreams involve us in an environment or situation of one sort or another. Usually we feel the dream to be so real, and the feelings we experience because we are immersed in them, to also be real, that in a very real way we are trapped. But we are trapped in the feelings, ideas and beliefs, not the dream. So if we were in a prison cell in a dream, then there would be no way out of that cell without a key. But realising oneself as being the awareness behind the feelings and images means there is no prison; there is no entrapment; there are no walls to hold you. The apparent reality of the dream is then seen as simply pictures and feelings – stuff of the mind that we have conjured and become identified with and lost or trapped in. Even imagery with positive feelings is a form of trap if we identify with them. The more I look at the experience the more I realise that virtually everybody on our planet is trapped in a prison of their own emotions, thoughts and ideas. To recognise this in any reasonable degree leads to an extraordinary sense of freedom. To see that we live our life trapped in the world of thoughts, of emotions, of sexual drives, of fears or beliefs, is astonishing.

Example: If we place you in the centre of a circle and put all our dream characters, animals and objects around you in a circle, and if add to this all the many things that impact upon us such as peoples influence on you; your thoughts and emotions and how you are swayed by them; your physical urges such as hunger and sex, and of course pain and pleasure; your desires such as ambitions, your sense of being a success or failure, and the hundred and one other things that hit you as you stand in the middle, as well as your intuition, social pressure, hormonal influences, fears, ideas and images from media or people, your instinctive drives etc., we would see what a diverse mass of influences we stand in the middle of.

So the maze can represent the circuitous and often confusing route you take to greater maturity. In this sense the maze represent an attempt to find your way through conscious thoughts, opinions, doubts and childhood traumas fantasies and beliefs, to an experience of your fundamental nature. At the centre of the maze however, instead of a treasure you may find emptiness. What is at the centre – you are – reality – the unconscious – Life. We need to realise that we all live in a very real inner world that we mistake as us – you – me – I. This world is created by your thoughts, beliefs and opinions and it seems impossible to find ones way out of it. But the secret is to realise that it is really a creation of our own mind and so we can dissolve it by seeing the opinions as opinions, the thoughts as simply thoughts, and your beliefs as simply beliefs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I realise the enormous power of my inner world?

Do I feel lost in the welter of ideas and impressions that impact within me?

How do I find my way when confused?

See Inner World –  Secrets of Power Dreaming Autonomous ComplexIndividuation

Meal

Taking in life; absorbing something of life and the world; being enriched. If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to people. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others. See: Food.

Measure Measurement Measuring

Might refer to wondering how long – days and weeks – something will happen. The amount of friends you have is often used as a measure. Comparisons are an awful measure, because you often compare yourself with someone who you believe is better than you. But that is not how Life sees you. You are the survivor of countless lives of your predecessors; you are also the winner if the enormous effort of conception. Also you are a life form, and living example of life. Life is a miracle no one has understood. We might clone life, but we cannot create it. So you are a miracle with enormous untapped potential – so stand up straight and be proud. How ‘big’ something is in life. How you measure up to your own or other people’s expectations?

 Example: “I know this may sound strange, but the most powerful thing for me was that I realised I am alive. The realisation was accompanied by the sense of being life. I now know I am life and life is not just a chemical reaction or a set of biological drives or responses. As life I am always exploring, reaching out, becoming, learning what I am capable of and what I am. Just to exist is itself a great pleasure and miracle.”

To quote from Edgar Cayce, “The fact that man’s body is a speck of dust on a small planet leads to the illusion that man himself is a small creation. The measure of the soul is the limitless activity of mind and the grandeur of imagination. No soul takes on flesh without a general plan for the experience ahead. The personality expressed through the body is one of many that the individuality might have assumed. See Edgar Cayce

How do we measure success in our life? Many people who are seen as successes often commit suicide or are depressed, despite their riches. Being a success is probably learning how to integrate the many aspects of yourself, to have working relationship with your inner life, and so find an expression that is a reflection of the deeps in you. What we call ‘love’ is not a measure of success. Love in our culture is a terrible merry-go-round which can throw you off at any moment. Look around at the many, many failures. See Beware of LoveLife

 Example: A shoe salesman had me take off the shoes and measure my feet. The measuring device showed the same size that the shoes are, so I was baffled as to why they were suddenly pinching.

Shoes represent your present attitude or chosen way of life. The dream is saying you need a bigger view of what you are doing, because you present attitude is not fitting you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do you measure yourself- by money – good looks or lack of them – success?

What does your dream say about measurement?

Are you proud that you are a living survivor of countless generations of forebears?

See Big Bang and God are the SameMartial Art of the MindKarmaLevels of Awareness

Meat

We often say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Here it represents your likes and dislikes, the characteristics, the experiences of life. Meat also represents sexual or physical experience, physical strength, prowess. To partake of meat is to partake of experience of the body, or material values.

Physical or worldly satisfaction or needs; the best bit of life; nourishing; good fortune or good hunting in ones endeavours. Sometimes refers to sexual behaviour, suggesting it is lacking anything but a physical dimension.

If you are a vegetarian: Something to be avoided; feelings of guilt; death.

If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we did it might be questionable. Realise that everything is alive and can respond. Plants too are living beings and respond what is done to them. We need to recognise that we are all from the same source and our only difference is the body we inhabit. Life gives itself to us as the creative action, and it is always dying as it gives itself to us. See Big Bang and God are the Same

 Example: Experimenting with this I attempted communication with a sick New Zealand tomato tree we had. It was in a large tub, well fed and watered, but had the greenfly, and was also wilting. We had sprayed, but the general debility of the plant seemed to attract the fly. I used the technique of LifeStream to see if my intuition could asses the condition of the plant. The first thing I felt was an unexpected wave of love, as if the plant was wordlessly saying thank you for caring. Then I had the sense of my consciousness meshing with the consciousness/being of the plant. My impression was that the plant was an entity, a form of life and awareness, but it did not have a focused consciousness which could formulate the idea what causes this sickness? Because I could ask the question, and because I allowed my consciousness to consider the plant, a new situation arose; the plant could be aware of itself. The difficulty of the process was that everything was direct non-verbal experience. As the experience of plant life was new to me, I had to spend some time allowing the sensations to soak in and be analysed by my rational mind. What arose out of this was the understanding that the root system of the plant needed to spread sideways, not down. We therefore put the plant in a sack, with the same earth spread thin. Within a week the greenfly had all gone, without spraying, and the plant grew strong and luxuriant.

 Raw meat: instinctive or powerful emotions or drives; Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming by Norman Mackenzie. ‘It was found that some themes not only appeared in widely separated cultures, but that they also evoked very similar responses. C. G. Siligman, for instance, found that dreams about raw meat occurred in Ireland, Switzerland, China, Greece, the Ukraine, Nigeria, Tanganyika, Borneo, and Achin in Sumatra – and that in all these places such a dream was associated with some impending misfortune. In the Ukraine it presaged a burial; in the Zungeru district if Nigeria, the death of a friend; in Tanganyika, it was a symbol of a funeral feast. The origins of this common belief may be simple: for many poor societies, the consumption of large quantities of meat would be limited to funerals and similar occasions, and the association would therefore be direct.’

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel anything in reading the definitions above?

What was your activity or relationship with the meat?

Did you have any feelings in the dream?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsWorking with associations – – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Mechanic

Your means of dealing with habitual reactions, or the practical, ‘how things work’ side of life. Your skill in dealing with problems, when you can’t get started in the mornings, or on a project. The mechanic might also point to a physical problem, depending on the dream content. See CarEngine

Medallion

A medallion is often a realisation of something important in the life of the dreamer. Sometimes it refers to a heritage from the past that is being realised now.

If it is being awarded to you it suggests you have been seen as having a soecial ability or gor the work you are doing – either on yourself or for others. It may simply be a reminder of an important person in your life. See badgesymbol

 Example: I was on my knees digging in the earth with my right hand. It was fairly easy. I pulled up what felt like coins, and found they were all joined together, forming something one could wear. This was in the form of a necklace from which ran a long loop from one edge to the other, perhaps reaching fairly well below the breasts. The coins, or really, medallions, were shining silver, depicting Christian or ancient saints and martyrs. It was, I knew in the dream, like a rosary, which one could use in prayer. But instead of just the Ave Maria’s, and the Our Father’s, all the other saints were included. Thus it was a very comprehensive guide to prayer. Some of the silvered chains between the coins were missing, but these had been mended with something else.

The man was digging deep within himself through his inner searching, and realised a fuller understanding of prayer and it relation with everyday life. It was also a lifting up, due to a healing process within him, and an opening or new centres of awareness. See Kundalini

 Example: This was a vivid dream, in brilliant color. I dreamed I was working in a beautiful garden. There was lush vegetation everywhere, with a meandering brook off to one side. There was an alive feeling to this place. It made me think of the Garden of Eden. I was turning the soil with a spade and I noticed how exceptionally rich it was. Suddenly I uncovered a silver medallion which I picked up and cleaned. It was covered with fine engraving of ancient design. I continued to dig and found another and another of these medallions, all beautifully engraved. And then I found two gold coins with the number “705” on them. With that the dream ended.

The dreamer was a hard working man trying to keep his family but was pressed for money and prayed for help. He had six children, the two youngest were twin boys, who had golden hair. Their birthday was on July 5th thus 705. The beautiful garden, where these precious objects are found, is symbolic of the dreamer’s life. He toils in the vineyard… and the

fertile soil he works with represents his life work. The meandering brook is seen as a spiritual symbol. It lends a peaceful tone, indicating that conditions may not be as desperate as they seem. The vivid colors and alive feeling of the garden also indicate a close spiritual presence.

The dreamer went to sleep with the thought uppermost in mind as to how he might earn more money. The dream answered this request by showing him where his fortune could be found. But the fortune the dream speaks of is not in money or any kind of material wealth. Instead, his fortune is found in the flesh and blood of his family. Quoted from the Dream Journal BBS by Aurelius.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I find or was I given the medallion?

What did I feel about the medallion?

Was I rewarded for something?

See Being the Person or ThingQuestionsEdgar CayceClicking On

Medicine

Healing influence; meeting experiences we might not like but need to change a negative situation; positive changes that can be brought about; actual drugs we are taking.

Some medicines can actually make things worse, so if your dream suggests this try stopping taking the medicine.

Dreams depict our inner processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digestion, your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ or natural processes in you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to depression or illness.

We need to remember that our experience of self, our personality, is capable of being radically shifted simply by taking a drug or medicine – as with antidepressants, ecstasy or cocaine. This often reshapes the way we see ourselves, so an evolution in the process of identity building has occurred in our society. Identity in the end is not a set of beliefs or behaviours. The self is not limited to these.  In today’s world our identity is often shaped by chemicals/medicines/drugs.  The consumption of drugs, alcohol, sleeping pills, and certain medicines including anti-histamines tend to keep our awareness in the deep levels of Delta sleep, thus depriving us of the REM sleep so necessary for balance and sanity.

 Example: My doctor suggested I take a statin based medicine. At first there was no problem, but I gradually got so weak I couldn’t even turn over in bed. I suggested to my doctor that I stopped taking it and he supported me in the decision. Within days I began to gain strength again and am about my normal strength now.

Example: In my dream I was in the hospital giving birth I could feel the strong pain medicine working and I assume I had been given an epidural.

Considering that dreams are actually a creation out of ones own feelings, this dreamer has a strong belief that she needs pain killers, even though she has never had a baby. Many media films often act out a very painful birth, which give women the idea that all births must be painful. But here is another woman’s description of her actual birth experience.

 Example:  It was my first child and as my baby started it appearance I was in agony. But instead of tensing against it I surrender to it and it became a wonderful ecstasy of birth without any drugs. See A Method to Shorten Labour

 Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.’ Audrey V.

Example: Frank Takes Gun, national president of the Native American Church, says: At fourteen, I first used Father Peyote. This was on the Crow Reservation in Montana, and I was proud to know that my people had a medicine that was God-powerful. Listen to me, peyote does have many amazing powers. I have seen a blind boy regain his sight from taking it. Indians with ailments that hospital doctors couldn’t cure have become healthy again after a peyote prayer meeting. Once a Crow boy was to have his infected leg cut off by reservation doctors. After a peyote ceremony, it grew well again.

Idioms: Taste of ones own medicine; take ones medicine.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I take the medicine out if its symbols, what was it?

Do I associate anything with the dream medicine?

What was I doing with or feeling about the medicine?

See Self HelpDealing with FearSumming UpProcessing DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Medicine Man

See: Guru.

Medicine Man – Shaman – Guru

Dreaming of a shaman or medicine man shows you have pierced the bubble of the rational world we often live in or are trapped by and have entered a more basic and extended world of ancient people. It can be a world or a state of mind in which you find wisdom or healing. It can also be a condition in which you meet or become different animals that communicate with you. Or you recognise the sacredness of a great tree or a being. Perhaps you even hear a voice or voices speaking to you. None of this is a sign of an ill mind or even of madness. See Core Self

This is explainable if we realise we all developed from a  single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, but such cells never become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

Finding this very ancient self, hidden as it is by all your personal thinking and opinions, you find you are free from all the painful emotions, suicidal urges and personal hurts. To explore it see Opening to Life

So in some dreams the medicine man is a link with your ancestral memories. See ancestors

Carl Jung tells of well educated people who experienced visions of strange fantasies and were deeply disturbed by them. He tells of a theologian who assured him the visions of Ezekiel were symptoms of a morbid state of mind, and that the voices Moses and the prophets heard were signs that they were all suffering from hallucinations. So when the theologian actually experienced similar ‘symptoms’ he felt enormous panic. Yet if this happened to people from older cultures they would say they had experiences communications that were helpful.

Another of Jung findings talking to an Indian cultured in yoga:

‘You don’t mean the commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago?’ I asked. 

‘Yes, I mean him he said, to my amazement. 

‘Then you are referring to a spirit?’ I asked. 

‘Of course it was his spirit,’ he agreed. 

At that moment I thought of Philemon. 

‘There arc ghostly gurus too,’ he added. ‘Most people have living gurus. But there always some who have a spirit for teacher’

Unfortunately our present attitudes arising from our modern culture have far more mental disturbance and even psychotic behaviour amongst us than the older cultures that had little or no mental illness. The amount of mental breakdown in western societies is enormous. So dreaming of a shaman or medicine man is a blessing.

An African jungle dweller, for instance, sees a nocturnal creature by daylight and knows it to be a medicine man who has temporarily taken its shape. Or he may regard it as the bush soul or ancestral spirit of one of his tribe. A tree may play a vital part in the life of a primitive, apparently possessing for him its own soul and voice, and the man concerned will feel that he shares its fate. There are some Indians in South America who will assure you that they are Red Arara parrots, though they are well aware that they lack feathers, wings, and beaks. For in the primitive’s world things do not have the same sharp boundaries they do in our ‘rational” societies. See Collective Unconscious

Like other ancient cultures, dreams were seen by the Amerindians as having certain marked features that could be gained from them. There could be an initiatory dream such as we have already considered. There could also be dreams telling where to hunt; dreams showing a new ritual giving some sort of power such as warding off illness, or finding a new relationship with everyday life, or attracting a lover; dreams could show the use of a herb for medicine; dreams might be caused by some sort of evil within ones body, or an external evil such as someone wishing you harm or an evil spirit; there could be a shared dream with another person; the dream might be a revelation from someone who was dead and now in the spirit world; or a dream, it could be a map supporting and guiding the dreamer throughout their whole life. See Native Americans

Example: I was going through some sort of initiatory test with many other people. At one point I confronted a tree stump that spoke. It had a large lower lip of bark that could protrude. I gave it something to eat that it spat out. It said it wanted something “connective” I believe. I dropped some knitting wool in its mouth. This satisfied it. It had a huge amount of wool in its mouth, and I was concerned whether it could eat the stuff. Then it wrote out my report. The document was very grand, and it was written out with an atmosphere of great solemnity and legality. I had passed the test, but not with very high marks – maybe because I put the wrong stuff in its mouth first.

Example: I had a dream that I was talking to four Native Americans about hair cutting. The woman started speaking to me. I asked her what tribe they were from and she told me. She went on to tell me that their tribe was part of my ancestry.

The tallest of the men began asking me if he could cut my hair. I was a little stunned by the question and said no. He went on to explain that he didn’t want to cut all of it off, but just to trim the ends. He said that cutting or trimming it would be a new beginning for me, almost like starting over in my life. I told him that I was going to do it when I got home.

Example: Other less obvious but powerful forms of slavery are connected with belief systems, political or religious, especially those with a powerful hierarchy that lives upon the labour of others. Religious systems that take money from their followers, or guru systems that do the same use human desires, fears or longings to enslave the being of others. Those at the top, like drug barons, still live on the work and income of others. Usually quite rigid controls or dictates are a sign of this sort of slavery.

At one time I went into the ashram of a well known guru in India. There were armed guards at the entrance and around the high fence surrounding the ashram. Once inside I was shocked by the immense marble and gold temples showing millions of American dollars had been pumped into the guru’s account. Yet the guru that I had loved and admired was Sai Baba of Shirdi, who while much money was given him each day, at the end of the day he had nothing, for he had given it away to those in need.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the native ask you anything, tell you or give you anything?

Have you any ancestors from a culture with different traditions?

Can you learn anything from your dream?

See Way of the Shaman – tradition – Working with associations – Inner World – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Meditation

Being self responsible for state of mind; listening to intuition and unconscious; introverting awareness, or escaping from external world.

For people involved in any form of personal growth, they occasionally have a dream in which some form of instruction is given as an aid to their unfolding. Such dreams are worth following as the unconscious has the ability to sift and consider our collective experience, and present what applies to our need.

But there are basically two types of meditation – with seed and without seed. With seed means you have a goal or state of being you wish to get to, so involves a goal of some sort. Without seed is to totally not have any goals or hopes of reward or getting anywhere. 

The first one, with seed, is based on ones personal desires, hopes or goals, the second, without seed, is based on your conviction that you are an integral part of life and the cosmos. This can be a form of surrender to what you feel is underlying your existence and so is trusting in yourself.

Sometimes we are influenced by old cultural viewpoints. We need an extension to fully be who we are and what we are. Our technological gadgets demonstrate this perfectly. Who would be interested in a mobile phone that only worked occasionally if you knelt in prayer for hours, or had to repeat certain mantras or types of meditation before it would function? We want something reliable and functional that is an expression of our best. I have seen it at work within myself in the past. A splendid possibility of enhanced awareness and response to situations.

We need to be able to meet the circumstances of our today, in all its variety, with real quality. That is true whether we are faced with making personal, political, counselling decisions, or whether we are responding to our children in a way to help them unfold their unique possibilities. Perhaps we want to guide our children in a way that takes in who they really are, and at the same time equip them to meet the possibilities and dangers of everyday life. We need to be able to help them to discover what their roots are. Not just their father and mother and immediate forebears, but what they have inherited from their culture, and their history. We need a wider perspective to guide us, and this is possible to us. See Using Your Intuition

See Life’s Little Secretsway of meditating; Mind and Movement; Meditation With Seed – Try this remarkable meditation; The Breath Meditation; The Arm Circling Meditation; The Squatting and Standing Meditation; Letting things Happen; Lsd – Hypnosis – Meditation – The Dream; Enlightenment

 Example: ‘While recovering from a major operation and experiencing enormous pain I dreamt my father – dead – appeared standing at the end of the bed, and he said in a very matter of fact voice, ‘Think of five pink bouquets’. My father would never have used those words, so the scene impressed itself on me. I therefore woke and tried to visualise the five bouquets. I managed to get three in a row, four, but I could not manage five until I formed them into a diamond with one in the middle. When I achieved that my pain subsided, and did so each time I used the image – why I do not know.’ Ken S.

Ken’s experience suggests a psychosomatic effect from his dream proposed meditation. Such meditations often show ways to alter character attitudes or help find strength to make necessary changes in life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I hoping to find through meditation?

What does the dream say about meditation?

Have I hit difficulties?

See Magic Mirror of DreamsBodiless AwarenessBeing the Person or ThingThe power of Habits

Meditation – Goals of

The goals of meditation are as varied a people themselves. The goal might be to find a way out of feeling awful, or to have a sense of being spiritual, or even to experience enlightenment. Sometimes it is from a tremendous urge to succeed, or at least to at last have the feeling that one can sing ones song, have a feeling that you have expressed what has been lying dormant in you and maybe fulfill your destiny.

It is useful to clarify what you are seeking to get from your practice. Also read Life’s Little Secrets; prayer; heartbeat of prayerEnlightenmentenlightenment intensive

Also see the end of meditation for further suggestions.

Medium

A medium may represent the intuitive function, acquaintance or contact with the psychic rather than the spiritual; the knowledge of unconscious impressions, or of the dead.

Intuition, but perhaps in an obscure way; contact with the unconscious or the dead in its symbolic form. See: the dream as extended perception under esp in dreams; symbols and dreaming.

If you dream you are a medium and you are trying to communicate with a dead person, remember that at death we have no physical organs to speak through, so it all has to be done through thoughts. Also that at the level of thoughts we create huge difficulties by what we think. So a thought such as, “I am not a medium so I cannot talk with my dead son” is like a brick wall that we have created and cannot get through. Thoughts and imagination are incredible powerful and are real at the level of dreams and the dead – and of course your own inner world. See Inner World

 Example: The woman dwarf had features that, even in the dream, reminded me of someone. On waking I realise it was the dwarf woman who played the ‘medium’ in the film Poltergeist. Once in the room with her I felt more strongly I had known her for many years. She told me she was going to look in her crystal ball to tell me what she could see for me. The room was quite dim. It was her bed-sitting room, and like the corridor, had an air of things going on difficult to see in the dimness.

Example: I was at a public meeting with some friends (that I was trying to introduce to Spiritualism) and the medium who looked about 80 came to a woman in the front row who also looked about 80 and said, ” Mother in spirit dear,” she said it with a slight lift at the end so it sounded like a statement or a question. To everyones amazement, the woman said “No, she is still alive”. So the medium said, ” Well it must be your grandmother because she comes on a motherly vibration”.

I have seen a clairvoyant at a public meeting wave a vague arm that encompassed about 50 people at the back of the church, and say” does anyone recognize a Fred?” Amazing. I liked to think that if there is some heavenly beings orchestrating all of this then a least some have been getting to the people who need them the most and of course there are the “message groupies” that go to every meeting possible and absolutely must have a message but that’s another story. Larry

Example: I approach my God and ask to see what would be a direction that would be rewarding to my wholeness, and to other people as well. I prayed for guidance and what arose was the realisation that I had always wanted to be a medium, and I could do that if I wanted. It was something I had wanted to do for a long period of my life. The reason I hold back is because I feel it is a questionable process. At times what arises in this way is amazingly to the point and unexpected. Other times it seems like me making up drivel. A clarity about self doubt then came. I am a man who could go in almost any direction in terms of doing what would be satisfying, but don’t go in any direction much because I am haunted by self doubt. The crippling thing is that I doubt the very thing I love – the spiritual experience. I doubt the very validity of what is the centre of my inner life. I love that – I doubt that. So this leaves me in a sort of limbo.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you associate with a medium?

Have you ever been to one?

What happened in my dream with the medium?

See Using Your Intuition Using Spontaneous VoiceEdgar CayceProcessing Dreams

Meet Met Meeting

(As in meeting someone – what do you meet?).

This is usually about contact, about relationship, and especially about the factors governing the relationship. For instance in one dream a man looking after children meets a man who he judges to be irresponsible. In fact the man is ill and therefore not acting normally. So the factors governing the meeting are misjudgement or misinformation.

Meeting is also about confrontation, or encountering challenge, the new, or about some sort of communication. There might also, in the communication, be questions asked.

The person we are meeting or moving toward can also depict the future, the person we are becoming or moving toward in our growth. It is therefore helpful to define what sort of person they are.

We might, as often happens, be meeting ourselves, thoughwe often put another person there to confuse our so logical mind; but I see so oftens that soemthing tells me again that within each of us lies a radiance that enriches us if we can meet it, that this radiance constantly tries to show us how to become whole, that becoming whole may take strength, surrender and trust.

We also meet again and again, yet for some reason cannot see it, Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them. See Life

 What do you meet in the dream? Is it a dark figure which suggests something about you that you are barely conscious of and need to know.

Is it an animal which is usually your instinctive or spontaneous reactions to events, you intuition or your fears that you are meeting.

Is it a woman and you are a man Then you are meeting your feelings and your female self. Also you might be experimenting with your sexual impulses. You cannot call having sex ‘making love’ – it may be sexual desire which is largely a natural impulse, but it is seldom love. See Love; Archetype of the Anima

Is it a man and you are a woman  Then you are meeting your more rational self or your male self. It might be a way you are trying to see whether the man is the ‘one’ – and that is something seen in many dreams. Maybe you feel it would be nice to fall in love and marry again. So you may be hoping that the dream is some sort of indication that ‘he’ still wants to be with you. I can only pass on what I see happens when someone has such a dream. There is such a huge difference between our inner life and outer life. Our inner life often tries to digest or integrate the experience of a relationship, or/and we live out the things we would love to happen. You realise how happy someone can be in a relationship, so you can’t help wondering if it could happen to you. See Archetype of the Animus; Questions; Learning to Love

Are you looking for support? Whether a woman or a man, we often find support in our dreams. But you must be aware that dreams arise and take place in very different set of circumstances than our waking life. So the people and animals should not be thought of as external, but are ways that you inner most self is showing the politics of your own inner world. See Summing Up

Useful Questions and Hints:

If the meeting did not work well ask yourself what went wrong?

If it went well see if you can build what you felt or realised into your life.

Have ever realised meeting yourself?

See Life’s Little SecretsAvoid Being VictimsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Meeting (As in a group)

Activities, decisions, directions that are not simply your own. Your involvement with other people. But also, at a more symbolic level, the bringing together of more aspects of yourself. Therefore a large group suggests a lot of energy involving many different aspects of yourself.

We all have a Mammalian as part of our Human ‘brain’. This give rose to the skills shown in mammals such as wild dogs and apes. Whereas the lizards do not demonstrate mutual activity in hunting or caring for young, mammals show enormous awareness of bonding, caring for young, group activity, hierarchy and recognition of family and pack. It is this grouping, working together or fighting one anther that is still very much mammalian behaviour. We can see it strongly in football supporters.

When an integrated group is formed, being a member of it can produce a positive sense of connection with others. If one disagrees with the goals and beliefs of such a group, the group can sometimes exert an enormous pressure to conform with their goals. This can lead to individual persecution or conflict between the opposing groups or nations. Or it may be you feel a group of people you are involved with are forming a clique and pressurising you. It may lead to a person feeling alienated or shunned. See Archetype of the Outcast

The different age groups also represent the opportunities commonly associated with that age. For instance a sixty year old woman who falls in love might say ‘I feel like a young girl again.’ Or one might say to a young person, ‘You’ve got an old head on your shoulders.’ It is in precisely this way that dreams use age to represent feelings and situations. As far as we can tell some of these differences are because at different periods of our life we are confronted by different challenges and different needs. But that is only partly true, and the changes in our experience of dreams are also due to not only the physiological changes of our body but also the psychological changes, or spiritual changes, occurring at different ages and the cultural attitudes to the age we are.  See Every 7 Years You Change

In looking through a collection of dreams I find ‘old clothes’ which related to old attitudes and behaviour; ‘old shells’ from the war which indicated past difficult feelings and experiences; an ‘old woman’ who turned out to be a mother; his ‘old inadequate self’; ‘old group’ was about confronting my old social values.

 Example: I then saw the guy that I used to date playing with the kids. I was surprised he was there. Then the scene switched and my two housemates came into a room where a group of people was drinking. A party was going on and my housemates started to yell at some of the people because they were underage and drinking. I had yelled back at them because I was the only one drinking alcohol and I thought they were overreacting to the situation. I told them that they were being really hypocritical, and they just laughed.

Example: I am telling this story at a dinner at night (underground) to a group of family and friends. I feel happy with my wife, but still bitter at the arbitrary way in which I was rejected by the ‘service’ at the last second on the whim of this officer. I also feel some envy for those who were accepted and who went on to become successful. There for the grace of the devil, go I. Anyway, in spite of what happened to me I now feel happy.

Example: Some days ago I dreamt I was walking alone through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the right way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew that the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain to for a moment.

Then I walked on and came to an open stretch of ground. There were no obvious pathways amidst random obstruction bushes. I wondered if I could get through to where I wanted to go. The group arrived and together we went forward.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I ever a member of a group?

How do I deal with groups who are different?

What attitudes do I still have that are connected with group action?

See IndividuationIdentity and dreams Life ChangesAges of Love

Megalith Menhir

The eternal or universal aspect of self emerging into consciousness. See: Rock.

 Because I believe the universe has good will, out of the very force of my life, and from the stuff of mind, I create a rock in the midst of a shoreless sea. In an ocean of change and uncertainty I form an island of charm.

There was a period of time when we were not humans with self awareness. As such we were animals moved by instincts. But there was then a cross over to self awareness, and in imagination I saw what was perhaps the first of these creatures pile one rock upon another, something no animal had ever done, and this was both a mystery to those who had not reached that level called self awareness, but also a stimulus. We may then venerate or hold as of immense value such art forms. They contain in them the vast dimensions of the ungraspable, of the infinity of our own within. They stand before us as representatives of the alien in our midst, in ourselves. They remind us of what we are not masters of, and what may take hold of our life.

Then out of that ocean onto the shore of self-awareness, perhaps for moments only at first, a daring Then out of that ocean onto the shore of self-awareness, perhaps for moments only at first, a daring creature crawled and said – ‘I am’. Doing so they left a mark – footprints, two stones rolled together, scratches on a rock, a cave painting. And those creatures still in the ocean looked out upon them and wondered, until a spark was struck in them too. Perhaps struggling for a closer view they emerged and gasping also exclaimed – I am – and added another rock. So great structures gradually grew put of humans.

Our consciousness has been whittled out of the rock of possibilities by the love, the struggle and pain, the endeavour and wit of their lives. Particularly our psyche has been shaped by or modelled on our parents and the traces in their life, unknown though they may be, of their parents, backwards for many generations.

 Example: I have come across a cave dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found treasure in the cave.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.  Another person went in to get some of the treasure.  However, I knew that to have a treasure you had to answer a question put to you by something like a Guardian of the tunnel – maybe a sphinx. The person didn’t emerge and I knew they had not been able to answer the question.  But I heard the question I would be asking if I went for the treasure.  It was, “What goes into everything twice?”

The man who dreamt the above dreamt explored it fully. He says of it, “What I did found was that the cave is an absence of something.  It is the result of work done of clearing out, of chipping away at what was there. This led to revealing what we consider to be treasure.  The treasure was there but it had not been revealed, it was part and parcel of the rock.  So I am left wondering what the something is inside the cave that asks the questions of those who enter.

What I find interesting about the dream is that there are pieces of gold lying about outside the cave.  So one could gather a lot of treasure simply from what is already available.  There would be no need to enter the cave.  But there is the promise of enormous treasure inside.  It isn’t so much the wealth, but there is the impression that the treasure is not simply lumps of gold, but un-nameable things that one would find extremely valuable.  I feel, as I enter more deeply into my wider awareness, that the men who came out with the treasure depict the enormous amount that I have mined from the long years of my exploring.  I have in fact already gathered enormous treasure.  Of course I still wonder what else there is left to find.

I am feeling that the person who went in and did not come out represents the unanswered questions that we all hold within ourselves.  Those questions of course keep us still within the mine, still seeking answers and understanding.  That is the part of self that continues to chip away at the rock face, knocking away the rock from the gold, uncovering more of the possibilities that were held within that solidity.

 Example: I was on a beach in somewhere like Ibiza. I met Danny; I knew that I didn’t have the money like him to live a different life, so I wondered what I could do. I saw a rock mound with water running through it. I then saw that ancient peoples had carved out some more of the rock and had inserted abalone shells around the running water creating a trough. As I looked on, I suddenly realised that this was an expression of the divine and that I could live here and dedicate my life to the divine, thereby giving my life as much meaning if not more than Danny’s.

Example: Here and there in the desert were huge rock formations, a little bit like what one sees in Monument Valley in Arizona. But these rock formations were not plain or slightly coloured rock. Also they were immense. They had the appearance of massive mosaics – brightly coloured mosaics. But the mosaics did not form illustrations or patterns. However, some pieces of the mosaics were larger than others. And each piece might be in itself multicoloured and a sort of miniature pictograph.

As I looked at these massive formations I understood that they had been carved or created through events in the passage of time. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created and shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself. Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. No one being created such a mosaic in the formations. Such a mosaic was large and had in it the essence of all the lives that formed it. So the rock formations and the mosaics on them represented influences that will flow into the future. They were sources of power or influence that shaped the phenomenal world. They were the body under the coat so to speak.

Example: We turned left off the road. I stood on a small rise looking down into a large hollow between hills. In front of me was a colossal stone column of a design I had never before seen. It was the height of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, but very much wider. On top it had a design that was so subtle and unique I cannot even recall it. This design had been carved into the solid rock. This suggests, I suppose, that this uniqueness has not been brought through to consciousness. The column seems to be of solid rock, neither natural nor man-made, but formed by some inconceivable mystery. The design at the top was alien, not in the sense of being a threat, but with a sense of otherness. The form was not natural, yet at the same time it was not man-made. Perhaps it would describe it by saying it seemed as if nature and human intelligence had somehow blended to form it. For they had the naturalness of form that an anthill or honeycomb has, where “nature” expresses herself through her insect bodies. This was in a class with these works of nature, yet more complex, showing She had used a higher order of intelligence.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were there any designs on the rock?

Did I have any thoughts or realisation about the megalith?

What do I feel it means to me?

See Being the Person or ThingMagical Dream MachineProcessing Dreams

Melt

To change hardness of nature giving way to feelings of softness. A change; emotions softening. The softness of ones emotions can lead to a feeling of merging with someone. There can also be a melting of ones sense of self, of existing. Our personality has indeed, as far as we are concerned, while we sleep has melted away and disappeared. Yet the next morning we awake and all is well. We have survived. The sense of bodilessness often brings with it a melting of ones boundaries and a feeling of being part of all life. This is sometimes called an ‘oceanic’ experience because it can feel like one is melting into an enormous ocean of life or consciousness.

The melting of ice suggests that a very hard emotional surface is softening or disappearing. Melting snow is also the losing of emotional coldness, but not with the harshness of ice.

 Example: I was in a street and met a dark haired young woman. We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere.

Example: Now the preparations have ended and I am to go off alone up the mountains to meet whatever waits for me there. Now it feels as if something is flowing into my body. I am now experiencing a state or condition that has been very marked or strong in my life lately. My breathing becomes very slow, it seems even at times as if it has stopped, and everything becomes very still. It feels like being dead. My body becomes so still it disappears and all that is left is awareness submerged in enormous emptiness or space. There is a paradox in this experience because it feels as if I, my sense of self, has melted away, and yet there is still a very definite experience of existing. I suppose what has stopped is what I have called movement. The movement of thinking, of feeling, of longing or hoping for things.

Example: I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of ones skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you experience melting or just seeing something melt?

What would you imagine it would feel like to actually melt?

Do you keep a hard edge to your feelings as protection?

See Avoid Being VictimsUsing the VoiceNorman CousinsBeing the Person or Thing

Member

Most dreams usually are about family members, a crew member, members of our community, member of the tribe, or member of a sports team, or a member of the police or armed forces. But member can sometimes refer to a part of your body.

But in general whichever it is it still refers to yourself. Nearly always when people dream about someone they know they automatically believe the dream is about that person. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene, something that haunts our memory is shown as a ghost or demon. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream. Even dreams of God or angels are in a sense a meeting with your highest. See Characters and People in Dreamsyou are the projector

If the person dreamt about is a member of an integrated group, it needs to be remembered that any such group, being a member of it can produce a positive sense of connection with others. If one disagrees with the goals and beliefs of such a group, the group can sometimes exert an enormous pressure to conform with their goals. This can lead to individual persecution or conflict between the opposing groups or nations. So your dream may be highlighting your reaction to or feelings about such a group; or even be about your part in your own inner organisation.

In a small group, such as the hunter gatherer groups which preceded the larger tribal or national groups, we see that the identity of the individual was largely formed out of the relationships with members of the group, and from their collective beliefs and customs. This was and is very evident with tribal peoples – the history of tribal Africa and the Jewish people gives graphic illustrations of this. Thus the ‘identity’ of the Jewish people is still very much alive today, forming obvious links with people otherwise separated by nationality and national culture. The religious beliefs and customs of such a group form a major part of this personal and group identity. So this needs to be taken into consideration is your dream is about such people.

In some dreams you may be part of or involved in a larger social gathering. So even within one tribal or national group, the individual may at times lose a sense of direct relationship with all the members making up the town or nation. There may at times arise a sense of being ‘lost’. I mean by this that the individual loses their direct perception of kin relationships within the group; of how they are an integral and useful or respected member of the group; what part they play in the group, and of any shared bonding experience within the group.

The things that are a needed part of my life and work, such as my home, transport to work, the telephone and power to heat workplace and house, are not produced by any one individual. It is only out of our COLLECTIVE EFFORT, our unified endeavour, that such wonders as a house, a town, electricity, are forthcoming. This miracle of creativity cannot arise out of any one person’s life or work. We are immersed in this miracle, yet we cannot put our hand on it at any time. It is something that is not physical except in manifestation. Yet it is perhaps the most important issue confronting us. To lose sight of it, to lose it as a working part of our own life, is to lose sight of reality and our best interests.

So in a real sense we are all a member of this super group and it often is important to be aware of how well or badly you relate to the group or society that in fact give you a place an opportunity – or otherwise – to live.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of the enormous gifts given to me by others enabling me to be able to speak and understand a language?

What is my relationship as a member of family, a group or society – is it a rebel, a participant, an outsider or what?

Do I feel connected or excluded by others?

See ProgrammedClicking OnConditioned ReflexesBeing the Person or Thing

Men

See man; Archetype of the Father

Menstrual Blood – Menstruation

See Menstrual Bloodarchetype of bloodbleedingGreat Mother.

Menstruate Menstruation Periods

The possible association depends very much upon what age you are, and what gender. But if you are female, it can suggest (in order of age) emerging sexuality and child bearing, and any joys or worries you have about this. Dreams of young women often experiment with the whole process of menstruation and pregnancy long before there is any inclination to experience sex as an external fact.

It might refer to your acceptance or conflict with this powerful and spontaneous process of life working in you. In a sense it takes over your body as distinct from your personal desires. This calls for some adjustment, so the dreams might illustrate this.

The dream might reflect concerns about pregnancy, or in a few cases, directly shows that you are pregnant.

Lastly the dream might be showing actual physiological conditions needing attention. If you are worried about any such dream, check it out with your doctor.

Emerging sexuality; procreative drive; mystery of life; acceptance of life working in yourself if menstruating – non acceptance of basic life drives if not menstruating.

Menstruation connects her with the forces of death and renewal occurring within her during every menstruation. It connects her with the tremendous link with natural forces of mothering and the strength of womanhood and the female principle in the Earth and universe.

Blood can also mean fertility when it is connected with menstruation. It can be a painful cleansing and difficult period of releasing the old. The old dies away and leaves space for the new to grow. For women there is obviously a strong link between bleeding and menstruation. Therefore in women’s dreams involving blood, the colour red or bloody felsh in any form, the blood may depict whatever feelings, pleasure, difficulties are associated with menstruation and the power of female fertility for the dreamer.

Dreams of collapse and destruction are more prevalent before a woman’s menstrual periods. Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”

Women with negative attitudes toward their menstruation (“the curse,” “falling off the roof,” “on the rag”) showed 15 percent of their dreams during the first two days had concerns about their body health. While those with positive feelings toward menstruation (“my secret friend,” “my monthly visitor,” “Mother Nature calling”) had less than 2 percent of dreams showing concerns.

Menstruation is the assurance of true femininity and the sign of womanhood. At such a time women often dream of receiving an engagement ring or married to strangers. Women frequently dream of being in water or swimming during menstruation.

Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”

Problems with menstruation: Problems with relationship between what life needs of personality, and what personality wants of life; might refer to physiological problems which need attention. In man’s dream: Ones receptive nurturing nature; the aspect of the male self which can ‘conceive’ creative ideas.

If ill: problems in sexuality, creativity, emotions or in letting go of ‘I want’. See: pre menstrual tension; Menstruation and dreams.

 Example: For the past year and several months I’ve had a recurring dream at least 10 times pertaining to my menstrual cycle and bowel movements. These dreams have always been embarrassing. Either my period has came down unexpected while I’m sitting on the toilet and/or I am catching a bowel movement in my hand and trying to hide it from people around me. I have been thinking of what possible meaning this could be.

This is about the person holding onto their inner emotional rubbish/shit because they feel embarrassed if they allow it to be expressed.

 Example: We’re commiserating about the woes of menstrual periods.  We talk about how uncomfortable it is when one’s flow is very heavy.  We’re enjoying our conversation and I like her a lot.  We have so much in common.  Finally she says she needs to change her tampon or pad.  I offer her a tampon (regular) but she says that she doesn’t use them when she’s out like this.  (I get the feeling she means it’s too inconvenient.)  At first I was sitting on the end of the aisle and she was sitting to my right.  Now she’s squatting in the aisle on my left.  I thought she was going to the bathroom but she changes right there in the aisle.  She pulls out a thing that looks like a tampon but it’s round and white on a string.  It’s about 1/2 – 1 inch in diameter.  This is what she will use. She doesn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable about doing it in the aisle.  It seems to be natural for her.  I then ask her how she handles working when her flow is so heavy.  She laughs and says there’s no way she can work.  Her boss just tells her to take her shoes and go home.  He knows she’s going to be off work when she’s on her period.

  

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have problems talking about menstruation?

What do I feel about menstruation?
Is it easy or painful for you?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsBeing the Person or thingMagical Dream Machine

Merchant

The business, commercial side of self. Desires for profit in some area of your life.

It could also suggest the skill in knowing and dealing with the things we need in the business of living. The ability to buy and sell by understanding the things you are profiting by.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this showing the business side of myself?

Is this indicating a scheming aspect in the way I relate to others?

Am I looking for profit in a particular area of life?

See Being the Person or ThingMarketBusiness and DreamsBusiness Woman/Man

Mercury

Intuition; changeability. Difficulty to grasp.

Mermaid Merman

Love arising from the unconscious. The unconscious drive toward reproduction, or seduction toward reproduction. In some cases it can show your love of your image of someone rather than the reality of them as a human being. The link between the deep forces of the unconscious and the waking self. The unconscious image or idealised sense of womanhood – mermaid – or manhood – merman; love of ones image of someone rather than the reality of them as a human being. Meeting a mermaid or merman is an indication that you are exploring the beauty of your larger self and gaining spiritual awareness.

If mermaidThe inner image of womanhood, still held in the waters of the unconscious.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I experienced any intuitive realisation recently?

Do I love images of mermaids?

What do I feel when I dream of a mermaid or merman?

See Clicking OnESP in DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming – A Huge Change Happening

Message Messages Messenger

This is a way your unconscious manages to give you information, or suggest that something is important to think about. It can also suggest intuitive insight into whatever the message is about.

Information to take seriously; a communication from your intuition or unconscious; information you need to know.

A beacon can suggest that you are the messenger, the beacon to guide or warn.

 

Alarm clock ringing is probably a message to wake up to something happening in your life or to remember something you had set yourself to do. Sometimes a warning.

Birds can indicate messages that are being delivered to you.

An envelope and letter definitely indicate messages.

Strange or unknown horseman/woman often signifies a message from the unconscious, a new opportunity, relationship or event.

Angels are traditionally said to be messengers from the Highest. Many people have conversations with them and find them helpful. But even if we do not believe in angels, it is an excellent thing to do to construct one to interact with your intuition.

There are thousands of things that you are unconscious of at the moment. For instance I can ask you a question you are presently unconscious of, but you will be aware of it when I ask you. So here is the question – What is your present or earlier address.

As you can see, something that you were unconscious of becomes know when you are asked a question. But there are many things that we hold the answers to that we have never put into words or never been conscious of. Yet we have millions and millions of pieces of information gathered even in a short life, pieces that would only be brought together by a question. But also it is now believed after the finding that at base we are quantum which connects with all things, that we have infinite information which can be accessed by asking questions in the right way.

So you construct an angel by holding a feeling or an image of a consciousness that is connected with you – your unconscious – but is like an inverted – upside down – triangle. The angel is at the point of the triangle, but is also the body of the triangle witho9ut any ceiling. So it extends forever to collect the answers to your question.

So if you come away from a dream empty handed then you have received a wonderful communication and ignored its message. OK, it may be difficult to understand. So what, many things are not handed to us served up with gravy. Struggle with it, pray for help with it, live with it, for this is a message that is vital to you – ask your angel. Ask with a feeling that you have asked a friend an important question and now you are waiting quietly to hear the answer. See using intuition

 Example: The following dream has a very deep meaning and a clear guidance-message: The dreamer is in a dark, swampy forest. It is night. He has lost his way and is desperate, not knowing where to go, wallowing in the morass . . . He is not religious, but he falls on his knees and begins to pray, imploring the Higher Forces to help him out of this predicament and to show him the way!. . Suddenly a clear ray of light appears from the black sky, moving and showing a stable way among the boggyness. He rushes forward! But after several steps on the right path — he loses it and feels very frightened and lonely. He falls on his knees again, praying and begging for guidance and help. . . The golden ray reappears from above, leading him out of the dark and swampy dangerous forest. . Three or four times he goes astray, losing the right way. The helpful golden beam always reappears after he offers a sincere and deep prayer to be shown the right direction, where to go, the way out of the darkness and bog. . . His prayer was right: he asked no favors, no gifts, only the right way.

Example: Many of you will remember the cartoon character, Casper the Friendly Ghost. Casper is a

little ghost who would help his friend Wendy the Good Witch, whenever she was in strife. When I was very young I thought everyone had their own Casper guiding them through life. I honestly thought Casper was guiding me because I often received messages when I needed help.

How silly this sounds now, but at six years of age, I didn’t know any better. It wasn’t until I was about eight that I realised what I had mistaken to be Casper, was really my Conscience or Intuitive Voice. By then I was old enough to understand that Casper was a cartoon figure, and wasn’t real. Phew…what a relief it was to know that no ghosts floated around me. Quoted from The Voice of Intuition by Emily Chantiri

Example: Ah yes, “We are shattered, tattered, demented remnants of a once glorious army. Among us are Princes and Captains of Armies, Lords of Battle, amnesic, aphasic, ataxic, jerkily trying to recall what was the battle the sounds of which still ring in our ears: is the battle still raging? If we could make our way back to join the main body of the army. “Gropings, orientations, crumbs, fragments, bits of the jigsaw, a few demented ravings that may help the reconstruction of the lost message. I am just beginning to regain my memory, just beginning to realise I am lost, just getting faint sounds of old familiar music – snatches of old tunes, moments of deja-vu, a reawakening of a long-numbed agony – an unendurable realisation of what a debacle it was, what a shambles, what betrayal, horror, stupidity, ignorance, cowardice, craven lust, wretched greed. Faint recall of a raving nostalgia, for the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Paradise lost.” (The Bird Of Paradise by R. D. Laing – Quoted from my book Yield).

Example: I released my demons prematurely – before I had sufficiently developed my strengths and skills. This happened because I didn’t listen to my inner self’s messages. In my arrogance, I actually thought I knew better. This led to my depression and opened the gates to my inner demons. So…I am now forced to fight a premature battle.

You can be an archaeologist by exploring the buried message of your dreams by using

Being the Person or ThingClicking On and Peer Dream Work.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the message clear or do I need to clarify it?

What or who was the messenger?

Is it a message I feel I can trust or act on?

See Clicking OnTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Voice of Intuition by Emily Chantiri

 Example: Ah yes, “We are shattered, tattered, demented remnants of a once glorious army. Among us are Princes and Captains of Armies, Lords of Battle, amnesic, aphasic, ataxic, jerkily trying to recall what was the battle the sounds of which still ring in our ears: is the battle still raging? If we could make our way back to join the main body of the army. “Gropings, orientations, crumbs, fragments, bits of the jigsaw, a few demented ravings that may help the reconstruction of the lost message. I am just beginning to regain my memory, just beginning to realise I am lost, just getting faint sounds of old familiar music – snatches of old tunes, moments of deja-vu, a reawakening of a long-numbed agony – an unendurable realisation of what a debacle it was, what a shambles, what betrayal, horror, stupidity, ignorance, cowardice, craven lust, wretched greed. Faint recall of a raving nostalgia, for the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Paradise lost.” (The Bird Of Paradise by R. D. Laing – Quoted from my book Yield).

Example: I released my demons prematurely – before I had sufficiently developed my strengths and skills. This happened because I didn’t listen to my inner self’s messages. In my arrogance, I actually thought I knew better. This led to my depression and opened the gates to my inner demons. So…I am now forced to fight a premature battle.

You can be an archaeologist by exploring the buried message of your dreams by using

Being the Person or ThingClicking On and Peer Dream Work.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the message clear or do I need to clarify it?

What or who was the messenger?

Is it a message I feel I can trust or act on?

See Clicking OnTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams

Metal

Hardness of feelings; the restrictions of the real world or of ones own imagination; strength of or use of your will or obstinacy; reality. See: Iron.

Meteor Meteorites

Ancient peoples believed that seeing a meteor in the sky, or finding a part of a meteor suggested that a gift had been given by heaven. That is where the idea of wishing upon a falling star arose. To dream of a meteor or meteorite is for some people an expression of anxiety that they might be hit. But usually it has real significance. It represents something from the mysterious cosmos, the hugeness we have within us to enter our experience, so can represent awareness or recognition of something beyond our present experience showing itself to us. It begs the questions, where did it originate; what different world of experience does it represent, and how and why did it enter my life? Well it usually is from your core self. See Opening to Life – Dimensions of Human Experience – Your Core

A meteor can also represent the soul or spirit. Or it could be wishful thinking with regard to some aspect of your life. But such wishes if persisted in tend to move toward becoming realities.

Meteors were completely denied by ‘scientists’. Nothing could fall out of the sky that wasn’t shot upwards from earth, we were told. It was only ‘ignorant’ peasants working in the fields who said they had seen such things. Then one day a ‘scientist’ saw one – then they suddenly they existed as a fact. 🙂

A meteor crater might be indicating very ancient influences that you are in some way becoming aware of at the moment.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings did I have seeing the meteor?

Did I see it as something I could make a wish on?

Do I have any feelings of what it means in my life?

See Being the Person or Thing – Healing Experience – Inner WorldClicking On

Metro

See: Underground.

Mew

Loneliness, a call from the soul, a longing for comfort, friendship or love.

Mexico Mexican

If you were born in Mexico it represents the whole background of your experience.Also it can be an expression of what your feelings about Mexico are and how you would describe it to another person.

If you have lived in Mexico than it would be your overall feelings about being there, obviously altered by the details of the dream.

If you have never been to Mexico then it represent what your impressions of it are.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did meaningful things happen to you in Mexico?

What would you say was the main things about being Mexican?

How has Mexico influenced you?

See Being the Person or ThingforeignerSerpent of Mexico

Microbe

See: Germ.

Microscope

The ability to perceive the subliminal and usually imperceptible parts of your nature, and sensations. Possibly an insight into the cellular processes of your body; the intricate workings of your mind, or your usually hidden feeling responses – depending upon what you are looking at through the microscope.

Introspection; extended cellular perception; making mountains out of molehills. The ability to look within yourself at the usually imperceptible parts of your nature and mind.

The world seen through a powerful microscope or telescope is very different, and our senses only show us very limited aspects of the universe that can be enhanced by such instruments.

If we were the size of an atom, or even a molecule for instance, reality would appear completely different to us. The incredible speed with which we, as an atom, interact with our environment would give us a totally different view of time and space. Years of activity for our atomic self would be only a second of time to our bodily self.

The eyes only ‘see’ a small part of the light spectrum; the ears a small part of the sound octaves; and you cannot look into the depths of your body or mind, as a microscope might; nor can you gain a broad view of the galaxies and what they hold – you do not know what is going on around you or within you except in your dreams.

In fact our consciousness is capable of being a high-powered microscope with a range of optic lenses that can be manipulated to suit the individual eye or the matter being observed.  There are worlds within worlds and you hold them all within you and can be conscious of them.

Dreams express a contact between ones individual sense of identity and the living consciousness of our total environment. So the dream process is creative in that the individual experiences contact with the process of life, and can learn to relate to it more effectively. Also out of this contact emerges a creative response in action, emotion, art, speech, music, dance etc. In this area the dream acts like a microscope or telescope, through which the dreamer can literally explore the cosmos or the depths of their own psychobiological being. This has all the characteristics of the deepest of spiritual experiences.

 Example: I see like a zoom lens and I’m coming closer to a corner under the eves. A red and white thing is all messed up in a heap there and I feel terror. I think, “I don’t want to see.” It’s like my childhood memories and it will scare me or be too ugly to look at. But as I come closer, it changes into a sweet kitty and it sits there looking at me. I feel better now. The place is dusty and cold and long forgotten, except for that cute kitty.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever experienced seeing more than my eyes usually allow?

Did I see through a microscope – what did I experience?

What did I realise as I explored the strange world?

See Using Your Intuition Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentDiving into the Depths of Mind

Middle

It suggests you are involved in something. It might be you are in the middle of a war, an argument, making love, creating something, or an ocean. So then look up the thing you were in the middle of.

The middle can also suggest a balancing point between opposites. Also the middle of your body. You might be in the thick of something.

Middle aged person: represents achievement, maturity, the ageing process. The elderly person may depict feelings about ones parents or a parent/authority figure; the wisdom gathered from many years of living; the declining power or creativity, or the feelings of decline and loss within oneself. Such feelings are often simply cultural and are not a real reflection of what is possible or opportune at this time of life. It is a time when you have to create your own world and life more fully than in previous ‘ages’. See: individuation.

 Example: Recently I started dreaming the sea again only this time I dreamt that I am in the middle of the ocean but its calm, crystal blue clear and shallow, with a kind of island, or actually more of a flat, sandy area in the middle, and then the scenery changes from middle of the ocean to a big river and I am in a canoe/boat but the water is still very calm, crystal blue clear and shallow. The river is flanked by a bank with nice white stones and pebbles on one side and by lush green mountains on the other side. I have this new dream often.

Example: A most extraordinary thing happened here. The only way I can describe it is to say that it felt as if I am standing in an open space in a town without any other people about. But what I was standing in was the many images, felt threats, fears, longings that assail human beings. So in one sense I was standing in the middle of a dream, and I was surrounded by the images of the felt threats, fears, hopes, that in fact impact on human consciousness every day. They impact in a way that are for many people torments, perhaps even life-threatening, and that for some may lead to suicide. But as I stood in the middle of these things and they came at me one after the other in the form of images, but images that were deeply felt, I was like a burning flame. I don’t mean that I looked like a flame. I mean that as each image impacted on my consciousness it burnt out. I was naked consciousness, and as each form, as each image attacked my nakedness it was burnt away, perhaps by my recognition of it as simply an emotion, a feeling, an image that in itself was a passing show of things. I don’t think I have ever before felt such an amazing feeling as that magical sense of being able to stand amidst anything and everything that came towards me and yet remaining as pure, naked me. This led me on to looking at, or wondering, why, as human beings we should be so dominated by images and imagery. In particular I was thinking about how our culture, and how we as individuals, are so manipulated by the images that are thrust at us day after day week after week, and year after year. The images of the big powerful male, the beautiful female, big tits and perfect teeth, the whole business.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am in, or seeing, the middle of?

Am I feeling threatened or good about my situation?

Is this where I wanted to be?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming  – Working with associationsInner World

 

Midget

See: Dwarf.

Migraine

To dream of a migraine is often a sign of tension. If you are aware of the tension it might help to allow it to develop rather than suppress it. See Life’s Little Secrets; migraine-self help

 

Military

Dreaming about the military suggests either that you have at sometime served in the armed forces and therefore it is about your associations with your experience, or that it is connected with some form of group discipline or rules. Maybe facing a battle or conflict.

Sometimes it refers to the attitudes you have developed to fight and move toward some type of breakthrough or facing fear and winning. See soldier; sailor

If the dreamer is in a ship on the high seas, the dream may suggest sailing through emotional issues of divorce or other personal loss, bravely and dutifully.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I have served in the armed forces what are my associations with it?

What did I feel about the military in the dream?

Was I involved in any conflict, military or personal?

See Working with associationsConflicts Life’s Little Secrets

Milk

Due to it being a product of a mother, it usually represents the ability to give of oneself, the giving of sustenance, self-sacrifice, nurturing the young or needy parts of you or others. It may also indicate motherhood, infantile sustenance, or sympathy. It can be the symbol of some­thing bland, harmless, mild, lacking the stimulus of alcohol, tea, or coffee. Thus the word ‘milksop’, that is another name for childlike, unmanly, cowardly. On occasions milk can also represent sperm or the female vaginal flow.  See: FoodDrink.

Through the mother’s it breast a baby receives nourishment, but it also receives in the milk things that help the baby meet the infections and threats confronting it in the external world.

An adult drinking milk might suggest the person has not matured – or needs more calcium in their diet.

Being milked: Giving of oneself; taking support or nourishment from someone else; taking, or being taken, advantage of.

 Example: Quoted from Dreams, The Language of the Unconscious by Hugh Lynn Cayce. ‘I dreamed my brother and I with our wives were out on a party with B.B. I fell asleep at the table. We got home very late. My brother left the car and walked home. He and I stopped to look at a bottle of milk that was marked “undistilled milk!”‘ An intuitive analysis of this dream by Edgar Cayce suggested that it represented the man as having too many late nights. This is portrayed by his falling asleep at the table. It also is said to suggest a need for more physical exercise in the part where his brother walks instead of using the car. And lastly, Cayce says, ‘Change from the present supply (of milk) for this shows adulteration in same.

Example: A young woman was there, not particularly good-looking, but okay. I suppose I would describe her as a fairly plain young woman, neither highly intelligent nor stupid. Almost immediately we were in a sexual relationship. I was sucking her breast. It was very beautiful and warm sweet milk was coming out into my mouth. It felt very satisfying, both for me and for her.

 

Idioms: Milk and water; milk of human kindness; milk somebody; cry over spilt milk.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening to the milk in the dream?

Am I drinking it or giving it?

Do I avoid drinking milk, if so what is my dream suggesting?

See Life’s Little SecretsMagic Mirror of DreamsRole in the dream

Mill Milling

Process of extracting what is useful from ones gathered experience. Can be painful as it needs intense self awareness; crushing or painful experiences of life. Trying times or feelings. Suggests the breaking down of old attitudes and beliefs.

To mill or being involved in milling is a way of transforming one thing into another – something that couldn’t be easily used by humans into something useful. As such it can link with nourishment.

Grist for the mill: Suggests that everything can be used if and when it is milled. Also often refers to making a profit.

Milling around: Having not set direction or not making firm decisions or choices.

 Example: The scene shifted to later that same evening. I was in a small, outdoor amphitheatre and a lecture was going on while people were milling about. It was still a rave scene and there were all kinds of beautiful, psychedelic visual effects happening up on the stage and all around on the side walls, though the theater was open aired. I realized the whole effect was inducing a trance state and it felt really good to collectively be linked emotionally.

Run of the mill: An ordinary situation that does not stand out.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I the miller or involved in milling?

What is being ground up and for what purpose?

What am I doing milling around?

See Being the Person or ThingCharacters and People in DreamsSumming Up

Million

Beyond the personal; often associated with riches of some sort. The struggle to get there – to be a millionaire.

It may refer to past ages – millions of year ago – and so reflect realisations of you inner history. You are the survivor of ten million generations of ancestors, struggling, developing new strategies, on the heroic journey from the earliest mammals to your life today.

Example: It appears that I and T are going to inherit or receive a huge amount of money – several million dollars. I am trying to clear out some more space in the garage. I have a set of table saws that I should get rid of, but can’t quite seem to give away. (I am going to have a lot more energy, but I can’t seem to get rid of a part of me that likes to cut things up/make cutting remarks/be critical.)

Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I seeking to be a millionaire?
What does the million refer to in my dream?
Do I ever feel my past reaching back into the far past?
See Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Energy Sex and Dreams – Edgar Cayce

Mind Watching and Dreams

Because of the many nature films shown on television we are used to the idea of mature and intelligent adults spending days or years watching the behaviour of animals such as hyenas or chimpanzees. In her book In The Shadow Of Man, Jane Von Lawick Goodall explains how, by watching chimpanzees and taking note of her observations, radical new insight into the behaviour of chimpanzees arose. She didn’t think beforehand what she expected to find, but simply observed and put together the information that arose. For instance on several occasions she saw the chimpanzees kill another animal and eat its flesh. The knowledge that chimpanzees were meat eaters was entirely new.

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

Mines Mining

The seven dwarfs of Snow White worked in a mine. It represents the unconscious physical and mental activities. The mine might be showing these activities, or at least your digging within your experiences, memories, deeper levels of consciousness, to bring up the treasure and valuable resources buried within. Also the seven dwarfs can also be linked with the seven centres in the body. See Kundalini

Underground mine: For many a place of work; otherwise the unconscious and its resources, so bringing to consciousness ones potential and innate wisdom.

Entrance to the mine: Feelings about the unconscious; vagina. See: ore.

Land or sea mines: These represent reactions in us that have been set in place in the past, and can be triggered by present events. For instance, A person may have sustained an eye injury in the distant past, causing some loss of sight. In the present, if anyone puts things near his face, or hits his face, an automatic violent response occurs. This type of response can be symbolised by a mine, or mines. They can represent anything put in place in the past that now is released as powerful emotions or emotional explosions.

 Example: As I struggled, I became vaguely aware that I was dreaming, a fact which glimmered like a pinprick of light seen from the foot of a mine-shaft. I groped desperately towards it, even as I realised that the multifarious shapes of memory and imagination were materialising in the very street around me. I averted my gaze as a squat, malformed figure limped by, unwilling to acknowledge it as the progeny of my own brain.

Example: There is also the sense I have that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

Example: I have come across a cave dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found treasure in the cave.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.  Another person went in to get some of the treasure.  However, I knew that to have a treasure you had to answer a question put to you by something like a Guardian of the tunnel – maybe a sphinx. The person didn’t emerge and I knew they had not been able to answer the question.  But I heard the question I would be asking if I went for the treasure.  It was, “What goes into everything twice?”

I thought the answer to be 1/2, but wasn’t sure.

The man who dreamt the above dreamt explored it fully. He says of it,  “Now I am beginning to enter the dream more fully, and I feel as if I am looking over the countryside of my life – the 70 years travelled – two marriages, five children, several relationships, a variety of skills learned, but through it all the theme that started very early in my life of searching into self; seeking what wisdom one might find in that way, and attempting to release innate potential.  Of course behind much of that was the urge to find personal healing from emotional pain and depression.

What I find interesting about the dream is that there are pieces of gold lying about outside the cave.  So, one could gather a lot of treasure simply from what is already available.  There would be no need to enter the cave.  But there is the promise of enormous treasure inside.  It isn’t so much the wealth, but there is the impression that the treasure is not simply lumps of gold, but unnameable things that one would find extremely valuable.  There is also the sense I have while working on the dream with CJ, that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

A question I asked myself now is, who are the men that come out with armfuls of treasure?  What aspects of myself are these men who had come out with the treasure?  Who also – what part of myself – is the person who went into the cave and did not come out?  Is there a part of me trapped in the search, trapped in this inner exploration?

As I begin to feel my way into the question, I have a sense that the cave connects with the house of the ancestors.  This arises out of a feeling that both of them lead into the unknown, into a darkness that has not yet been fully explored.

And as I stand observing the countryside of my life I feel in a very good state at the moment.  I feel there are no great issues or pains claiming my attention.  But I do wonder if there are still strands to unravel from the past.  What work is there still to be done?  What issues or knowledge still to understand?  What is there that I can still become at one with?

I feel, as I enter more deeply into my wider awareness, that the men who came out with the treasure depict the enormous amount that I have mined from the long years of my exploring.  I have in fact already gathered enormous treasure.  Of course I still wonder what else there is left to find.

I am feeling also that the person who went in and did not come out represents the unanswered questions that we all hold within ourselves.  Those questions of course keep us still within the mine, still seeking answers and understanding.  That is the part of self that continues to chip away at the rock face, knocking away the rock from the gold, uncovering more of the possibilities that were held within that solidity of ourselves.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

What was I doing in relationship with the mine?

Did I experience any thoughts or feelings in connection with the mine?

Have I ever worked or been in a mine?

See Working with associationsInner WorldBeing the Person or Thing

 

Minister

Dreaming of a minister you respect usually represent your own link with your core self and the helpful advice or help given. If you have negative feelings about the minister it suggests a conflict with your feelings about religion. See atheist; priest priestess

 

Mink

Status, material values. animal or sexual desires. Because of the present ban on animal skins, it may link with feelings you have about that, or something you desire that is banned.

Minotaur

The intellect dominated by sexual desires. It probably represent in today’s dreams, the possession by the untamed sexual impulse we see everywhere today.

This is a theme which appears in many cultures or myths connected with the bull. It is of the Hero confronting and overcoming the bull. Lao Tzu for instance found, struggled with and eventually rode the bull, representing the human struggle and victory over instinctive or reactive habitual forces influencing consciousness. Also Theseus saves Ariadne from the Minotaur, suggesting that the conscious self has to meet and transform the instinctive sexual drive, the entangling forces of emotional dependence upon cultural norms, mother and public opinion, to be capable of a mature heterosexual relationship. Theseus, or our active growing self, frees Ariadne, the feminine or intuitive feeling principle. From this a new life can be born or emerge.

Theseus represented the young patriarchal spirit of Athens who had to brave the terrors of the Cretan labyrinth with its monstrous inmate, the Minotaur, which perhaps symbolised the unhealthy decadence of matriarchal Crete. (In all cultures, the labyrinth has the meaning of an entangling and confusing representation of the world of matriarchal consciousness; it can be traversed only by those who are ready for a special initiation into the mysterious world of the collective unconscious.)

“When Theseus saved Ariadne from the Minotaur, he had to make his way through a labyrinth; Perseus cut off Medusa’s head to rescue Andromeda. Both labyrinth and Medusa may be negatively charged symbols of mother. If such an image appears in a hero-rescuing-damsel dream, it may be taken as indicating that the dreamer needs to free himself from an emotional entanglement with – or all-consuming dependence on – his mother. Only then will he be able to let the feminine in himself express itself. (If he doesn’t let it express itself, it will still do so – but in destructive emotional outbursts.)” Quoted from A Dictionary of Dream Symbols by Eric Ackroyd.

See Ox Herding  – Super Heroes and Mythical Creatures

Miracle

Mirage

The illusions we sometimes chase out of our thirst or hunger for something, perhaps love or wealth. See: Desert.

An image or belief that promises satisfaction of some sort but if followed gives no reward. Or it may be that rather than darkness, one is haunted by the dreams of ideal and wonderful love that only lead one on to misery – a sort of chimera or mirage that tempts but provides no reality.  

One might be the chaser of rainbow ends and mirages, and change to one who can accept an imperfect world, ones own imperfection, and take cups of water with shaking hands. To take my place as a man among humankind – not the saints. When those Saints go marching in, I am not to be among their number.

 Example: Some children are going to show me the “life thing.” They pull me into a room and are going to stand me up on a short platform but I want to be more important or higher, so I insist I stand on a dresser. I hold my arms up in the air and then notice a clingy sensation around the fingers of my left hand. I pull it down to look at it and am appalled. A thick spider’s cocoon is wrapped around them and spider eggs are in there and hatching! I squirm to get it off me, and then I see there are snakes wrapped around me and termites or maggot insects on me. It is all nightmarish and scary and disgusting. I wish I’d never been so arrogant as to want to be higher. The children knew this and see I’ve learned my lesson and help pull off the snake. There is a strong sense of life among the decay – the seamy side of life. Barb.

Example: A powerful wave of emotion flushed through me leading me to bang on the floor with anger and frustration. I was shouting out that I was pissed off about forever chasing a carrot or rainbow and never getting the reward. A fucking carrot dangled to keep the workers labouring on until they are too old to work. And at the end of it no satisfying reward for their life of labour. They are just dumped. If it isn’t sex that is dangled as the reward it is financial riches or some dream. Politics, religion, all dangle these dreams in front of us and give nothing – just a fucking mirage. Nothing real at the end of it.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In the dream was I chasing a mirage or aware of its temptations?

Was the mirage offering water or sexual satisfaction?

Have I been chasing a mirage in my life?

See Being the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesClicking OnAvoid Being Victims

Mirror

This has a great many levels of meaning. Basically it is a looking at yourself, a self examination; and the face in the mirror may not match your own. It may be better or worse. That is, in self examination you may come across, or see, parts of our nature that are the worst side or the best side of yourself. These re the things you do not usually see about yourself. You may, for instance, see innate possibilities as they would be in full bloom. But the mirror might only reflect your negative worries about yourself, or how you think you appear to others. Worries about ageing might be one of these. Nevertheless, the dream process usually tries to lead through worry to growth.

This can show concern over ones ‘image’ or how others feel about you, self examination, self love, negative only if the love is not shared with others. In some dreams it reflects anxiety about changing or ageing. There is the possibility of self assessment, so how you are judging yourself a the moment. But also being absorbed in yourself.

The mirror particularly depicts self awareness in the sense of insight into your behaviour or character traits.

The mirror appears in many religious symbols and in much folklore. Water was probably the first mirror, and as such represents human consciousness, soul, or self awareness. This looking at oneself can therefore be a way of depicting self awareness, your ‘I’, as a distinct individual.

Alice goes through the mirror to enter Wonderland, which is again symbolical of looking within self, and exploring unconscious contents.

Indian and Buddhist philosophy use it in a slightly different way, as also Yoga teachings. It is explained that when we look at a mirror we do not see its actual surface. We do not see the actual mirror, only the images reflected on its surface, which appear as reality. Likewise, mind or consciousness is like a mirror. In it we see the images of physical existence and life experience, which we take to be the only reality. But the Yogi asks himself, what is this that is conscious of all these images? What is this mirror we call consciousness? Who am I outside of the images?

 The mirror is also similar to water and can depict looking into the unconscious to see who you are. But like a crystal ball, sometimes you see things that your intuition is telling you. The following example illustrates this. 

Example: Was looking in a mirror. Suddenly a shadow appeared on it. At first the shadow seemed threatening or frightening. Then I saw it was only a directive, a figure with its arm and hand extended as if pointing. Looking behind me I saw the shadow was cast by a featureless cat or animal. Its head was completely smooth, without eyes or ears. At first I thought it could not see or hear, but then realised it must be able to, as it was pointing to a man out in the rough sea. The man had a lifejacket on, so was in no immediate danger. But the sea was very rough. I went out and brought him in, dried him off, put him in my house to recover.

Here the cat is the dreamer’s intuition telling him that inwardly he is experiencing some stormy weather, and needs to take care of that part of him. It also points out that his intuition does not depend upon having physical eyes.

Changed face in the mirror or multiple selves: Becoming aware of aspects of ones character which are usually unknown or not accepted.

 Example: ‘Getting ready for a wedding in an upstairs room, feeling a bit unsure of what to wear. I look in a mirror and see I have on stockings and suspender belt with a very short frilly petticoat. It looks very sexy. I am aware the door is open and have an urge to close it, but then feel okay about looking sexy and people seeing me.’ Nora LBC.

Nora is looking at how she may appear to others if she allows her natural feelings to show.

Cracked or broken mirror:  Distorted self image. A poor understanding of yourself, or perhaps a warning that your sense of self is cracking up.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is what I see in the mirror pleasnt or unpleasant?

Can I accept it may be a side of myself?

What can I do to meet the image I see?

See The HarvesterResistancesArchetype of the ParadigmTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Mirror Function of dreams

See Magic Mirror of Dreams

Miscarriage

May be an attempt to heal the experience, if dreamer has had miscarriage or abortion. From the point of view of the unconscious it is at times important to name the baby. Fear of miscarriage. The loss of new idea, project or growing aspect of self.

The dream may express a fear of miscarriage, or even that you need to take care about your health in order not to miscarry. A local woman who was told by her doctor that she was in the middle of having a miscarriage and should go out and buy some new clothes to compensate for the loss came to me to see if anything could be done. As I knew that the capillaries could tear and be the cause I suggested she take a high dose of vitamin C and a good multivitamin and mineral capsule and vitamin E capsules. This because most people eat white bread and white rice, lots of sugary foods, all lacking the B, C and E vitamins.

A couple of days later she told me the bleeding had stopped. Later still she showed me the wonderful state of her hair and how healthy she looked. She later gave birth to a healthy boy.

Dropping a baby: It might at times suggest a miscarriage.

 Example: I found a wad of something in my underwear. I was scared so I called my mom to my room. She was surprisingly calm and told me I had miscarried twins. I asked her not to tell my husband because I already knew they weren’t his. Awake life: My husband and I are living together but separated. Living in VA for Navy but I plan to move back to CA. I have been seeing another man and have only been in a sexual relationship with him. I have been very depressed and hopeless lately not knowing if I should stay in VA or return to CA. My mother passed away 3 years ago but was there in my dream. Thank you Tony.

The twins in this dream probably represent the two men in her life that were discharged. The influence of the mother in her life is a calming effect in her dream.

 Example: And while a father can forget his children with equanimity, a mother never can. This too has been tried. The child’s death is hers, his fate is her fate. Hence the irrational shock and despair of miscarriage. Hence the inability to forget a child given up for adoption. Women patients have made every effort to down these ghosts, to no avail. One finally retraced a child she had last seen twenty-seven years before and for only a few hours after its birth.

This bond, so intense and persistent on both sides of the relationship, is fortunate for humanity. Without it children are almost hopelessly wounded. One psychiatrist treated two orphans in whom no mystic mother could be found. In infancy their mothers had not been with them to offer any of the selfless love and compassion they needed. After they grew up they remained isolated in their adult personalities, incapable of the magical fantasy of oneness and the love which is its fruit. For after the age of fusion is past, the psyche cannot any longer conceive of such a relationship. It is closed off from its dream by the partitions of reality.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you already miscarried at some time – if so your dream might be about fear of miscarrying again?

It might be to check your diet and take vitamin/mineral supplements?

Have you lost or frightened of losing a project of an ability?

See Life’s Little Secrets Secrets of Power Dreaming Pregnancy and DreamsYoga and Childbirth 

Miser

As money can symbolise power, authority, sexual potency, material security, a miser would represent the fear of losing or using abilities, security, potency, or of spending or giving feelings to others. Scrooge is an excellent example of this, miserly with worldly effectiveness, affection, sympathy and so on, thus the constant counting of money for reassurance in face of insecurity and fear.

Miss

In a dream it might mean that despite your marital status you are inwardly single. But it does suggest either a young female or an unmarried one.

See girl; adolescent; female; unmarried woman

Missing

Dreaming of missing someone may be that you have not satisfied yourself in the relationship in some way. Maybe you haven’t told them your real feelings; that you haven’t done or given what you really wanted to; or even that you are sexually frustrating yourself. Are you in some way dependent on them? What exactly are you missing?

Missing a dead person suggests you either have not said or done what you felt while they were alive in the body. I do not agree that a period of grieving is necessary, it seems more likely that they have never satisfied some aspect of themselves in the relationship, or felt such hateful feelings they are only now releasing. Be as honest as you can and say what is you feel – dependent – angry – unsatisfied – unloved by them – unrecognised – didn’t show your feelings about them – or are you living in the belief that dead means dead and gone for good? See Near Death Experiences

Missing parts of our body often suggest we are psychologically not up to par in some area of our life. See body parts for full explanation.

Missing things like train, boat or flight can be seen under those headings.

Missing an opportunity should not be felt as a failure, but as a chance to learn how you can use the lesson next time opportunity comes.

“I miss him so much and I don’t feel whole without him”. It suggests that the person has missed the lessons to lead them to wholeness. Usually this happens because we avoid painful experiences and so do not learn the lessons that life puts in front of us. “He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.” Julian of Norwich

A dream image is an expression of a dimension or aspect of your mind or awareness. What this means is that we are not simply one thing. We have various ‘programs’ running at the same time. If you are standing you are using a ‘balance’ program that you learnt with difficulty as a child. At the same time you might be using a language program and also a vision program. A while ago I experienced a serious stroke and lost the ability to speak and write so I have had to relearn much of that. Without them facets of me were missing. But there are so many subtle things that we might be missing; many of us live very much in their thoughts or emotions, or within the restrictions of a belief system, and dreams can illustrate dimensions that can leave those restrictions behind. See Archetype of the Paradigm

 Every night we sleep and we simple accept that we sleep because we need to rest. That is not true. We need to dream for without our dreams we quickly become seriously mentally disturbed. Daily we pass through an extraordinary change that we often take so much for granted we miss the wonder of it.

 Example: But having had a stroke and lost great chunks of my brain I still existed – but what was missing was the mechanism that enabled me to express through the body – and of course experience through the body.

Example: In the dream about your mobile phone I feel it is about missing something, something you lost and went in search for. And I think what you lost was an ability to communicate easily.

Example: We all miss our people, our tribal group, our native land and its ways, for we are all torn from our roots and wander like strangers. But it is a bad thing that great good can come from. For we can no longer depend upon the old traditions and pathways, but must discover our own path across the desert of the world today. And yet the pathway is always there before you if you look within, as you do when you meditate. And the pathway shown is a new revelation and a new life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I honestly say what exactly is it I miss and be truthful about why?

How can I find compensation or grow beyond my missing?

Can I grow beyond the dark possibilities within myself?

See Life’s Little SecretsMartial Art of the MindInner World

Mist

Indecision; inability to see the real issues in yourself and your environment. Something that hides your view of things, but also what you can hide in. See: Fog.

People emerging from a mist sometime it represent an intuitive impression from an otherwise unconscious part of you – a guide. Or can be something that you are just beginning to be conscious of, so it might be scary. When something arises that you do not understand you can communicate with your unconscious by saying, “I don’t understand this. What does it mean? Please clarify this.”  

 Example: Quickly the huge column of twisting storm moved down the open countryside directly toward the house. At one point I thought it changed course and would miss us, but it turned back and came straight at us. At this point all the distant view was obscured by a whirling mist. It was suddenly dark as the massive whirlwind blotted out everything but its own presence. Then it hit the house. I was expecting the roof to be ripped off, but there was no sound of rending or breaking. There was great tension though and I turned to look out of another window across the room facing the opposite direction. I could see great turmoil as the wind hit people and objects outside. It presented a great contrast with the house, unmoved and unshaken. Through the window it appeared as if an earthquake were lifting people up and dropping them. The earth itself shook and rolled like it were water rippling.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Has something that was unclear become easily understandable?

Do you feel lost in a fog of idea and opinions?

What has unexpectedly appeared on your life?

See Working with associationsMartial Art of the MindKundalini

Mistress

In the Jungian sense it would represent an anima projection. That is, being dominated or influenced by the projection of all our fantastic longings, imaginings, desires, hopes and hungerings for ideal love, on to a physical and ordinary woman who is not such a wonderful creature. But as we long for her to be such, we project these qualities on to her. It may in fact be that the woman wishes to be regarded in this light, as a goddess, and so encourages these feelings. In legend, before Eve, a being called Lilith was created by Adam’s longings. But she was really only a phantom. Nevertheless, when Eve arrived, Adam’s attention was still much turned to Lilith. The same problem still haunts men and women.

Moat

An emotional defense used against others. The sort of ‘I feel ill’ defense against relationship.

A defense used to keep others at bay, or to shut out the impacts of your everyday experience. We use all manner of feelings, thoughts, justifications, or even religious beliefs, to keep others, or the world, at bay.

Sometimes this is in connection with love or intimacy, and the underlying reason might be that love is so painful that we fight it off, even with anger. So it is helpful to ask yourself what you use to defend yourself. Is it some form of justification? Is it anger? Or do you create a numbness of feeling?

Example: Marne and Ellie and the younger set are there. They believe in fundamental religion and the Bible and I am going to debate them about reincarnation. I am walking around a large house with lots of interesting floors and no walls that I am aware of. There is a dirty water channel around the house like a moat. Dangerous fish monsters are in there and if you swim in it to get to the other side, you are eaten alive.

Example: I sigh and say, trying to kiss him on the mouth, but he pulls sharply back from my kiss, “I’d rather take the test and fail then not take the test at all.” I curl up around his chest and try to kiss his cheek. He pulls back coldly. His hair is nearly shaved off, he is skinny. I tentatively kiss him several times more and keep talking. I say, “You talk about me. You have five heavy cement walls, two moats with dragons in them, dungeons and two alien spaceships guarding the fort.” He smiles and returns a sweet kiss.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I defending against or what defences are holding me back?

Did I build the moat out of my insecurity?

Are there threatening things in the moat?

Is there a drawbridge connecting the other side?

See: Castle under house and buildings; defence; defence mechanisms.

 

Model

We can have a thought, plan, model or imagination of how we would like our life to be; we can be or have a role model; father and mother are our main model for our behaviour and aims; an aunt or uncle is a role model; professional people like film stars, singers or athletic players are also heroes for some people or a role model. So what or who are you modelling your life on? See Programmed; genes; The Nature versus Nurture Debate

 

 Even if we know the ‘role model’ it still depicts that person’s quality or skill in ourselves. The only difference might be that our personal reactions to that particular doctor or schoolteacher will also play a part. Roles often play an important part in our self image. Without an appreciated social role we may feel uncertain and ineffective. Maturity might require the acceptance that we are nothing, but can be many things.

A model or a fashion model is a copy or reproduction; they could even be what other people want or have created. But dreaming of a model of a thing you have created is about your creative ability.

Most of the brain’s task is modelling. That is, it constructs models or representations of the world around and our place within it. These models are based on or senses and our memory. The work of creating artificial intelligence and of science is to understand the ways we construct representations of the world.

When examining the model of our mind as shown by quantum physics, we need to leave space on one of the walls for doors. They need to be doors that open onto a different sort of universe than the one we may previously have felt to be solid reality. It is a universe that alters its appearance – no, its very nature – according to the way we observe it. Each question we ask of the universe, each attitude with which we approach it, each viewpoint we take, reveals to us a different universe. The universe is therefore not separated from us. We are intrinsically a part of it, and are participating in it. In some way the universe is constantly being created by us as participants. It seems as likely too, that we the participants are constantly being created by the universe. And the past is not set in concrete. In some mysterious way it is linked with what we do in the present.

 Example: Today I dreamt of a slightly smaller than life sized hippo – probably about a metre tall. The hippo seemed to be alive and yet like bronze model. It was sitting on its behind with its mouth wide open. The message or understanding I received was that it was a doorway to the collective unconscious.

Example: It often takes firm determination to allow unconscious content. “In most cases the results of these efforts are not very encouraging at first. Moreover, the way of getting at the fantasies is individually different… oftentimes the hands alone can fantasy; they model or draw figures that are quite foreign to the conscious.” From Commentary in Secret of the Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm, commentary by Carl Jung.

Example: I had no other role model at the time, so I did a terrible thing to myself. Also I lost all respect for my elders as in none of them could I see that gentleness of love. My schoolteachers were thrashing children with rods. The world was killing each other in tens of thousands. My mother had psychologically castrated me out of her fears for me, and my father hardly ever even spoke to me. So I divorced the world, and of course lost that wonderful quality of compassion for the human struggle.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What image do I have of myself?

Do I model my behaviour out of morals, religious beliefs or feeling anti social?

Have I ever created models – what ones appeal to me?

See Inner WorldWorking with associationsEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Modem

This, like telephone, is about communication with others. But it is probably less personal. It is more about contact in general, how you manage to keep in contact with the world, with business activities, and especially with your intuition and wider awareness.

It is an active thing that reaches to make contact, to search in a way that goes into and shows you the unknown. But it can also be an Achilles Heel, an open door for others to do damage to you. See enemyTelephone

 Example: There are several advantages as well as several disadvantages to doing  research on computer networks. Until the final draft, this has been a paper-less project. This has an environmental advantage, no trees were cut down for this project. All research and writing has been done right here, at home, with a computer and a modem. Via the Internet, I have been in contact with  climbers from around the world. I have saved many dollars and much time, by avoiding the previous necessity of travel.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever been attacked via my modem?

What do I associate with a modem?

Do I understand what a modem does?

See Working with associations Being the Person or ThingUsing Your Intuition

Mohammed

Human expression of contact with God. The voice of the spirit.

Mole

Living a secluded life; attitude of a recluse; short-sightedness; an avoidance of human company; unconscious forces or influence; something going on beneath the surface – this may be something you can’t actually perceive, but suffer the consequences of, as with molehills; an undermining influence.

It often refers to an individual who secretly undermines you as a spy.

But it can also be a positive messenger from your unconscious.

Useful questions are:

Am I getting intimations of an unconscious or usually unseen influence at work in my life?

What does the action and my relationship with the mole suggest?

Does this in any way relate to living a secluded life?

Mom

See mother; Archetype of the Mother

Money

What you value; being valued by others, or the value you have of yourself; your potential, energy or personal resources; power to change things or do things; or having power, even over someone else; personal potency, therefore links with sexuality and self-giving; what we pay for our desires or actions – ‘I told my husband a few home truths last night, but he certainly made me pay for it’; opportunity because money buys time to explore or try the new.

Being rich: Feeling confident and capable; recognising your potential and skills. If someone else is rich it could mean you can gain a lot from an aspect of yourself you do not yet identify with, or is some sort of comparison. In some dreams the person who is rich throws their weight about, and so in this case is a comparison with your own sense of your worth or ability to influence.

Dud money: Not giving of oneself or feeling cheated.

Finding money: Realising something valuable; gaining power; release from stress or ‘down’ feelings – in that we feel excited and uplift on finding money.

Holding on to money: Feeling insecure, or being ‘tight’ emotionally or sexually; not using ones power to get what you want.

Losing money: Losing power or opportunity.

Not enough money: Sense of being inadequate or failing potency.

Stolen money: Feelings of guilt about gaining power; feeling you do not deserve what you get, or what you want that is of value; feeling cheated; loss of power if money stolen; feeling others are taking us for granted; giving oneself cheaply in sex or relationship. See: credit card.

Example: ‘A small Indian boy stole a fifty pence piece from me. I had an internal struggle about whether to take it back. The hesitation was that it was ‘manners’ to make out nothing had happened, not to blame someone for something ‘not nice.’ Because of these unspoken rules the boy could laugh at me. I decided to take the money back and accuse him of theft.’ Stephen Y.

Stephen is considering what his ‘values’ are, how he wants others to relate to him, and whether to state his needs instead of being ‘nice’.

 Example: One day on exploring a dream I realised that all my life I had worked for money, and in all those years I was no better off financially. In fact I was always in the red. With the realisation came the insight that I could get money work for me. I started by my wife and I saving as much as possible. I sawpwople in spuer markets piling botles of alcohol and other unnecessary expenses – one we couldn’t afford. So gradually we save a £1000 – enough to enter an investment fund. Gradually I learn how to make money work for me. I learned gradually to keep my expectations simply, and not invest in chancy things. Today I am earning enough to live on. I made money work for me.

Winning money: Many of us have the desire to have more ability to get what we want, and this can often produce a dream of winning a lot of money. Usually there is no fulfilment of this dream, but those dreamers who take it seriously can often produce results. The following examples show how you need to be sure of yourself, that you are a winner.

 Example: I remember from – my experiences as an eleven-year old that I won at games and contests when I had a clear sense I would win; you might say when I had an aura of –‘Winning’. My dreams offered me this perspective too.

On waking I stretched my new title to Catalytic Betting and Wining. Then I practised, made bets, won and lost, honing my re-emerging skills. My dreams voiced their approval: From that rebirth comes the decision not just to win, but to take responsibility for being a winner. Having won, there is no longer any challenge — except that my prize has also become my responsibility.

It seems that having the sense of being a winner is vital. The next examples are all from Shirley G. Because of space, only three of the dreams are quoted.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Money is said to be the root of all evil – yet some people use it for wonderful good. What are your feelings?

Do I make my money work for me – or do I have to always work for money?

What does my dream indicate about money?

See Body ImagesOpening Yourself Secrets of Power Dreaming Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Mongoose

Attacks we make on our sexual feelings, or on the strivings towards growth of inner energies; defence against anxiety.

Monitor of the Unconscious

A way to understand this is to consider the now commonly used monitors one sees at the bedside of critically ill people. Such monitors depict in the form of an image – a flashing moving graph – the heartbeat of the patient. They can also portray temperature, breathing, brain pulses and blood pressure in the form of externally visible images. These internal events would otherwise be unknown or unconscious. In a similar way, dreams are a monitor, giving apparently external images to depict the subtle and otherwise unconscious processes of body and mind.

That the external person or object in the dream is actually the dreamer’s own internal feelings and mental structure is difficult for many people to believe or even grasp. The following unusual dream helps us to develop a conception of this. I say it is unusual because very seldom can a dreamer admit to themselves while asleep, that the world which in their dream appears as exterior, is actually their own internal thoughts feelings and psychobiological functions. The dreamer, A. B. is a man in his fifties, and dreams he has found a huge thistle in his garden which is as big as a tree.

I look at the trunk of the thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

What is of particular importance in this dream is the point of transition where the dreamer moves from seeing the hole in the tree, to seeing the hole in himself. But this transition continues, for the dreamer then moves to the feeling of being old and decrepit. These points of transition mark the stages of realisation that what seems exterior is not. It also shows a transition that few dreamers ever make.

Some of the key statements in the dream are EXAMINING – I NOTICE – A HOLE – I LOOK IN – and SEE – THE FEELINGS OF BEING OLD and DECREPIT. If we put this into a flowing sentence we have, ‘In examining myself I noticed ‘a hole’ or emptiness in myself. When I look into this I find a sense of being old and decrepit.’

In looking at his hand and realising there was a hole in his life, A. B. took note of what he felt. Just prior to the dream he had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether his marriage was breaking up. The dream made him realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life. He could see that as a person he only ENTERTAINED thoughts and emotions. They were simply what he thought and felt about reality, not reality itself. It was up to him as to what he wanted reality to be. Did he want to entertain the reality of the tired ageing man who could no longer satisfy his wife’s need for love and companionship, having nothing worthwhile to contribute to others? That could certainly become reality if he allowed such feelings to dominate him. He had thought that his life was like a giant thistle, but on closer inspection he saw it was a giant hardwood. It did have branches which needed pruning, but the rest of the tree was good and perfumed – giving off good feelings to others. So, he decided to put love and care into his life and marriage instead of self doubt and a sense of defeat.

Some observers have attempted to determine the pattern of interaction between physiological variables and dreaming that might occur during a given night. An account was published by a French physician in 1821 involving a twenty-six-year-old female subject who had lost a large portion of her skull and brain covering. He reported that when the woman was in a dreamless sleep, her brain was motionless and lay within the cranium. However, when she was agitated by dreams, her brain moved and protruded outward from the cranium. The physician commented that, “in vivid dreams, reported as such by herself, the protrusion was considerable.’

When we realise each aspect of the dream, each emotion, each landscape and environment are materialisation’s of our own feeling states and body condition, we begin to see how we live in the midst of a world – the world of our thoughts, feelings, values, judgements, fears and physiology – largely of our own making. Whatever we think or feel, even in the depths of our being, becomes a material fact of experience in our dream. It is almost certainly this inner universe that religion speaks of as heaven or hell. Finding some degree of direction, mastery or harmony within this world of our own being, is the great work of human life.

But our overall direction of dreams is an attempt toward growth and wholeness, not easily achieved because of the fears we inject into out dreams.

Monk

Spiritual wisdom. Desires to leave the world. Influences of religious teachings in the unconscious. Some people may have been taught a dread of hell and perpetual burning, and similar terrors. So the monk or priest may therefore represent the influences of the church’s teachings. The monk may then depict the struggles you have with your sexual drive, feelings of guilt, and your personal wants in life. If so, recognise this as something you have been trained to feel, and not what your potential or personal truth is. 

The monk or Priestess might express your own inner wisdom summarised from your life experience, but it could also be your desires to escape the stress you feel in dealing with everyday relationships. But it can often appear in a dream representing the best mentor or wise counsellor you could have – in other words advice from your core self. See core selfArchetype of the Monk

 

 

Monkey

Foolishness; thoughtlessness; being ruled by impulse; ones instincts; the frivolous surface workings of the mind or expression of frivolous emotion – or impulsive difficult to control urges; greediness and self-centredness; being irrational in the sense of being stupid; mimicking or aping other people or the group, thus being a follower; the struggle involved in becoming conscious.

The monkey can also sometimes depict your primal animal self that existed prior to developing self awareness. So it can indicate the sexual and feeling conditions underlying your present socialised personality. It can in this phase be a wonderful and wise aspect of yourself. Therefore it is sometimes the same as ape. See Mammal Brain

What view have you of it, whether it excites, disgusts or frightens you. Is it funny because it exhibits some aspect of human nature so openly, like monkeys making love in public? Is it to be envied because it is so honest, like the dog growling at someone it doesn’t like or is frightened of, and giving obvious affection to someone it has a link with? With such straightforward questions you can arrive at what your dream monkey represents to you personally.

White monkey: The white monkey is a wonderful representation of the mixture we may feel of our instincts and our collected human experience. The white monkey then becomes a wise teacher who shares insight into our behaviour in a way we can understand. It is, after all ourselves.

Example: One was a monkey with a white ruff. They were like jewels but not expensive.  Moving it produced an amazing display of colours. Sometimes just a sheet of colour, sometimes patterns of colour and radiated light. Never the same colour or pattern.

The man explored his dream and wrote, “I entered the image of the White Haired monkey. I saw things from the vision of the White Haired. It was so simple, so organic and life filled. I am only a finger of life, only a tiny part of the organic, living, whole. I am only one member of a large group. Life, through its living organism, cares. In the group of monkeys, if the mother dies, a sister or brother cares for the baby. Each individual is only one cell in the whole body. If that person goes away or dies, life, in the form of another person, cares for the children, or fills the needs of the adult. John is away from his children and woman. I, as a cell of life, came to Hyone and the children to care. If it were not me it would be someone else, some other life cell.

 Example: The whole crux of the problem is in trying to be everything to someone. Since I have stopped trying to be everything to D. – husband, lover, supplier, strength – I find I have an easy, very relaxed, loving and growing relationship with her. Yet I am trying to be more than I can be with S.

The wisdom of the White Monkey was hell. If we let it, Life, through its members, intertwines. One person’s breast feed us, and others steady as someone else’s intelligence communes with us, while our own being likewise mingles variously in many lives. The secret is today what I can and do in the lives I contact. And also to let other lives come to me, D, S and all our children.

Example: From there I began to see human caring. It was as if I felt myself to be one of a group of monkeys. Within the group life was lived out of ones inner simplicity. But certain aged monkeys could attain a different level of awareness. They were called the White Haired Ones. I could become a White Headed One, but I would have to die in the sense of relinquishing my personal desires, fears and goals. Was I willing to do this? It had elements of risk. It might mean the end of life as I now lived it. But I had to take the risk. I was willing to die.

I became a White Hair. I saw from the vision of the White Haired. It was so simple, so organic and life-filled. I am only a finger of life, only a tiny part of the organic, living, whole. I am only one member of a large group. Life, through its living organism, cares. In the group of monkeys, if the mother dies, a sister or brother cares for the baby. Each individual is only one cell in the whole body. If that person goes away or dies, life, in the form of another person, cares for the children, or fills the needs of the adult.

Example: In this state there was an awareness of being connected with everything around me, in the beginning of creation. This was the first day. Also I was aware of what I felt was a monkey running to keep up with what was me. It was what I had always thought of as the real me, and it was nothing but a monkey that wanted to be the real thing but couldn’t. The monkey me was a photocopy of everything we believe, not the reality. Our conscious mind is a photocopier and yet we are so sure we know reality.’

Example: I dreamt a small animal was clinging to my chest. It gave me the strong feeling of its animal nature, and was like a small bulging eyed monkey or lemur. As it clung it had one of my hands held firmly in its mouth using it as a teat. Its teeth were slightly painful. I knew it did this on account of being frightened, and I, with others, was taking its back from where it had escaped.

The dream clearly shows the vulnerably ‘mammalian’ feelings of the dreamer, and how this part of him is frightened and lost in the human world.

Example: I suddenly remembered I had forgotten the monkey and had this feeling of dread and guilt that there was this thing in my care and I had forgotten it.  This feeling was very strong.  Then someone told me the monkey was here and had followed me.  I then had this flash back in my dream and I saw what had happened as the monkey had followed me.  I had driven in a car and the monkey had constantly run behind the car hiding behind objects (e.g. fences, gates, lampposts) all the way so as not to be seen/caught but keeping the car in sight all the time and darting from one object to the next.

I called the monkey and it came out from its hiding place and ran towards me and jumped into my arms.  This part was very significant to me as it was running towards me I had a fear it would hurt me maybe bite me but as it came into my arms it was soft and affectionate.  This happens again in the dream at least twice more.  I would forget about the monkey but as soon as I remembered it and call it, it would appear.  It would always follow me but would only come to me when I called it.  Each time it appeared to me and ran to me there was this same fear that it would hurt me but each time it was soft and kind and nice to hold.  The dream ended by me waking up.

I feel your dream is portraying something special about how you relate to yourself. Sometimes the monkey is described as being thoughtless mischief maker, but I see something else in your dream. It is that ‘something else’ that has caused you to feel such strong feelings of dread and guilt. In fact there is a lot of love linking you with it and it to you. And I think it could bring tears if you recognise what part of you it is.

That you forgot the monkey shows a struggle between you and the small creature that was willing to keep up with you. It is, I believe, an ancient struggle that few people are aware of. It is the struggle that goes on in each of us between our animal self and our cultured, educated and often tortured mind. Yet it is not a war, but a simple request to be recognised, respected and given a place in your life.

It is a dramatic struggle involved in becoming a conscious and mature person. The struggle is in gradually emerging from the impulsive animal tendencies such as we see in social hierarchy, religious and political groups, one nation fighting another. So the monkey can depict your primal animal self that existed prior to developing self awareness. It can indicate the sexual and feeling conditions underlying your present socialised personality.

But the monkey is also very wise with an instinctive wisdom millions of years old. If you can meet it and help it arise out of its instinctive responses, it gives you wisdom in exchange for the love it gives you. After all, what is human life but a gradual emergence from the processes of life, and often a complete denial of our ancient heritage?

Idioms: Make a monkey of; monkey business; monkey with; monkey tricks; monkey’s uncle; monkey on your back.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this monkey express wisdom or pettiness? Try to define what is petty or wise about the monkey.

What activity are you engaged in with the monkey, and what does this suggest/

Are you accepting, rejecting or manipulating the monkey, and in what way does your activity reflect waking attitudes to your natural impulses?

See –   Techniques for Exploring your DreamsLifeMartial Art of the MindSelf Help

Monogram

Usually a symbol of the whole self, direction of inner possibilities.

Monster Monsters

Most monsters are the graphic expression of the effects of past traumas. Some such traumas may have arisen from things like having your tonsils out when young, being separated from your mother at an early age, being involved in a war. In general the monster depicts your personal fear, dread, terror of death, failure, impotence or weakness in the face of outer circumstances or inner urges. It may at times epitomise attitudes, hates, fears, that have become monstrous, and turned against you. Use the approaches in Secrets of Power Dreaming  to change the monster into usable personal energy/resources.

The images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real master ship – not a false one of denying any fear or repressing anything that threatens you.

Whenever we dream its images are not like real life. because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

If something attacks you in the dream, fight back. In other words, combat and conquer your monsters rather than fleeing from them. And do not think, “That monster is bigger and stronger than I am, and it is frightening!” It is our thoughts and fears that create the monsters inside us. So of course you are stronger unless you cower in fear. See Street Wisdom

 Example: I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

How do we face and over come fear? By saying no to the urges of fear that make us run like frightened mice and hide from our own magnificence. We say no to what destroys our own best human self and live like tiny scared children in our own world of adults. We say no to the many shortcuts we constantly try  to take in diving into holes to protect us from pains we have ourselves created by our avoidance’s to face what we need to grow. We are so scared of our own emotions we run and fall into the fire of the pain it causes. We say no to the urge to gorge ourselves with what our basic instincts and human weakness pushes is to do with our hunger, our sexual urge, our desire to push and tread others underfoot in order to satisfy our small selves. For each day of each minute is ours to choose the way of meeting ourselves.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I flee from or overcome the monster?

Am I a passive person who runs or an active fighter?

What does the monster in my dream represent – what do I feel is a monster?

See Martial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsNightmares

Month Months

Nearly all dreams mention month as a way of measuring or defining time. But occasionally it is a way of pointing to an actual memory of something that happened at that month even years previously. 

Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I was at the beach with a lot of strangers. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.

Example: While in a basement a person approached me holding quite a large animal. As they handed it to me I saw it was a tiger cub, large and very well built, with a thick neck. I was surprised, but even more surprised and disturbed when a huge tigress came through a doorway above us at ground level and came down the stairs to us. I thought she was going to attack us, but she took the baby cub and placed it down. She then came with something in her mouth, probably money, and placed it near me. She gave off a powerful feeling of not wanting the cub, and with the money handing it over to me or us for our care. There was an atmosphere of irritability about her. Peter G.

In this example the tiger has an obvious connection with the mother. The dreamer had often been threatened by his mother that she was going to give him away, or put him in a home. So the dream probably dealt with his need to confront these feelings of abandonment which, like the tiger, were threatening. Interestingly, almost exactly five years later, in the same month, Peter dreamt the following.

 Example: I am in a house. There is a feeling I am sharing it with a number of people, as if there is a connection with a friend Mike. Suddenly I notice there is a tiger cub running around the room. It is a large room and empty except for myself and the cub. I realise this must mean there is a mother tiger about and worry that it will be angry or aggressive because of its cub. I go to walk through a doorway, but the mother tiger walks through. I stand still, not daring to move. But she brushes against me in a friendly way and strolls over to look at her cub. Peter G.

Mood Moods

It can be a frightening realisation to realise that nobody else creates the hell or heaven, the destructive moods we experience in life. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in our creation. It is probably that realisation which unconsciously makes many people feel they need to have the company of others all the time.

 

Your natural response to your environment is to be influenced by it. A disturbing event would stimulate you to feel fear, a calming event to feel pleasure. Your moods are usually influenced by what happens to you. So being in prison would be more depressing than being free. Being rejected would cause more pain than being admired or loved.

We are all an amazing keyboard influenced and moved by all the interactions with people, animals and events. Our keyboard responds to and produces all the emotions and fears we are capable of. So if we watch movies or read, then words and images move us to tears, fear, wonder, curiosity, terror or even enlightenment. Yet we are only seeing images, but we are moved, and unless we are aware of it, we can become victims of our own impressions.

People are often terrified or deeply worried by their dreams; they run in fear from an animal chasing them, or are paralysed by a demon attacking them, yet they are only images that we create in our sleep or witness on a screen. To run from them is to run from your own feeling of fear. That might be the right thing to do on the street if you see an attacker approaching you, but it is not good to become a victim of your fears, worries, speculations or even hopes.  So why be victims of your moods, your impressions and reactions?

 Example: As I looked at my impressions and rising feelings, I saw how powerful has been the realisation that within ourselves we are nothing. That our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

Example: I had a dream that as I was driving down a road that I kept seeing two bears. They would either be sleeping or fighting. I could not believe that every few miles there would be more bears. Eventually I was outside but was riding in some sort of open vehicle and a bear was running at me. I was afraid but my daughter’s boyfriend who has not been in the dream told me to not show my fear. So when the bear jumped up on me I just relaxed and it nudges my head in a nice way and ran off.

Here the influence of fear is clearly illustrated. See Summing Up

Useful Questions and Hints:

What mood or moods are shown in your dream?

Are you a victim of your moods and reactions?

Has a dream shown you a way out of the prison of your moods?

See PrisonMartial Art of the MindAvoid Being Victims – Inner World

Moon

Love; romance; intuitions arising from the unconscious are usual associations, as well as one’s inner world of fantasy, imagination, the psychic or one’s inner soul life; menstrual cycle and the female mysteries. Because of its connection with the tides – the deep inner movements caused by the subtle side of our nature, the tides of feeling, even madness; the pull and attraction of mysterious dark desires; a woman’s strange, sensual, overpowering attraction.

I think the significance of the changing pattern of dreaming during the menstrual cycle has not been appreciated by either women or men. Just as the moon goes through phases when it appears to be full and bright but gradually diminishes to a narrow crescent shape only to return again to its state of illuminated wholeness, so too does a woman manifest a waxing and waning of various personality traits during her lunar-cycle dreams. Quoted from an unnamed file.

A completely different insight into the meaning of the moon in human experiences. It is a visionary view by a great investigator, Dr. Anna Kingsford in her book Clothed With The Sun:

“Every man is a planet, having sun, moon, and stars. The genius of a man is his satellite. Man is a planet. God–the God of the man–is his sun, and the moon of this planet is Isis, its initiator, or genius. The genius is made to minister to the man, and to give him light. But the light he gives is from God, and not of himself. He is not a planet but a moon, and his function is to light up the dark places of his planet. During this condition the “Moon” enlightens our hidden chamber with her torch and shows us ourselves in our interior recess. Who or what, then, is this moon? It is part of ourselves and revolves with us.” I tend to see it as our intuition. See Hare

New or old moon: Female sexuality; change; intuition.

Moons changes: Life, death, rebirth; the tides in our affairs.

Full moon: Power of the inner drives.

Flying to the moon: Trying to escape reality or responsibility; attempting to break free of limitations.

Moonlight: Romantic view of the world; not seeing things too clearly; looking within self.

New or old moon: Female sexuality; change; intuition.

Moons changes: Life, death, rebirth; the tides in our affairs.

Full moon: Power of the inner drives.

Flying to the moon: Trying to escape reality or responsibility; attempting to break free of limitations.

Moonlight: Romantic view of the world; not seeing things too clearly; looking within self.

The light of the moon: Many dream mention the light of the moon, and I think it refers to the ability to be capable of noticing subtle feelings and intuitions.

Two moons: Decisions or indecision about something, possible relationship; conflicting sides of yourself; choices or changes occurring.

Explosion of moon: Possibly depicts the breakup of hopes or fantasies which do not connect with external reality. For instance, we might dream of having a romance with our favourite film star, and with some people the fantasy takes on a feeling of possibly becoming reality. But it also depicts a cosmic event – changes occurring because of your relationship with astronomical forces.

Example: Okay, so it was a blue moon, such as tonight, and in the dream I was on Lake Michigan, or some big lake like that. Then I walked into the reflection of the moon and it was scary, because when I fell into the moon I fell deep into the water and under the sand into Hell. Once I was in Hell all the people that were supposed to be in eternal suffering were in like… a trance, or something like that and they weren’t moving, or anything. They seemed to be Statues. I walked down deeper and saw Lucifer sobbing. He was mumbling something and when he saw me he clung to me and kept saying, ” The moon. It is my death, my beautiful, beautiful death. How I love it so, but it weakens me. It is my greatest love, but worst nightmare. ” He wouldn’t say anything else and I just held him and before I woke up he said, “You will be the one to take my last breath… the one to out live me. “

This shows how the dreamt of moon influences the dreamer in a way to go beyond his normal awareness.

Example: What remains so striking about it is that it was so complete and followed linear time (that aboriginal ‘one-thing-after-another’ time) so precisely. The moon and its arc and the perfect symmetry of the rainbow segments revolving as the night/ceremony passed. And the theme of me being around a bunch of native men is one that repeats with some regularity…always some exploring/initiation type thing. And it does occur to me that this dream probably happened just at the last days of my virginity….so maybe it is as simple as that.

Example: I lay on a mattress and look up to the sky. I see a full moon and a cherub baby asleep on a cloud, or like the decals on my dresser that my mother put there when I was little. It looks like a child’s book illustration, all cutesy. Suddenly I know that my mother is dead. I sob and sob my grief. I feel sorry I never really tried to get to know her. I am inconsolable. My crying wakes Ellie and Paulina who come to me and hug me. Ellie hugs me from behind. I feel her strong arms around my chest. I am at first sorry I woke them and then glad of their support. (I wake up hearing my grieving wails and thankfully realize it was a dream. It was so real.) Barb.

Here again the moon in her dream brings to the surface deep feelings. Also, it highlights that a lot of grief is caused by not expressing feelings and love while you had the chance.

Example: I began to realise, or be shown, in my inner world, what had happened. My past practice to grow had unbalanced my Sun and Moon. My moon that had predominated. This was the Life Energy I had released in a past session, the vegetative God of the moon. That is, one aspect of the one Life expressing through evolution – expressing from deep within matter and the body. This is like the energy locked in a seed which grows it until it reaches up above earth. I could see why Reich called his method vegetotherapy – because the energy released was that bound up in the vegetative system of our body, in our emotions, muscles, sexual organs and glands. And although I had released this to a fair degree, I had hardly touched my Life of the Sun god or released it. This was the descending power of Light.

What had been a conflict now resolved itself. I had been polarised in the negative side of the Life energy. The cold, inward, in drawn, lethargic, inactive aspect. I must now open to my positive, outgoing, hot, digestive, fiery Life. This I did, and the Sun was on top of my head, and the Moon at the base of my spine. For a while they were separate, but then I knew them as one Life expressing into two ways, and my Sun and Moon merged. Now I could surrender to the one united Life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this moon have any specific meaning for me?

Does this represent ‘taking on’ powerful feminine energies associated with the moon?

Am I feeling sentimental or longing for someone?

Is there an overall dark feeling that might have something to do with the irrational or unknown?

Is this about ‘cycles’ of some kind, either in nature or women’s menstrual cycle?

See Using Your Intuition Techniques for Exploring your Dreamsastrology

Morning

This may suggest a new beginning, your youth, or, if mornings are difficult for you, the struggle of yet another day?

Mortuary Morgue

Feelings about death; parts of self dead but not buried – may be brought to life by being used. This may depict parts of yourself that have died through being denied or not used. It may also reflect feelings about death, or people who have died.

It can also be concerned with parts of your experience you need to let go of and bury – or perhaps have an inquest on to properly understand. Often the body may refer to aspects of yourself never allowed to live and develop because of emotional pain or trauma. See Life’s Little Secrets

Dreams about death and morgues may even suggest that your are facing some sort of death. It can be the death of some part of your nature – like the death of an interest or a love – or even the loss of something important to you like your job.

 Example: 5 years ago I started dreaming of nightmares which frightened me whenever I go to sleep. This dreams never occurred before. I had a dream then like I was in a morgue. I can’t move, tried to speak but no one could hear me, I had a blurry vision. It’s like some force is covering me, then I woke up from the dream but when I fell asleep I was in it again. After that night, several nights followed with the same situation but in a different place. Sometimes I’m just I’m just in my bed and I know that I’m awake, I try to control my dream but I can’t. sometimes I even had the lack of capability to breathe as if I forgot how to do it…I’m trying to open my eyes but I can’t because they are so heavy…up to now this is happening to me…I got used to it somehow and learning to surpass it over and over again. Why do I have this kind of dreams?

The above example illustrates another of what was probably a case of sleep paralysis. This often feels as if the person is dying, but is in fact because the person has woken up in the dream state. In the dream state our voluntary muscles are paralysed, also the person often feels like a force or even an alien is controlling them. See Sleep paralysis and You Are a Dual Being

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I a body in the morgue or seeing a body?

Did I have any feelings about death or dying?

Do I fear death?

See Near Death ExperiencesTechniques for Exploring your DreamsBeing the Person or thing

Mosaic

Our life, its pattern and what we manifest by it through the many separate acts and events; our view of life when we put all the pieces of experience together.

We are in fact a form of mosaic that is formed by many different things. We do not exist outside them, and they are mysterious in their action upon us. For example our time of birth and the historical, political and social influences are part of who we are. The culture we were raised and the language we learnt also are tremendous parts of our mosaic. Our DNA has another effect upon the physical and potentials we inherit from our parents. But each of us are unique, every being is unique and create their particular pattern. And that pattern calls out of the infinite possibilities something different. So in this sense there are as many faces of the highest in us as there are human beings. See ProgrammedMultiverse

 Each of us have our own innate “genius”; our own unique relationship with the Core; with the Best in us; with Creator, the Universe. So there is an environment in which this can be allowed to, encouraged to, flower. See Life’s Little Secrets; Martial Art of the Mind; Touching your Core

 Example: As I looked at these massive formations I understood that they had been carved or created through events in the passage of time. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created and shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself. Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. No one being created such a mosaic in these formations. Such a mosaic was large and had in it the essence of all the lives that formed it.  So the rock formations and the mosaics on them represented influences that will flow into the future. They were sources of power or influence that shaped the phenomenal world. They were the body under the coat so to speak.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you aware of the many things that make up your mosaic?

What did your dream of the mosaic indicate to you?

Do you know that you are a multi-dimensional being?

See Collective Wisdom Being the Person or ThingJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Mosque

For a Muslim it links with their religious beliefs and practices, and what they are dealing with about this. Also, perhaps surrender to Allah. See: Church.

Also dreams and visions are very important sources of information and encouragement for many Muslims. It is also a part of Muslim belief that one can go back to Allah time and time again to seek help or change. (Ibn Hisham: 186). See Dream Incubation; Islamic dream traditions

Example: A Muslim student of mine once told me this dream. He was sitting with me in a Mosque, in Syria (Damascus). I was telling him in Arabic about death, and then about how I named my first daughter Leila. All of a sudden, and from nowhere, his mother (who had been dead for two years) appeared. She called to him and he left me to go to his mother. His mother said to him: “Tell your teacher that the crying sound his daughter made after she was born-’ALLA’- is the Islamic word for God, and it is not what he thought.” He told her, “Mom, I am sure he knows that.” But she replied, “Just tell him that.” He said, “Mom, you tell him.” But she said, “He cannot see me. Remember, I am dead.” Quoted from Death Dreams by Kenneth Paul Kramer

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was I doing in connection with the mosque?

Am I using the mosque as a symbol of the Muslim beliefs – or as a part of my own faith?

Did I have any feelings about what happened in the dream?

Try using Easy Dream Interpretation and Using Your Intuition

Moth

A compulsive urge toward something, perhaps the search for the light of understanding. The self we assume in our dreams or fantasy; the unconscious urge your being has to survive personal death; the hidden side of your mind. See: Insects.

Moth

Being a night creature moths conduct their survival activities in complete darkness. So the moth suggests things that go on in us that we are usually completely unaware of. They live by their senses and creature instincts. So in your dream it indicates a life not connected with the intellect but with subtle feelings.

It might indicate you are finding your way through a condition in which you have no conscious knowledge but are sure and make your way – feeling your way in the dark – in the darkness of life.

Mother Church

The Mother Church is the human experience of meeting the divine principle within us, free of all dogmatism or sectarianism, free of all groups, and is something new for each person. It is the source, when met of all religions, for it is the source of all.

Each of us has a religious sense, though it is often suppressed or denied. It arises out of our own wonder of existing, and is a contact with our own basic or core self, beyond reasoning. It is the source of all religious realisations or insights/visions, but because it arises in different individuals in different cultures, it usually is expressed slightly differently, though there are always underlying similarities. See Core

Mother Mum Ma

Each of us has a fundamental, perhaps instinctive, drive to bond with a woman at birth. This has generated from millions of years of survival strategy. If that bonding does not take place, much of what would have been natural unfoldment and growth, cannot, or does not, take place. So mother sometimes represents this whole difficult issue of survival and what happened in those early years of trying to become independent of such extraordinary needs. Basically mother is the difference between life and death. See love

She depicts all that you have grown from and inherit in the way of what you express or deny in yourself. She is part of your body and is the foundations of your life experience. She is the problems and strength you have or face in life, so, your fate or karma. A compulsive urge toward something, perhaps the search for the light of understanding. The self we assume in our dreams or fantasy; the unconscious urge your being has to survive personal death; the hidden side of your mind. See: insects.

 Example: I saw something that had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created and shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself.

Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. The next example is from a woman whose mother was suddenly seriously ill and was rushed to hospital. The woman was only about four at the time and no explanation was given her – so she felt her mother had abandoned her.

Example: When the pain came from what I felt at the time as losing my mother, I thought it would break me to thousands of little pieces, I didn’t know pain could be so painful. It threw my body about, yelled from the guts of me, screaming to be out, to take form so it could be expelled from me. I cried for my mother, called for her, wanted her. I didn’t know why the person that loves me and the person that I love, suddenly, without any warning could just disappeared off the face of this earth. (She had contracted a serious illness and had suddenly been put into hospital.)

How could she do that to me if she loved me? One day I had Love and the next day I had Pain. But the pain didn’t stop, it went on for days and days and I waited in that pain for her to come back, to bring the love back into my life.

My father had emotionally cut off so no feed back, reassurance or help from him. The amazing thing was I endured the pain for many weeks as I loved my mother so much, but to feel my love was to experience the pain. Then the pain felt as though it was life threatening to Me, and still I waited for her to come with her love for me, Now my life was in danger, rather than die of the pain I made the decision to retreat way, way deep into myself. In my exploration, I felt it was very important for me to tell her why I cut off, it wasn’t that my love had died for her, I had waited and waited for her but I didn’t want to die, so I had to go.

At this point in my exploring, I crawled away from my supporters, backed off into a corner, but I still felt very exposed and vulnerable so I covered myself up with a blanket. I didn’t want anyone to see me. Why? Because I felt unlovable. That is IT. All these years I have felt unlovable. I have struggled for someone to love me. What must I do to be loved? Be a good girl? Be a good wife? But when they say they love me I don’t FEEL it. How can I get the feeling that some one Loves me?

This is the sort of pain many of us face without ever realising it. As the dreamer says, “I have witnessed others go through pain at being left as a child, for what ever reason. But, up until now, I have never been able to even get to the edge of that experience! Now I know why. I’ve had to do a lot of inner work to build myself, know myself to meet the pain that was there inside me, I just wasn’t ready for it before.”

General positive: Feelings; being given to, looked after, and fed; protection; feelings of dependence; ability in relationships; uniting spirit of family; how we relate to feelings in a relationship; strength to give of self and nurture; intuition.

General negative: Will based on irrational likes and dislikes; opinion generated by anxiety or jealousy; domination by emotions; lack of bonding; misery and pain resulting from the bad relationship with mother or the psychological injuries she promoted.

Explaining something to mother: In our relationship with our parents we unconsciously absorb an enormous amount of ethical and social ways of responding to life and people. So the dream explanation might be a way of trying to move beyond one of the conditioned influences. This is shown in the example.

 Example: I dreamt I was in the house in London talking with my mother. At first there was an overall feeling of not being good enough. I think this surrounded the fact that I had been sitting around reading, and not apparently working. This is in fact what I have been doing the last few days, and in my waking life it has been very refreshing. But in the dream I was trying to explain to my mother that this was not being lazy or good for nothing. That day, Friday, I had done fairly well on the stock market. On one of the sales, with a small investment, I had earned £80/ $160. In the dream I told this to my mother, and began to feel more positive.  Des.

Dead or lost mother while she is still alive: The mother love brings growth to the child, but must be interiorised by the adult. Through living without the mother within, there comes no inner security. If the mother was killed by you because she threatened your further growth then you must make a change. If you bring strength to your past, the mother must be resurrected. Through making your mother live within, there comes love from your own emotional security.

When you love from your powers of anger they bring graspingness. When through strength the mother is brought to life within you, you can give love without feeling you are losing yourself. Through bringing your father to live within you, the lower powers are brought to fruitfulness in growth.

Divine Mother To meet or dream of the Divine Mother, or a beautiful old woman, shows that you have brought to life what lives and expresses through all life, all people. You must have experienced a great deal to do this, and must have experienced death in some way. Des has obviously been raised in a family environment in which hard work in a physically active way is seen to be a mark of character, and being unproductive a mark of laziness. In his dream he is with the inner impulse to judge himself as lazy that arises from his upbringing. See: great mother under archetypes; woman.

Hurting, burying or killing parent: In the example below Audrey’s height shows her as a child. She is releasing anger about the attitudes and situations her father forced ‘down her throat’.

To be free of the introverted restraints and ready made values gathered from our parents, at some time in our growth we may kill or bury them in our dreams. Although some people are shocked by such dreams, they are healthy signs of emerging independence. Old myths of killing the chief so the tribe can have a new leader, depict this process. When father or mother is ‘dead’ in our dream, we can inherit all the power gained from whatever was positive in the relationship.

Seeing parent drunk, incapable or foolish: Another means of gaining independence from internalised values, or stultifying drives to ‘honour’ or admire father or mother. 

Inner Mother: Many people do not realise that they have an inner mother equally as powerful as an external mother. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your mother, and they are a major influence in your early life, and in a few cases the child never becomes independent from its mother at any age. This is true even if your mother was never there for you – you still have all the memories of her not being there for you filed under ‘Mother’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner mother can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.  The inner mother can also signify what has been received via genes passed on or ancestral influences. See ancestorsparent integration

The mother love brings growth to the child, but must be interiorised by the adult. Through living without the mother within, there comes no inner security. See digest

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot more, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’ or accept as part of our own experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or space to live in.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

Most of this was spontaneous thoughts and movement through the experience, so that was how I was led to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother even after he died. Then I realised that I was linked with Rita, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Rita – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the Star Beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything, because their life pattern was now part of me.

Mother’s words or things said by mother: My next door neighbour, a man in his fifties, stood with me in my garden, which was alive with bees and bumbles, and he was terrified. He explained that one day a swarm of bees had settled in his garden as a child, and his mother had warned him to keep away. But a swarm of bees is drunk on honey – the happy juice – and will not attack or sting. But his mothers words were still active in creating fear even thought he was an adult man.

Mother’s are of course protective of their children and words spoken by her can leave permanent marks and ingrained thought patterns.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was my relationship with my mother good, or with periods of awful misery?

How have I coped with the difficult episodes?

What qualities do I have from my mother – positive and negative?

If my mother is dead, how did I cope with it?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams –  Life’s Little SecretsTalking with the dead

Motherhood

Motherhood on our planet is as old as life. So it holds in it all that experience, all those patterns of behaviour, whether of the mother wolf with her cubs, or the eagle rearing its young. To touch such the experience of motherhood deeply gives an enormous wealth of experience, and is to be penetrated by the holy. Something so beyond the limitations of our own small personality enters us and leaves its imprint. The constant stream of visitors to the shrine of the Mother at Lourdes in France continues because people touch the mystery and power of motherhood there. See miracle

Certain things are holy, like motherhood, or fatherhood. They are holy because they are so fundamental to life as it expresses on our planet. Marriage is such a holy thing because it represents and is an expression of the wonder of reproduction and parenthood. This should not be confused with partnership, such as occurs in a homosexual relationship. Because things such as marriage, that manifest the most primordial aspects of life, are holy, we need to honour them, and perhaps kneel before them in some way. They transcend any one person’s life and experience. Because of this, things like motherhood develop into an immense archetype. In other words they become a focused collection of uncountable human experiences. All such huge areas of experience are patterns in the core awareness. They are immense patterns in the internal structure of human life. And although life itself honours them, although life itself largely flows through the patterns they are, life does not stop us making leaps right beyond the boundaries of those archetypes. In that way we make new connections new possibilities for life itself and for the environment. See Archetype of the Mother; Mosaic

If you plan to have a baby or are actually having it, you can cooperate with the great power that you have as a mother. Remember that you are not alone, for all mothers throughout nature are supporting you if you let them. Also there is a wonderful secret of motherhood. It is that if you drop all preconceptions and open to the power of Life that created you, your baby will be blessed and special. See woman’s creative power

 Example: When I was giving birth to my son the pain felt unbearable. So much so I gave up hope for surviving. Then I literally completely let go and suddenly the pain became an ecstasy as life flowed through me that had been blocked by my fear of pain and the birth became a wonder. M.B.

Example: And while a father can forget his children with equanimity, a mother never can. This too has been tried. The child’s death is hers, his fate is her fate. Hence the irrational shock and despair of miscarriage. Hence the inability to forget a child given up for adoption. Women patients have made every effort to down these ghosts, to no avail. One finally retraced a child she had last seen twenty-seven years before and for only a few hours after its birth. This bond, so intense and persistent on both sides of the relationship, is fortunate for humanity. Without it children are almost hopelessly wounded.

One psychiatrist treated two orphans in whom no mystic mother could be found. In infancy their mothers had not been with them to offer any of the selfless love and compassion they needed. After they grew up they remained isolated in their adult personalities, incapable of the magical fantasy of oneness and the love which is its fruit. For after the age of fusion is past, the psyche cannot any longer conceive of such a relationship. It is closed off from its dream by the partitions of reality.

Example: Was in a basement. My wife and a woman I loved was there as one person, and were  giving birth to a Baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it, without a doctor being there. I remember my lover chewed through the cord. I looked at the baby, it was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious. Then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!”

I asked what had gone, and it replied, “The other ego; where has it gone?” I said that the other ego still existed within, but was now lost in the newborn one – meaning the cosmic self existed in the newborn individual self. The baby was then taken upstairs, and I felt it was a holy and wonderful baby. I was going to rest from the rigours of the birth, but on looking around saw how dusty and dirty the basement was. I began to clean it, and felt I would go upstairs and rest afterwards.

Example: Taken from a TV interview. “I felt a strange feeling up my spine, like rush up my spine right up to the top of my head. Then I was in a meadow and there were aliens there, not the grey ones but slight and slightly see through. A female alien was holding her baby in front of her, and if I were religious I would have felt it was Mary and her baby.”

Motorbike

Youthful drive and motivation; physical energy; restlessness, sexual drive; daring; independence.

Can suggest independence or even being anti authorities. The ‘anti’ feelings can lead to noisy riding. It is often seen as a male thing so can suggest macho, and as such may suggest male sexuality, or aggressiveness.

It is also a less expensive method of travel and is used extensively in very low income societies. Also it can travel places ‘off road’ that other forms of transport cannot go easily. So in your dream it could mean an ability to go and do what was previously not possible, and help others to do the same.

In a woman’s dream it may symbolise the masculine side of her, the go getter.

 Example: I met a man who seemed to be something of an adept or master, a sort of Caucasian white guru type. At first I understood his name to be Faser Dan Li. Then gradually it became Father Li. This I understood to represent fatherly and the name of Faser Dan Li to mean faster than light. Anyway, this guru figure took me into very large greenhouses. Stretching away into the distance tiny seedlings were growing, most of them about four inches in height. As I watched some youths drove in on cross-country motorbikes and roared around the place. Faser Dan Li did nothing to prevent them. But when they had gone he looked at me and said, “Those are your emotions. They are wild and out of control. As such they could damage the tender growth of souls represented here by these little plants. Until your emotions are much more fully calmed and under control you cannot be given the keys of insight into other peoples being.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I owned or driven a motorbike?

What feelings were in the dream?

Were there any anti social feelings?

See Being the Person or ThingContext/ThemeAutonomous Complex

Motorway Freeway

Like any road it indicates your prevailing direction in, or approach to, life – this direction/approach can be either self created out of your own actions or decisions, or arise out of other peoples or social influence.

But a freeway is a major direction and quick route to where you want to go in life – unless of course it is chocked with other vehicles, then it indicates delays in your plans and frustration. For some dreamers it will represent facing more power or threat than they feel relaxed with.

The freeway is a direction in life taken by many others, so can indicate what everyone else does, the norm, or the established. But if you have particular memories of this route and where you use it to get to, then that is important in understanding your dream.

An exit on a freeway/motorway suggests either branching off from a main flow in the direction you were taking in life, or perhaps a nearness to a goal you have been ‘driving’ toward.

If you are on foot and trying to cross the motorway it can suggest a difficulty in the way of your progress, or even danger.

 

Useful questions:

Where am I heading on the freeway/life, and with what attitudes?

Am I the driver or is someone else making decisions in my life?

Is this about frustration or stress, and is so where is that appearing in my life?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsHabits


Mountain

Something big in ones life; reaching a wider awareness of our life or situation; eternity; something which stands above the commonplace; beyond the fears and anxieties of everyday life; separation from others or from everyday life or society; isolation; attainment achieved by facing the difficulties of life.

Because the mountain indicates states of mind or being that stand beyond the commonplace, and links with what essentially is your latent potential, it can show you opening to that power of change and growth. In other words, it indicates an influence from your core influencing your personality. But also it may be a way of escaping form worldly pursuits into a form is asceticism or mysticism. See Core

Jung mentions a man who felt himself capable almost of flying, and who eventually fell from a mountain. Jung intimates that the man may have in fact stepped into space out of his hubris-a lack of humilty. The aim in climbing the mountain is to access your potential while still recognising your personal smallness in the scheme of things.

In many past cultural traditions ascent was associated with purification or refinement – as in the ascent to heaven, or a holy mountain. It also suggested becoming more detached, or finding a different perspective. We could see it also as evolution of ourselves to a newer level. Because we often move to a wider view of things, becoming more aware of our situation or surroundings as we get higher, ascending is often linked with change, and perhaps leaving things behind, the dropping away of what occupied you below. It can also be an attempt to remove yourself from the difficulties or experiences of the world – there may be a link with losing touch with reality.

Sometimes treasure or a wonderful meeting is found on a mountain. To quote a man, “There is also the sense I have that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

If one is climbing the mountain: The struggle with oneself, such as facing lack of confidence and forging on; meeting the difficulties of life and trying to move on; sensing the eternal. See: hill; last example in flying.

 Example: ‘I was on top of a mountain with my sons, but was terrified I was going to fall.’ John A.

John feels alone in a high position and fears failure.

 Example: Now the preparations have ended and I am to go off alone up the mountains to meet whatever waits for me there. Now it feels as if something is flowing into my body. I am now experiencing a state or condition that has been very marked or strong in my life lately. My breathing became very slow, it seems even at times as if it has stopped, and everything becomes very still. It feels like being dead. My body becomes so still it disappears and all that is left is awareness submerged in enormous emptiness or space. There is a paradox in this experience because it feels as if I, my sense of self, has melted away, and yet there is still a very definite experience of existing. I suppose what has stopped is what I have called movement. The movement of thinking, of feeling, of longing or hoping for things.

There is this huge reality confronting us all the time. We call this reality death. And often that has an awful face for us. But I am feeling it as joy, a most wonderful joy. It is here in the darkness I am experiencing – that joy. The waves of this gentle joy flow through me. It is like floating in a subtle ocean and my consciousness, my being, is gently lifted and moved by the waves of this quiet joy.

Example: Next I/we came to a town, high up on the mountain, near the peak. I was very impressed by how interesting, gay, and full of character the town was, quite opposite to the town at the foot of the mountain. I saw the peak of the mountain above the town, and decided to climb on. I went on with my companion and a boy child. It was cloudy at first, and there was no view from such a tremendous height, but the clouds cleared, and wonderful vistas were revealed. I believe I was singing in the dream – singing loud and strong and wonderfully clear and then we reached the top, and stood there together, looking out upon the clouds and the world.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel on seeing or being on the mountain?

Was I climbing or near the top?

Did I feel fear or joy on the mountain?

See Archetype of the Search for SelfBeing the Person or ThingEnlightenment

Mouse Mice

Minor irritations; fears and worries; the mousy or timid part of self; shyness; the activities within us – our house – which go on unconsciously, which might be important though small, or gnaw away at one. It can therefore represent a problem of some sort that needs attention; the sexual organ which goes in and out of a hole. Often the mice in dreams are eating away at things you have stored, or are infesting a house or ones clothes. This suggests influences that are gradually gnawing away at your energy, well being or confidence. Or, as with the clothes, attitudes that are unclean or that you feel very uncomfortable with to the point of wanting them out of your life.

In some mouse dreams the mouse is burst open in some way, perhaps a cat attacking. This suggests the realisation or experience of ones own vulnerability or weakness.

But for some people the mouse depicts their feelings of revulsion, filth, horror, an influence that is unconsciously but persistently pervading their life and response to things.

 Example: I saw that the place was infested with mice, and was somewhat dismayed. Then I took off, or shook out, my jersey or shirt, into a bathtub full of soapy water. Hundreds of mice fell into the tub. I saw that they all died in there as the bubbles dispersed a little. Then my wife and my mother were with me, and I told my wife she must make an effort to put all the food away and into containers, as if the mice found nothing to eat they would go away. TP.

Example: A mouse darted across the kitchen work surface and I caught it by placing a clear glass cover over it so it couldn’t escape. I was upset because mice are unhygienic but I didn’t know how to keep them out. I was trying to stop somebody from lifting one of the covers off the mouse but they lifted it anyway and the mouse ran out. I turned and moved away quickly so the mouse wouldn’t run up my arm. I turned my back on it and crouched down, hunching my shoulders up. But the mouse ran up the back of my clothing, under several layers, and got trapped at the back of my neck. In the dream the scenario was horrific for me as this little mouse was wriggling around inside my clothes desperate to escape and I wanted it out ASAP but didn’t want to hurt it. I was annoyed that it had run up MY back. It could have run up anybody’s back so why did it have to run up mine? CJ

As these two dreams show, the dream mouse can generate great feelings of revulsion. The last dream also illustrates a feeling that was trapped, but then released and travelled up the trunk of the dreamer. This is typical of released feelings that have been repressed and held in the body. The upwards movement showing the shift toward consciousness.

 Example: I could now see that it was a small white mouse that moved. It was walking towards the children’s bedroom. We were all staying in a friend’s seaside holiday cottage at the time. I asked my wife what a white mouse was doing in the house, and thought maybe it had been a pet left by a previous holidaying family. Wanting to catch the mouse I got out of bed and went towards it. As I did so I saw that it was not just white, but shining, very beautifully. It also seemed to grow larger. First to the size of a rat, then to that of a cat. I was now close to it and it looked enormous, shining with an inner light, white and radiant. It was a thing of beauty. Its eyes especially struck me; pink but also shining.

For computer mouse see mouse under computer.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What if anything is eroding or gnawing away at your health, resources or identity?

Is there something happening that you feel very uneasy about or not proud of?

Is this a special or shining mouse – if so can you define the feeling and what it links with in you?

Does the feeling of revulsion link with any event in my life that I can remember?

See Being the Person or ThingMammal BrainMartial Art of the Mind

Mouth

Your mouth is a fundamental part of life. It takes things in such as food, pleasure or even pain. Basically the mouth is a pleasure area, but it is also the way you express pleasure or pain, as with smiling, crying or grimacing. So the mouth is a way you communicate as well as satisfy yourself or gain your needs.  As an organ of expression the mouth can also give thanks for life and utters beauty in words or sounds. This is a way you can uplift the dark things in you and transform them. See Using the Voice

Sometimes speaking can be likened to shooting things out of the mouth, projecting them to or firing them at other people angrily. But the mouth can also be receptive as when we take things into our mouth pleasurably.

As we eat with our mouth, it can indicate what you take into you, or what you expel or need to get out of you, as in the following example.

Example: I go into a bathroom and begin pulling weeds from my mouth. Weeds, weeds and more weeds come out from my mouth – come from deep down inside of me. I am still pulling them out when I leave the bathroom and someone, a woman walking behind me, helps me to pull some weeds that are trailing from my mouth behind me.

Pulling stuff out of the mouth, such as hair or weeds,  is a common dream, and most likely expresses the feeling of discomfort we feel if something foreign is in our mouth or throat. It shows the feeling of urgently trying to rid yourself of something that is unpleasant – perhaps feelings you have taken in, or things we have said or done that leave a nasty taste in ones mouth. Perhaps there is something you are not admitting to yourself. Or it can represent the lies and untrue stories we have been fed as a child, but also strong emotion as we express the results of trauma. See Exploring Sound

A dream of our mouth being buttoned – button your lip – or sewed up, could suggest that inwardly you regret having said certain things, or need to hold your tongue. Or perhaps you have been made to hold back your feelings as a child, so have had to sew up your mouth – figuratively. But speech is a lot more than noise or emotional expression; more even than utterance of thoughts. It is the giving form or clarity to what was previously unseen or unknown. Through the mouth we can pour love, praise or crit to others.

Sometimes the mouth may represent your house and the teeth the inhabitants or your family or other inhabitants. So the dream of losing a tooth thus logically becomes a symbol that a person in this household is dead, or that one wishes him dead.

Chewing: Considering something; mulling over something; trying something out – getting a taste of it so to speak. See Digest

Kissing: On the mouth is often a way of intimately sharing oneself, emotionally, and also a sharing of body fluids, which is either a form of trust or of careless introvention.

The kiss, oral pleasure, was our first area of loving with our mother. From that original centre of pleasure, it grows into anal and genital pleasure. When that happens the body begins to move. But there was still no engorgement. The movement was the forerunner of the inner pleasurable urge to thrust or be penetrated. So there can be a slow and internal growth through escalating feelings, and not an outwardly ordained set of movements that lead to “sex”!

Mouth fixed closed: Inability to express something, or a decision not to express something you hold inside. Sometimes a feeling of being inadequate socially, or that you do not have the power to get people to hear you. As in the example below, not having people understand what your difficulty is.

Example: I am in a situation which is different every time, but always includes different people in a conversation. Suddenly I can’t talk. It’s as if my mouth is sewed together on the outside. I make muffled noises, straining my muscles to open my mouth. I think that if I pull hard enough the stitches will tear, but they never do. It seems to me that even my muffles are loud enough to be heard as a scream, but no one I’m with seems to notice. They smile and carry on as usual. By this time I feel so desperate I usually wake up in a terrible state.

Pulling something out of mouth: Trying to clear emotions or attitudes not properly expressed. Perhaps one is not admitting something. Try Arm Circling Meditation but allow any sounds that you feel a need to express.

Teeth coming out of mouth: See: teeth; Chew.

The mouth can also give birth: People often dream of giving birth from the mouth. The shape of the mouth is similar in some ways to our sexual organs, and can also discharge things. This usually happens when the person has something important they want to say, and is a way of allowing life in us to give thanks and birth to something new. See birth

Idioms: a bad taste in my mouth; all mouth; a big mouth; butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; down in the mouth; hand to mouth; horses mouth; loud mouth; mouth watering; nasty taste in the mouth; put your foot in your mouth; put your money where your mouth is; shoot your mouth off; shut your mouth; silver spoon in mouth; word of mouth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening to the mouth and in what way might that link with everyday experiences or feelings?

If I remember how I felt in the dream, when has that feeling occurred in my waking life?

Do any of the above descriptions link with what is happening in the dream – if so what are they describing about my life?

See Being the Person or Thing – Trauma – Examples of – DigestionSelf HelpLetting things Happen – mouth the function  of

 

Move Movement Moving

In general the quality of your movements in dreams depicts your feeling or mental state, your confidence or lack of it, your ability to make changes – move easily – or difficulty in facing change – paralysed. The quality or lack of it that you express in your life; what you are creating or ‘giving off’ in everyday life. But movement is always an expression of who you are, of your potential to achieve, to make changes, to ‘get somewhere’. So look to your feelings in the dream to define what it is of yourself that is being expressed, what of your potential is flowing or being denied.

If it is an object moving, it suggests the thing has direction, life, or purpose of some kind. In this case you need to understand what your relationship with it is in the dream. It might also refer to it attracting your attention.

Agility: Coping well with your situation; adaptability; mental quickness.

Easy flowing movement: Self acceptance and thus easy expression of oneself; feeling in harmony with emotions and sexuality.

Getting stuck, unable to move: Often being held back by anxiety or fears, such as fear of failure. See postures and movementLife’s Little Secrets

Moving House: See House moving

Move Movements

In general the quality of your movements in dreams depicts your feeling or mental state, your confidence or lack of it, your ability to make changes – move easily – or difficulty in facing change – paralysed. The quality or lack of it that you express in your life; what you are creating or ‘giving off’ in everyday life. But movement is always an expression of who you are, of your potential to achieve, to make changes, to ‘get somewhere’. So look to your feelings in the dream to define what it is of yourself that is being expressed, what of your potential is flowing or being denied.

If it is an object moving, it suggests the thing has direction, life, or purpose of some kind. In this case you need to understand what your relationship with it is in the dream. It might also refer to it attracting your attention.

Agility: Coping well with your situation; adaptability; mental quickness.

Easy flowing movement: Self acceptance and thus easy expression of oneself; feeling in harmony with emotions and sexuality.

Getting stuck, unable to move: Often being held back by anxiety or fears, such as fear of failure. See Life’s Little Secrets

 Moving house: See house moving

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have any sense what my movement or posture expresses?

Am I aware of my body much or what I am saying through it?

Do I love moving or is it a chore?

See Body PosturesUse BodyPostures Movement and Body LanguageMind and Movement

Movie

See: Film.

Mud

In some dreams, as in a muddy road, or swamp, the mud is simply the retarding aspect of your hesitations and fears. In other dreams, people search through, or dig in the mud, which represents the cleansing of emotions caused by outer circumstances, the looking through the experience or muck of your life for its treasure, for often a flower or jewel may be found in the mud. IT is the primordial substance or life energy, sensuality, even blood.

Mud is like clay, it is a substance that can be moulded, and so may present the idea of your basic memories and emotions that were shaped. Mud may also symbolise healing, as it contains all the elements of the past, which we need for completeness.

The fundamental primordial, sensual, slimy basis of life and how we relate to it; emotions which cause us to feel bogged down; past experience which may hold us back, but has enormous growth potential in it; the healing possibilities of our body and its minerals.

Our mind is a fantastic and multidimensional area. It holds all that you have even been – most of it unconscious. You still hold the original primeval slime in your testicles or the wonderful eggs that are part of the flow of blood that was the start of life. You are still a cellular creature. You still have within you all the levels of being, the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and the human brain. See Levels of the Brain

Apart from the millions of bacteria you need to digest your food, what about the ones that actually make your food into a smelly decaying mess in your bowel? We are all part of the process so living and dying. Also to reproduce and to have a child you revert to the very beginnings of evolution, the mud and the slime of sex. Yet that is the very wonder of Life. And from that slime of the beginning of life, you went through the whole process of evolution in your mother’s womb. From a tiny seed you became a vegetative process where cell divided into other cells. Then you became a fish-like creature with gills, and finally a body that had the possibility to become a human child. See Programmed

Body dirty with mud: Ill health; ones life needs ‘cleaning up’ morally. But mud can also be a healing thing – mud baths.

Sinking into mud: Sexual difficulties; feelings of hopelessness or despair.

 

Idioms: Mud slinging; drag somebody through the mud; ones name is mud; stick in the mud.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel like I am stuck in the mud?

Can I accept that mud is the basic stuff of life?

What is my dream telling me?

See Martial Art of the Mindstuck in lifeaccept Your Core Self

Muerta Muerte Muertos

See Dead PersonDeadDead – Communicating WithQuick And The DeadDeathDreaming of DeathNear Death ExperiencesRudolph Steiner’s Philosophy of Life and DeathLife After Death?Santa Muerte

See https://translate.google.com/

Muezzin

The call of the spirit of God, in the midst of everyday affairs; in our very forgetfulness, He has not forgotten us.

Mule

Stubbornness. See: Ass.

Multiverse Parallel Worlds

See Multiverse

Mum

See mother; Archetype of the Mother

 

Mummy Egyptian

The attempt to preserve ourselves as we are, instead of opening ourselves to the constant change, death and rebirth, that life brings. This only results in mummification or desiccation. The mummy often appears in dreams where a partner or someone close has died, and there are still difficult feelings. In such dreams it shows difficult feelings about death., and pain at loss.

The mummy can indicate an attempt to preserve a way of life which is dead – mummification – instead of facing change and the new. So it could show patterns of life and behaviour from your past that have been preserved, or something from the past that has been preserved and is now gaining your awareness.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel a connection with Egypt or the mummy?

Is there an area of my life that feels dead?

Can I raise the dead into life by being aware of the mummy?

See Archetype of Rebirth or ResurrectionBeing the Person or ThingJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Murder Murderer Murdered

Each of us are implicated in killing – by denying, repressing, controlling – some part of our own nature. These denied areas of your own sensitivity or potential can fortunately be resurrected through self awareness of your deed. If you flee from a murderer, it depicts a fear that is threatening your confidence or something you feel threatened by.

Murderous rage in dreamer: It is observable that repressed sexuality or traumatised childhood love leads to feelings of murderous rage which may not be expressed socially, but do appear in dreams; may also express childhood anger linked with emotional bond with mother being damaged. In this case the dreamer will be the murderer – even if in the dream the murderer appears to be someone else. The murder will then be the killing of any love or emotional connection or bond between child and parent. The child often thus murders its own feelings of love for the parent in order to survive apparent or real desertion – as for instance a child being put in foster care. The bonds are so instinctive and strong; to survive parting the child may have to hack away any emotional links.

Freud says, “Has different ‘moral standards’. In dreams we rape, pillage, murder and adventurously act in ways we would resist with horror in waking life.”

Example: I still denied that I wanted to mutilate or destroy my sister. Impossible. I had no such evil in me.  When at length I did admit the evil in me, it was with outrage: of what therapeutic use could it be to discover that I had wanted to destroy, murder, my sister – at a time when I could scarcely think? Freud has this interesting comment to make: ‘A child is absolutely egotistical: he feels his wants acutely, and strives remorselessly to satisfy them, especially against his competitors, other children, and first of all against his brothers and sisters. And yet we do not on that account call a child ‘wicked’ – we call him ‘naughty’.

Example: It was something like a semi detached and sited on a slope. I was outdoors and I think felt or knew that we had just taken over this house. But I felt uneasy as if something from the past was linked with it.

Then I was at the back of the house, on the part sloping down from the back wall of the house. I noticed things covering what turned out to be a big hole dug against the back wall, deep into the soil. This was where I felt most ill at ease about the place.  The hole had been covered with bits of board and other odd pieces of junk. I lifted these at the left of the hole and looked in. Sticking out from the side of the hole, about three feet down was the dead body of a young man. I could see the back of his skull had been smashed in. But although he had obviously been under the soil for some time, and had now been uncovered, the body was still in good condition, being slightly dried out or mummified.

I felt really guilty and connected with the body, as if I had been part of his murder, and was wondering frantically what I could do to hide or get rid of the body. Part of the problem was that pulling it out risked being seen with it.

In ‘being’ the body in the dream the man said, “But it wasn’t until I got into the role of the dead body that any depth of feelings emerged.  Almost as soon as I was in the role of the dead body I began to think about and feel things connected with the way I had killed my sexuality as a teenager.  Gradually these feelings deepened and I was describing my feeling hatred in regard to sexuality and how the masses were pulled along by their genitals into some sort of conformity and performance.  I felt anger and loathing for what I felt at the time were the cattle human beings were. At the time I despised and hated them. I also felt repugnance at the way people talked about sex or appeared to enjoy it.  It has to be understood that in that period in history in the UK, most of sex was depicted in terms of smut, dirt, animal desire, hidden pornography, or loveless fucking. I wept deeply, at times hardly able to breathe, with the pain of seeing what I had done to myself.  I said sorry over and over.  I saw that I need not have killed my love and sexuality, but could have expressed it in a tender and loving way.

Killing: Repressing or stopping some aspect of oneself – as when we kill our love for someone.

Where the dreamer imagines the death of a beloved relative: Freud believed this was because rivalry and hatred between brothers and sisters was deep rooted though unconscious and, in adult life, concealed by apparent warm affection. One reason for this, he suggested, was that for the child the idea of death meant no more than being ‘gone’: to wish another dead, in early childhood, is simply a way of wishing him removed from the scene. There are however other reasons. In moving toward independence we may find it difficult to establish our own decision making and feeling responses because our parents are so deeply engraved into our ways of behaving. In order to make a break from this we often kill them off in our dreams in one way or another. See: the section of father under archetypes, especially the part of killing father or burying father.

 Example: I know what this is about — waiting for that impulse. I’ve created two golden ceremonial knives. I’ve got to cut my way out of the membrane. . It’s my flesh, as I strike out I feel it stabbing, it’s like someone is hacking their way in (hacking movements). I’ve done it, I’ve got it – crying gasping. I killed him – then I severed the arteries. I killed them. I cut the life blood. Then locked myself away never got up again – collapse’s – I got knocked down. I killed them. . (Guilt). The anger came from deep in the soul. I killed them so I could survive. M. went mad; alcoholic brag artist, my dad. That’s my guilty secret, I’m a murderer, killed them from within like a cancer. Undermined them all the time. They’ll be sorry – most of them are, but I’m wonderful, because I am a murderer. I killed to survive. Law of the jungle. All this shit about suffer the little children unto me. . Paradox I died to survive the matador. Comes’ into the ring crippled. Buddhist Mafia – protection money.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the body about in the dream?

Do I feel involved and if so in what way?

Can I identify with the murder or the body?

See Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power Dreaming Emotions and Mood in Dreams

Muscle

Your strength, and ability to do things, therefore confidence and sense of adequacy. Muscles can indicate feelings of being outwardly forceful, or masculinity in its physical aspect. Also may refer to your physical muscle, and therefore how good you feel about yourself and your abilities physically.

Muscles of particular parts of the body would refer to the strength or weakness of what that area suggests. So an injured bicep of your right arm – if you are right handed – would suggest a feeling of weakness of inadequacy in your outer activities, or something to do with being able to produce an effect outwardly. It might therefore indicate a lack of confidence. So look at the limb or body part in which the muscle is to define it.

 Example: I dreamt P T was in my father’s shop in London. Someone had shot him in the bicep and I was trying to help him. I had a small box on the counter and there was fluid or blood in it, and I put the hurt muscle in it hoping to heal it. When the gunshot flesh was in the blood the blood bubbled and effervesced, becoming hot. I felt the flesh would not be of any use now, but wasn’t sure. In the end though I was considering cleaning away the injured flesh from the arm (left I think). All I could see were the sinews with a small amount of flesh on them – no muscle in between. But I began to feel that gradually new cells might grow and develop into a new muscle – granulate.

In exploring my dream I found that the injury was due to my feelings that my father had never given me any confidence but always words of criticism. This was the injury to my left arm, the strength/muscle that supports action.

Muscles of particular parts of the body would refer to the strength or weakness of what that area suggests. So an injured bicep of your right arm – if you are right handed – would suggest a feeling of weakness of inadequacy in your outer activities, or something to do with being able to produce an effect outwardly. It might therefore indicate a lack of confidence. So look at the limb or body part in which the muscle is to define it. See Context and also The Two Powers

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is about injury or sickness, in what way do I feel lacking in power or confidence?

What specifically is my dream presenting about my muscle(s)?

If this is about health or development of muscle(s) what can I observe about my increasing ability to express in the world?

What am I confronting in life about my confidence and self image?

I stress again the need to look at the The Two Powers if you suffer waking up to paralysis while asleep.

See Use the body to discover dream powerYour Core SelfMartial Art of the Mind

Museum

Memory; family and cultural heritage; the living past within us.

Often it is a search into ones past, and the clues left in us, in an attempt to form a clear understanding of ourselves in the present, our identity. It can also be your view of ideas, for inspiration and beauty.

Carl Jung says, “Just as the human body represents a whole museum of organs, each with a long evolutionary history behind it, so we should expect to find that the mind is organized in a similar way. It can no more be a product without history than is the body in which it exists. By “history” I do not mean the fact that the mind builds itself up by conscious reference to the past through language and other cultural traditions. I am referring to the biological, prehistoric, and unconscious development of the mind in archaic man, whose psyche was still close to that of the animal”.

A dream in Jung’s book Man and His Symbols mentions a hall in the attic of a museum, which looks partly like a ship’s cabin painted black. Jung says the black colour indicates darkness, night, a turning inward. The cabin, then the museum through cabin is associated with a ship. The suggestion is that when the mainland of our conscious mind is flooded by unconsciousness and barbarous images, shown by the museum-ship, it suggests carrying those who enter it beyond the rational mind and link the dreamer, not with the dead remains of the past, but with alive and meaningful realisations of his past. See The Conjuring Trick

 Example: I am staying somewhere where there are some old papers of my father’s. I am waiting for a chance to take a look at them without raising my brothers’ suspicions. I am hoping the papers will lead me/leave me something valuable. My mother is there too and as I am there on a visit she will hardly leave me alone. She wants to be with me constantly. I feel frustrated in not having a chance to look at or search for my father’s papers – a birth certificate? I can see a picture of a document with several people engraved at the top – two on the left and three on the right with the title of the document in the middle at the top. I am hoping to be able to copy the document and hope that it will give me a chance to inherit something. I am looking for some very, very old papers. I am thinking of looking up the same kind of paper in a library or museum and making up (forging) an original copy of these papers.

Example: Had another “travelling in London” dream. This time I was with my youngest son and a group of people. I assumed we were all going to the same place – something my son would be interested in, perhaps a museum or exhibition. The group I followed on the Underground got off. I followed them, and a woman like Edith (motherly middle-aged type) told me they were all going home, not my destination. I then realised I had lost my son.

In exploring this dream he said – I realise it is about following unconscious habits – the Underground. I follow other people’s opinions and already built in habits. What answer is there in the unconscious? If we had an answer, it would already be part of our unconscious. As we do not have an answer we must find it not in the past – the museum – but in future, in the formless, in my potential. We must leap into the unknown and bring back the new to etch into my body. The loss of my son is the loss of a vulnerable and loved part of me.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What events were surrounding the mention of the museum?

Did I find any thing that drew my attention?

Was I searching for something?

See Using Your Intuition; Links to Archetypes and Acting on your dream

Mushroom Cloud

See: atom bomb

Mushrooms Toadstools

Feelings or realisations that arise without warning from within; perhaps there is a question here of whether a situation or relationship is nourishing or poisonous, due to the possible association of poisonous or even mind changing mushrooms; something fragile and strange emerging into your life. For mushroom cloud: See: atom bomb.

But mushrooms, like bubbles, can represent your present life which emerged from something much older and is unconscious unless you have been awakened. You are the recent ‘mushroom’ that grew from the underground/unconscious material – the mycelium which is the large part of the exterior growth of mushrooms or fungi.

I use the analogy of mushrooms as an example of how the large part of us is active below the surface of our mind and only produces our conscious self – the mushroom – from the mycelium which has lived out of sight for many, many years, when the above ground season is right. It is the unconscious part of you that is immense and pushes out your body (mushroom) to gain experience of physical life. Mycelium, the underground basis of mushroom and toadstools, which are its sexual organs of procreation, is perhaps the largest living thing, sometimes covering as a single organism 1,665 football fields in size and 2,200 years old.

This bigger you was formed through millions of years because no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

R. Gordon Wasson, the banker-scholar-mycologist who used the Mexican “magic mushroom” (a natural source of psilocybin), told of giving the mushroom to a mute who thereafter was able to speak. So the mushroom for many people may associate with breaking through into what is a waking lucid dream state through using magic mushrooms. Of course they are often used as a pastime thereby missing the wonderful possibility of exploring the depths and heights of ones being.

Many scholars, such as Robert Graves and the Wassons, believe that psychedelic mushrooms and other plants were used in most ancient religions and holy centres, where they were the basis for many “miracles” and initiation into “the depths within us.”

Example: After taking the mushrooms my hands moved to my genital area and I had the strange and awful feeling my hips were not mine – that I was touching someone else’s body. The thighs and waist were my own, but in between was a dead, wasted area. I knew my sexuality was this stagnant, dead area. It was my manhood that had been wasted so many years of my life. My body felt such a stranger I took my trousers off to feel myself more easily. Gradually I felt the area connected and my own again. I felt that I had dealt with the causes of my dead sexuality in the past, but I had never felt the actual deadness quite like this.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with the mushrooms in my dream?

Have I ever used magic mushrooms and with what results?

Are mushrooms something I often use in cooking? See cooking

See Magic Mushrooms – Meeting yourselfHallucinations and HallucinogensSumming UpTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Music Musician

The play of subtle feelings and forces in our being, or realisations difficult to define, and the influence of wider awareness in our life. Much music has personal associations, so you need to define what type of music you dream about, and what it leads you to feel or do.

But our whole being is an example of a wonderful orchestra, with all the different organs and processes working in harmony when we are healthy. In reality you are a musical instrument plated by Life. Life plays us with such skill unless we interfere with its controlling hand playing our notes – the rhythm of our breathing and heartbeat which plays us even when we are asleep. But even though we are an amazing musical instrument, many of us have out notes, our keys, so stuck we cannot be played to our full potential. We are so stuck we are afraid to let the full range of our emotions play, or we are so fixed in just playing one or two notes of our wonderful range, we just play our sexual or digestive organs, or are fixed in just ambition or even playing passive pieces. Yet Life lives in the lightening, the sunshine, the earthquakes and the depth and mystery of the sea, and if we are fluid we have them all as part of our extraordinary range. See Opening to Life

Sometimes music in a dream implies awareness of new areas of experience arising. But for many people, especially during teen years, it is a way of defining your identity. See Identity and dreams

Plato warned that “A change to a new type of music is something to be­ware of as a hazard of all our fortunes. For the modes of music are never dis­turbed without unsettling of the most – fundamental political and social con­ventions.” Many people believe these ancient-and modern-warnings should be taken more seriously.

There are also many clichés and images used in books or films. Some of them are the man or woman all in black or in black leather and the scary music suggesting fear. Part of the shutting off to things like art and music is that they involve emotional involvement.

The narration or ritual repetition of sacred texts and ceremonies, and the worship of a hero figure with dances, music, hymns, prayers, and sacrifices. They grip an audience with deep and mysterious emotions and lift people above their normal experiences. Many people, who visit concerts, often feel a form of hero worship and are very moved by the experience.

 Example: When I looked at the green wall again the movement had begun, and there were green dancing figures all over the wall. They all started from an obscure yet fascinating centre point, full of symbols and movement, and radiated out, dancing and interweaving. There were Indian goddesses with beautiful breasts, lithe figures like green grass, all moving in time to the music from the transistor radio. My hips were also managing a similar timing.

Example: I had the following strange dream and experience. I was a young man living in Italy. The surroundings gave me the impression of it being during a period several hundred years ago. I was walking through the streets of a town. As I did so I was thinking about the liver disease I had and about my plans to move to another town where a learned doctor lives who specialised in liver complaints. I wanted to not only be his patient but also his student, to learn what he knew about liver illnesses.

As I walked I started to sing Ave Maria – I believe it is Gounod’s version. My singing was beautiful exhibiting wonderful voice control and expression of emotion. I am not sure of the sequence of this but there was a building I was looking at. People wanted to have the building restored but could not raise the money. So I had painted a huge mural on the building depicting scaffolding covering the house. This attracted public attention and interest in the house, and so money was raised. I realised that I was not just an artist but also an architect and musician.

It was on this thought, and with Ave Maria still sounding its lovely quality that I realised I was dreaming and became awake enough to observe and think about what was happening. I realised that as a musician I had very great ability as a composer, and decided to compose an ‘Ode to Mozart’. No sooner had I decided this than the music poured through my consciousness. So much so I heard it as if listening to an orchestra or record. The music soared and moved in a wonderful expression of human vision and transcendence. As this occurred I could observe the process of creativity or composition, which was spontaneous to an extraordinary degree. It appeared that by asking for or seeking the composition I had opened a window in my mind. Through it I could observe a huge and unlimited sea of mind or consciousness. In it was all that have ever existed, merged and yet distinct. Every human talent and thought was in it alive and vital. My ‘Ode to Mozart’ drew on this unfathomed depth of being. I knew as I observed this that the music itself, although precise and clear and Mozart’s own work, proclaimed the human ability to leap beyond boundaries into this immense and apparently limitless world of experience – to allow the mind to soar and fly, to move beyond its own conceptions and rejoice.

I wanted to test this amazing ability and asked the huge mind how I could compose ‘modern’ music. What followed was like being instructed. The experiences arose as if I were being told that music was a reflection of basic life processes. If life had managed to express as a basic process, such as a simple celled creature or a crystal, this was like one note sounding over and over. After doing this over and over for infinite repetition, perhaps the process stumbles upon a slight change in itself. This would be like the playing of two different notes over and over. Then maybe another basic process has learned to play three different notes, and if these two meet they play a more complex music together.

To this meeting was added theme upon theme until an orchestral music was built up, and this was likened to our body, with its many different processes playing together, or society in which so many opposing ‘themes’ in the end form a whole. This was an extraordinary experience for the dreamer and is a doorway that opened to him the realisation that while the dead are slowly absorbed into the whole, the individual person is there too, like a jewel.

Example: I was walking near big, old, blocks of flats. They were very worn needing repair, almost slums. I then noticed that it was all black people in these blocks. Really jet black. One called out from a balcony asking what I wanted. There was a slightly hostile feeling as they all looked at me to see what I would do or say. I was then partly my father, and said I had come for a blow, (i.e. on the saxophone or clarinet). Everybody was now friendly and crowded around. They asked me if I had my brushes with me – that is, drum brushes. I said no, and then started playing the clarinet. It was completely spontaneous, moved by the spirit, and was wonderful music. It brought us all together.

Example: ‘I am a journalist reporting on the return of Christ. He is expected on a paddle steamer going upstream on a large river. I am very sceptical and watch disciples and followers gather on the rear deck. The guru arrives, dressed in simple white robes. He has long, beautiful auburn hair and beard, and a gentle wise face. He begins to tap a simple rhythm on a tabla or Indian drum. It develops into complex intermingling of orchestral rhythms as everyone joins in. I now realise he is Christ, and feel overwhelmed with awe as I try to play my part in the music. I’m tapping with a pen and find myself fumbling. A XE “A”  bottle or can opener comes to me from the direction of Christ. I try to beat a complementary rhythm, a small part of a greater, universal music.’ Lester S.

Example: My curiosity as a scientist, I suppose, also played a major part in motivating me towards this research “trip.” Within 10 or 20 minutes after taking the psychedelic agents, I began to notice a wonderful, dawning sense of euphoria. The music from the hi-fi expanded to a new kind of “living sound” more beautiful than any music I’d ever heard before. I could hear all of the percussive noises of the instruments, the scraping of the bow on the violins, the mechanical noises of the other instruments, the breathing and air noises as the vocalists sang, and within the space of a few minutes, the orchestra had transported itself from the loudspeaker and now seemed to be totally inside my being somewhere. I was delighted, amazed, and carried away with the sheer majesty and beauty of these sounds which were liquid and tinged with colored lights. I wondered indeed why it is that the ears of man are normally so hard of hearing. Lambert Dolphin

Playing music: Self expression; expressing our essential self which might be overlooked in general activities. See: musical instrument.

Idioms: Music to ones ears; face the music.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Where there strong feelings or reactions to the dream music?

Did you learn anything or was anything conveyed by the music?

Was there any sense of being in a different time?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming UpQuestionsMagical Dream Machine

Musical Instrument

This shows how well you can express your flowing feelings and spontaneous creativity. In some dreams it is linked with what you feel about sex or your genitals, and how well you express pleasure and feelings sexually. If it is a large and complex instrument it might be depicting the mind.

Musical instruments, or music in your dream, are a way you begin to become aware of subtle or creative impulses that are emerging. Just as a plant takes shape and colour from a tiny seed, so also your personal growth emerges from obscure and formless possibilities within you. Music is the expression of that flow to life.

A musical instrument being played: This depends upon what feelings the music produces. Whatever the feeling, whether sadness, uplift, haunting, wistful, stimulating, take it as expressing that in yourself, and see if you can connect the feeling with everyday issues in some way.

Playing an instrument with great pleasure and skill: At the time of the dream feeling in harmony with oneself and allowing ones pleasurable feelings to flow into expression in some form. It is an illustration of your ability to feel pleasure in what you do in life and express yourself with enthusiasm.

Playing an instrument with difficulty: You are able to express yourself, but lack of confidence or other forms of hesitation or uncertainty are stopping your easy creativity or positive feelings.

A large complex instrument: The mind and its influence in the rest of our being. See: drum; organ.

 Example:  In a few lucid dreams I play the piano, and play it like a concert pianist.  My “real” keyboard skills are all by ear, self-taught, and at best rudimentary.  But in the lucid dream state I’ve had fun with this ability and spontaneously composed some wonderful classical pieces as in a concerto.  At times I awoke with the musical composition still fresh in my mind.  The pieces were complex, beautiful, moving, and as far as I can tell, thoroughly original and spontaneous.  These dreams have shown me that we probably all have a tremendous capability for innate, spontaneous creativity and composition.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I play an instrument or is it only dreamt?

Do I listen and if so what do I feel?

Am I creative in my dream?

See GeniusEmotions and Mood in DreamsInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Mustang

Youthful sexuality, aggressiveness, nonconformity. See: Horse.

Myself

See Meeting the Unknown; Programmed; Self I Myself;  Toward the Light that is Myself?Myths Legends and Fairy Stories

Mystic

Most dictionary definitions state that a mystic is “a person who claims to attain, or believes in the possibility of attaining, insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge, as by direct communication with the divine or immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy”.

But definitions are written by those who have never experience union with the source of existence, and so usually do not believe in such a union. But here is a definition by a great intellectual who experienced such a union, “In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neo-Platonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think, and which bring it about that the mystical classics have, as been said, neither birthday nor native land.William James

See EnlightenmentASCFunctions of dreamsKundalini

Mystic

See: Guru.

Letter N

Nail

Binding power, strength to hold together, as a common belief will bind people together of opposite temperaments. A nail may also represent, as in Christ being nailed to the cross, the painful links that bind us to our body, our earthly experience, our pains and trials.

Bonding; holding power, male sexuality.

Fingernails: These sometimes depict your ability to effect or change something, to grasp small things. They could also reflect your way of life such as rough physical work or otherwise, suggesting whether life has been hard or kind. Perhaps also your state of health. They might be weapons, or reflect your personal condition – i.e. dirty or cared for, whether you are ready to really use your hands.

If nail is in body: Consciousness painfully bound to physical reality; pain of bonds, but also the willingness to be fully involved in ordinary physical activities as you tread the path toward wider awareness. It might also be the willingness to be fully involved in ordinary physical activities.

 

Padre Pio, the stigmatist, caused to appear on his hands the nails he meditated upon in the hands of his saviour. Some people are able to make any image quickly appear on their skin.

The symbolism of the nails in the hands and feet depict how our personal awareness, and the divine at our core, are nailed to physical life, and through being willing to work at the common tasks necessity demands, we experience the falling away of personal desires. The nail holes in the feet are the willingness to accept everyday life and earthbound consciousness, instead of struggling to rise above common humanity. The binding clothes are the restrictions of sensual consciousness as it falls away.

“Gradually there was an awakening. The crown of thorns was lifted off. I felt my pierced side. There were nail holes I felt in my hands. I understood I had suffered these by being willing to work at the common tasks necessity demanded. The nail holes in my feet I had suffered as the willingness to accept everyday life and earthbound consciousness, instead of struggling to raise my own consciousness. The binding clothes were the restrictions of sensual consciousness falling away”.

Problems hammering in a nail: For a man it can indicate his masculine inability, his anxieties about his sexual ability. For a woman it can mean she is scared of sex which is violent.

 Example: I dreamed I was pulling nails (used in building) out of the soles of both feet. Infection had already set in. Someone gave me an injection.”

The major problem of this man was being hypercritical. The dream showed the infection lay in his own personal trait of building himself up (represented by carpenter’s nails) by tearing others down. Therefore, he had first to remove the infection by the “injection” of right principles. Quoted from Dreams Your Magic Mirror 

Example: My husband had this dream twice in one week. He is at work when he feels something between his teeth. He uses a piece of wood with a nail in it to try to remove the object. The nail then gets stuck too! Feeling anxious he goes home to get the pliers in the hope of pulling the nail out. He wakes worried and confused. Sarah

Being at work sets the scene. This is about an irritation your husband has about his job. It might be a small irritant, as something stuck between the teeth might be, or the sign of a larger issue he has not been able to work out.

Idioms: Hit the nail on the head; tough as nails; nail biting; bed of nails; nail down; nail in ones coffin; nail it down; tooth and nail

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were the nails being used for?

Was there any hurt involved?

Am I good at do-it-yourself?

See Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power DreamingWorking with associations

Naked or See Through Clothes

Basically this is about feeling exposed. This may be desirable or undesirable depending upon what you feel in your dream. It can indicate a desire to be attractive and noticed – as in the example, where Miss L. is enjoying an acceptable form of intimacy, or being open about what you really feel. It is also showing you either feeling people know what you are feeling or desiring, or else being open about what you feel. This often refers to sexual feelings, or feelings you usually hide.

But nakedness can also represent being open and not hiding who you are, so being willing to approach the highest and holy without any pretence. A wonderful thing to do. See The Licked Hand

At times it can be a sign of anxiety about not being adequate socially, or lacking ability to conform to social norm. See: nude.

Example: ‘I am at the doctor’s being examined. It is always the same. I have all my clothes off and he examines me from the roots of my hair down to my toe nails. I am just at the point where I am going to ask him for his diagnosis when he fades away.’ Miss L.

How we feel about being naked in the dream may simply show our cultural background and childhood training in regard to being undressed. In some families it is easy and natural, and in others something to be ashamed of and arousing critical remarks.

There is an almost instinctive drive in many young children to uncover themselves to others. Erich Fromm, in his book Dreams – The Forgotten Language, says that, “It is hardly possible to pass through a village in country districts without meeting a two – or three-year-old child who lifts up his or her blouse or frock before the traveller, possibly in his honour.” As adults, if such behaviour were punished or frowned upon we may still be stuck in this behaviour, desiring the acceptance we should have received at an earlier stage of our growth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling relaxed about this or exposed and vulnerable – and does that reflect how I feel about people knowing who I am?

Is there any signs of sexual feelings here, and if so what does the dream suggest about my response?

If there is a reason for my being naked, what is it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Name of person or place

Your name represents you, your conscious personality or identity. Your name summarises yourself. It is like a focal point around which your sense of self collects. So changing your name would suggest a change in the way you see yourself, or how you express yourself. Someone else’s name would depict your feelings and intuitions about them.

Surname or family name: A surname is more that a first name like John, it is a family name, often with a long history. For ages our past ancestor never had a first name just a family name It carries memories of family traits with all we inherited from them. See The Conjuring Trick

If your name is altered: Suggests you sense a change in the way you feel about or see yourself.

Other people’s names: Your feelings for that person; the quality you feel in regard to someone else with the same name; or word play or associations with the name – a woman who dreamt a friend asks her ‘Do you know where Chris is’, she replied he was on the back seat. On waking she realised she is being asked where’s the crisis? Two weeks later she had a kidney infection – in the back seat. Names also suggest qualities – as in Peter, the rock. Or your friend Pat may be a pleasure loving person, so we use the name or person to represent that quality. See: Inner People – wordplay and puns.

Place names: These can represent your feelings about the place, or be similar to personal names in their suggestion of something.

Example: ‘On the other side of the road was a window with my wife’s ring and watch and other trinkets. I went to pick them up but a stranger put his hand over them. I then crossed the road to get a bus to Andover.’ Arthur P.

Arthur’s dream wants to make sure he gets the message by saying hand-over and Andover.

Idioms: Call someone names; clear someone’s name; have a bad name; not a thing to ones name; in name alone; in the name of; make a name for oneself; name dropper; one’s middle name; name is mud; somebody who shall be nameless; or my name’s not….; worthy of the name; name in vain; lend ones name to; name the day.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you feel okay with the dream name?

What does the name mean to you?

Were there any feelings or emotions in the dream?

Was it a name of a place and what were your memories or feelings about it?

See Working with associationsPlace EnvironmentTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Nameless

No real quality, without a formulated or distinct being, without a soul. But it also suggests the formless quality of the divine, or the creative power in the cosmos.

Narrow Narrowly

We can in our dreams have vast horizons or narrow horizons, and so you need to ask yourself what is meant if you dream about a vast horizon, and what state of mind is indicated by narrow horizon. It can suggest narrow minded; limited choices or view; feeling restricted by a set of beliefs or theories, or your sensory perceptions or intellectual understanding. Sometimes it indicates fear of going beyond ones narrow boundaries, or the narrow focus of self we know in our daily life. Limited movement in any but one direction. Limitation of choice. 

If you are trapped in a narrow tunnel it can sometimes indicate memories of your birth struggle. See  

As the throat is the narrow channel through which we express or repress our emotions and reactions, it can become a site of great tension or pain, or of intense pleasure. See throat

Dreams often show the dreamer narrowly escaping from some danger. But it is usually they are avoiding meeting a conflict or fear that they need to address. See

Sometimes a dream might be showing the dreamer in a tight, narrow or restricting situation. This is might because the person feels like their work is trapping or imprisoning them.

But dreams cannot be described by the narrow and superficial conceptual model used in academic psychology.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I trapped or finding release from the narrow thing?

Can I identify with the feeling of being restricted or not appreciated?

Do I ever feel imprisoned by others, the situation or even myself?

See PrisonMartial Art of the MindEight Step Method to Manage Intense EmotionSelf Help

Nation

Characteristic symbolised by the people as a whole. See: Abroad.

Native

Natural feelings; being uncivilised, feelings without too much social restraint. See: aborigine; black people.

A native in a dream probably means you are in touch with the natural world and honour it as part of your life as many native people do.

The native may also be a link to relating well to your own nature energy and motivations.

The modern western adult is often very much out of touch with the life giving processes within them and may feel isolated and often ill at ease in the world. The black figure in dreams, or the native, can give us a much needed connection and balance. It can also be an image of less sophisticated parts of you.

Thus the native in a white person’s dream may represent a level of our mind or consciousness that does not differentiate and separate things in the same way our conscious rational mind usually does. This native, natural or archaic stratum of consciousness produces a sense of being connected with the mysterious spirit of life itself, and so has a sense of sharing life with all the creatures around it. It also gives insights into the wisdom learned through collective human and animal experience. The native would suggest contact with the insights, intuitions or influences arising from such a source. But being aware of this ancient starts of our awareness usually takes place within the person who has been born and influenced by western culture. So one cannot simply ‘go native’ mostly because the native within still sees things in symbols, and unless these are brought into the modern mind and understood can lead to a loss of real perspective. See important

Some people are born a native to this underneath world, the place inside us. They understand and move easily in it and know themselves as part of a larger life. See the unconscious

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did the native give or tell me?

Did I understand the symbols of any ritual shown?

Was there a change in the way I felt?

Can I move easily in the world within me?

See Inner WorldJesse Watkins EnlightenmentMeeting yourselfIndividuation

Native American

Natural wisdom; self acceptance and wisdom based on this awareness of ones links with the world and the intuition or wisdom of the irrational or unconscious. It can represent realisation of tribal wisdom and the link with intuitive initiations into stages of growth and entrance into the house of the ancestors. For some people it links with feelings of being dispossessed.

If you live in America, you may have all the above associations of being touch in with nature, but some people dream of being attacked and threatened. And this is probably an expression of meeting the alien in you, or a fear of strangers. The Indian can also be a guide and a wise person. See See alien – Reaction to the unconscious

Example: Dreamt that a young modern Red Indian was talking to me while walking in London. He said he would show me one of the secret nerve blocks used by the shamans. He pressed quickly the right side of my throat and tapped my forehead. Then he walked backwards away from me a few paces, and he appeared to shrink in size and diminish in age. I immediately thought this must have been the physiological method used in their magic. I seemed to remember having been shown it before by another Red Indian. He didn’t have to walk away, but looked young and small anyway. To end the effect, the Indian tapped the base of my neck in the thyroid area, and tapped my buttocks.

 

Useful questions are:

What are my feelings about the Indian or being an Indian?

What am I gaining or getting from the Indian?

See The Iroquoian Dream CultNative American BeliefsSecrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing – Spirit Child

Nature

Those parts of your being that have arisen with little or no interference. Not moulded by conscious ambitions, desires.

Navel

Birth, dependency – especially upon mother; the way we connect our deepest self with the outside world. Having no navel would suggest you have no connection with your parents and forebears, or have lost or repressed any feelings of such connection. In some literature or drama it is shown as meaning the person is an alien or spirit. See navel and umbilical cord under body; birth dreams. Particularly read the piece under active imagination about the umbilical connection loss.

A symbol of an outer connection with our innermost feelings and being. It also represents a sign of dependency, of our dependence upon mother, upon the life process, upon earth.

The navel is a very important dream subject and can indicate your feelings of connection with your mother. But such feelings transfer onto any person we develop a close and feeling relationship with. So when there is any threat or disturbance in the relationship with husband, wife, or partner, this area might be involved and appear in a dream, or you might feel the pain or shock there. These feelings might be positive or very disturbed, depending upon your birth and childhood experiences. The likelihood is that such feelings will be blamed on the partner, wife or husband, instead of you being aware that they arise from ones earliest experiences of connection and physical and emotional dependence.

The navel, and its link with the umbilical cord, also can deal with feelings of dependence and the need for nourishment at a basic baby level. As such they sometimes become very linked with sexual need and what is felt in the sexual relationship. See Ages of Love

At a more abstract level, this area – the solar plexus – links with the way we connect with other people and the world through sympathetic feelings. It deals with how we take things into us from others, and what we give out. The digestive tract, with its ability to absorb and excrete is an image of this, but needs to be seen in a psychological way. Hurt, disturbance or pain in this area of our psyche can lead to tension and painful emotions or even physical sensations in relationship with a person or life.

Also the navel, like the nipples, can act as a sexual stimulus for some people.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How would I describe my early connection with my mother, or with my present partner – is it easy and secure, or do I still hold back or feel insecure in any way?

Is something happening in my life related to secure connection in a relationship?

What is the situation of the navel in my dream?

See Arm Circling Meditationnavelumbilical cordblood sucked

Navy

The navy may indicate a protective force at sea, probably with ability to fight in defence. It has a hierarchy of command often involving strict discipline. For navy blue see blue

The men and women who make up its force are usually highly trained, so probably indicate expertise in various things. Some are experienced in combat and are useful in your dreams when dealing with anxiety or fear. As sailors they are used to the storms and calm of life.

Navy base: Often seen in dreams where a woman is seeking a man.

 Example: Ray Hawkins has made a place for me next to him at a table in the front of the class. He is to give a presentation on graciousness. He says he may not join the navy anytime soon because of some ways that the navy treats the ocean

Example: I was somebody else before.  Idealistic.  I am a college professor with many students from one of the poorest and crime-ridden communities in the country, and with a nearby base, many service men returning from the wars with PTSD.  When I look at the faces of students who walk through my door, who are searching for 0something, what I see are people looking for someone to recognize them.  I honor their strength and their stories.  I tell them over and over, the great good I see in them. And I do see it.  I never have to make it up.   I wish that someday if they forget what they are, they remember what I see in them.  My friend thinks that is my gift.  My daughter’s therapist thinks I’ve been naive about the world, but there is something about that innocence and idealism I cherish.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what was is the navy featured in my dream?

Have I ever been on a naval ship or a naval base?

Do I know anyone who has been in the navy?

Was I ever in or involved in the navy?

See Characters and People in DreamsDreams are Like a Computer Game – Summing Up

 

Near Nearer Nearest Nearness

When something is near to you in your dream, it shows the strength of your feelings about it, or how aware of it you are. The nearer it is, the more conscious and feelingful you are about it. The nearer something is to you in a dream, the closer it is to becoming conscious in a direct way rather than as a symbol. See: adjacent under positions.

There are many ways people dream of nearness – near the edge; people near me; near to the scrap heap; near to death; stand near him to give him moral support; near me is a woman. We can be near so many things in so many ways. In dreams you can be so near to someone or something you can merge into them/it. That is because what we see as outside us in a dream is simply our different thought, attitudes, abilities, fears and hopes all projected outward in the drama of our dreams.

Some people feel near to madness or despair. Their situation has become apparently helpless. But such helplessness only exists if you believe in it. See Martial Art of the Mind and

People get terrified when they begin to realising that they are fundamentally bodiless consciousness, we create a dream image of ourselves with a body. Also to realise that we are not in control of our life can create enormous fear. Out of that arises all the fear of death – for even if we lose all our limbs we are still us. See Life’s Little Secrets

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I near to in my dream? Look it up to gain more insight.

In what way is it influencing me?

Am I in some way trapped by being near?

Is fear or pain a trap for me?

See Method to Manage Intense EmotionTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMartial Art of the Mind

Neck

The neck may indicate the way you connect your thinking (your head) with your feelings and sexuality (your body). Your neck is also the weak or vulnerable part of you, unlike the chest or head that is protected by bone, so any attack to the neck shows being influenced through your vulnerable feelings.

A woman who experienced a lot of neck pain and explored the underlying causes of this wrote:

Over the past few weeks and last weekend I got an opportunity to spend an extended period of time alone and relaxed during which I was able to tie the threads together, and understand what the throat and neck symptoms are about. I had been thinking along the lines of suppressing my inner creativity due to fear of censorship and that is one element, but I think the more fundamental is that the throat is constricting my experience of the environment, because I am scared stiff of what it will do to me. If I experience the outside world “raw”, it will evoke such strong emotions in me that I will be blown apart, annihilated, so I cut down what I experience of it and I try to manipulate it so that I cut out anything that will evoke painful emotions. S.

As the throat is the narrow channel through which we express or repress our emotions and reactions, it can become a site of great tension or pain. What S. is realising is that she is causing her neck pain through her ‘constriction’ in her throat. When S. tried to drop her controlling attitude she described what she met as follows:

I guess it’s a process that needs to occur bit by bit: you can’t turn over ingrained belief patterns all at once. The other day my neck tension became very painful and wearing and I felt very demoralised because I thought all my progress was an illusion. The next day I woke in a state of terror and anxiety but the tension had gone. “Good,” I thought, “I would rather have the terror”. And I have been trying to keep the terror and investigate it. It is the terror that I will not know how to deal with what life brings, or how to cope, and the resulting emotions will be overwhelming and ultimately blow me apart. So there are issues of self-trust, but I think that is because I am assuming that I’ll be using my father’s rules. I have to convince myself that if I use my rules, life will be a beach!

Problems with the neck often refer to the way the neck can act as a bottleneck, or of traffic jam for deeply felt emotions. In such a case you need to examine what feelings are persisting, what emotions or words you haven’t allowed yourself to say. As the neck connects the head-thinking, with the body-feelings and sexuality, the neck may refer to a split or non connection between these two main areas of your being.

To be strangled in a dream may be due to difficulty in breathing, feelings of being unable to express easily or say what you really feel. Some relationship situations leave people feeling that life is being choked out of them. To have your head cut off, is to have thinking divorced from feeling.

You can stick your neck out, which means to take a risk; have a lot of neck, or nerve or audacity. These meanings have arisen possibly from the head being severed in execution, or hanging, or strangulation. The neck is a weak point, and to offer it suggests confidence, fearlessness. So the neck may depict a certain attitude, such as confidence or caution. The neck is also the point up to which we can be easily immersed in water. Beyond that point there is danger. So it can depict what we can take in life, and what is more than enough.

Because the throat holds our organ of speech, the neck sometimes depicts our will, our ability to ask for what we want, and also our confidence, as when we use the idiom, ‘stick my neck out.

Back of neck: This suggest emotional energy that is largely unconscious and may be blocked. Our biological energy not only flows into movement, sex, digestion, etc, but also into being aware, feeling, expressing who we are and our potential. As described by S. above, this can be held back for various reasons. If it is not is flows up the spine into the head. It may then express through the mouth, or be experienced as an uprush of understanding or insights.

Head hanging off: Dolls sometimes lose their heads because they have been so abused by their owner, so this may link with feeling that life has so harshly treated you that you feel like a helpless doll being dismembered. See: Dismembered body.

This can also suggest ‘losing ones head’. See: head.

Held by back of neck: Some dreams show someone being held or carried by the back of the neck. This is probably a link with how we see cubs being carried, suggesting helplessness and dependence, along with being cared for.

Hung from neck: Quite a few dreams show someone, or yourself, hung by the neck. There are many possible things this might indicate. For one thing it definitely links with death or the possibility of death. Such a death might be the result of self sacrifice, as show in the Tarot card of the hanged man, or it might be as the result of social action – a cause and effect of things done; a punishment because of feelings of guilt.

However, many hangings are due to suicide, and so might in a dream reflect depression, loss of any pleasure in life, a retreat from pain, or feelings of hopelessness or guilt.

In some dream however, there is a different sense of the hanging. It suggests not a death but an almost complete suppression of the life in one. A strangulation of the flow of pleasure and creativity that would otherwise stream through one. In such a case the rope needs to be removed and a new way of relating to oneself developed. (For help doing this see Secrets of Power Dreaming

Gripping neck or strangled: This has connections with strangled the creative flow in oneself or another. It is a way of repressing or controlling ones natural responses and feelings. But it may be shown as being gripped or strangled by somebody else, and might therefore show how another person’s influence in your life has a strangle hold over how you express yourself, what you say, and what you do.

Large neck: This suggests power, the ability to survive or face threats and persevere. It also may indicate having an inner strength or bigness.

Small or thin neck: Vulnerability of some sort, maybe emotionally. It could also indicate lack of reserves as far as health or illness are concerned.

Idioms: Breaking one’s neck; breathing down ones neck; dead from the neck up/ down; neck and neck; neck of the woods; pain in the neck; put ones neck on the line; risk one’s neck; stick one’s neck out; up to one’s neck. See: throat.

Useful questions or hints:

Is the neck in any way threatened or attacked – if so what am I feeling vulnerable about or attacked by?

Is something or someone gripping the neck – if so am I, or my responses to someone else, causing me to hold myself back?

Is something stuck in my throat – is so what is it I am having difficulty saying or expressing – maybe in asking for what I want or need?

See Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or ThingQuestions

 

Necklace

Display of special qualities; richness of feelings; feelings connected with the giver; social position. Jewels in necklaces represent your highest wisdom something to treasure and care for. See: Jewellery.

Power, authority, augmentation of personality, social attractiveness, charm or amulet. May associate with person who gave it, and the relationship with them. It can sometimes represent the things you hang round your neck, as a millstone round the neck. That is, obligations, karma, difficulties, set backs.

In Hindu tradition, it is believed that a spiritual thread binds together all things in existence, as a necklace binds together pearls and other treasures of the ocean floor.

Given as a gift: An acknowledgement of your special qualities.

Golden Necklace: Suggests a loving gift, or may imply many abilities of a spiritual long lasting nature.

Pearl Necklace: Beauty and wisdom that has arisen from the depths of your being.

To find or dig up a necklace of coins: Suggest the uncovering within yourself or your life things of great value, of abilities or talents, often from the long past. Such influences often come in the form of new abilities arising, or as intuitive awareness of how to respond to certain situations or relationships in your life. So they can be links with what is usually the hidden side of life.

 Example: I was the top of a hill on my knees digging in the earth with my right hand. It was fairly easy. I pulled up what felt like coins, and found they were all joined together, forming something one could wear. This was in the form of a necklace from which ran a long loop from one edge to the other, perhaps reaching fairly well below the breasts. There were coins set a little way apart all around this loop. Then in between there were two connections from coins going down in a V to a single line that connected with the bottom of the loop. From this single line, and the coins on it, there were connections to the coins on the loop, reaching low on the trunk.

The coins, or really, medallions, were shining silver, depicting Christian or ancient saints and martyrs. It was, I knew in the dream, like a rosary, which one could use in prayer. But instead of just the Ave Maria’s, and the Our Father’s, all the other saints were included. Thus it was a very comprehensive guide to prayer. Some of the silvered chains between the coins were missing, but these had been mended with something else. The shape of it suggests the sign of the cross people make on their body. But it shows the right way to do this is first touching the brow, then the two breasts, and then down to the genitals – the real sources of power. Richard.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the necklace a gift and if so who from?

Did I find the necklace or was I wearing it?

What feelings do I have about the necklace?

See Characters and People in Dreams (Use it on anyone who gave you the necklace) Being the Person or ThingQuestions

Nectar

In past ages nectar was thought of as the drink of the gods. In other words it is the transformed essence of life experience – the spirit existing within the physical. It is that which can be extracted from what flowers in your life and your growth.

In some traditions it is taught that what flows from lovemaking – the nectar from the vagina – is a divine drink. Taken as a symbol in a dream this suggests that what arises from love is a transforming living energy that can heal and uplift.

Some dreams suggest the nectar arises from something certain cells or subtle organs in your body create. This nectar would be the result of opening yourself to the influence of your core, your eternal nature. The result of this would be a taste of heaven. See Honey.

Needle

It depends what sort of needle. If it is one used to give fluids in hospital, then it can suggest an inflow of life-giving energy or influence, or it could indicate a health problem.

Needles can link with drug use, and indicate possible poisons or infections entering your body. If dreamt in connection with a child, it might be worth making enquiries to see if the dream has any truth in it.

Needles can mend things or sew them up, and if your dream suggests this it is about healing old hurts or even securing something.

It can also suggest small hurts, small pricks, male sexuality, or something irritating you by getting ‘under your skin’, penetrating insight, male sexuality or power to mend ills probably with some pain. Also irritations. Or the ability to pierce through the surface of things and get to the heart of the matter.

Seeing a being of light piercing the centre of the forehead with a needle usually represent the beginning of awakening intuition.

Compass needle: Choices or direction, like the swinging needle. What direction is it pointing – see northeastsouthwest

Needle in body: Sickness in body.

Needle on electronic apparatus: An important indication of what is happening emotionally or physically. See body

Needlework: What one has made of oneself. Creative activity showing the direction of your creativity.

 Example: Another man and I were almost completely submerged in deep, dark water. I was aware of a pain in the area of the solar plexus. Then I saw a hand with a large needle sew my lips together.

The man was feeling a lot of friction at work, and the dream was a hefty hint to keep his mouth shut to prevent being fired.

Idioms: Get the needle; needle in a haystack; stick a needle in; needling someone. 

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling needled – if so what about?

Do I express my creativity through needlework?

What was happening with the dream needle?

See Being the Person or ThingCreativityConditioned Reflexes

Negligee

This links with all those things we associate with bed, with sleep, with being undressed without protective clothing, and perhaps with being sexually attractive and available. This latter means not only actually feeling sexual and desirable, but also wanting to be desirable but feeling you might not be.

Women often think ‘sexy’ negligees and underwear turn a man on, but this is often not the case. It sometimes feels like a ‘hard sell’.

So in a man’s dream it may certainly link with sexual arousal, or a woman’s attempt to arouse you sexually, but it depends entirely on the drama in the dream and your feeling responses.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I doing in the dream and what does this suggest – sex, rest, not prepared for the day?

What are the feelings aroused by the negligee and where are they met in my waking life?

Is this a negligee I know or own – and what memories, events or feelings are associated with it?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Neighbour Neighbor

Probably a symbol of the qualities we feel they have. They may be helpful or grumpy. Or may be used as a male or female symbol. See: Man; Woman.

Ones relationship with other people; the qualities we see in our neighbour, or the conflict we have with them. They are the social environment in which you live, the quality or lack of it with which you are surrounded. Your interaction shows the manner in which you live your life. They are part of what you are aware of and what you observe, and part of what you accept in your social environment. See Characters and People in Dreams – Levels of the Brain;  Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: I discover that my neighbor has organized a classical music program for his guests. Mr.R, my neighbor looks completely different in the dream.He offers us some delicious rice cakes,a specialty from the region he comes from.
I am so glad I came down or I would not have known about the music program or got to eat the delicious food.I had had the urge to eat those rice cakes earlier and now I got to eat such well made,authentic rice cakes that only someone from that region could make so perfectly.

Mr.R says all his guests would be going to the music program and he was serving breakfast to them before they went there.I notice a food stall has been set up near the building entrance with many containers of food for the guests.

The dreamer sees her neighbour as a helpful and organising influence in her life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you ever had problems with neighbours?

In the dream what is the relationship with the neighbour?

Are you naturally a friendly person or a loner?

What do I feel about the neighbour?

See Summing UpQuestionsBeing the Person or thingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Nest

Emotional dependence upon parents; home life; not being independent; female sexuality; nest egg. Of course there are different types of nests, birds, bees, ants, and other creatures – even crocodiles have nests for their eggs.

What you dream in connection with the nest might indicate the home you have created, especially if it was for your children or loved one. It can depict the emotional, economic and psychological ties or dependencies you have, or have had with your parents.

Because this involves raising young, it might also show what is happening in you in being a parent, its pleasure and difficulties. In this connection it sometimes represents the female function of holding eggs and hatching them – so the vagina and uterus. Maybe even a nest egg.

The urge to find a partner and reproduce is also an aspect of all living creatures, as is nest or home building, caring for young, and the urge to gain respect within ones social group. Building a nest is an instinctive urge and arises from our deeps. It shows us creating a place if safety and a good environment to raise our children. It can be called a holy urge and its depth of feeling is difficult to understand.

The vagina in a woman’s dream really is her nest in which she keeps her eggs. It means expressing the full flood of her sexual need with its desire for a child, a caring and supportive nest to rear that child in.

In some cases another male may ‘lay his seeds/eggs’ in a nest that he himself did not help build. This is the idea of the cuckoo/cuckold.

Example: Later, in daylight I noticed a hornets nest in the side of the house. The next door neighbour’s son knocks it off and hornets enter the house and stung me. I angrily show the neighbour and son the huge watery swellings. I clout the boy for stirring up the hornets. I had held my arms above my head and the swelling decreases. Now, with lowered arms I see a bubbling up of skin spread up my arms to chest, then to my entire front. I have no apparent sexual organs because I am covered in a wafer of dead skin.

Example: There was the shiny little tool I had bought so many months beforehand for just such a need. As I picked it up I had an immense experience of my father, and his father, and all the people who have used tools to create their home — and beyond this the animals that strive so hard to build a nest, to make a den, in which to rear their children.

Leaving nest: Gaining independence; meeting change or leaving a dependent relationship.

Making nest: Home building; parental urges; partnership if with another bird; a sign of wanting a family and getting ready for it.

Nest: Home; family environment; security; even the womb.

Destroying nest: An aggressive desire to break away from family dependence, or a desire to wreck a relationship.

Eggs in a nest: It may be a sign in a woman’s dream that she is pregnant, or ready to conceive. It might also suggest that money is coming.

Broken eggs in a nest: Family problems, broken promises or betrayal, or a conception that didn’t work.

Idioms: Foul ones own nest; hornets nest; feather ones own nest; cuckoo in the nest; nest egg.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where there eggs in the nest?

Have I ever collected eggs from a chickens nest?

What were my feelings for, or relationship to the nest?

See Being the Person or ThingSecrets of Power DreamingSumming UpEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Net

The subtle aspects of emotions, words or a relationship that we may get trapped by or in; attitudes in oneself or others that may trap or imprison subtle living parts of ones being.

Nets can protect us and provide safety, catching us when we fall and are caught, or when using a mosquito net. Also a source of food when using a fishing net. But they also can entangle and entrap, as when the gladiators used nets against their victims.

We all have a complex net of connections with others, and so includes love interests, work, creativity, friendship, victims and others.

Basketball net: This may be about success or failure – getting the ball into the net or missing. Or it might be about the quality of your aim/aims in your life.

Fishing net: There is a saying that a fish doesn’t know it is water until it is out and struggling for breath. So fish can represent in our dreams unconsciousness of our real situation. So a dream net is something designed to catch part of s that have remained unconscious, and then through hard work of fishing and hauling is led to become more conscious. But people set nets to catch a man or woman, usually unconscious of what is happening. It such situations it is the instinctive desires the woman or man works on. There are many women trapped by their enormous desire to be loved who are stripped of their savings.

Net curtains: Suggests a need for privacy, or a desire not to be seen. Hiding your inner thoughts and feelings.

Tennis or badminton net: The net can suggest something you can be caught by and so fail – or missing it is success. So it might include feelings of competitiveness etc.

 Example: I stop in a red brick building which is strange because all of the windows have been newly bricked up. I go inside to see what is going on and suddenly it begins to collapse. I turn and see a man going into a position of kneeling and bowing forward as if paying respect or praying to something, so I do the same thing. The building collapses on top of me, but I am not hurt because of this posture I am in. Instead of bricks slamming on top of me, it is like a mosquito net falls over me.

Example: I am happily walking down an interminable straight road of small terraced houses. On approaching one in the middle of a terrace, the net curtain is drawn back and a hand continually beckons. It is that of my GRANDMOTHER, dead fifty years ago!

Example: I see my white satin top and the net petticoats and feel that the dress should be prettier than that and decide it will have a long satin skirt over the net. The two women, one dark-haired, bring the bouquets they had made – satin with a white gardenia. I am very impressed at their kindness in making these.

Idioms: caught in a net; net surfer; safety net; surf the net; the net effect.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the net used for?

Did it catch anything?

Was success or failure shown or felt?

See FishWhat is the main action in the dream?WaterBeing the Person or Thing

Nettle Poison Ivy

Feeling stung by remarks; irritation – feeling nettled; sickness in the body; a difficult situation you may try to avoid – as in ‘grasping the nettle’ or ‘stung into action’.

Poison ivy: Poison thoughts or feelings that can cling and cause hurt. Or something that you need to avoid or be aware of.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is someone or some situation irritating me?

Does this indicate sickness in my body somewhere?

Am I trying hard to avoid something?

Should I be more careful where I go?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindBeing the Person or Thing

Network

If the dream includes networking it suggests your connection with other people and how you are interacting, how well or badly the relationship is going. It can illustrate the subtle connections and communications that take place between you and others. For some people it will probably link with business activities and hopes to increase the cope of heir influence or sales.  

We each have a network of family, friends, and acquaintances, including ancestors, who make up our inner self, and we may explore this in our dreams.

It can often indicate our mind/brain, which is a flashing loom of connections, a constantly moving wonderful network of links between billions of cells. This flashing creative network that constitutes the miraculous background to our responses, our feelings, our thoughts and spontaneous fantasies and dreams, is constantly forming patterns from the multitude of experiences we have. It forever tries to match these patterns against what is already known or learned. Our mental and emotional associations with the images dreams use is largely an unconscious network where images are simply a point on a map, that if carefully studied, has links with uncountable places on the map.

 Example: Dreamt I was watching two people walk away from me. They were either naked or stripped to the waist. One was male the other female. I noticed there were lines on their back. I wasn’t sure if the lines were drawn or real. Whatever, they were like seeing the whole network of veins near the surface of their back. If they were not drawn, then something had made the veins very visible. I wondered if the people had an illness.

Example: The answer came in a wholly unexpected form. Something began to emerge from the distant darkness in my dream. It looked like some kind of living molecular model or mathematical equation — an extremely complex, three-dimensional network of fine lines and symbols glowing in neon orange. It continued to unfold itself, multiplying, constantly changing, filling up the Universe with increasingly complex structures and interrelationships until it literally went beyond me.

I awoke with wonder, excitement and delight, and a renewed and deep respect for the awe and splendour of the Universe. It was as if I had glimpsed the invisible relationships connecting all things. Quoted from Adventures with the NovaDreamer by Keelin

Remember that without food – the bodies of other living things – you could not exist. You need the air and the sun. The clothes you wear and the house you live in were made by other people. So your life is a part of a huge network of connections with other people and with life.

The internet is a huge network connecting millions or people and pieces of information, so in a dream can indicate contact with your Collective Unconscious, a vast unity of consciousness, where you can find answers to your pressing questions, and also introductions to the wonder of your inner world. Inner World

Other networks we are all involved with and maybe entangled with is that of government and religion. These networks can aid or destroy people. In almost any living thing, life and growth means adding cell to cell to attain a certain shape or size. Even in crystal there is a form of growth and extension. This is fundamental to all life forms, the attainment of structure or integration.

 

These forces have acted upon human beings and can be seen as factors in the growth of what I have called super-organisms. This has already been said in another way. But if one carries this concept forward and applies it to what is happening in or to human society today it helps to form an interesting picture. In the past nations constituted one of the greatest of these super organisms or networks. However, nationality and religion had parallel influence in the activity of a social network.

I saw an influence in action to press human society into ever greater super-networks. These either evolve into functioning new forms, or fail and breakdown. The push toward a new level of complexity and size is integrating technology. It is digesting it or interiorising it as an integral part of its new organisation and size. The jump to a vastly greater size is enabled by the technology it incorporates. So if we take human beings as the cells in the body of this huge super-network, they constitute the living soft tissue, but the nervous system are being formed of the computer driven information and control highways emerging at the moment. And if we are not blind, we will recognise that the equipment we have created is part of our greater body now. Still more though, we must recognise that the huge organism we are incorporated into is more than we are ourselves, just as the body is greater than the cell, If we can see this then we may also recognise that as a human being we may be driven by urges arising in us that are not from out of our own isolated mind – because our mind is not isolated. Overall our direction arises in large measure from the drives pushing the super organism, and the direction of society is created by the direction of the super-network. See Programmed

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What network does my dream connect me with?

What does my dream indicate about a network?

Did the dream indicate any feeling or insights?

What do I understand from the dream?

See Autonomous ComplexSecrets of Power DreamingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Neurosis Neurotic

A separation between one’s basic life urges and one’s conscious personality leads to tension and neurosis. There are many different neuroses: obsessive–compulsive disorder, obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, impulse control disorder, anxiety disorder, hysteria, and a great variety of phobias.

Neurosis may be defined simply as a “poor ability to adapt to one’s environment, an inability to change one’s life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality.”

According to C. George Boeree, professor emeritus at Shippensburg University, the symptoms of neurosis may involve:

… anxiety, sadness or depression, anger, irritability, mental confusion, low sense of self-worth, etc., behavioural symptoms such as phobic avoidance, vigilance, impulsive and compulsive acts, lethargy, etc., cognitive problems such as unpleasant or disturbing thoughts, repetition of thoughts and obsession, habitual fantasizing, negativity and cynicism, etc. Interpersonally, neurosis involves dependency, aggressiveness, perfectionism, schizoid isolation, socio-culturally inappropriate behaviours, etc.

Carl Jung found his approach particularly effective for patients who are well adjusted by social standards but are troubled by existential questions.

It mist be realised that many people suffering from anxiety – or other neurotic symptoms – may live them all their lives, but there are two main routes to deal with them, the medical route which means taking some form of medication – or the self help way, which means the person making efforts to change in some way. As Jung says they are using, “… wrong answers to the questions of life.”

To simplify this, we could say that we suffer from not understanding what the process of Life fundamentally needs, or that we are not relating to the processes of life within us, and maybe need to learn how to relate to it better. See Opening to Life’s Processes

Example: Neurosis may be defined simply as a “poor ability to adapt to one’s environment, an inability to change one’s life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality.”

There is no neurosis/block that can stop Life from Growth and from Harvesting what has grown…………………….for Life is far too creative for that……………

New

Whatever is new in ones life – a relationship, opportunity, or a scheme. If contrasted with old, an attempt to decide, contrasting what we already know from the past/old, and what is arising.

Each day is a new experience, although we may approach it with old feelings and attitudes. The old habits can become new habits with a bit of work. Each new experience adds to who we are and implies growth. But it is ours to choose what direction that growth goes. See Habits

Here is an example of growth and change.

 Example: Sitting in a window box facing outwards, with Neal H and my son on my left. I felt very scared of falling and asked my son and Neal to climb back into the building. I felt too scared to move until they had shifted.

When I explored the dream I saw it related to my recent situation. Although I am now working for two magazines, the frequency of payment is much less than before. So we are running out of money – my wife being out of work. I have felt very insecure and anxious during the last few days (the fear of falling). I thought of going back to the my previous employment to work, that I see as trying to get back to the safety of the building behind (I had worked in the ‘building’ trade) me – in the past. The two boys are my younger self that is more vulnerable, the parts of me I am trying to grow.

When I imagined doing that it was purely out of fear. In staying in the box though, I feel I am growing and opening to something positive entering my life. So I feel the dream shows that my unconscious assessment of my situation is that if I trust the flow of events I will enter a new stage of growth and experience. I am going to try that. Years later I can see it worked. Dan

The mind in our dreams also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively, to form new insights from old experience.

The new can include many things like a new love affair, a new car, anew job or a new direction. The new can be a wonderful thing or a dead end. Dreams can often see what would be good or bad. They can do this because they have the sum total of who we are and what our potential is. See Incubating Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

What in my dream is the new thing?

Was it welcome or something I am avoiding?

Am I hoping for news of some sort?

See Using Your IntuitionGeniusESP in DreamsEdgar Cayce

News Newspaper

Something that is news to you; or you have just become, or need to be, aware of; something conscious rather than unconscious; something publicly known about yourself. Publically making secret information available. People’s secrets exposed to the world.

Wanting to get your experience or thoughts into the newspaper or on TV suggests something important has impressed you.

In a dream we may be seeing newspapers as the propaganda put out to influence us for political, financial or religious reasons. They often rely on sampling techniques that reveal the trend of “opinion” or “wants” that is, of collective attitudes. On the other, they express the prejudices, projections, and unconscious complexes (mainly the power complex) of those who manipulate public opinion. It also may represent current public opinion, prejudice, race-consciousness ideas and attitudes, as well as worldly thinking.

Newspaper can be used to wrap things in, to line draws or to cover things, so suggests something like yesterdays newspaper that is no longer useful or relevant.

 Example: I had this dream at a time when there was a lot of talk and anxiety in newspapers and on television about nuclear war. In the dream a nuclear attack had been announced. I immediately thought of my children who are away in boarding school. I go out into the street to see if I can get to them, but realise it is hopeless. In the street everybody is walking about as if it were a holiday Sunday. I realised there was no time to get to my children so decided to join the people on the street. John C.

John had this dream at a time when there was a lot of media coverage about nuclear attack. It is therefore most likely dealing with his real fears about how he would deal with such an attack if it happened.

Working for a newspaper: Suggests you will be capable of a wide audience for your thoughts or work. See A Dream is Like a Seed

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel that something in my life has become commonly known?

Do I feel a need to ‘spread the news’ about a situation?

Am I receiving new information or becoming aware of something I need to know?

See Archetype of the ParadigmSumming UpOBE ExperienceTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Nickname

Probably associates with feelings you have, or memories, connected with the person or people who gave you the nickname. Also whatever you feel about the name. See: Name.

Night

There can be many different associations with night in your dream. So try to define what you are feeling. Some possibilities are – not understanding clearly what is going on around you; anxiety about being in the dark; feelings of freedom because you re no longer on view in the light; relaxation and mellow feelings; intimacy and freedom to express. See: Light; Black.

Nightclub Club

A place to meet and express or show your body or sexual attributes. A way of showing your talents as in the example. See: bar room.

 Example: People were walking out. I got the mike and said, “Wait. You’re gonna miss something neat if you leave.” I started belting out “I am woman.” I pushed the curtain back so I could play to the whole club (arena-like stage). I saw on the left, a red plush banquet set up. No one was there. Everyone started dancing and enjoying themselves. Blacks, whites, men, and women, all together. I was the pivotal peace maker. Barb

Example: In the garden an old and slovenly woman was on a couch. She seemed to be in charge of the place – like a Madame of a brothel or disreputable club. She asked me what I wanted. I told I was looking for my children.

Social club: It suggests your ability or lack of it to be sociable.

 Example: Dreamt I had been enjoying myself with some work mates at a social club, with my husband.

Club: Clubs can be golf clubs or things to protect of harm others with, so the meaning depends on the dream. See games.

 Example: ‘Three men with clubs were chasing me but never actually caught me as I woke in terror. I was determined to tell myself it was only a dream and the next night as they were chasing me I remembered it was only a dream and lost all fear – stopped running – turned to face them and said ‘This is only a dream, you can’t hurt me.’ As they came closer they faded into nothing and I never saw them again.’ Account of dreams when 6 years old. Mr C.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever been to a club, and what are my memories of it?

What did I do or feel about my dream of the club?

What was happening with the club?

See Conditioned ReflexesBeing the Person or ThingAutonomous Complex

Nightgown

Sometimes similar to negligee but less sexual in its associations. See Associations Working With; pyjamas

It is often shown in dreams as being not dressed for the occasion.

Example: She says she needs some help from me because she has some health problem. I am wearing only a nightgown and am concerned about how I will walk home.

Example: I get up and light a candle on the dresser across the room. He sits on my bed. I walk back and sit on the bed. I try to get comfortable. I’m wearing a red shorty nightgown. I am aware of his eyes. I know he’d like to get back together again. Every position I get into looks inviting or sexy. He changes his position too. We get closer and closer. A T.V. is on. We both move to watch the T.V. Now we are very close. His shirt is off. He has beautiful golden soft skin. I want to caress it.

It can sometimes it show how vulnerable or hurt you are.

Example: My father / mother said, “don’t you know what’s wrong with her?” as if I should. As this was said I looked over Marie’s shoulder. She was wearing a white nightgown. I could see she was wearing a sanitary pad. It was wet with blood. This was not a normal period – something was wrong. I was naked and exposed – the blood dripping from her on to me.

In some dreams it is connected with meeting a dead person who come to you in a dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the nightgown in the dream?

What feelings do I experience or are suggested?

Are there sexual feelings involed?

Is the person dead?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Nightmare

In addition to the bad dreams provoked by primal feelings, basic drives and past traumas, it is known that everyday threats and dangers can also trigger the nightmare experience. It may be that when we suffer periods of low-self-esteem, with the increased vulnerability to anxiety and fear this brings, that we are more susceptible to this type of nightmare. This common type of anxiety dream, which can be triggered by the worry of not coping well with life generally, or specific concerns such as failure in a relationship, dismissal from a valued job or redundancy, or the loss of a child. Occasionally nightmares can relate to a low sense of self-esteem generally, with the dreamer feeling they do not measure up to other people, perhaps in terms of looks or achievement. While a period of feeling low will often pass for most people, for those afflicted with depression or an anxiety disorder, these anxiety dreams may be more frequent and become a problem.

A common theme is a mother who dreams her child is dead, murdered, drowned, strangled or otherwise lost to her. See child is dead

As well as reflecting our mental concerns, nightmares can be a sign that we are suffering from serious physical illness. Decoding the dream symbols in your nightmare may indicate the nature of your illness. However, it is worth bearing in mind that general poor mental health may result in a bad night’s sleep or a disturbed sleep pattern.

True Nightmares –

Grace, 40, an accountant says:

 Example: I have this dream frequently. It is about my two young sons. In the dream I am with them, standing near the edge of a balcony or at the edge of a bridge. As we stand together, one of my boys falls over the edge to his death. This usually happens because I have let go of his hand for a moment.

This nightmare is about change and moving on; although-apparently negative, the dream is telling Grace that she should to let go of both her sons as they become independent, a time she will face as early as nursery school. Grace’s nightmare is making her feel the shock of this and helping her move forward emotionally.

Carol, 60, retired says:

 Example: Years ago I lost my first husband at twenty nine. I had the same dream continually of being in a phone box trying to contact him not understanding why he had left me. He died of cancer. Later I remarried and this husband died of a heart attack. Once again the same dream came back so much.

While it may be painful, this dream tackles two important issues. Carol is trying to come to terms not only with the deaths and the feelings both husbands left her with. But she is also struggling to understand why this has happened, particularly twice. Here, the self-regulatory process in dreams attempts to resolve anything that is blocking a reasonably balanced response to life. It tries to find answers to conflicts, no matter how old, and to help us continue psychological growth. However, you should bring conscious attention to the issues raised: in the case of Carol, it is likely that the nightmare repeated because there were feelings about her husband she had not recognized. See dreaming about dead husband or ex

Symbols of nightmare and conflict

Depending upon the nature of your dreams, many dream symbols will have both positive and negative meanings for you. However, the symbols below will often represent an anxiety or conflict:

The Demon or phantom – The Monster – The Black Hole – The Haunted House – The withered or lightning struck tree – A Dark Shadowy figure or animal. See the feature on Nightmares.

What people meet who have  managed to break through their terrifying images and the apparently real images and events of the dream,  is they meet the cause and enter into direct personal insight. In other words the images of the nightmare give way to direct memories of past events that lay the foundation of feelings out of which the nightmare arose. For instance Robert Van de Castle writes that when he has helped people explore nightmares about a ghost, it has always led back to the childhood memory of a parent coming to the bedroom and lifting them or moving them to prevent bed wetting. See Being the Person or Thing; Our Dreaming Mind by Robert Van de Castle.

Such direct experiences also help us understand what happens when we fail to face the images of a nightmare, or in fact any other troubling fears and anxieties. We know from personal experience that they remain to haunt us. They continue to influence the way we deal with life, with opportunity, with relationships. It is this influence in the present arising out of the past that Eastern peoples call karma

Many dreams lead us to feel an intensity of emotion we may seldom if ever feel in waking life. If the emotions felt are frightening or disgusting we call the dream a nightmare.

Scientists find this definition too vague and so use two categories to define different types of anxiety dream. The first definition is ‘REM anxiety dreams’, and the second is ‘night terrors’. The REM anxiety dream is one that occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) activity, in other words during a normal dreaming period. These are reported to occur most frequently during the last part of the sleep cycle – that is, just prior to waking. One usually remembers the imagery and feelings of these dreams clearly. Night terrors occur during the first two hours of sleep, mostly in stage four sleep – See: science sleep and dreams – and the dreamer has either no recall of imagery at all, or it is a single impression such as a physical sensation of heaviness or difficulty in breathing. After waking from such a dream experience, the person feels disoriented for some time afterwards. See: night terrors; the first example in abreaction is an example of a nightmare.

One of the common features of a nightmare is that we are desperately trying to get away from a situation; feel stuck in a terrible condition; or meet fear or disgust in almost overwhelming degree, so that on waking we feel enormous relief it was just a dream. Because of the intensity of a nightmare we will remember it long after other dreams; remember even if we seldom ever recall other dreams. We may even worry about what it means for a long period of time, perhaps even years. Many people, on waking find the feelings, or sometimes even the imagery, continuing for some time. So for instance they may feel so much fear they have to switch all the lights on in the house.

As so many dreams have been investigated in depth – using such varied approaches as hypnosis, exploration of associations and emotional content, and LSD psychotherapy, in which the person can explore usually unconscious memories, imagery and feelings – we can be certain we know what nightmares are. They arise from many causes.

Sometimes this form of nightmare shows itself as a terror of being discovered as the perpetrator of some awful crime such as a murder. See murder

 Example of 1: I am a detective following clues regarding some sort of crime. They lead me in a large cellar, and within the cellar I come across the entrances of two tunnels. These are nearly the size of underground train tunnels, and are side by side leading away into pitch blackness. I decide to explore the tunnels and start to walk into one. I was overwhelmed by terror, as if the very darkness of the tunnel was a living force of fear that entered and consumed me. I screamed and screamed, writhing in uncontrollable fit like contractions. Nevertheless a part of me was observing what was happening and was amazed, realising I had found something of great importance. Andrew P.

Because Andrew explored this dream with me, I know the darkness was depicting fear he experienced while a 9 year old in hospital. He was given a rectal anaesthetic because he was about to have a nose operation. He fought and begged for the nurses to stop, but to no avail. This led to a very real feeling that humans were terrifyingly dangerous animals who would not respond even if you were on your knees begging. So trauma was the fear in the darkness.

 Example for 2: ‘A THING is marauding around the rather bleak, dark house I am in with a small boy. To avoid it I lock myself in a room with the boy. The THING finds the room and tries to break the door down. I frantically try to hold it closed with my hands and one foot pressed against it, my back against a wall for leverage. It was a terrible struggle and I woke myself by screaming.’ Terry F.

When Terry allowed the sense of fear to arise in him while awake, he felt as he did when a child – the boy in the dream – during the bombing of the second world war. His sense of insecurity dating from that time had emerged when he left a secure job, and had arisen in the images of the nightmare. Understanding his fears he was able to avoid their usual paralysing influence.

For example of 4 see third example in Doors under house and buildings.

 Example of 5: I was alone in a house and asleep in bed. Something materialised or landed on the foot of the bed. It woke me a little and I felt afraid. I had the feeling it was some sort of entity materialising and coming for me in some way. It moved up the bed a little. I felt paralysed, partly by fear but also as if the ‘thing’ was influencing me. This made me more afraid of it. Then it moved up higher, not on my body but on the bed. I was now very afraid and struggling against the paralysing influence. I managed to shout at it – I will destroy you. I will destroy you. As I shouted I pushed at it with my hand. This felt to me as if I were going to will its destruction and use my hand to smash it. I still felt a little uncertain of the outcome but I was very determined to fight it. At this point I woke up or was awakened by my wife. She asked me what I had been dreaming. Apparently I had been pushing her and shouting that I would destroy it. David P.

David explored his dream in depth and describes his insights as follows –

I started by considering the recent nightmare of the ‘thing’ at the foot of my bed. Gradually I began to feel tense throughout my body, with difficulty in breathing. The ‘thing’ seemed at first to be a woman’s vagina. There was a little feeling in this but not much. Then it slowly grew in intensity and I realised the ‘thing’ was death. Recently it is obvious from the mirror that my body is going through another period of rapid ageing. The dream was a dramatic representation of my feelings about this. Death was gradually creeping up on me, gradually overwhelming me and I was fighting it. As the session deepened I saw that in my feelings I felt that death had put its finger on me. The touch of death was like a disease though. Once touched the disease was incurable and gradually took over ones body. I could hardly breathe as I experienced this, and I understood the sort of emotions that might lie beneath asthma attacks. This struggle with death went on for some time. It was not terrible but was felt strongly. I also recognised that my wife Deb, has similar feelings about her ageing, and is communicating to me that her body is dying and unclean, especially her genitals, and this is off-putting. I see that when I shout ‘I will destroy you!’ in a way it is my fear of being destroyed that is behind the emotion.

I began to wonder what to do about the situation. The feeling was that death was claiming me. So I wanted to face the truth about death, whatever it was. I wanted to walk right up to it and look it in the face and know whether death meant a final end. If it did I would rather know. As I approached death like this by imaging walking toward the THING, my feelings went through an amazing transformation. All the tension left me and I could breath easily agaun. I felt good, positive and with a sense of hope about life and death. This was so surprising and sudden I wondered what had produced it. I needed to be aware of how this change had occurred. So I retraced my steps to look at death and try to understand why it had lost its power of fear.

At first I saw that my tension and sense of death being or giving a disease was due to a view I had of it. When we look at the world only through our senses, death is obviously a terminal sickness that claims everyone. Someone said on TV the other day – Life is a sexually transmitted disease that produces a 100% mortality. Seen in this way death is the rotting corpse, the skeleton. The path to it is disease or breakdown. But in looking it in the face I saw another view of it. I saw the dead body, the corpse, the skeleton, as a form left behind by the process of life. When I looked at myself to see what ‘David’ is – I cannot separate myself from the process of life. That process leaves behind shells, bodies, tree trunks, but it goes on creating other forms.

 Example of 6: ‘I dream night after night that a cat is gnawing at my throat’ Male from Landscapes of the Night, Coronet Books.

The dreamer had developing cancer of the throat. These physical illness dreams are not as common as the other classes of nightmare.

 Example of 7: My husband, a pilot in the RAF, had recently lost a friend in an air crash. He woke one morning very troubled – he is usually a very positive person. He told me he had dreamt his friend was flying a black jet, and wanted my husband to fly with him. Although a simple dream my husband could not shake off the dark feelings. Shortly afterwards his own jet went down and he was killed in the crash. Anon.

Understanding the causes of nightmares enable us to deal with them. The things we run from in the nightmare need to be met while we are awake. We can do this by sitting and imagining ourselves back in the dream and facing or meeting what we were frightened of. Terry imagined himself opening the door he was fighting to keep closed. In doing this and remaining quiet he could feel the childhood feelings arising. Once he recognised them for what they were, the terror went out of them. The reason this change can occur is that when the fearful emotions originated, it was at an age, or within a circumstance, during which there were not the concepts, security or viewpoint to meet and deal with the fears. If they cannot be met at the time, they are encapsulated in a way to push them out of consciousness, and surrounded with layers of anxiety or psychosomatic symptoms. As an adult we may have matured to the point where we can now meet these powerful emotions in a transformative way. The new confidence and concepts brought to the old experience are the transformative agents. Of course sufficient ego strength must be developed first in order to do this. We may have learned to meet our emotions and redirect them in a satisfying way. Therefore many people find strengthening dreams occurring first in their exploration of dream content. It is often only later they start meeting nightmares.

A young woman told me she had experienced a recurring nightmare of a piece of cloth touching her face. She would scream and scream and wake her family. One night her brother sat with her and made her meet those feelings depicted by the cloth. When she did so she realised it was her grandmother’s funeral shroud. She cried about the loss of her grandmother, felt her feelings about death, and was never troubled again by the nightmare. The techniques given in processing dreams and Being the Person or Thing will help in meeting such feelings.

What can be learned from these people’s experience, and that arising from clinical work dealing with people such as the Vietnam veterans mentioned, is that even the simple act of imagining ourselves back in the nightmare and facing the frightening thing, will begin the process of changing our relationship with our internal fears. It may be helpful to think of this as walking around a film set examining the parts of the drama, and watching what one experiences, or what memories arise. In this way the monster on the screen is seen to be made of fabricated material and invested with our own emotions. Understanding – the new concept of it – changes our relationship with it. See Eight Step Method to Manage Intense Emotion

Some people manage this transformative confrontation in the dream itself. Charlie, a man in his thirties who suffered a lot of anxiety, told me a dream in which he had been trapped in the basement of his home by a group of men belonging to a Mafia type organisation. They strapped him to a chair and were about to drill his teeth with a large power drill such as one drills metal with. Charlie managed to break free and grabbed the gun of one of the men. He then threw it down much to the astonishment of the men in the dream. When they asked him why he said – still in the dream – ‘All your power is imaginary. This organisation you belong to is all in your mind. I don’t need to be afraid of you.’ The threat then completely vanished and Charlie felt enormous pleasure.

What happened was that Charlie faced his fears and was realising how he is their creator. His own fearful imagination fills the world with threats that are not there. Not that the world is harmless, but one does not need to imagine fears. Thus Charlie related to his own emotions quite differently. Whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. See Summing Up

Apart from this in-depth meeting of ones feelings, a very powerful healing factor is to be able to talk over the nightmare and the feelings it engenders with someone else. The person who listens can be a trained counsellor, but does not have to be. The main thing is they need to be able to listen without judgement, and with intelligent but not intrusive questioning. See: peer group work. Many have been helped to move on from seriously disturbing nightmares by discussing them with other sufferers in a group specially formed for this function.

For nightmares such as those dealing with illness or prediction of a future fateful event, a slightly different approach is needed. At first encounter the dreamer may well feel there is little that can be done about these dreams. But experience collected from many people suggests this is not so. Taking the dreams about physical illness, these are often very direct. Perhaps the dreamer looks at an area of their body and sees its sickness; an animal may be gnawing some part of themselves, as in the example; there may be repeated dreams of extreme heat, volcanoes or fire.

Bernard Seigal the American surgeon, always asked his patients what they dreamt. The reason being dreams often diagnosed illness long before he could hope to find it with x-rays or scans. Such dreams were not therefore always to be thought of as messengers of doom, merely as messengers giving information about what is happening in the body and its link with the mind. In writing about his work, Seigal explains many ways people can positively change their physical condition by honouring their own healing potential. Of course work with a sympathetic doctor. Have your condition checked. But do not fail to meet the factors in your dreams. Death is of course eventually inevitable, but as David shows in the example above, we need not meet it in terror.

Regarding the dreams of apparent prophetic doom, even these need to be seen as having the possibility of wonderful messengers warning us, rather than of a certified and final event. A fire alarm does not mean the building has burnt down, it means look out and hurry, otherwise the building might burn down. We have a built in warning system that tells us of all manner of crisis that might arise if we continue in the direction we are taking. This is everyday common sense and all of us meet it in day to day living. For instance if we walk to a busy road we look to see if the lights are right for us to cross, otherwise we might get killed. Dreams are just such warnings. If we deny them a place in our life, they may only be able to break through our resistance to knowing the consequences of our actions at a very late stage.

Acute analysis of the human situation does not portray human life as a pre-destined journey through unalterable events. Movement and stability jostle and change positions constantly. Of course our body and disposition are formed by factors already in place at out birth, such as a genetic heritage and the culture and circumstances we are born into. But mixed with this are the fear or courage we live by, the dullness or creativity we dare to exhibit. We can therefore, by shifting the way we are relating to the world around us and the people and creatures in it, shift what is emerging from the whole mass of interactions that becomes our future.

All dreams are attempts on the part of our being to move toward wholeness and equilibrium. At times this may necessitate disturbance, just as vomiting does when the body discharges poisonous food. Nevertheless, difficult dreams are a way of bringing attention to areas of our experience we may be neglecting to look at, or even powerfully refusing to see. The shock of the dream is therefore more to do with the strength of our repression of the insight it brings. So prophetic dreams give us warning of events enabling us to either avoid what is portrayed, or be ready for it. Unfortunately many people simply bow their heads or react in a fearful way rather than take such dreams as usable information. See Life’s Little Secrets

In older traditions of psychology such as occultism, yoga and Buddhism, nightmares are viewed as the meeting with ones innate tendencies or karma. In occultism a name is given to this meeting. It is called The Guardian of the Threshold. See: occultism and dreams; precognition dreams; nightmares; nightmares abstract; night terrors.

Nine

The fact that all numbers rise in series of nines and then begin again, and that babies are born in the ninth month, lends itself to nine symbolising the completion of a process, or stage of growth. There are also, in some mythologies and religions, nine orders of angels or forces. At the ninth hour, the veil is rent between spirit and matter. The astrological sign is Sagittarius, the sage or counsellor. It rules the thighs, and the ninth house rules travel and dreams.

999 or 912 calls: A desperate attempt to be heard, or a cry for help in a difficult situation or feeling state.

Pregnancy; childbirth; the end of a cycle and the start of something new; cycles. Represents creation and life’s rhythm as it develops. Because it is the final simple number it represent absolute things and it is the symbol of the totality of the human being.

There are nine gifts of the spirit mentioned by saint Paul: wisdom, knowledge, faith, gift of healing, to operate miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, to speak in different kinds of tongues and the gift to interpret them.

Idioms: cat has nine lives; nine days wonder; nine times out of ten; nine to five; cloud nine; nine points of the law.

See: Numbers.

Nipple

Usually connects with infant feelings of longing or hunger, mixed with sexual feelings of pleasure. See: Breast.

No

Unless we can say ‘no’ effectively, our ‘yes’s’ in life may be acquiescence rather than agreement. Therefore, saying no in our dreams is an important expression of our needs and ability to make decisions in face of disagreement. It is important to understand what it is you are saying no to, however. See yes.

Noon

Active waking life. Height of waking consciousness, ego, rationalism. Mid-life.

Noose

Fear of getting ‘hung up’ on something or somebody; fear of a trap – or desire to trap. Sometimes a threat of death or meeting the feeling of dying.

If noose around neck: feelings about death; unconscious – repressed – emotions that are causing a full expression of oneself to be held back by tensions in the neck, feelings of being strangled.

 Example: A man barged into a room and tried to put a noose around another man’s neck. The idea was to slap the horse with the rope tied to it, and drag the man after it.

Example: Also at some point it seemed that my son had either hung himself, or he had been violent with the other children and while he slept they put a noose around his neck and suddenly pulled him upwards. But I was able to replay this part of the dream while semi awake and change it to a situation where my son was not actually killed.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was the noose a threat of was someone hung?

What were my feelings in the dream?

Do I feel, or fear being caught or trapped by something?

Is this a fear of death in general?

Do I desire to catch or trap something?

See Summing Up Dealing with FearBeing the Person or ThingConditioned Reflexes

North

The head, as opposed to South, the genitals. There is often a divide between the north and south of a country in the way of life.

The four major directions such as North, East, South and West also have unconscious significance, but this must depend upon whether you grew up in the northern or southern hemisphere. What is said is for the northern hemisphere, reverse it for the southern hemisphere. There are polarities in your nature. Two obvious ones are your physical body, that gives the appearance of solidity and is obvious to others, and your thoughts, that are not visible or apparent to others.

The swing between waking and sleeping can be seen as the extremes within the possibilities of our experience. Sleeping and waking are the polarities, the North and South Poles of what we can confront. In quite a real sense we can say there is nothing beyond what is included in those polarities.

 As we get older our hair turns white, as we come to our time of winter. White (and purple) also symbolize spirituality.  With experience and age we gain wisdom. Now we have time to rest and contemplate the lessons. North is purity and wisdom, a great place of healing.  This is the time after midnight, a dream time. The time to be grounded within yourself and deep within, like a bear in a cave.

 North is the place of winter – unless we live in the southern hemisphere. This reminds us to stop and listen. That we must have prepared for the long time of winter. Having been in action the other seasons we now rest and contemplate to understand the wisdom we have been given or gathered.

In the Northern hemisphere: darkness; unconsciousness; coldness, suggesting a situation that leads us to seek the light and warmth; death; frozen emotions.

In ancient China the tortoise represented the cold dark of North and death.

In the Southern hemisphere: Light; warmth; life and growth. See: directions.

 Example: In the dream I was becoming a merchant seaman. First of all I was looking at the vessel. It had been adapted for very rough weather. We were going to the North Pole, and the waves would be enormous. As I looked however it seemed as if the ship was sound enough to make the journey. It was wooden. I felt this, going to sea, was the new thing in my life I had been looking for and expecting. At first this was all taking place at Ilfracombe harbour. But now in the dream it was in London. The ship was much bigger and more sea worthy. A.T.

The dreamer explored his dream and says of it: It suggests I am now beginning an inner experience that I will have a hard time coping with. The waves of experience may sink me – but the vessel has been adapted. The years of working on myself have helped me to become strong enough to do what is needed to be done. The port means leaving my present position in life, and the North Pole is coming to my own centre – the highest personal centre.

Idioms: due north; great white north.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever lived in the north of a country?

What you associated with the north?

Did I have any feelings in the dream – if so what?

See Working with associationsInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams Jesse Watkins Enlightenment

North Star

Guiding star, guardian angel. That which guides you through life’s journey. Intuition.

Nose

Through our nose we sense things that are completely invisible, but nevertheless tell us a lot about what we are sensing. It therefore often appears in dreams to depict our intuition, our sense of whether a situation or a relationship is wholesome or rotten – as with ‘smell a rat’. Such sensing of situations might very well give us a direction to go in, so sometimes the nose is about making a decision or going in a direction.

The nose can also indicate curiosity, or even ‘nosiness’ – poking our nose into other people’s business.

Example: I dreamt my mother was strangling me with her nose. Her nose was pressed right into my neck stopping me breathing. Celine.

Celine’s dream shows nose being used to represent being nosy. Celine was fifteen at the time of the dream. She agreed that her mother was being over curious about what she was doing.

Also the nose is very sensitive and if hit can be painful, so in some dreams it shows us feeling that someone has ‘put our nose out of joint’. In other words we have come into some sort of verbal or emotional conflict with someone.

It is known that our nose is the best test for food that is bad or going off.

In some dreams the nose might depict feelings about the penis.

Broken nose: Signs of having been through struggles and conflicts in life. Maybe it indicates how someone has hit you emotionally.

Malformed nose: might relate to the idiom, ‘nose out of joint’; sense of not appearing good to others.

Idioms: As plain as the nose on your face; cut off your nose to spite your face; following my nose; have a nose for; hold your nose; keep your nose clean; nose out of joint; look down your nose; no skin off my nose; nose job; nose to the grindstone; pay through the nose; powder my nose; rub nose in it; turn up your nose; up one’s nose.

Useful questions:

Am I sensing something that helps me make a decision or choose a direction?

Has my nose been ‘put out’ by someone or something?

Am I seeing my nose as something to be ashamed of?

Is there something rotten I am sensing – if so what does that refer to in life.

Because the nose often indicates the intuition It might be useful to read Using Your Intuition and Being the Person or Thing

Notice

Literally means to notice, to be conscious of.

Nucleus

The nucleus is perhaps the most important structure inside animal and plant cells. It is the main control center for the cell and acts rather like the cell’s brain. Only eukaryotic cells have a nucleus. In fact, the definition of a eukaryotic cell is that it contains a nucleus while a prokaryotic cell is defined as not having a nucleus.  See: Centre.

Another view of our inner nucleus is – The planets of our solar system represent the dimensions of consciousness of the system of universal mind – its consciousness as a whole.  There are nine dimensions to the consciousness of the solar system.  The earth, the third planet from the sun, is the third dimension.  Our sun is as an atom in the universe of stars.  The planets are as electrons with their own dimension of energy around the nucleus of the sun.

The inner nucleus or centre is often called -‘The Self’. This has been described well in the book Siddartha by Herman Hesse:

“Slowly the thinker went on his way and asked himself: What is that you wanted to learn from teachings and teachers, and although they taught you much, what was it they could not teach you? And he thought: It was the Self, the character and nature of which I wished to learn. I wanted to rid myself of the Self, to conquer it, but I could not conquer it, I could only deceive it, could only fly from it, could only hide from it. Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self; this riddle, that I live, that I am one, and am separated and different from everybody else, that I am Siddartha; and about nothing in the world do I know less than about myself, about Siddartha.

“The thinker, slowly going on his way, suddenly stood still, gripped by this thought, and another thought immediately arose from this one – it was: The reason why I don’t know anything about myself, the reason why Siddartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing – I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself. I was seeking Brahman, Atman, I wished to destroy myself, to get away from myself, in order to find in the unknown innermost, the nucleus of all things, Atman, Life, the Divine, the Absolute. But by doing so I lost myself on the way!”

Or we make the Spiritual Self an excuse to run away from the pains and pleasures of who we are as an individual. In this way we forget Life gave rise to us, and to run from one is to run from the other. Although it may not at first appear to be so, as we travel the path of self-discovery, we find God was lost to us because we had been unknowingly turning away from ourselves.

“Or as this dream illustrates – Such a dream might  reveal truths. “I was walking across open moorland, followed by a crowd of people. I was their leader, the only thing was, I had no idea in which direction salvation lay. Now saw a rabbit and it turned into a huge and powerful hare. Then the hare spoke to me, saying, “Where are you going?”

I told him we were looking for salvation. He listened and then quietly said, “Go back, and carry on with your accustomed tasks. Do not wildly seek the Kingdom of Heaven, for you already have what you seek within you. Your seeking only hides it. For what you seek is yourself. You will find it by living your life each day.” Then we all turned around and went back to our village, and carried on our usual tasks, knowing that in time, we would realise our heaven – find Self through growing.’

 

Nude

Dropping the facade, attitudes or feelings we may mask our real emotions with in everyday life – for instance a child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure; expressing things that are not usually accepted socially. Also a desire to be seen for what one is or expression of natural feelings or desire to be intimate. Revealing ones true nature.

Being nude in ones dreams expresses concern about being seen by others as having imperfections, or feeling ones imperfections exposed to view.

Nudity also may represent a change of identity, before starting the work of rebuilding. It can happen after the death of the old self. After separation or divorce, because of feelings of vulnerability and loss nudeness is dreams may appear.

In most dreams this is an expression of difficulty in revealing your real feelings – who you are. More particularly, it is a sense of how you assume others see you when you reveal what your real feelings are. This is particularly true of affection, love and sexuality. The nudity might be pleasurable in the dream though, as when you are sunbathing without clothes on. In this case it is an experience of dropping all the social attitudes, poses and disguises we sometimes need to wear to survive in relationship with other people.

If you are alone in the dream your nudity is more likely to be pleasurable, and a way of allowing yourself to know who you are beneath the social roles and rules. Occasionally the nudity with a doctor becomes a desire to be looked at intimately and touched – but of course it can also be a form of being treated like an object while feeling vulnerable.

Many nude dreams involve the urgent desire to cover ones nakedness. This is definitely dealing with feelings of shyness about your wonderful natural self. Try imagining yourself back in the dream and feeling at ease.

Anxiety about being nude: Fear that others know what you really feel and desire; revealing desires and acts that are considered socially unacceptable and therefore one feels guilty or shocked about being seen doing or feeling – such as being caught making love with the husband’s/wife’s best friend; feeling vulnerable and having ones weaknesses exposed; guilt about being a human animal with sexual characteristics and urges. See: clothes.

Example: I was with my wife who was sunbathing nude sitting in a deck chair. She wanted me to have sex with her but I declined. Instead I stuck my thumb in her vagina, but she said this didn’t satisfy her.

He was in fact being nude in front of the dream group he was exploring the dream with. He began to feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, and suddenly knew what the dream expressed. In a stumbling way, he told what he felt to the group, saying, “As I am telling this to you, I know what it says, and I feel embarrassed. It is saying that I am not really a man, and don’t know how to have a proper sexual relationship. This because, sex for me is a sort of thumb suck, a comforter, rather than a shared meeting and merging.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you alone?

Is this with a doctor?

Are you trying to hide your nakedness?

What did you feel in the dream?

See Being the Person or ThingThe Driving SeatSumming Up

Numbers

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance, we may have had three children, so the number three in a dream about children could be connected with our feelings or fears about them – but three has generally been seen as the troublesome triangle in love, or the child, mother, father threesome. So a number may refer to a particular year of one’s life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event; your family group – or have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

But here is an indication of what dream numbers mean. A man was hypnotised and told to dream of the numbers 65398801. Under hypnosis he told his dream and his associations. A man smokes a pipe (shaped like a 6) with a star on it (5 pointed star). He breaks the pipe in half (half of 6 is 3) and turns it up to become a golf club (6 becomes 9). He speaks of two impressions of infinity and twice draws the infinity sign 01 (vertically 88). He says: “the whole thing is nothing (0). There’s nothing except one thing, which is unity (1).

one One-self. One is also the first emanation from 0 or the void, therefore a beginning, the first, unity or being alone and independence. Just one left: Near the end.

I believe that human conceptions arose from direct life experience. For instance, when early humans saw a living creature emerge from a woman’s vagina it was an awesome experience. At the time they did not put the male sex act together with the birth of a living creature. The hole which a child emerges from was simply that – a dark hole, a nothingness. That over ages became the void, the emptiness that everything came out of.

Example: The first experience was looking at a green wall and seeing the huge moving mandala. At the centre of it was emptiness. Out of this nothingness poured forms of living creatures, all moving and dancing out from the centre in time with each other – though making different movements. These emerging, dancing forms went out to a periphery – the edge of the circle – then they danced back to the centre and merged back into the nothingness.

So, the number one is a sign of enormous creation, of coming into being as a human, our birth and entrance into life, a start. In a sense it is the darkness we emerged from, the darkness many people are afraid of. So, it is interesting if you look at a diagram of the stages of the Big Bang, for science says it took seven stages to bring us to where we are – so similar to the seven days of creation. Also, there was no light in the emerging universe despite its immense heat. Then after 300,00 years suddenly there is light – so similar to Let there be Light. So, the number zero still represents the great dark.

“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter [the kingdom].” Quoted from ‘The Gnostic Apostle Thomas’
Idioms: It’s all one to me; one up; at one with; one and only; one off.

two Duality; relationship, indecision or making a decision; balance; male and female; two sides to an argument – or a way of comparing; opposition; the opposites such as light and darkness, harmony or conflict; parents and reproductive possibility.

Duality includes almost everything in life. For we exist strung between enormous duality – sleep and waking, male and female, pain and pleasure, light and darkness, life and death, and death and resurrection, war and peace, matter and anti-matter, negative and positive, the void and bodily existence. To be whole we need to accept and meet these opposites. In the pursuit of love, we need to recognise that we must integrate the other gender to become whole.

Chased by or fighting with two people: Two against one feeling, as may have happened with child and parents; feeling odds are against one.

Idioms: Put two and two together; two’s company; two timer; in two minds.

three Triangle; mother father child; synthesis; creativity – the child springing from the two opposites – therefore sometimes represents the solution to opposition.

It is a number representing the Holy Trinity, it is also the number of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity – the life force that moves us. Furthermore, the number 3 being associated to the triangle by its geometrical form, the Holy Spirit is also linked to the triangle and with reason: the clairvoyant Ann-Catherine Emmerick perceived the Holy Spirit as the Eye of God in the center of a triangle.

Number of the man because this one is composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. According to the Book of rites (Li-ji) the man, intermediary between the sky and the earth, also corresponds to the number three. A perfect number according to Chinese. Also a favourable number associated to the childbirth and to the birth. A sacred number of the woman in the Mayas.

Confronting three people, or out with two others: Facing collective will of others; non sexual friendship.
Idioms: Three’s a crowd.

four Physicality; the earth; stability and strength; the home or house; reality; down to earth – yet at the same time the spiritual within the physical; the four sides to human nature – sensation, feeling, thought, intuition; earth, air fire and water.
Four or more people: Feelings about meeting group decisions and feelings; someone’s opinion or will backed by others; supportive feelings.

Idioms: Four square; on all fours; four letter word.
five The human body; human consciousness in the body; the hand; sometimes called the number of marriage because it unites all the previous numbers – 1+4 and 2+3; the five senses.

six The symbol of this is the double triangle, or circle divided in six. It represents symmetry, unity of spirit and body, the visible and invisible. It is the harmonious relationship between man and God, spirit and body, the eternal and the transitory. Its sign is Virgo that expresses as craftsman or critic. It is a sign of service and rules the intestines. The sixth house rules health. It may also be word play for sex.
Idioms: Sixes and sevens; six of the best; hit for six.

seven Cycles of life – 7,14, 21 etc.; a week; spiritual meanings – seven candles, seven churches, seven chakras, seven colours, seven notes in music – so represents human wholeness.
The seven knots on the rope Mohammed saw hanging from heaven, which probably means there are seven levels of experience we need to experience to be able to enter heaven. These obviously also relate to the seven chakras and seven candles and seven churches. See Every 7 Years You Change; Dimensions of Human Experience; Chakras; Kundalini; Energy Sex and Dreams
Idioms: Seventh heaven.

eight Death and resurrection; infinity; old fonts and baptisteries are octagonal because of the association with regeneration.

nine The fact that all numbers rise in series of nines and then begin again, and that babies are born in the ninth month, lends itself to nine symbolising the completion of a process, or stage of growth. There are also, in some mythologies and religions, nine orders of angels or forces. At the ninth hour, the veil is rent between spirit and matter. The astrological sign is Sagittarius, the sage or counsellor. It rules the thighs, and the ninth house rules travel and dreams.

Pregnancy; childbirth; the end of a cycle and the start of something new; cycles. Represents creation and life’s rhythm as it develops. Because it is the final simple number it represent absolute things and it is the symbol of the totality of the human being.

There are nine gifts of the spirit mentioned by saint Paul: wisdom, knowledge, faith, gift of healing, to operate miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, to speak in different kinds of tongues and the gift to interpret them.

999 or 912 calls: A desperate attempt to be heard, or a cry for help in a difficult situation or feeling state.
Idioms: Nine days wonder; nine times out of ten; nine to five; cloud nine; nine points of the law.

zero The female; unconscious; the absolute or hidden; completeness. The circle or zero also represents the most profound aspect of human nature and the cosmos, that of the hidden, the invisible within all phenomena. It is the silence or void in which all feeling, thought, sound exist – the space between the notes of music that allows it to be heard. It is the nothingness that essentially allows existence.
ten A new beginning; the male and female together – ten to one.
It can also mean matter in harmony – 4 + 6.

Representing the Creator and the creation, 3 + 7, the Trinity resting in the expressed universe.
For Pythagoras, 10 was the symbol of the universe and it also expressed the whole of human knowledge.
Sum of 5 + 5, the number 10 represents the two opposite current directions of the conscience: involution and evolution.

According to H.- P. Blavatsky, the 1 followed by 0 indicates the column and the circle, meaning the principle of the female and male, and this symbol would refer to the Androgyne nature and also to Jehovah, being at the same time male and female.

The zero in the form of circle is a symbol of unit, completing then the meaning of the number 1 to show that the number 10 contains all preceding numbers as a whole contains its parts.
Represent the first couple, the marriage: 1 = the man, 0 the egg fertilized by the 1.
The number ten is regarded as the most perfect of numbers, because it contains the Unit that did it all, and the zero, symbol of the matter and the Chaos, of which all came out; it then includes in its figure the created and the non-created, the beginning and the end, the power and the force, the life and the nothing.

It represents the straightness in the faith because it is the first number “in extension” (of two digits), just as hundred and thousand, explains Hugues of Saint-Victor.

According to Agrippa, “ten is called the number of all or universal, and the complete number marking the full course of life.” Also he attributes to it a sense of totality, the achievement, the return to the unit after the development of the cycle of the first nine numbers.

Represent the revelation and the Divine Law.

The Mayas, it represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. The ten was regarded as being the number of the life and the death.

In China, the cross represents the number 10 – as the totality of the numbers.
Thanks to http://www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/

eleven The eleventh hour has represented last minute activity, last desperate efforts. It also represents strength to face and control animal nature or instincts, which gives us liberty from them. It is two on a higher level, or one that has joined with itself and is so doubled the power.

Eleven is the matrix, or mould, within us, that receives and restores form after the pattern we have already created in the past, or on the basis of what we have experienced in the past. The astrological sign is Aquarius, the seeker or scientist. It governs ankles and nervous system, and the eleventh house rules long friendships.

The number 11 is the number 1 twice. So it is one with extra power, so suggests the merging with the original impulse of one added to the spiritual power, imagination, creativity and all that is complementary as an opposite. It is the first number that is itself doubled so is the prime number doubled.
It can represent someone who faces tests but comes out victorious of the tests with the acquired knowledge.

In China it represents the Tao.
twelve A year; time; a full cycle or wholeness as in the Zodiac or twelve disciples.

thirteen This represents the twelve aspects of your psyche under direction of your core. If an aspect of your personality is still unredeemed, then pain and misfortune attend you in some degree. In general the number thirteen can mean the falling away from perfection, a marring of something good. But for Americans it has many other associations, such as –
13 original colonies,
13 signers of the Declaration of Independence,
13 stripes on our flag,
13 steps on the Pyramid, on the dollar bill.
13 letters in the Latin on the dollar bill.
13 letters in “E Pluribus Unum”,
13 stars above the Eagle, on the dollar bill.
13 plumes of feathers on each span of the Eagle’s wing, on the dollar bill.
13 bars on that shield.
13 leaves on the olive branch, on the dollar bill.
13 fruits, and if you look closely, on the dollar bill.
13 arrows.

And for minorities: the 13th Amendment.
thirty three Represent great change, experienced as death and rebirth. So it suggests a new life.

thirty four It is said to represent the realisation or enlightenment.
It also has a profound significance in the astronomical cycles of Mars and Jupiter. In numerology it breaks down to 7 (3+4 = 7).

Wikipedia says – 34 is the ninth distinct semiprime and has four divisors including unity and itself. Its neighbors, 33 and 35, also are distinct semiprimes, having four divisors each, and 34 is the smallest number to be surrounded by numbers with the same number of divisors as it has. It is also in the first cluster of three distinct semiprimes, being within 33, 34, 35; the next such cluster of semiprimes is 85, 86, 87.

Big numbers A lot; impressive; much of oneself involved.
million or billion Beyond the personal; often associated with riches of some sort.

 

Nun

Sexual restraint; religious feelings or morals; idealism.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent how I feel about Nuns, especially if I went to a parochial school?

Is there indication of prayerful, meditative, or religious side of my nature?

Do I have moral inhibitions and restrictions because of organized religion? (See monk)

See Archetype of the Nun and Monk; Archetype of the Ascetic; Questions Put to Tony; Archetype of the Search for Self

Nurse Nursing

Healing, fears of health, desire to be nursed or cared for, compassion for others. Desire to be loved as a child. The nurse is sometimes used as a figure of fear too, someone who will punish. For some people the nurse is a very sexually attractive person, and so links with sexual needs or desire.  

But if you work as a nurse, then your dream is more likely to be about your relationship with your nursing.

Florence Nightingale with her concept of nursing, and all the women and men nurses who gave and give us so much, all of these figures stand over us and are part of our unconscious experience here in our daily life.

“A young nurse said that she was almost ready to leave nursing. She said that she faced death nearly every day; babies died, children, teenagers, mature individuals, and the elderly all died – everywhere she felt overwhelmed by the emotions of experiencing it all.

The nurses experience was one I recalled easily. She said that her difficulty about death was resolved by the running meditation and she was ready to continue nursing with enthusiasm. I cannot remember her exact words, but it was about the essence of being a nurse. For nursing was not simply handing out medicines or dealing with wounds, nursing was to be a companion during the journey of life from birth to death. As a nurse we walk with the mystery of Life all the time, through the dark moments and light, and our companionship in that long walk give enormous amounts to the others making that journey. That young nurse was ready to continue walking with others making the journey.

It reminded me of when I was nursing on a geriatric ward. A bedridden patient, a lovely old man who had no relatives to visit him, called me and asked to sit and hold his hand. I sat for some time with his hand in mine, but the sister in charge of that ward was like a sergeant major and insisted we kept moving. I explained that to the patient and left him. That night he died.”

Nursing a baby: Caring for ones own infant needs which still exist in ones adult life; giving care and love to someone who is relating to you in a baby way; wanting a baby, or needing to express the depth of your own ability to give and love.

 Example: I was in a hospital. A nurse passing by looked at my baby son and then suddenly looked again and said, “Did you know there is something wrong with your baby?” I told her I didn’t. She said she would prefer not to tell me, and to ask the sister. I knew this was because what she had seen was a serious illness.

Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking.

Example: There were a lot of children, mostly girls, who had no parents and were trained for nursing from an early age. One of the girls came to me as I lay in a chair. She wanted a cuddle. I held her for a while. Then a boy came for a cuddle. I said to one of them, perhaps the boy, “There are plenty of mums about (meaning the nurses), but you want a daddy don’t you?” I held him with my strength. One of the children asked me if my nurse friend had got a man yet. I considered for a while, then said no, she hadn’t, as I realised I was not her “man”, only a friend.  Alec.

Alec was a married man with children. His wife had been a nurse. When Alec explored his dream he described what he experienced as follows.

It was clear early on that the nurses represented my wife as she had worked as a nurse, but the rest of the dream was still beyond me. But as I imagined myself as the young boy I knew this was me. I didn’t like seeing that part of me. I had kept it covered up with pride over the years, but it was there and I was at first ashamed to see this childlike, dependent, emotionally hurt part of myself. It was because I related to my wife in this dependent, childlike way that the dream showed me holding him. My father had never really been a man for me and the child me was desperately in need of knowing that strength.

The boy’s question was a turning point for me. In fact my wife didn’t have a ‘man’ yet, because I was still moving toward real manhood. But suddenly I felt what the little girl in the dream meant. I said to my wife, “You’re the little girl in the dream. Do you see? Every time I get back to my warm sexual feelings I’m a little boy again, because I haven’t really grown up sexually yet, and that scares you. Whenever my weak side shows, you feel really threatened so you attack that part of me. It’s because you need a strong daddy because your father never provided it, and every time I show my weakness it triggers the little girl in you whose daddy was weak. He never grew up, so you never had a strong man for a father. That’s why you married me. Okay, I am strong enough now to be your strong daddy like I am in the dream.”

There was more to the problem though. Why did my wife’s little girl trigger my withdrawn little boy? I entered into this. I remembered how, when we had separate beds, I had often wanted to masturbate but had stopped in case my wife heard. I realised how much I wanted to hide my masturbation from her. At the same time I realised how I easily stood before her naked and with an erection, so what was this problem over masturbation? Of course, it was mother again. My mother had given me hell over masturbation as the disapproving mother, and when my wife got into her “downing” role I saw her as the disapproving manhood killing mother again, and was deeply repulsed by her. I am not going to be killed again by/mother/wife, so I will cut off from her and will give my manhood to women who do not kill me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a desire to be nursed or cared for?

Does this represent a healing activity, or concern for my health?

If I am a nurse, is this about my relationship with my own nursing skills?

Who have I cared for, or who has cared for me?

See Being the Person or thingCharacters and People in DreamsMagical Dream MachineQuestions

Nut

Feeling a ‘nut’ suggest you see yourself as foolish. A nut can indicate nourishment or wisdom that needs work to get at its kernel. Sometimes used to say someone is crazy. A nut can also be a seed so represents potential. Nuts can represent humanity: the kernel, or soul, is encased by the shell, or flesh and bone. Nuts are also goodness hidden in a hard shell, so represent truths or realisations that were worthwhile working at.

A nut to crack means a problem to solve, or in a nutshell suggests wisdom or information put in a compact form.

The nut on a bolt suggests something that holds things in place, a fastener or indicator of security. So a loose nut could say that there is an impending problem if what it secures comes loose.  People use ‘nuts and bolts’ to mean the working of everyday life.

 Example: I remember as a little girl being able to float upwards and I still dream of soaring upwards at different times, but I have always questioned this in myself and stopped believing I did that as a child. As an adult I thought I was nuts,

Idioms: a nut case; drive you nuts; everything from soup to nuts; go nuts; health nut; a nut; nut bar, nut case; nut house; nuts about; nuts and bolts; nutty as a fruit cake

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I eat nuts often?

What does my dream suggest about nuts?

What sort of nut was it and what associations do I have with it?

See Being the Person or ThingSumming UpQuestionsQuestions Put to Tony

Nymph

See: Fairy.

Letter O

Oak

Strength, perseverance, mightiness, sheltering, protection, hardiness, fruitfulness. Continuance in the face of difficulties, or facing of hardship. This has probably arisen from some of the harsh climates oaks grow in, like on rocky sea cliffs. Many people translate or understand the cross of Jesus to be a tree. Artists have sometimes depicted Jesus nailed to a tree. Often, this is the oak, which symbolises the power of physical life, the power behind material creation. See: Acorn, Cross, tree.

Oar Oars

The personal energy and skill used to direct our way through the ‘waters of life’, therefore your feelings and social atmospheres and situations; word play for whore; phallic because of its in and out motion. So it is your personal power or skill you use to move through and survive the flow of feelings, social atmospheres and troughs and waves of life situations. Having oars can mean feeling in control in the midst of emotional challenges.

 Example: I’m a young woman standing on a sea shore. I am waiting for my man. I hear the oars in the row locks of a boat, then it comes into view. A man comes to me, and puts his arms around me like he’s known me all my life. My man pauses, turns his head to a man still in the boat and says – Tell them this is it. Phillipa.

Example: I dreamed I was afloat in a rowboat, drifting without oars and wondering helplessly whether or not I would drift ashore or out to sea. I awoke still drifting helplessly with the tide and nowhere near land.

To reach land would represent security that the young man lacks. The sea shows his relationship with the unplanned and unprepared for life situations that he is not capable of meeting without oars. So instead of having the ability to make his own way, he will be moved by circumstances – the tide.

Boat without oars: Ill equipped to deal with the situation you are in. A loss of motivation and being subject to external events to direct your life. So this might point to indecisiveness or lack of initiative.

Having only one oar: Trying to row with only one oar, may suggest your need for a partner or mate. Or mean that you are skilled in sculling, a skill in being independent and directing ones own life.

Idioms: Stick ones oar in; rest on one’s oars.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening with the oar or oars?

Was it me or someone else using the oar(s)?

What was the situation on the water?

See Self HelpLifeIndividuationBeing the Person or ThingConditioned Reflexes

Oasis

The life giving influence of emotions and life processes within the ‘desert’ of intellectualism or materialism. A place to quench a thirst brought on by spending time in a desert. See desert

Dreaming of arriving at an oasis suggest that after difficulties you have or will reach the waters of life, a break from challenges and rest and recuperation. Maybe it is time to rest and take care of yourself. It points the way that you can find life and survival in a sterile or unproductive period of your life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I arrived at a place in my life that is like an oasis?

Or is it something like a promise that I see in the distance?

Have I been through a dry and sterile period?

See Letting things HappenSumming UpThe Seed MeditationBeing the Person or Thing

Oats

Sexual energy; sexual satisfaction. It can also indicate basic nourishment or sustenance. In other words, what you need to grow as a person.  See: Corn

Apart from consumption, wild oats have an important role to play in skincare. They were used as early as 2000 BC by the Egyptians and Arabians to beautify their skins. Oat baths were largely used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for healing skin ailments. Oats are also a great absorber, so they will suck any impurities out of the skin.

 Example: Was in Wilson’s farmyard. There were some puppies or something – not sure – and I went to get them some oats. To do this I walked to the top of the hill where the oats were kept. I had a bucket and a young man came with me. As I was filling the bucket with oats, we saw a bull nearby. It looked a bit thin in the flank, slightly cow like. My friend was a bit nervous, but I told him the bull was all right, and to give it some oats. The bull was so hungry it emptied the bucket in a couple of mouthfuls. So I scooped some more oats out for it. My friend looked at its penis, remarking how huge it was. I said, “I should think so. After all, it’s a long way into a cow.”

Idioms: feeling his oats; have ones oats; off one’s oats; sow wild oats; getting his oats

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening with the oats in my dream?

Was I eating them or was something or someone else eating them.

Did sexual feelings come into the dream in any way?

See Eat EatingEnergy Sex and DreamsBeing the Person or ThingEdgar Cayce  

Obe

OBE’s have been reported thousands of times in every culture and in every period of history. A general experience of OBE might include a feeling of rushing along a tunnel or release from a tight place prior to the awareness of independence from the body. In this first stage some people experience a sense of physical paralysis which may be frightening. Their awareness then seems to become an observing point outside the body, as well as the sense of paralysis. There is usually an intense awareness of oneself and surroundings, unlike dreaming or even lucidity. Some projectors feel they are even more vitally aware and rational than during the waking state. Looking back on ones body may occur here. At this very first stage of complete independence some people experience intense fear. This is most likely due to fearing that one is dying. I believe there is an unconscious connection between the externalisation of ones awareness and death. See: feature on Out Of Body Experiences

Obelisk

Your creative energy leaving its mark in the world – it is sexual in the sense the snake is sexual; how you have shaped your basic nature through personal effort. See: reptiles lizards and snakes.

 Although they do not often appear in dreams in the Egyptian style, the often appear in dreams as a great column of rock, often carved at the top, both by nature and by humans. Sometimes know as Menhirs. In dreams they represent something natural, ancient and timeless that has emerged into our human lives, and at it top records our human efforts and art. Our consciousness has been whittled out of the rock of possibilities by the love, the struggle and pain, the endeavour and wit of our lives. Particularly our psyche has been shaped by or modelled on our parents and the traces in their life, unknown though they may be, of their parents, backwards for many generations.

And from the stuff of mind, I create a rock In the midst of a shoreless sea. In an ocean of change and uncertainty I form an island of charm. Because I believe.

 Example: In my dream we turned left off the road. I stood on a small rise looking down into a large hollow between hills. In front of me was a colossal stone column of a design I had never before seen. It was the height of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, but very much wider. On top it had a design that was so subtle and unique I cannot even recall it. This design had been carved into the solid rock. This suggests, I suppose, that this uniqueness has not been brought through to consciousness. The column seems to be of solid rock, neither natural nor man-made, but formed by some inconceivable mystery. The design at the top was alien, not in the sense of being a threat, but with a sense of otherness. The form was not natural, yet at the same time it was not man-made. Perhaps it would describe it by saying it seemed as if nature and human intelligence had somehow blended to form it. For they had the naturalness of form that an anthill or honeycomb has, where “nature” expresses herself through her insect bodies. This was in a class with these works of nature, yet more complex, showing She had used a higher order of intelligence.

Example: As I looked at these massive formations I understood that they had been carved or created through events in the passage of time. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created, shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself. Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. No one being created such a mosaic in the formations. Such a mosaic was large and had in it the essence of all the lives that formed it.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever been aware of the timeless in my human life?

Did the theme of the dream have any links with history or the past?

Had the stone been worked on in any way, and if so what did I feel about it?

See Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentEdgar CayceIncubating DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Obese

There are several possibilities and they depend upon your own self image. The extra weight might be a defence against anxiety or feelings of inadequacy. The fat person or weight might indicate robust health, jolly feelings, or sensuality.

In some dreams, especially males, a very large fat woman indicates the enormous power of the basic sexual impulse, and often links in some ways with feelings or difficulties with the mother. In such dreams there may be a mixture of nakedness, obese sensuality, child like feelings and need.

Fatness can also indicate ‘weight’ as in ‘throwing ones weight about’.

Fatness can also relate to your own self image and how you feel about yourself and your health. A critical self image – whether you are carrying extra weight or not – can ruin the way you relate to other people.

Sometimes this is a health dream suggesting changes in diet, but it need not be about being overweight. Once again it can be an expression of how you see yourself rather than a physical problem.

Example: Then Dr. X leaves. I’ve discovered that he’s not really a counselor but an excellent con artist who is good enough to be a counselor but does it for kicks. He hears crying in a room as he passes. He peeks in. A fat woman is crying. There are 4 women nearly naked. Dr. X (now looks like Peter O’Toole), looks interested in the situation. He very soothingly goes to the women and starts counseling them. As he subtly gains their confidence, he edges into the bed with them and lays his head on the pillow which is the huge bra of the fat woman. He smiles like a Cheshire cat. His arms are behind his head and one knee is crossed over the other, very relaxed and happy. The women cry out that a man had offered to make love to them and they’d just found out he was a fairy. Now they won’t be able to have babies, which is why they were going to all this work of making love. He was “balling them blind” and he lied! They’ve been had and used.

Becoming fat: This might suggest something about pregnancy, or carrying ‘more weight’, or even your critical view of yourself.

Idioms: a fat lip; chew the fat/ chew the rag; fat cat; fat chance; fat lip; it ain’t over till the fat lady sings; the fat hit the fire.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Am I carrying a heavy burden or worries?

Does this indicate how I defend against feelings of inadequacy?

Is this dream about health, happiness and sensuality?

Am I simply worried about my own physical weight?

Are there indications of this dream being about health?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Avoid Being Victims

 

Obesity

See: FatPerson.

Obscene

It is reasonable and healthy for all of us to have a dream which surprises or shocks us occasionally. As dreams partly deal with aspects of our urges and fantasies which we do not allow in waking life, such occasional dreams are safety valves. It is healthy to be able to allow a wide range of dream experience, from the holy to the deeply sexual; from outright aggression to tender love. In fact we can gain an idea of the depth and broadness of our own soul – whether our psyche is narrow – from the range of dreams we experience. If obscene dreams assail and worry us again and again however, then there is a problem in the way we are relating to ourselves and the exterior world. Psychotherapeutic counselling might help. See Autonomous Complex; Being the Person or Thing

Observatory Astronomy

This often shows the dreamer experiencing expanded awareness – i.e. seeing or knowing beyond their usual senses allow. This may occur for various reasons. See Using Your Intuition and Answer to Critics

As such it may give you understanding of a global nature, or even allow you views of your own history, your identity. Often such dreams enabled you see the bigger picture, or the  deeper meaning in life.

I have received many dream of houses with a turret with windows allowing a view or the stars and surrounding countryside. This is very much a dream which the dreamer is having a wonderful wider awareness.

Example: Dream of my late son, who passed this summer from Pneumonia. (Drug induced). We are in a globe type room, sort like an observatory. It is bright and colorful though the ceiling has stars and sky like patterns. My son is standing in the center of the room with me by his side. I am instructing him on something. I have a mentor (a male figure) looking on silently. I just know the mentor is for me. I mentor my son even though the/my mentor does not speak or anything.

Example: I remembered the dream about the large house with well cultivated piece of land and the round turret on its roof. It was the house with large grounds and a pond, in which we had all bathed as children.

The dreamer explored this dream and saw with wonderful clarity that the cultivated garden showed how he had worked on himself and left a mark on the world. The turret he experienced as realisations of having a mind that was so much more than he had ever realised. As an example he realised that the pond that ‘we had all bathed in as children’ was in fact a memory of a time in human development when there was no sense of being independent, but we all bathed in a level of awareness that was shared.

 Example: My dream was I was taking a trip to the moon and it was a peaceful ride, but what scared me was the feeling of unknown things I was experiencing. I saw cold rocks that just floated by and the feeling of some type of pull that controlled us to position us in the place where we were stationed to go, and as we, I mean my wife, she comfort me when I got scared and didn’t want to look because I could see into eternity all the stars. I could witness every galaxy I behold and I wanted to see them but it was to much for my mind so I had to turn away. When we reached our place she said I don’t take many people here and smiled, but really I was still just in awe. I was indoors in a comfortable setting and it kind of reminds my of front room, but I was checking to see how things were held down lol, but in the middle of the couch there was a miniature star gazer like in a hologram digital form and I could see them and I said I wish we had the same type of scanner it could save NASA a lot of money – then woke up. The best dream I ever had by far…

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you aware of a wider view of your surroundings or of the heavens?

What did you feel in the dreams?

Do you ever think about the wider issues of life?

Try using Being the Person or Thing and Magical Dream Machine

Obsessed Obsession

We are all obsessed or possessed in various ways. For instance, we may not be able to walk down the street without shoes, or be unable to appear in public without a collar and tie, or properly shaved, or with the wrong people, we are thus literally possessed by social codes, fear of looking a fool, and so on. Being possessed by such things our actions are controlled by such fears. These are the demons that rule our life and enslave us, and that were spoken of in the past as being cast out. These factors are often symbolised in dreams as an obsessing agent. Autonomous Complex

The agent need not be your own fear or drive however. There are other driving forces, such as social pressure, the and great external forces such as government or corporations, that act upon your psyche.

Being possessed by such things means our actions are to some extent controlled by them. The unconscious pictorialises this situation by using the images of demons or dark shapes. These are demons that rule our life and enslave us. It is such demons that Jesus cast out in the Bible stories.

In past cultures the ideas or fears which obsess us would have been described as an evil spirit or ghost taking over the person. This is because the irrational obsession takes hold of us against our will, so is quite an accurate image.

Obstacle

This suggests you are facing some difficulty that you feel is blocking what you want to do, or your freedom of action. The barrier can be external or internal, so you need to consider what it is in your life that is leading to this feeling of obstruction.

Depicts something which causes uncertainty or withdrawal of enthusiasm, creativity or love. Such might be produced by someone’s criticism which evokes our own self doubts; indecision; our own inhibitions or anxieties; maybe even a hidden form of not wanting to succeed because it would confront us with the new – we might fail. The obstacle, obstruction, barrier or interference can be a person, a wall, a river, animal – or it might be an internal thing like paralysis or a lump in the throat. Refer to the entry on the appropriate subject to define what it is acting as an obstacle. See: First example in failure; fence; wall.

Breaking something, or breaking through a wall or obstacle, show you freeing yourself from old habits or restraining influences. Also a fallen bridge might link with a lost opportunity, broken bonds and connections, or broken opportunity or a difficult obstacle. Crossing a river or ditch also represent to an obstacle you are meeting. To jump over something suggests you are making an effort to avoid or overcome an obstacle.

Sometimes a warning of an obstacle can be a warning light, a foghorn or traffic lights on red.

 Example: ‘I have this recurring nightmare. I see my mother standing by my bedroom door, blocking it as if I am being trapped and stopped from getting out. I often call to her ‘Let me out Mum’ but she just stands there staring with no expression on her face at all. I end up getting out of bed and switching my bedroom light on and then she disappears. Sometimes I will see her standing by my wardrobe. It seems as if she is always standing by a door and trying to trap me.’ Natalie S.

Natalie is fourteen and the obstacle she faces in choosing her own clothes – the wardrobe – and making her own decision, is her own dependence upon her mother, and the need to develop a new relationship with her.

 Example: ‘As I was driving along I turned my car over. I wasn’t hurt but could not now get to my destination. I didn’t feel at all upset about the car being damaged.’ Tim K.

The example shows a subtle and self made obstacle, the damaged car. In fact Tim admitted ruining his own work opportunities – the car – because he was frightened of failure.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What obstacles can I remember meeting in life?

In the dreams what type of obstacle was it and how was it dealt with?

How do I deal with obstacles I meet in daily life?

See Secrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the MindWhat is the main action in the dream?

Occident

See: West

Octopus

Feeling trapped by the influence of one’s mother; dependence upon mother; one’s own possessiveness or desire to cling to someone in a relationship or to possess them. Hadfield in Dreams and Nightmares says that a baby often seizes upon its mother’s breast with this feeling, so it may represent the desire to posses or devour others. The octopus can also symbolise any unconscious fear which may drag us into its realm of irrational terror, or any influence you fear will engulf you. See Reaction to the unconscious

But being a sea creature it can also represent an important realisation brought to consciousness from the unconscious.

Here is a woman’s experience of dealing with her octopus.

 Example: “If she killed the monster or let it kill her she would learn what it meant. If not it would continue to plague her. And plague her it did. That week she suffered octopus nightmares by the dozen. At the next session, a week later, out of the courage of desperation, she faced the octopus. First she tried to kill it, but found that the knife fell out of her hand. She did not really want to kill it. Then she looked directly in its eyes, at the therapist’s suggestion, and saw her own eyes peering out at herself. She finally understood that the octopus was some denied part of herself. Since it no longer seemed so menacing, she decided to let it eat her, and once inside its stomach she realized her own desires to devour and possess others. She had had them all her life but had never been willing to admit it to herself. The significance of the octopus was now clear and it vanished from her fantasies.” From LSD Psychotherapy

It becomes obvious that the image of the octopus had a dual function. In one way it presented her unconscious feelings. After all, the octopus had to be dealt with in some fashion or another. In another way the image of the octopus performed the function of a resistance to realising her real desires.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have problems about letting go of people?

Have I felt difficulties in leaving my mother?

What was the octopus doing in my dream?

See Avoid Being VictimsIndividuationCollective UnconsciousBeing the Person or Thing

Oculist

The aspect of self that attempts to improve our view of things, or gives us a false view of things. See: Spectacles.

Odour

Depends entirely upon what is smelt, what emotions surround it. For instance, you can say ‘I smell a rat’, or something smells fishy or the whole situation stinks to high heaven. A perfume can remind you of a particular person, and therefore associate with your feelings about them, or with particular memory or events in life. Odours often represent feelings, attractions, repulsion, fresh or stale, living or dying. They can also represent feelings radiating from you, or from what the symbol depicts.

Odyssey

Usually symbolises the problems, of a personal and inner nature, that we have to deal with in order to find greater maturity or wholeness.

Offer Offered Offering

To offer something in a dream, or be offered something usually depicts some sort of change, perhaps one in which a decision has to be made – whether to accept or not. It might also suggest extending yourself, or being reached out to in some way. This might involve some level of risk or exposure to rejection or being used.

Our human ability to move among and learn from or experience the many states of being shown as all the characters we dream about. It offers a much wider or more inclusive view of where you are and where you are going in life. Characters and People in Dreams; Imagination

 Example: A woman who was a radio researcher was offered the job of presenter. She was thrilled but dreamt she was in a road walking and planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting. She had to dive into a ditch to avoid being killed. When she explored the dream she realised she was afraid of facing the public directly and this fear if left unconscious would have caused her to refuse the job. She meets the fear and managed to press forward with the job.

Example – This is my dream. I am driving my car, alone. I can see a female friend and stop to offer her a lift. I partly want her to be impressed by my new car. She looks at me. Now she tells me she doesn’t want a lift and I am watching her walk off with a man I do not know.

Example: But then I was shown the way out – it was by admitting that I was a heap of shit, and asking for help as the twelve steps in Alcoholics Anonymous define it. In opening myself to that wonderful otherness my heap of shit became a compost heap which offered new growth.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I offering or offered to?

What was it being offered and what does that mean to me?

Did I reject what was offered and can I say why?

See Summing UpDecidingYes-NoWriting it Down

Office

This can indicate feelings about or relationship with work, feelings about authority or self expression in the world. It can also suggest a businesslike or efficient attitude, something you are going to work at efficiently.

Sometimes it is related to relationship, love, betrayal and all the other feelings associated with love. This is because of the many office love affairs that occur.

An office is also a place where all manner of work or business takes place, it is a place where a  great period of time can be spent, so you may dream about it in many ways. See Plot of the Dream and Settings in Dreams as these can help in deciphering your dream meaning.

An office can also be a place that distracts us, perhaps because we are sexually stimulated or because of attitudes we take that are not really who we are. Your dream might suggest work to be done, business affairs, accounting, discipline, order, and organisation. It could point to frustrations or problems at work. Sometimes it is the main centre of activity within a larger building.

 Example: I went to an office in Tottenham Court Road. Then I woke up in bed in the office. A woman was in bed on my left. I was about to get up, and she said for me to touch her breast before I got out of bed. I did so and drew near to her, but thought it would all end in sexual intercourse, and I didn’t want this to happen. Next thing, I was at the door of the house I used to live in, trying to unlock it, but I did not have the right key. In fact the keys were for a different house entirely. I was in a dazed condition and someone else opened the door for me. I realised that I had only just awoke to this part of my life after a lapse or split of some weeks, where I lived in a different house and a completely different life. I knew this had all happened before, unknown to me. I could still remember the woman in bed, but I did not wish to explain this to anyone, and made out I had total loss of memory.

In this dream the dreamer was obviously feeling desires for a woman where he worked, but had huge reservations about it. Unlocking the front door can also be seen as another attempt to ‘enter’ the woman, but he didn’t have the key – yet another sexual symbol. But his struggle could have been released if he had realised the difference between his inner dream life and his desire for an actual woman. See Dreams are a reflection of your inner world and Summing Up

 Example – A man dreamt about a grey, dull office. When he looked at what he said about the office, he rephrased it by saying, “The dream depicts the grey unimaginative social environment I grew up in after the second world war. It shaped the way I now think, and I want to change it toward more freedom of imagination and creativity.

Example: I was working in an office. An old boyfriend turned up in a sports-car and asked me to get in. I tried but couldn’t as it was low and I had a bad back. I told him I was married anyway but was wondering if I should have an affair. I left to avoid an office party. A security guard stopped me and said I had turned the wrong way.

 A lover, you feel, would be stooping too low, and against your principles. This causes you to hold yourself back until you ache. Even the security guard is suggesting you are going the wrong way about this. So stop and listen to your back-ache, to your dream. What are your feelings telling you? You may be pulling away from people, you need.

 

Idioms: branch office; run for office;

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was your connection with the office?

Was there any suggestion of a relationship in the office?

Have you worked in an office – and what was you memories of it?

Try using Active Passive and Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

Officer Official

Mostly symbolises the part of you in control of a particular area of yourself. Love for a husband and children may act as a controlling factor on desires to have a good time with others, or cover innate laziness. Or fear of being a nobody may direct ambitions and plans. Sometimes represents a feeling of confidence or wholeness that brings authority to guide and direct.

It also associates with any dealing you have with authority, and what this invokes in you. So it might refer to your father in some way. It can therefore show how you ‘authorise’ your own actions, or how you judge them,  our sense of right and wrong; a co-ordinating or directing function in ourselves; a sense of sureness out of wider awareness or experience. It often indicates your relationship with authority or officialdom.

An official can be someone like a teacher or headmaster, a police person, a doctor or any person who may be an authority. We often relate to them in dreams in a positive helpful way, or in a way that takes away our own initiative and will.

 Example: A Nazi officer got out. He looked at me and told me that I was under arrest. I was to report to headquarters. I asked, “Where is it?” He said, “Follow me.” So the kitten and I walked along. He went too fast (the officer), and I lose him. I didn’t know where headquarters was, so I asked directions!! It finally dawned on me that I could escape, that I was being really silly following orders.

Example: In the dream I was attending an adult class with about 20/30 people, mostly men, in it. The teacher came in. He said something and a man asked a question, or spoke back. The teacher got really angry and hit him with a walking stick. Someone else in the class remarked on the beating and was attacked also. A man sitting next to me on my left said that if the teacher hit him he wouldn’t sit and take it. But as the second man was hit my companion said something like – Bloody hell. The teacher landed two mighty blows on his arse, but he didn’t move. I said in horror, “Good God,” whereupon the teacher moved to hit me. I stood up and said, “If you hit me with that thing I will whack you in the fucking ear.” I felt fired up ready to fight. He backed off and threatened to get the headmaster in. I told him to try it. He said if I could do better, do it. So I took over the class and it went really well.

Here the dreamer questions and confronts authority than can do damage to peoples confidence. Many people are told things by authorities that they never question. I have met people who were told that they could not sing and so never ever sang again, or were told they were stupid or couldn’t learn and so gave up. The truth is we each live in a unique world and so see the world in unique ways. In looking at a lake, an artistic child would see its form and colour; a child who had interest in mechanics would see the potential for hydro electrics; a nature lover would see all the places where creatures lived and how to find them.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I always do as I am told by an authority, or do I asses the situation for myself?

Can I learn from someone in charge or have a problem with authority?

What do I feel about officials?

See decisionAutonomous ComplexHabitsBeing the Person or Thing

Ogre

Feelings developed in relationship with ones father or mother; lack of sympathy or understanding; being inconsiderate; feelings about authority. A criticizing, reprimanding and ignoring parent or person – is it a picture of you? In fact is there a situation or event in your life in your life that was felt as overwhelming, even terrifying?  The ogre can also show how you feel about people in authority, your boss?

Ogres can represent a destructive, oppressive force that threatens to devour individuality. They often appear in dreams in relation to discipline problems. They may concern father-child relationships or may be about self-discipline issues. Dreaming of slaying an ogre can be about getting rid of a hated father.

 Example: If we learned to solve our problems in our lucid dreams by magically changing things we don’t like, we might mistakenly hope to do the same in our waking lives. For example, I once had a lucid dream about a frightening ogre, whom I confronted by projecting feelings of love and acceptance, leading to a pleasurable, peaceful, and empowering resolution in my dream. Suppose I had chosen to turn my adversary into a toad, and get rid of him that way. How would that help me if I were to find myself in conflict with my boss or another authority figure whom I might see as an ogre, in spite of my being awake? Turning him into a toad would hardly be practical! However, a change in attitude might indeed resolve the situation.  Quoted from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by LaBerge & H. Rheingold.

However, I see it as a better solution to actually understand the roots of the dream or become the ogre, for the image is simply a cover for the real feelings you are trying to flee from. Here is a much better way that enables the dreamer to realise his own human feelings and deal with them.

 Example: I thought about the dream that I had about L., the dream was that L. had a very red face when she told me that she was pregnant. But I didn’t think that I could have made her pregnant and I told her so. She then changed her mind and said, ‘OK then I’m not pregnant’.

In working on the dream I imagined becoming L. I entered into her pregnant body and felt her sexuality and understood the dream. She had offered herself to me, her sexuality and her body but I didn’t recognise it, I couldn’t see it and so she withdrew. L. wants another child and she had offered herself to me but I couldn’t give myself to her. I have never given myself before. In the dream I felt I was not responsible for her pregnancy which represents the denial of my own sexuality and of all that results from it.

This is when I entered into the house of God. At first I saw the image of a huge cathedral or church with a magnificent domed roof and I knew that I was in the house of God. I felt the utopia, I felt like I have never felt before, so very good, so excellent. I knew all things. I didn’t have to read the bible or any kind of teachings because the answers are all here in the presence of God. In this state I could ask any question and know the answer. I knew God, yet I was God because there was no separation. Neal

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I run in fear or cower when facing the ogre?

When have I faced such feelings in my actual life?

If I faced the ogre and defeated him what was the result for me?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSumming Up

Oil

We can pour oil on troubled waters; be an oily or slippery sort of person, or be well oiled. The word is sometimes used to mean flattery, unctuousness, cunningness, or working well, removal of friction, argument and disagreement. In the parables it is referred to as resourcefulness, forethought, and as a symbol for the soul.

Attitude which removes friction in oneself or in a relationship; flattery; unctuousness; fat in ones diet. Oil can at times indicate love and its healing effect, or an easing of conflict. Attitudes or feelings that enable you to experience trouble free living.

Oil often used in sacred rites and in dreams it can signify the giving of a blessing or a spiritual gift. See Spirit

 Black oil in your car or a machine shows the problems from the past that lead to the car/machine not functioning well. This arose from the way you lived in the past. So changing or putting in oil shows a move to greater love or positive feelings – better and easier working and the freeing or easing of problems.

Baby oil: Healing words or actions to soothe simple problems or to ease someone’s childlike pain.

Oil the palm: Being bribed or bribing someone.

 Example: A huge furnace of coke is slowly dying out. Oil or fuel is dripping on it, but instead of igniting, it is putting the fire out through insufficient heat. I therefore open the air vent further and this solves the problem and the fire builds up.

The dreamer felt this was about his energy, his fire of life going out. Then through breathing exercises it was put right.

 Example: I was talking to someone, a man, about having changed the oil in my car. The oil was slightly black, but the green still showed. I explained that it would have been even less discoloured, but the previous oil was very dirty/burnt/black, with sediment.

This dream shows you the problems that are causing darkness/pain at present. The oil is that which brings your life to trouble-free running. The changes made in your life are represented by the oil change. The changes are those which cause you to seek love in your life. This is blackened by your past feelings and inability to love. The man is your present state of mind.

Idioms: Well oiled; oil the wheels; strike oil; oil on troubled waters; burn midnight oil.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the oil used for in the dream?

And what else was mentioned in the dream, your attitudes?

Am I feeling and depression or painful emotions that the oil of love might help?

See Being the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesAvoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the Mind

Ointment

A healing or soothing influence or feeling. Feelings to do with care and contact. In some cases it may associate with injury or illness.

Old

See: Ancient.

Old Age

As a human being we are many things and have been many things. We have been the sperm swimming to the precious egg; the fetus that passed through all evolution in its growth; the helpless baby needing so much care; the youngster exploring and experiences so much; the youth like something emerging from a chrysalis into a new life as the body changed; the maturing adult, the middle aged and the old aged person.

Or we may think that we didn’t have any memory of being the fertilised egg or the unborn baby. But that is not so, but we believe it because we live in thoughts which are usually words – all of which were learned long after out birth. But such memories are behind the often irrational things we do, or react to. See Programmed

 Here is a mans memories recorded during a therapy session. “In one session Richard described that he felt immersed in foetal liquid and fixed to the placenta by the umbilical cord. He was aware of nourishment streaming into his body through the navel area and experienced wonderful feelings of symbiotic unity with his mother. There was a continuity of circulation between them; life – giving liquid – blood – seemed to create a sort of magical link between him and her. He heard two sets of heart sounds with different frequencies that were merging into one undulating acoustic pattern. This was accompanied by peculiar hollow and roaring noises that he identified after some hesitation as those produced by gas and liquid during the peristaltic movements of his mother’s intestines adjacent to the uterus. He was fully aware of his body image and recognised that it was very different from his adult one: his head was disproportionately large as compared with the body and extremities. On the basis of cues that he was not able to identify and explain, he diagnosed himself as being a rather mature foetus just before delivery.”

Of course we usually identify fully with our body and its age and condition – yet that is only our outward self. We also have an inner self that is everything we have been or dreamt and colours our experience of the outer life we live. Unfortunately many people identify with their body as it is today, instead of realising they are all that they have ever been, experiencing the body of today. It makes a wonderful difference and creates much laughter.

So old age in your dreams can be anything – an awful ending going down hill; or a wonderful creative act. Below is statement of a man’s struggle with ageing.

Example: Realised that I was this damaged tower block, yet while I stood there I was keeping my head up like I have always done. I stand always being seen but never knowing what way I will fall (or go). People are never sure about me. I felt that this feeling was from an early age. I was 19 when I got married there had been a cut off point; I felt that it had something to do with being pushed around by my wife. She was not my partner, I was in fact her convenience.

I took this abuse with my “I’m above it all stand. When the building crashed I cried and cried, it was the death of my adulthood, for want of a better word. I was now confronted with old age and the way I had lived trying to stay above it always has gone. I hated my Mother and Father and I always kill myself as I couldn’t kill them. How I deprived myself of my needs—the picture of Jesus suffer the little children to come unto me (at Sunday school ) in Hampden Road, where I lived before I went into the orphanage. Even he – Jesus – never came to get me out.

There has been no ability to believe in anyone since that time. I also saw that if my partner was happy then so was I. Yet this growing up has come about because of all the misery I have seen in my relationships. I then felt a deep fear that I must turn to God as I am now in old age, to know the Divine Principle as much as possible before I die. The thought of the pain that I would have to go through to achieve this. The building is down now and there is a strong feeling that I should turn inwards and focus on rebuilding my inner character. With a sense of self worth and not just an acceptance of my lot as given by parents and society. I was also happy that I had got mypartner out of the building. I felt it showed a gentle love was still within me, leaving me with a wider feeling of gentleness that has encompassed me since. end.

Then later in another exploration he wrote the following.

 Example: Then I felt my child speak from within as words came out they said, I have had to live through you (the adult ) it was not safe it would have died. I then felt like a shoot buried deeply yet still growing through all the obstacles and was nearing the surface, I cried out that I am alive, getting old with age yet being filled with life.  See Where My Stallion

So even in extreme old age we can still contact the young and growing self. Here are more words about that.

 Example: Do I want to settle down into old age suburbia? Yes, if I’m still inquisitive and want to understand things. I’m an ageing male. I have a sense of progression even into death. I am doing something. I am helping creating something, an enormous structure with a sense of real beauty. It leads up and up and up into a new dimension.

There is a wonderful difference between identifying with your body and its aches and pains, and the realisation that within you – especially in old age – is a treasure house of wonderful experience. So call on it. See Life’s Little Secrets; Simple Truths

 Example: In my own case I felt love had passed me by, and I would go into old age and die without love. But I didn’t want to die. I got to the edge and peered over, but I chose to live, to want, to crawl on hands and knees for love. So I pulled back from the loss of self called Buddhahood. I sense another way though – the way of growth, of becoming more, of allowing more of life to express through me. I see this as occurring if we let events and people call out of us more than we were, so we grow beyond ourselves.  See beyond the 60’s

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I felt or imagined about being old?

What has my dream said about it?

Do I see my body as myself and have not claimed my inner world?

See Inner WorldSpiritual Life In DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Old Age and Dreams

Studies of people’s dreams over 70 show clearly that women whose life has revolved around caring for the family as they age, they often cannot get a wider view of their life and so might sink into depression or loneliness. For men of a similar age it was found that their only experience was working and the stimulus of work. So they too could suffer. See: age and dreams.

It is clear from the findings that men and women who have an interest other than their children home or work can remain healthy and active longer. The interest can be anything that brings delight and satisfaction. It might be an interest in caring for or clothing grandchildren, photography, travel, writing, artwork, gardening or music. It doesn’t matter as long as it is something you can get satisfaction from. But of course sometimes it is hard to start when you are already in late ages, so it is better to reach out for other interest early in your life.

Olives

Because of the mention in the Bible of live branch and the fruit of the olive, it has the associations of peace and immortality. Certainly with healing. So olives in a dream may represent the resolution of conflict in life.

The olive also is a symbol of wisdom, and in classical mythology and Renaissance art it was associated with the goddess Minerva.

The tree is an ancient symbol of the holy land, peace, love, and the path of healing and regeneration.

Wearing an olive crown can represent resolution to a conflict, and victory over what you face.. A burden will be lifted off you and you will come out victorious.

Because the oil can be pressed from the olive it has the meaning of healing or ease coming from pressure or trial. You might connect this with like or dislike because of your relationship with olives; or memories or associations with times and places you ate olives.

You might connect olives with like or dislike because of your relationship with olives; or memories or associations with times and places you ate olives.

 Black olives: An underhanded dealing – like an oily character. Someone or something that is not good.

Olives: Pressing olives for oil, it might represent working hard to get something worthwhile or to make difficulties in love go easier.

 Example: I had a dream where a man in a black sweater was putting black olives all over me while I was sleeping. I woke up and grabbed my phone and bashed him to death. I knew that he was about to kill me. When I woke up for real, I knew I had to figure out what black olives symbolized.

Olives are usually associated with healing or long life, but it seems he was going to make a meal of you – as you do with a pizza. But then you murdered him. What have you felt like murdering in yourself, or in your life? And the weapon, a means of communication. So maybe you could ask yourself what raised such a passion in you, and what have you actually killed?

 Example: My wife drives into a service station. I take a plastic bottle partly full to get a new full bottle. She says that she is -b-l-a-n-k-w-a-l-l-e-d. I say for what? She says for buying black olives. I say why don’t you ask them directly why they won’t sell them to you. I am not sure they have any to sell. I wish that I had drunk some of the water I gave them. I think she means stonewalled.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I like or dislike olives?

What situations would I eat olives in?

When did I last eat or deal with olives?

See foodBackgroundDream ActionBeing the Person or Thing

One

One is the first number and is indivisible. It symbolises yourself as an individual, a beginning. the first manifestation, something that is so basic and fundamental it cannot be divided. It represents the heavenly Father, the male, masculinity, power. One can divide into any number leaving that number unchanged. It therefore symbolises the power of spirit to enter into all things and yet not change their outer manifestation, as all manifestation has arisen from the one. That is, although each manifestation may be different in outer form yet one can enter each and not change it. Thus a hundred divided by one is still a hundred. One stands for the astrological sign Aries, and represents personality, ego or sense of individuality, pioneering abilities, and the head. It can also mean length or height. Although it is an odd number, and therefore masculine, it is sometimes shown as hermaphroditic due to its ability to go into all. See: Numbers.

Oneiric Oneiros Oneiromancy

Relating to, or suggestive of dreams. It comes from the Greek word oneiros meaning to dream. Oneiromancy means the attempt to predict the future through interpretation of dreams. The addition of the suffix ‘mancy’ gives the meaning of prediction, as can been seen in such words as necromancy.

Onion

Probably the most general associations with onions is they can make you cry. So this might be saying there is something going on in your life you might need to shed some tears over. May represent something we find it difficult to face. It sometimes represents the layers of your personality. Its symbolism possibly arises from its layer upon layer going into the centre.

Onions can be portrayed in dreams as a health aid or perhaps how your body deals with eating them. Being round the onion can represent wholeness and unity. Sometimes the onion is used instead of garlic to act against the powers of evil. See Core

If you dislike onions then it is pointing to feelings of dislike about something or someone.

Ooze Oozing

If something like water or mud is oozing out of somewhere, it suggests a leak, or an expression of something. The primeval ooze, mud that germinates new life, such as ideas and creativity. Such oozing mud carries the primeval powers of your body and the life process.

It can also indicate the mess of your own or someone else’s fears and emotions entering your experience in some way. It is similar to what we mean when we say, “What a mess.” See: Mud.

 Blood oozes sometimes in dreams and can suggest a loss of energy or a woman’s menstrual flow. Sometimes oozing is sometimes used in describing someone trying to get into your life or body, or trying to hide what they are up to. 

Example: Then the crazy man oozes through under the door jam. He is now a “small person.” I grab him by the throat and try to strangle him while I hold him up. I go out to the hall and throw him in the elevator. I yell at him not to come back!

Example: The pipe ran under the floor from the cellar in the house nest door. The pipe had an open connection hole level with the floor. It was from this the thick oily sewage oozed up. I realised someone next door had gone to the toilet and as their toilet or pipe was blocked in some way it caused the flow-back. I went next door to tell them to do something about the situation. On waking I thought I imagined the best resolution was one in which I screw on a sealing cap to the pipe. Then any backflow would go into the next-door cellar.

Example: Those children, wallowing in the mud beside the willows in the hot summer sun, had been performing an ancient and sacred rite, returning to the source of life and their beginnings under the sun.

These things help to explain the great importance of the anus to the psyche, and why the sexual fantasies of most children center on the anus rather than the vagina. Later, with more specific knowledge of their origins, children replace the image with the vagina, and a new series of sexual theories appears. Most patients deal with their birth fantasies at this level, and there is much dealing to be done before the simple animal facts can be accepted.

Faced with the vital, primitive conditions of birth, patients draw back in shock and revulsion. But they face them all the same, for there seems to be some instinctive reality demand made upon the evasive consciousness. Before they are through with a long therapy, most patients have experienced a remarkably accurate and harrowing recapitulation of what birth must be like. They discover that with civilized human beings it is still remarkably the same process that mare and colt, cow and calf, bitch and puppy endure.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is oozing and what from?

How did I relate to it and with what feelings?

Did I manage to deal with it?

See Martial Art of the MindBeing the Person or ThingClicking On

Opal

A reflection of what is going on within yourself. All the shades of feeling within you. The inner world of your dreams, fantasies, psychic impressions. Protection against anger. Purification.  See: JewelsMagical Dream Machine

Open Opening

Flower opening and revealing it’s most sensitive and passionate being. A flower is the sexual organ of the plant and is very ‘brave’ to be so exposed. But it has such a power pushing it to reproduce and leave seeds, it flaunts it beauty and perfume.

As humans we are born with such a need and if we open to it not just as a physical need, it can be satisfied. But often the instinctive drive becomes repressed, twisted or hurt, or is used as a way of survival and so can be a source of pain instead of satisfaction. So often opening can be a real learning process. See Life’s Little Secrets

Curtains: Opening curtains suggest you have nothing to hide about yourself, no need for privacy. They also link with the activity of daytime, of things to do. In the home the curtains suggest privacy and evening intimacy. In the theatre there is a sense of social or shared experience.

If you are actively engaged in opening or closing the curtains, look for what is happening in your waking life in regard to need for privacy or endings and beginnings.

Cut open: Being cut open can be like a rape of ones secret self, ones defenses, ones body. But if done because of illness by a surgeon it can be life saving – or also a traumatic experience, depending on how it was done. Sometimes it represent a new wonderful sexual experience.

Door: If you dream of a shut door, it may indicate you feel protected, want to keep people out of you life or enjoying your own space. The door open is an invitation, an act of trust. A dream door is a graphic image of feelings and attitudes you have that allow people to get close to you, or keep them distant. So it is important to define what you are doing with the door. For instance opening a door to someone is an offer for them to get closer, perhaps even to have a sexual relationship.

Doors also stand between you and the outside world, or between you and other people, as in an office. So they can represent opportunity or unknown events that are moving toward you. The door is a boundary between one room and another – one way of feeling and living and another. It can therefore help you to discover what your door is by imagining yourself each side of it and comparing how you feel. It could be an opening to a new way of life.

If the door is closed ask yourself what you are shutting out, or what attitudes you are using to keep people or opportunities away. Of course, being able to close the door is a good thing as long as it is a conscious decision.

Being unconsciously ‘closed’ means we might be trapped in a limiting attitude or stance. See if you can become more aware of this and decide if you really want to stay trapped. If there is an attempt to get in our out of the door, sit and relax and imagine opening the door to see what feeling changes occur.

Door creaking open: This is a cliché used a lot in films or drama, and usually indicates something awful or scary is about to happen.

Eyes open: It suggest awareness, independence in seeing what is before you. See eyes

Example: a young boy of five, after his pet mouse had given birth to several babies, dreamt the babies opened their eyes.

We explored the dream and he said that a pet was something that couldn’t do anything for itself and needed looking after. When asked if he had any feelings about this he said that sometimes he felt like a pet because he couldn’t do things for himself without his parents consent. We looked at what it meant that the babies had opened their eyes, and he said that when baby mice open their eyes it means they are ready to be independent. This led him to realize that he wanted to be more independent. So from that time on he started doing more things for himself instead of depending upon his parents.

Gift: An unopened dream gift is an unrealised potential, an unconscious link of love, or an insight still unspoken. The giver of the gift is a clue to who it is you have received love or hope or inspiration from. If you are the giver, ask yourself what it is you are giving that person, or that aspect of yourself.

Some gifts are unwanted. Such gifts are important to define, because you need to acknowledge what it is you are rejecting from within yourself, or from another person. In some dreams the unwanted gift is pregnancy.

Letter: If the letter is not opened it usually refers to things you know but have not let yourself really become aware of. Try opening the letter and observing what you feel or think. See letter

Open to the Big you: Meeting the feelings of the Big you can be scary because we are often not taught that we have anything in us except blood and guts and so have no experience of knowing who we are. Allowing an enlarged experience of yourself, or a letting down your defensive barriers. It might feel like being overwhelmed by another person’s identity or another influence you do not identify with. In opening yourself to that wonderful otherness of the heap of shit that was, your life becomes a compost heap which offered new growth. See Reaction to the unconscious

Opening: You can open a shop or a business; you can open up

Open Ground: This usually suggests freedom to express, also opportunity, depending what you feel about or wish to do with the ground/land.

Opened my eyes: The saying, ‘It opened my eyes’ refers to something or someone who changed you in some way, or helped you to realise something new.

Opening legs: This usually refers to a woman who willingly opens herself to a partner. For a man a woman who does this it feels like a wonderful intimate experience if it is done with some measure of love.

Opening your heart and your body: Open by accepting it or a person as a part of yourself – just as the blood and guts and faeces are a part of you. Allow you to grow emotionally and become strong.

Opening to your inner animal: Any animal you dream about is most likely and expression of your instincts, and opening to it is often a loving relationship to the dream animal. See Animals; Animals in your Brain

Opening to your fears: See Dealing with Fear

Idioms: open up a big can of whoop-ass; open a can of worms; open to criticism; open some doors; leave the door open; keep an eye open; for openers; keep an open mind; leave yourself open; open a window; open and shut; open season; open to question; open up

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I opening, or opening to?

What did I find or feel?

Have I opened myself in some way – if not why not?

See  Method to Manage Intense EmotionLetting things HappenRole in the dream

Opera

Dramatisation of inner feeling situations. See: arena; Stage; film.

 Singing or hearing opera represents your own dramatic play of feelings, often an uplifting influence, a reaching up to your heights, or down to your depths of emotion. Sometimes it also has a theme and will lead to a realisation. See Plot of the Dream

So this might be suggesting the dramatisation of your inner feeling situations. Or perhaps the drama of your life, the stage of life, or stage of development reached. Most operas are about tragic, romantic or magical relationships, and so your dream might be indicating something in your own life reflected in the opera.

 Example: I am walking rapidly down a very crowded street. I am in a blue velvet suit, and I am the star of the opera which is about to be presented. All of the people are recognising me as I walk through the streets.

Now I am in line as one of the spectators waiting for the show. I have a ticket in my purse and my dog, Duffy, in a kennel box.

Now I am with Cliff, an intimate college friend of mine, in his house. Attached to his house is the building where the opera is to be presented. He is the carpenter, builder, and logistics supervisor for the production. All of his work is done backstage. I have great feelings of love for him and prepare myself for the show in the sunny spacious apartment where he lives. Quote from Sundance.

This dream is clearly about his life’s work, as the very word opera comes from the Latin opus, meaning work. Opera as an art form includes, as doe’s life, a variety of artistic expressions: singing, dancing, high drama. It can also be seen that you experience all of the perspectives in the dream which people experience in their own lives: the spectator, the star, the producer, and director. What isn’t said clearly is that all the work of the carpenter takes place ‘backstage’, out of sight in the unconscious. See: archetype of Christ  

 Example: I’m watching a film or video taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – its night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta

Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life. It shows her wonderful potential but also the fear if the way of claiming it.

Idioms: soap opera

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I singing or listening?

Did the music move me, if so in what way?

What was the effect of the opera?

See Active Passive Characters and People in DreamsBeing the Person or ThingBeing the Person or ThingCore

Operation

Some inner attitude is sick, and is being removed. Fear of illness. Memories connected with an actual past operation.

Operations medical

Memories regarding actual operation, or a sick inner attitude which needs attention. Do you have a fear of illness or even physical illness that you fear will lead to an operation?

Many people have difficult feelings or memories following a car accident, or during any natural upheaval such as an earthquake or flood, or after a medical operation. If you dreamt of having an operation, what part of the body was being attended to? If you have pain there or strange feelings it is worth having check.

In most cases the person under anaesthetic is taken into a room they have never seen before and operated on by people they have not met. They experience the separation of their awareness from their anaesthetised body and not only observe the people in the room and their actions and conversation, but also sometimes go exploring adjacent rooms. Their descriptions have frequently completely tied in with the facts of the location they were operated in, the people present, and the adjacent rooms. See Out Of Body Experiences

In the book Ishi – the Last of his Tribe, by Theodora Kroeber, Ishi, a Native American unspoilt by exposure to Western life styles, was allowed to witness a tonsil operation on a child. He was horrified to see the child put into a sleep state by a man who had not himself been initiated into consciously entering the inner worlds of the unconscious. He was vitally aware that without such knowledge the anaesthetist was exposing the child to many real dangers. In fact many people have been left with psychological scars from lack of awareness on the part of surgeons and anaesthetists, of what is being experienced by the person being anesthetised. See: The Labours of Hero Cules, a straightforward description of what it was like to remember an actual tonsil operation.

Another description of a child being anaesthetised during a nose operation:

 Example: As I explored the dream it worked out as my struggle to avoid the rectal anaesthesia as a child. I didn’t experience the emotions of that, only the movements and intuitions about its connection with the dream. That is, I kept saying, “I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t.” This was expressive of a sense that the pain inflicted to my face (nose) during the operation, must be because I had done something wrong. I could see that I associated inflicted pain with the punishment a parent gave because of some “bad” action. I could not understand why the pain had been inflicted on me.

Also, I felt that religion itself was a projection out of the unconscious, from such fundamental premises. In other words, inflicted pain equals punishment. Pain equals God’s punishment.

Because I felt I was dying during the anaesthetic, the sense of death equated with pain and people hurting one. At the time of the anaesthetic my conscious identity had been plunged with awareness deep into the unconscious. The loss of shape or senses was felt to be death. So a conditioned reflex had been set. During anaesthesia I had fought desperately with the nurses – for my life. While I was fighting for my life and kicked and struggled so much I had kicked the bottle of anaesthetic out of the nurses grasp and it broke. Then I was held as a fresh bottle was used and the anaesthetic was poured into my rectum – it couldn’t be given my nose – and I have a memory of the nurses saying, “Don’t do that!” To me it was like a hypnotic command saying, “Don’t fight for your life. Give up!” That was kept in me until I relived it.

Uncovering the ‘past’ that is still with you here in the ‘present’ takes real work and needs dedication over a fairly long period of time. It is a work that is desperately needed in the world and in society. Very few people, even those in high positions of government or society, have actually grown up in the full sense. They are still operating in the world either from promptings and fears from their earliest babyhood, or from social conditioning that is out of date and needs upgrading. See Life’s Little Secrets

 Example: I was being shown round a huge warehouse. In one of the rooms, there were my paintings. In the next room I was shown there was a girl being operated on. She was being revived by electric shock treatment. I remember feeling that it was creepy watching her body jerk and convulse as she was being brought back to life. Then I turned to look in a mirror and saw there was glue all over my face, I was tearing it off to get the layers off my skin. Then I started to tear at my skin. Caroline.

Caroline’s dream is full of references to the body. It occurred at a time she was breaking with a long time partner and shows the re-discovery of her artistic skill, the pain of coming to life again after the deadening effect of the relationship, and the change of self image she is undergoing.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings did I experience during the dream?

Did the dream kink with any operations I have experienced?

Did the dream release any forgotten trauma?

See Life’s Little SecretsThe Two PowersCharacters and People in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Opium

Is often used to describe an attempt to hide weaknesses by idealism, romanticism, religion. It can symbolise any means by which we hide fears, failings, inability to face life, inability to come to terms with life.

Oracle

Usually it points to intuition. Or it could be unconscious hopes or desires, or even attempt to manipulate. See: esp in dreams.

 Dreams should not be seen as oracles, but if you take their information into account along with your other sources, you will find them a real addition to your life equipment. A dream is not an oracle. It is the point of view of the unconscious. For consciousness to accept this point of view uncritically is to be caught in a particularly insidious form of superstition. On the other hand, to learn of the attitude of the unconscious is valuable knowledge. It is the first step towards inner co-operation, the forming of the whole person.

Because many people believe they have prophetic dreams and are untrained in their use, dreams sometimes prove to be traps, or appear to be so. They sometimes behave like the Delphic oracle that told King Croesus that if he crossed the Halys River he would destroy a large kingdom. It was only after he had been completely defeated in battle after the crossing that he discovered that the kingdom meant by the oracle was his own.

The Delphic oracles in Greece were called ‘Melissae’, or “bees.” The oracles and gods of prophecy were given offerings of honey and honey cakes.

 Example: When Esther left the stage, her voice had told her that her retreat would last two years. She had taken this to mean that after two years she would return to the stage and be earning money again. But the experience of the past thirteen days warned her against such hopes. Was the voice wrong? No, but like all oracles it was easily misinterpreted. If you are looking in the wrong direction, you cannot see the truth. She thought the return would be to her career as an actress. Now she realised that ‘the return’ was an internal problem, the remaking of her personality; and this she found agonisingly difficult. She had temporarily left the bookshop early in 1958, and now when she went back to work in it, as she felt she must, all the old traits of character which she disliked so much seemed to be coming to life again. How was she to make a finer person out of such poor material?

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What message did I get from my dream?

Did I hear a voice telling me something?

What problem did my dream deal with?

See The Prophecy of The Star BeingsPrecognitionForeseeingHallucinations and Hallucinogens

Oracle

Intuition.

Oral

Because of the way the tongue and mouth are sometimes used in oral sex, the tongue can depict the penis, or at least, the drive to penetrate or to make contact through that sensitive organ. Another side to this is that we can express a lot of care and love through the tongue, as when a mother animal licks its child, so can express healing. But the tongue in all mammals is a way love and care is given, and so kissing is probably a return to this.

Orally we express ourselves in sound and words. In dreams we may express truths or guidance that we do not experience in any other way. Something that becomes apparent in dreams is that usually we express in words through thought – from the head. But we have a much larger self which does not flow from the head but from deep in our body. Then we make sounds or sing with so much feeling and often touch the holiness that we are.

 Example: I am living in a large old house with P (my husband) and I ask him about a girl that I recently discovered online who is an adult film star and frequents the same cafe that he occasionally works at. When I ask him if he knows her, he admits to me that he has known for a while and recently had oral sex with her. He apologizes, but says he is somewhat interested in her and intends to pursue her. I get very upset and verbally attack him and pull his hair and have a bit of a tantrum. When I am calm, I feel better, but still completely betrayed and saddened.

Example: The kiss, oral pleasure, was our first area of loving with our mother. From that original centre of pleasure, it grows into anal and genital pleasure. When that happens the body begins to move. But there was still no erection. The movement was the forerunner of the inner pleasurable urge to thrust and penetrate. So there was a slow and internal growth through escalating feelings, and not an outwardly ordained set of movements that lead to “sex”!

Example: One female patient could never understand her curious urge to be filled with semen until through this fantasy she discovered that she was led not by sexual desire but by oral greed, and the liquid she required was not semen but milk.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way does oral come into my dream?

Is it voice expression or sex?

Do you speak or sing in your dream?

See PentecostLife’s Little SecretsspeakingLifeStream

Orange

The colour:

The colourBlending or balance of emotions and intellect. Orange is a blend of red and yellow, and as such much refines the basic instinctual energy or red with the life giving yellow. So it is often used to indicate refined or transformed sexuality or urges, and perhaps greater wisdom. Its link with fruits such as oranges and apricots also might link it with fruitfulness. It therefore suggests health and energy along with a calm mind. See: Colour.

Some people call some shades of red orange, so occasionally there might be a difference in terminology.

Because some people and cats have orange hair, the colour might at times refer o a particular person or feelings about an animal.

Sometimes: Warmth; religious feelings or insight. In some dreams when it is an object coloured orange it suggest something flashy, outrageous or quirky.

Brownish orange: This suggests health problems or a lowering of energy and clarity.

Orange hair: Warm or life giving thoughts or ideas – or reminder of a particular person you know with that colouring. See: hair.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling in the dream about the colour, and where do I find those feelings in waking life?

What past associations and memories do I have with orange, and do they throw light on the dream?

Where does the orange appear – clothing, objects or body? In whatever context, look up how it relates to the clothing or body part, etc.

See orange under food – KundaliniEnergy Sex and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams


Orchard

Fruitfulness, the results of labours. The sort of fruitfulness of a long life well spent. Or if an orchard in bloom, it can depict youth or female fertility. Also peace and personal or spiritual growth. See: Garden

 Destroyed orchard often represents the dreamer’s feelings that he has destroyed hid or her own inner fruitfulness and creativity.

 Example: I have taken an apple from a tree while I am passing an orchard. A big dog comes and jumps at me, I am terribly frightened, and I wake up yelling for help. Quoted from Dreams the Forgotten Language by Erich Fromm

The apple that was stolen represent the forbidden fruit, in this case a married woman he had fantasised having sex with. The big dog is his own instinctive reaction.

 Example: I am working in some banana orchard and I hear some woman say ‘cut it down!’ I look around, but I don’t know what she is talking about. All the plants look healthy to me. Other women are laughing. I am raking up a few leaves. It is windy, but there aren’t many leaves or much to clean up here. I don’t know where this woman is.

The man who dreamt this was poking fun at himself. The banana often represents a penis.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What type trees does the orchard contain?

Was there much fruit in the orchard and was it ripe?

Have I ever stole fruit from an orchard?

See Being the Person or ThingMagical Dream MachineClicking OnSacred Tree

Orchestra

The working relationship between the different aspects of oneself – mind, body, spirit; ones sense of social co-operation or harmony in the cosmos. The creation of something influencing other people – the audience – through cooperation.

It sometimes links with your own innate musical ability, and it is worth exploring. See Being the Person or Thing

Conductor: The Self; whatever is directing ones life. Feeling you are in power or are directing the events of your life, perhaps a case of hubris, an excess of ambition and pride. See: music; musical instruments.

 Unable to follow the score: Perhaps a failure to work or live in harmony or cooperation with life or others.

Jazz orchestra: – It indicates an ability to live or appreciate a life that is less constrained and can contribute creatively. Or if not liked might suggest a life that prefers to follow traditional paths of life.

 Example: ‘I am a journalist reporting on the return of Christ. He is expected on a paddle steamer going upstream on a large river. I am very sceptical and watch disciples and followers gather on the rear deck. The guru arrives, dressed in simple white robes. He has long, beautiful auburn hair and beard, and a gentle wise face. He begins to tap a simple rhythm on a tabla or Indian drum. It develops into complex intermingling of orchestral rhythms as everyone joins in. I now realise he is Christ, and feel overwhelmed with awe as I try to play my part in the music. I’m tapping with a pen and find myself fumbling. A bottle or can opener comes to me from the direction of Christ. I try to beat a complementary rhythm, a small part of a greater, universal music.’ Lester S.

Example: The music from the hi-fi expanded to a new kind of “living sound” more beautiful than any music I’d ever heard before. I could hear all of the percussive noises of the instruments, the scraping of the bow on the violins, the mechanical noises of the other instruments, the breathing and air noises as the vocalists sang, and within the space of a few minutes, the orchestra had transported itself from the loudspeaker and now seemed to be totally inside my being somewhere. I was delighted, amazed, and carried away with the sheer majesty and beauty of these sounds which were liquid and tinged with colored lights. I wondered indeed why it is that the ears of man are normally so hard of hearing. Lambert Dolphin

You didn’t hear the harmony,

The voices all as one,
The orchestra of all those sounds
With single voice of none?
I heard it here this afternoon,
One voice sang through them all,
Collecting all the sounds of life,
Into one vibrant call.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I notice any feelings of cooperation or harmony?

What did I feel?

Did I listen to the orchestra or was part of to?

See Clicking OnEdgar CayceAllowing the SpontaneousDiving into the Depths of Mind

Ordinary

In our dreams the ordinary often had tremendous significance, but it needs to be explored. The reason is that the ordinary is like a camouflage behind which lies enormous meaning. For instance if you dream about your hand you may think, so what, it’s my hand. Okay but what is your hand, what have you created or destroyed with your hand, how many women has it been inside of; and where did it arise from? How many men and women of past generations gave their lived that you could live and have a hand now? And it goes right back to the beginning of the evolution of the hand, for you hold it all within you. See Being the Person or Thing

 Example: Dreamt I had a long scarf of double thickness, made like a snake, with eyes and mouth sewn on. I was trying various ways of putting it on but couldn’t find a satisfactory one. I was doing this in an amused way. I knew the scarf was to do with kundalini. Smiling I saw Peta and Maitreya sitting as in meditation. Very heavy, they said I ought to go beyond all the silly thoughts about kundalini. This really irritated me. At this point I woke for a while. When I went asleep again I continued the dream. I went to them and said if anyone was locked in preconceived thoughts they were. The idea of going beyond was itself a conception. Why not stay simply with what is there instead of plans and goals. I then put the scarf on like a bobble hat. The snake eyes were in front, the mouth seemed to be holding my head. I felt satisfied.

I worked on this dream with Liz. I lay still for a while with nothing happening. Then was led to sit up. I felt Maitreya as a rather disciplined feeling. Peta was great stillness, a silence not filled, and empty silence rather than a full one. Then I had arising out of this a powerful kundalini feeling – pleasure flowing through me. A spot of sensitive gentleness in the chest radiated love. Then I transformed into an ordinary human – one of mankind – seeing Peta and Maitreya as common beings, and I loved them into myself. I felt the dream showed how ideologies create chasms between us, and how once we get back to our own ordinariness this chasm disappears. Yes, certainly we must go beyond kundalini, but we must go beyond going beyond.

 Example: She found, too, that small practical acts, that went against her usual careless habits, helped to increase her efficiency in the shop. One evening she returned home much dispirited and longing for some light in the darkness. Taking up a book by Hugh Kingsmill, entitled The Kingdoms of the Spirit, she opened it at a passage about practical good works, as advocated by the Buddha, not what she had hoped for at all. However, the voice said, ‘Well, there you are! You asked for help: now get out of bed and do something.’ Cursing and swearing, but feeling she had got to do as she was told; she got out of bed, darned some stockings and mended a blouse ready for the next day. In the morning, when she woke, she heard: ‘Now you’re a responsible person: get up, dress yourself properly and kneel down and pray for X’ (an actress who was dangerously ill). This made her feel tremendously restored and happy. And gradually she began to believe that she could trust Love to be in her eyes and hands; for she felt convinced that what she had to learn was to be learnt where she was, in the bookshop.

Example: I came home with the shopping. I love it – looking through all the choices of things and collecting what I need. And I put the bags on my cane sofa in the kitchen, and forgot about them while I involved myself in other things.

Later, returning to take all my carefully selected foods and goods out of the bags to store, I opened the first bag and was almost swept away – swept away by the wonder of it. In that flimsy plastic bag, with its imprint of the supermarket badly stamped upon it, I saw all the treasure of care, the fruits of labour my mother and father had carried with love into our home, carried, just as I had carried these bags today. There in glory shone manifest the skills I had struggled, or with joy learned and honed in order to have something to give to my fellows, and therefore feed my children and myself, to take as an offering to my wife. In my hands were the gifts of the generations, the forefathers and mothers throughout the ages. Such common things all shone with light, and with a mystery beyond my understanding – and I stood transfixed.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I explored the meaning of my own common life?

What do I find if I do?

Can I share what my ordinariness has?

See Active PassiveKey WordsInner WorldLearning to Allow Yourself 

Ore

This shows you discovering your potential, mining new ideas or energy from within you. These potentials are probably to do with innate processes from the long past, or aspects of yourself you have never dealt with before, or personal resources needing work to make usable. Potentials you are bringing to consciousness from your unconscious resources. See: Mine.

Precious ore: In dreams this usually represents the great wisdom or insights you have gathered from digging into yourself, searching for who and what you are. They are precious because you cannot help but by changed by finding them.

 Example: I was a youth, with a friend my own age, and walking up the hill opposite Amersham hospital. The boy was showing me the stones imbedded in the ground, and saying some were full of minerals. I dug out a piece of what looked like iron ore, or lodestone. I noticed thousands of small stones embedded in the earth like a mosaic. I had never noticed these before, despite having walked that hill in dreams many times. I believe the boy threw a piece into the sky, making it fall like a meteorite.

Example: I have come across a tunnel dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken ore/rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found the treasure in the tunnel.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.  Another person went in to get some of the treasure.  However, I knew that to have a treasure you had to answer a question put to you by something like a Guardian of the tunnel – maybe a sphinx.

In exploring the dream I found that the cave is an absence of something.  It is the result of work done of clearing out, of chipping away at what was there inside me.  This led to revealing what we consider to be treasure.  The treasure was there but it had not been revealed, it was part and parcel of the rock. What I find interesting about the dream is that there are pieces of gold lying about outside the cave.  So one could gather a lot of treasure simply from what is already available.  There would be no need to enter the cave.  But there is the promise of enormous treasure inside.  It isn’t so much the wealth, but there is the impression that the treasure is not simply lumps of gold, but un-nameable things that one would find extremely valuable.  There is also the sense I have while working on the dream that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the ore promise value or is it valueless?

Did I find gold or gems in the ore?

Was it me who found it or was it already there?

See Being the Person or ThingDiving into the Depths of MindFeatures on Site

Organ

The different areas of your life, different ideas, capabilities, feelings, sympathies, weaknesses, strengths, that can be played upon. Sometimes represents the wonderful possibilities of the mind, or your spirit, or even the octaves and feelings of sex or love.

Organ Organs

The different aspects of self, different ideas, feelings, abilities, weaknesses and strengths which can be played or called upon; the whole range of our being as it responds to decisions and activity; sexual organs. See: music.

Body organs are a very different thing, for dreams see our body not as a mechanical and senseless thing, but a thing of great wonder, a multidimensional cathedral full of mysteries.

Take the head for instance -sitting inside your head is your brain, your brain is just a pearly-white jelly-like substance that is the visible body of your mind. It appears quite small if you look at it. If you explore it in the right way though, it is bigger than all the sky with all the stars and all the planets and space. Because a healthy brain has about ten billion nerve cells working in it, and each little cell can connect with the other cells, your brain can make more patterned interconnections than there are atoms in the universe. The number of these connections is much bigger than ten billion.

We often take for granted some of the most astounding facts about our everyday life. They seem so normal we barely notice them. But just think, the potatoes or rice you ate yesterday, is today capable of sitting and laughing at a television program. When you digested the food you ate, in some way that is truly astounding it transformed into your movements, and feelings, and being able to do maths and enjoy a film. Not even the brainiest person in the world has been able to make a robot or creature that can eat potatoes and change them into the ability to read and understand this. If we can already do that amazing thing, what else might we be able to do?

Well the head also contains the eyes, the ears and the sense of smell. And these connect directly with the brain, but are we really aware of what we can do with them when all connected.

Well the eyes and ears give us enormous information, but what do we make of it or do we understand what it shows us? As I write this I can see and hear a main road about a hundred metres away. Usually it is only noticed occasionally as I work in my little cottage, but sometime when I really listen and see, I realise that not only am a part of a little community, I am in the middle of a changing world and a part of a huge community without which it would be awful to try to exist. It is through the effort of makers of clothes, the builders of this cottage, the growers of food, the wonderful workers who give us electricity and gas, and the beginnings of us all mothers and fathers and teachers who enabled me to learn how to read and write – to name just a few of those unacknowledged I need in my life.

I can almost feel the men and women who pass by on the road, full of their desire to go somewhere, to work, to meet someone, to go shopping or just get out of their house. We are in the middle of a great mystery.

But the eyes, ears and nose also connect is with things. I have a small garden, and there are woods nearby and people. All of it part of the enormous change of the world. I see the growth in the spring, the flowering and death that is part of living. From my window I can see the buttress of a bridge where a man crashed his car and died, and the flowers his daughter puts there. Mothers with babies walk by and a woman nearby lost her husband through death.

But can you see the connections between things – between the life of flowers and trees and the human life? Does it mean anything to you? Do you never take time to wonder about it?

The senses connect directly with out brain, and our brain with thinking and wondering and hopefully seeing the connection with things. The mouth connects with taste and hunger, and that connects with plants and trees and their hunger for nutrients and their life cycle and the hard things they face in their survival, but most of us do not connect that with our own deep feelings about life and survival. They cannot see that we have evolved into a plant with its roots inside us – the villi – which like roots absorb nutrients, enable us to move instead of staying rooted.

But hunger is a holy thing, holy in that it is a basic of all life forms, and is presented as such in many religions. The bread and the wine are actually the body of life – of all life forms, and when we take in any food we are taking in a holy substance. Of course the church has made it a ritual instead of, as it is, a daily holy act of eating.

But hunger is a much wider thing than eating food, for we all are hungry for experience and thereby collecting information which if we can actually see it and digest it making it a living part of our awareness, we are made whole as a living thing, instead of the enormous hunger the world demonstrates in depression, sexually driven people, a hunger for what doesn’t actually satisfy them.

So on through the body, the heart and lungs, the sexual organs, the excretory functions are all enormous in their inner life and are also sense organs. See kundalini; Life’s Little Secrets

Orgasm

All our lives we try to achieve a balance of contradictory opposites, and whether in our egos we succeed or fail, every function claimed by the ego is balanced by its opposite in the unconscious. Only in the fusion of infancy, or of sexual orgasm, or in religious ecstasy do we escape the psychic wound of division. See The male in the female

The discharge of feelings and body fluids in sexual orgasm and ejaculation are like the flowing back to earth when lightning strikes a conductor rod. Nature does its thing and the energy is gone. In most human sexuality today there is not even the possibility of reproduction. What other cultures have developed is the concept of this as energy. They say that this energy is potentially many other things than physical reproduction. So they divert the energy into the body toward the brain, rather than out of the body to be earthed. The results of this when successful are extended functions of the brain and senses. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OrgasmTiredness after Sex

The techniques and teachings lying behind this view are fundamentally about recognising the potentials lying dormant in you and learning to use them. The eastern cultures, far more than is true in the West, have developed techniques to extend possibilities of human life. See Energy Sex and Dreams; Kundalini; Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm.

 Dreams also use the idea of fusing one thing with another. Two people can be fused into one, or we can fuse with an animal as one being. Sexual contact can also be a way of fusing with each other. But fusing is an everyday part of us. What we take into us mentally, psychologically or physically becomes one with us. When we eat for instance it become the living part of us. Also we take into us the many things learnt in a relationship and they are fused with us. In a sexual relationship if we do not integrate or digest what we take in from the other person it may cause us psychic indigestion – repeating on us. How many people do we fuse with as we grow and mature? See Integrating; digest

Sex and orgasm are also fusing in a way that most people do not understand. An experience I had many years ago illustrates this. At the time I was working in a hotel kitchen. It was midday and the restaurant attached to the hotel was about to open. All of the preparations had been made so there was a lull as we were waiting for the doors to open and customers to enter. I was standing behind a countertop cleaning it, and about five or six metres away the elderly owner of the hotel was standing talking to a waitress. I think they were both in their 60s or the waitress might have been in her late fifties.

They were casually talking about the amount of custom there was for this time of year, and about the restaurant. At one point in my cleaning I glanced up to look at them. At that moment a radical shift took place in how I saw them. It seemed to me as if a new sensory organ had opened, one I had never experienced before. With this new sense each tiny movement the waitress and boss made exploded with information. Subtle changes in facial expression I had never perceived before were now visible and meaningful. It even seemed as if I could sense and see an enormous energy connection between the two at the solar plexus. And what I understood through this new sense was that the waitress and boss at some time had engaged in sex. I was in my 30’s at the time, and silly as it may seem, the idea that these two 60 year olds could have sex with each other had never entered my mind.

Along with this realisation came the vision of a great trunk of energy passing between them. Although on the surface their actions and speech were inconsequential, at the deeper level of energy exchange, very powerful communication was occurring. I understood from this that when two people have sex with each other they forge this link. Through it they send messages to each other perhaps without realising it. The link may last a lifetime.
I was so surprised and intrigued by what had happened I later asked the waitress if she’d had a sexual relationship with the boss. With only slight embarrassment she said it was true, they did have a sexual relationship.

  Example: I was in a building with a number of people. Winnie, a woman I worked with many years ago was there, sitting cross legged on the floor. I went to her and kissed her. She responded and I put my hand down on her thigh under her skirt, and gently moved it under her knickers to touch her vagina. It was moist and wet with excitement and I pushed my fingers into the slippery crevice. As I did so my feelings rose in a beautiful soft and satisfying orgasm. I thought I had ejaculated, but had not.

Then I was in a street and met a dark haired young woman. We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere. Damon.

Example: ‘I was in a cubicle or small toilet with a very black woman. She told me there was something wrong with her vagina. She was undressed. I rubbed her vagina and we both felt enormous passion. I then awoke but couldn’t at first remember the dream. I have refrained from sexual intercourse for some weeks, as I always feel shattered/tired afterwards. Anyway I awoke very wet yet couldn’t remember any orgasm. I could remember some question of sex as I awoke. Then I remembered the dream and continued it in fantasy. I experienced powerful urges to find a woman to have a non committed sexual relationship with. But in the end I wanted to share my feelings with my wife, but she seemed deep asleep and unresponsive. When I slept again I dreamt I was in London, had got off one bus, but was not at my destination. I was standing about not making a move to find my direction. Then I began to look.’ Fred C.

To understand the above dream in some depth it is helpful to think of the sexual and emotional drives as a flow, like a river. As such they can be blocked, in which case they will seek an alternative route. The dream is not simply about sexual sensation, but also passion. The flow of passion and sexual energy are not simply mechanical things, they are also deeply feeling in their connection with the most profound sides of human life such as parenthood and the caring and providing for young, and our social contact with the people around us. In the history of white people a great deal of frustration has arisen out of the ideas of sin and guilt in their religion. A view arose for the white race that the black races had an easier and less frustrating relationship with the NATURAL. So when Fred dreams of the black woman, he is meeting what is natural and flowing in himself, but which he has blocked by his will because of his struggle with his feelings and sexuality. This is why the black woman has a problem with her vagina. The part about the bus shows Fred trying to find a direction in which his sexual feelings could move satisfyingly in connection with other people. The conflict he has is also shown in waking by his desire to find a woman to have uncomplicated sex with – thus his unsuccessful attempt to share his sexual flow with his wife.

 Example: I was a tiny baby about six months old, lying on my back with my legs in the air, with no clothes on and my father was looking at me. He was looking at my private parts and I expected him to react in an approving way, but he did not. It was a shattering blow to my self-esteem. I felt that here was the very essence of my femaleness, and the one male I most wanted to show approval did not do so.

Realising that her father had used her sexually she went on, “Following this insightful LSD experience, the patient felt “enormously released.” She found that she began to enjoy male relationships which previously had resulted in feelings of shame and which afterwards she preferred not to think about. After treatment she “felt a wonderful outpouring of love” and wanted to have a second child, though previously she had thought another pregnancy would be “disastrous.” In later sessions she summoned other childhood sexual detail that made even further progress possible, and at the close of treatment she had her first full internal orgasm during intercourse. Quoted from LSD the Problem Solving Psychedelic by Stafford and Golightly.

 Example: A young woman was there, not particularly good-looking, but okay. I suppose I would describe her as a fairly plain young woman, neither highly intelligent nor stupid. Almost immediately we were in a sexual relationship. I was sucking her breast. It was very beautiful and warm sweet milk was coming out into my mouth. It felt very satisfying, both for me and for her. Then my hand was on her vagina. It felt incredibly rich and deep. It was fully wet and inviting. I put my hand up inside her and could feel her orgasm as wonderful muscular movements of her vagina around my hand.

Example: I was involved with a married woman, a beautiful full figured female. She told me she had never experienced an orgasm. Then one evening she made it plain she wanted sex which had happened before. It started slowly and then I told her she should get on top of me and use me in whatever she wanted. Well she stayed in the top position and worked away backwards and forwards in full throttle. Somehow it wasn’t doing anything for me but neither did it make me ejaculate, so I just let her get on with it. It took quite a while but eventually I could see she was arriving and fell onto me. I held her and stayed like that.

The next day she told me that she experienced blowing up like a balloon, and then suddenly she burst and disappeared into a wonderful feeling. I thought afterwards that this lady had needed a LOT of physical action to achieve her orgasm.

Orgy

The release of repressed desires, glutting themselves.

Orient Oriental

The unconscious, the source of life and its mystery. Thus it often represents transcendental wisdom and intuition. See: Chinese.

There are legends throughout the world in which “a poison damsel” (as they call her in the Orient) appears. She is a beautiful creature who has weapons hidden in her body or a secret poison with which she kills her lovers during their first night together. In this guise the anima is as cold and reckless as certain uncanny aspects of nature itself, and in Europe is often expressed to this day by the belief in witches.

The east, as the direction from which the sun and other celestial bodies rise, naturally symbolizes new beginnings and rebirths. Dreams about the East (in the sense of the Orient) have other associations, sometimes of a spiritual nature. For someone living in the Midwest or California, “back East” has entirely different connotations.

May be an aspect “foreign to you” or a need to orient” yourself in the situation.

 Example: I dreamt next morning I intuitively remember a Chinese name. I telephone them. A man answers, calling me by name. I am surprised. He tells me he has known me for hundreds of years through incarnations. Somehow I have to die because of my child.

Example: The Guru or master was not Indian, and not surrounded by an Ashram or disciples. He was only known through personal relationship, and was a Tibetan or Chinese. I felt, or have the feeling, he was from a mountainous place. The master was showing or giving me a book to read or understand certain passages. There was a sense that he was acknowledging me as becoming a Guru in my own right. I was going on a journey with another person.

Example: This was very beautiful.  As I did so I felt even more fully the impact of the old Chinese man who I had felt the presence of earlier.  I could feel the beautiful quality he carried within him from his culture.  I understood that the brushstroke, as simple as it was, carried within it everything that the man was, and in turn he carried everything that was his culture.  I don’t mean that he carried all information and knowledge from his culture, but that he had arisen from it and could not in any way be distinct from it. As I experienced this I realised that it is only when we accept ourselves as a brushstroke that we can see the bigger picture.  As I said that I had the most amazing experience of accepting myself as a brushstroke and then of seeing the bigger picture.  It wasn’t that I saw in detail any particular thing.  What did happen was that I had a glorious sense of wonder in touching something beautiful that transcended myself.

Example: In the dream I entered a very large house in a row of large houses. It was as if I was visiting the house and yet lived there. Inside the house I went through many rooms, but eventually went through an initiation in which I entered a different state of being. It felt like a step onwards. The house was run by Chinese, and at one point I was having another experience with a Chinese woman. She and I merged and it was like another initiation. Then I was out side the house, but seeing it from what was the front. It was like a massive temple entrance. So I must have got in originally through the back of the building.

I started exploring the dream by saying that I am a grand house in row of grand houses. My first view of me was of what I thought was the front of the house but later realised was the back. Inside the house I was huge with masses of rooms and space. Even as the house I wasn’t aware of how many rooms I had and what took place in me. I felt as if inside me was a Chinese influence and every one was Chinese, but my exterior was very definitely English with a grand style. Although I didn’t feel as if I were exploring but walking through many rooms. I felt as if there was so much going on in the building of various things that I could not understand. I suppose if I try to describe this it would be that in many rooms the atmosphere and décor was so different it felt as if I was in different times or environments.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel the Chinese influence is alien to me or easy?

What were my feelings in the dream?

Did I experience new insights or views?

See Being the Person or ThingGuruBrushstrokesIdentity and dreams

Orphan

Feeling abandoned or unloved; feeling rejected or misunderstood – or part of yourself is being rejected and misunderstood. It may indicate feelings of vulnerability in independence and consciousness. Sometimes this reflects difficult events in your childhood, leading to you feeling abandoned or unwanted. If so there is often a link with feelings of belonging – whether you feel you belong to anyone, or anyone belongs to, or really links with, yourself. See: abandoned.

 Example: Dreamt I was standing on a street somewhere in the city of London watching an old-fashioned phone box. It was a weekend and all was quiet. The door of the phone box is open and on the floor are a variety of bones. At first I think they are from an animal, but quickly see they are human. A man enters the box to make a call. Suddenly three or four savage dogs attack, ripping him to pieces.

In exploring this by focussing my attention inwards and allowing spontaneous imagery and emotions, I found a lump that I had kept deep within that no one could touch or ever has. I split the lump and two halves of a walnut appeared. There was a picture of my mother in one half and my father in the other, as they were when I was a child. As I looked, the two halves crumpled into dust. I then saw myself go into the telephone box and try to make the call to reconnect with my parents. Again another shock. There was nobody to connect with. So once again the realisation came that I am an orphan. This brought another great wave of emotion that tore me apart.

I then turned toward the dogs as they came at me. I began to feel the sickness that I have always experienced in sessions, but I just shrugged and let the feeling wash over me. It felt like I have always ended up in hell by that route, and I realised afterwards that hell is hell and will never be anything else. I felt there was something deeper, so I kept to a centre line, trying to reach it. Again there was no feeling, so I turned toward in the God dream that I had, the look of total love for me in God’s eyes gave me the strength to trust my own process. I then experienced God holding my hand and telling me to surrender and allow myself to die.

Then the crisis broke through, and there I was in the kid’s home as my father was leaving. I saw myself, or I should say my being, go out to him. I felt that if I loved him he wouldn’t leave my sister and me. Then he left us in the orphanage, and I felt split in half between him and my mother, creating a schism in which I was left with a personality on either side. Schizophrenia is the word that covers this state. I felt what I would call the primal scream emerge from my being. Then I was through. I saw the dogs as my anxieties that have taken up two thirds of my energy through my life, constantly tearing me apart. I also saw that as a kid I didn’t have enough information to redirect the energy elsewhere. Kevin K.

Example: Last night I dreamt my wife was back from Australia. I was holding her very tenderly. As I held her she said, “While I was in Australia, each Monday a man I met uncovered a well or pool for Ben (us) to bathe in. I think it would be really good if we made love every Monday.”

I then said, “Why, did you make love with him?”

“Yes,” she said, “not once but twice.”

I felt myself unable to be near her any longer, and that was the end of our relationship.

I worked on this dream and the whole mass of emotions was triggered by not knowing when or if my loved one would come back – as happened in the hospital when I was three. That broke the seal and the rest just flooded out – weeks of it. Eternity of holding on, waiting for mother, terrified to let go because I would be consumed by anxiety and hopelessness. Ben was an orphan – so represents the deserted feelings. (Ben was an adopted child taken on by Anne. My wife was his nanny.)

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever felt as if I am alone in life and unloved or not knowing how to love?

Was I ever feeling left or abandoned by my parents?

Am I in fact an orphan?

See Abandoned Inner BabyEdgar CayceSecrets of Power Dreaming

Ossification

Becoming too fixed in your habits, your mental and emotional outlook.

Ostrich

Because of folklore the ostrich may represent avoidance of seeing what is happening around you. But if you have ever watched ostriches you will see how they run from anything that causes them anxiety. So they may be indicating your inclination to do the same. If not that, then the flight or fight instinct or survival. They can kill a man or even a lion when cornered – with powerful kicks. And apparently they do not bury their heads in the sand, but sometimes, like chickens, seek small stones to help digest food.

Ostrich feathers have often featured in exotic or sensual dances, or hats on sultry or upper class women, and may be used in your dream to indicate similar feelings. In Egyptian mythology they represent truth and justice.

 Example: I dream about a pack of prehistoric birds, they look a little like ostrich but from prehistoric time, they can probably run fast, they react to fear and instinct, they don’t have much brain, so they are kept secure in a enclosure next to a small river by the owner, a lady, they are fairly packed, they need to be look after with a balance diet, cereals, grass and water, they could get frightened easily by anything new, so that’s why there is an ongoing noise which is there to make them feel secure, like with very young children. These birds work in a small circus, the owner, a lady is their friend, and keeper, and she looks after their everyday comfort. So these animals are partly domesticated, they can take part in a simple routine, they are there as a testimony of the past, a heritage of some kind. JS

In exploring this dream I feel it relates to a very ancient part of me, which is not able to reason and act on instinct, but it is huge, can inspire a certain amount of fear. It is domesticated but could live with a little more space, need to deal with fear in a more reasonable way; this would mean less acting on impulse, to run away or to charge like geese for example.

 Example: I entered through an old fashioned drapers shop to find several people there at some sort of meeting and realised it was a group of royalty with their aides, etc.  I was to join Princess Diana as a princess. I think I stayed by her and she told me how to behave and what to say to the dignitaries. She told me not to be nervous and that I would soon get used to the life. I sat next to her and she had on her lovely print going away outfit with the print ostrich feather hat. I remember saying to her that it still looked smart, and, “I don’t suppose you will be casting it off yet?” I had my eye on it.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with ostriches?

Is this about not wanting to see what is really going on?

What happened in the dream with the ostrich?

See birdsWorking with associationsinstinctsFacing Fear

Otter

Ability to ‘swim’ with skill –  to meet the ever changing moods and feelings of water without ‘drowning’ – i.e. to meet the changing, the currents and falls of life without ‘drowning’.  It also indicate skill in seeing what is under the surface of your everyday life and mind, and the ability to draw nourishment out of the hidden depths of your mind and spirit. Ancient cultures saw the otter as a clean holy creature. In early Britain the otter was seen as a holy animal, with the ability to transfer from the land to underwater. This meant the ability to dive into the world after death, so a knower of the mysteries.

The otter is also an extremely playful creature and may be shown in your dream as your natural good spirits and playfulness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you looking within for answers or strength – if so what is your dream otter showing of this?

Does your dream show the otter swimming well or badly – and how does that reflect on your life skills?

What is your dream otter doing and what does that suggest?

See AnimalsBeing the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesSumming Up

Oval

The shape often indicates the womb in some way, either that or female qualities or sexuality. The womb here suggests the reproductive drive, the unconscious desire for a child or more children, and the possible neglect of those feelings and longings. See Women’s creative power

Sometimes represents egg and all that can come from it, or being circumscribed or limited, or in the throes of time. It can therefore be a symbol of material existence, and time.

An oval shape is often used in arenas suggesting in dreams important events taking place within you that have a mass of you involved in – for we are all a mass of people and animals – or even religious or mystical ceremonies. See Autonomous Complex; Animals in your Brain

Oval stones are also important in dreams. If they are polished or shiny it shows that you have done a lot of inner work on yourself. The stones may represent divine powers.

 Example: I looked in the big collection of clear oval frog eggs and some I just intuitively knew were not ready, even though they were full grown frogs in there. And some may not live but I was ok.

We are all a miraculous expression of Life, and as such our dreams are also expressions of biological life in all its aspects. So I see your dream as a wonderful insight into what you have within you and are so caring for, are your eggs. Of course your dream imagery uses frog eggs, which is the nearest thing you had seen. As your dream so clearly says, some eggs hold a full and whole being in them, and others are not and may not live. That is so true of Life which gives us lots of chances, some of which do not work. But you know deep in you that they are very precious and should be guarded.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this oval shape presented in the dream?

Is this related to the symbol of the egg somehow?

Does this suggest material existence, or the quality of time?

See Circle Egg Spiritual Summing Up

Ovaries Ovum Uterus

For many women the uterus represents their unconscious sense of being a full woman and their adequacy, just as testes do for men. Of course, it also links with the ability to have children, so could represent fears or feelings about this. If you dream of problems in regard to the uterus, it is always worth having a physical check.

The way we develop as a personality emerges from very fundamental biological and psychological levels, of which the reproductive/sexual is deeply important. Because of this the uterus may represent for women the source of their emotional and creative energy. This at its primal level is linked with procreation, but it can flow from there into other directions such as your creativity.

If you are a woman, this is your potential. You developed in this way because you are a creature of evolution. If you deny that part of you – the urge to procreate – you deny yourself. Do not cut yourself off from your roots otherwise you will die to your real self. To become free, it is not necessary to repress that part of you. In fact, that basic, primeval drive is your source of power. It is a great river of energy. Out of that your power arises. You do not have to bear a child to have that creativity. Take hold of that primitive part of you, that ancient river of desire and longing, flow with it. Of course, it will try to go in the old channels, the old pathways. This may lead you to start looking for a mate. That is okay. Feel it. Own it as yours. Now create your own male inside yourself. Build him out of your ideals, your longing, and your need. Then form your inner male from the many parts of their own nature. Use your pleasures your pains, your power and your weakness. Take the love you have and breathe into the man the breath of life. Take that male and blend it into your female. Then take off and fly. See The man in the Woman

In a man’s dream, or even in some women’s dreams, the uterus might well represent pre-birth experience – life in the womb. This might include the need in some of us to return to that experience to integrate aspects of it that have remained troubling to our adult personality. See: Ovaries.

Here is an example of what I was explaining above.

 Example: I had a very odd dream this morning and felt the need to understand why a baby has appeared in my dreams twice this week. This morning my dream was as follows: I was at my parents’ house that had burnt down, in my old bedroom when I suddenly felt as though I were giving birth. I saw the entire process of the baby coming out of my body as though I were floating around myself. There was no pain and the process happened quickly with the baby gliding out of my body. I quickly placed the baby girl in some baby clothes I found but then realized that I had not washed it. My sister-in-law took the baby and then handed it back to me, its body washed but not its hair because in the dream we saw that as something sacred that should be reserved for the mother to do. I held the baby and then realized there was an air conditioner pumping cold air into the room. I laid the baby on the bed and tried to turn it off, which I couldn’t. When I came back, there were two babies on the bed, a large boy baby and my little girl. I started to wonder if I had given birth to twins. I called to my mother to help me swaddle both babies to keep them warm from the cold air and continued to worry about why I hadn’t passed the placenta. I also started to worry about how I had gotten pregnant as I am a lesbian and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain this to my partner.

I smile because of the fact that none of us today – apart from a few individuals – have ever been taught anything about Life and how it operates in us. Dreams are not about outer reality; they are reflections of our inner life; and our inner life has very different rules. It is a world that is very different to the waking world in the body. In the dream world in a sense you do not have a body. The point is that whatever we believe we are; whatever we believe the world is; in our dreams it becomes that because we create it out of our mind stuff.

In the film Matrix, the hero is at one point put into a lucid virtual reality called ‘the construct’. He cannot understand what is happening to him, and his guide says, “What you see now is what we call residual self image. It is a mental projection….” Your dream is exactly that, an amazing moving and living projection in which you act and interact with YOURSELF. There is, in the widest or cosmic sense, nothing else. The dream process transforms your emotions, your beliefs and hopes, your fears and traumas, your intuitions and creative visions, into people, environments, animals and events. Understanding that is vital.

If your dream is directly about your ovaries, it may be about feelings, fears or hopes you have about your fertility and your ability to procreate. But it might also link with the deep drives or urges you have as a woman to guard and care for your ‘eggs’. This is the big difference between yourself and a male. A male can lay his eggs – sperm – and leave them. A woman holds onto her eggs, guards them, and nurtures them into growth. See: am I a man – am I a woman.

If this fundamental drive is thought of simply as energy, this is understandable. But it is energy that is highly personal and felt as our emotions, fear, hopes and urges. If the energy is not handled well it can flow into neurosis and depression. If we are in union with it then creativity, wellbeing, love and pleasure are expressed and experienced as its flow. Therefore some dreams featuring the uterus will be a drama in which the relationship with this energy flow is detailed. See: energy sex dreamsvaginaindividuation.

In a man’s dream, or even in some women’s dreams, the uterus might well represent prebirth experience – life in the womb. This might include the need in some of us to return to that experience to integrate aspects of it that have remained troubling to our adult personality.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream suggesting a physical problem – if so am I experiencing emotional difficulties in regard to childbearing – or should I have a physical check?

Does this is any way suggest pregnancy?

How am I relating to the energy flow of reproduction in my life?

Does the dream suggest wanting to merge back into the womb?

Some interesting connections are Woman’s Creative PowerBrain Levels and DreamsEasy Dream Interpretation and What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Oven

Because of the idiom ‘one in the oven’ may depict pregnancy or the womb; the human ability to transform character qualities. From being a sulky, irritable person, one can change to being self-giving and open. Depicts this because the oven transforms inedible substances or objects into delightful food, or course burns them making life inedible.

In common speech is used as a symbol of the womb, one in the oven. Also as a symbol of the crucible or melting pot, where changes in life are made. It therefore represents transformation. See Alchemist

 An oven is a cooks tool kit, so what you do or fail to do with the oven has bearing on how you care for a basic need.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you cook well or depend on someone else to provide for you?
Does this represent transformation or changes in life being made?

Is this about pregnancy as in ‘a bun in the oven’?

See Context/ThemeKey WordsSecrets of Power DreamingEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Overcoat

Protective attitudes or feelings. Also the feelings or face you allow yourself in public. No display of intimacy. See: Clothes

Ovulation

People often say our body is formed of stars or we are children of the universe, both are missing important information. A huge creative event is the start of everything we know as the universe – the Big Bang. Even time and space did not exist but came about after the Big Bang.

So the first thing that is obvious in understanding what we are and how we came about is that none of have existence outside of the universe. It is so obvious yet it hardly ever is mentioned in connection with human life. Let us say it again – you have no existence outside of the existence of the universe.

Even so people say or think that their existence is some accident and the result of evolution. Obviously evolution took place, it is obvious in our body – See Animals in your Brain.

But there is no accident about our existence. We are all an integrated part of the universe we live in. As such our body is a reflection of the works of Life which is in turn a reflection of the universe. Without the sun we would not exist; without the moon we would have a different make up, without the planets we would have a different body and personality because we are shaped by the universe we are a part of.

Conception is a miracle. I know that many people try to kill it or fight it, but it is still a miracle of Life that we cannot create ourselves. Dreams are also a miracle of imagery and construction. So dreaming about conception is important.

Julius Nelson tried to relate dream recollection to the menstrual cycle. He recorded the number and length of women’s dreams from November 24 1884 to March 13 1887, giving a numerical value to the dreams, He then plotted this as a monthly average, suggesting the amount of dreaming recalled might be related to the sexual rhythm.

Nelson first tried to check the vacillation in dreaming time with the phases of the moon. This test gave no useful result. But he then compared his curve with the “sexual month” of 28 days and came to the conclusion that, in women, dreaming varied with the time of menstruation and ovulation. It therefore seemed to him that some glandular process, linked to sexual metabolism, was responsible for the production of dreams.

Nelson soon came to the conclusion that it was the total time spent on dreaming each night that was significant, rather than the number of dreams. He thought another notable anticipation of recent work that the amount of dreaming varied with changes in physical state, especially alterations in blood pressure, pulse, and respiration. Since he lacked the means to take nightlong observations, and thus was unable to detect the special characteristics of what we now call the REM period, he sought for other correlation’s. He first tried to check the vacillation in dreaming time with the phases of the moon. This test gave no useful result. But he then compared his curve with the “sexual month” of 28 days and came to the conclusion that, in women, dreaming varied with the time of menstruation and ovulation. It therefore seemed to him that some glandular process, linked to sexual metabolism, was responsible for the production of dreams.

Prior to ovulation the dreams showed more male characters appearing. The dreamer showed interest in these males and found them appealing. Women appearing in the dreams of this phase tended to be pushed into the background of the dream events, and were often shown as competing with the dreamer. Following ovulation the dreams tended to depict men as less attractive, and the dreamers feeling some hostility toward them. The women in the dreams were people the dreamer tended to develop working relationships with.

A shift in views toward maternity during ovulation was indicated by the dreamer’s transferring childbearing roles to older women rather than assuming the role herself.

For women, vitamin C levels are highest at ovulation and lowest during menstruation, so cyclical problems may again be tied in with copper and vitamin C. In summary, high levels of copper can cause mental illness, often characterised by extreme fears, paranoia and hallucinations. The copper may be the result of drinking acidic water passing through copper pipes, copper pots and pans, the contraceptive pill and even copper IUDs. Or it can be the result of vitamin C or B3 deficiency. Either way, copper lowers histamine and as histamine levels return to normal so does the individual.

 Example: Last night, I had a dream that my husband and I attended a funeral of a family who we did not know; all of my relatives and other acquaintances were there too. At the very end of the service, one of the family members who died was a baby. I could not take it and asked my husband if we could leave because seeing the passed away baby was pushing me over the edge emotionally. We left the funeral but went to a gathering after the funeral; people were eating and socialising. I felt very sad in this dream, and the people in my dream seemed to not even accept my sadness over this family who died. In real life, no one seems to understand my overwhelming emotions about trying to conceive. My husband tries to help, but he is more accepting that we may not have a baby. We cannot afford IVF. Is my dream telling me to give up hope of having a child?  Quoted from the Edgar Cayce Readings.

Dreams often echo our daily or current feelings and the dream appears to say that the dead baby is what she feels – that her childbearing function is dead. But those are simply her feelings, not a prediction. So realise that your feelings of not being able to conceive can be shown in dreams as killing ‘your baby’. Use Incubating Dreams to get helpful life changes or answers.

Dreaming that you have conceived often is an actual realisation of the fact.

Owl

Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ‘sees’ what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ‘feeds’ by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.

Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird. See: Second example in wife.

Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I know about Owls?

Does this show any use of my intuition and wisdom?

If the owl seems menacing in the dream, is this about my fear of the dark, or death, or possibly the contents of my unconscious?

See CoreCollective UnconsciousBeing the Person or ThingUsing Your Intuition

Ox

Represents the earthy, practical, service giving and sexual parts of human nature. See: Animal; Bull.

Interchangeable with the bull, except oxen may be castrated, and so represent patient service without fire or aggression, or loss of sexual potency. The ox also depicts strength; patient endeavour; wealth for people who live in agricultural lands and self sacrifice. In China the ox or buffalo represented the untamed instinctive desires and reactions that needed to be trained to a new relationship with the conscious self. But in Chinese astrology the buffalo was similar to Taurus the bull sign. See: bull; Ox Herding.

Useful questions are:

Is my ox a patient docile creature, or is it like the fiery buffalo?

Am I working with my ox or in opposition to it?

Does my ox need domestication and training?

Oxygen

Energy, life giving forces.

Oyster

Silence, tight lipped, secretive, hiding a secret beauty. It may also represent the body, or material existence, in which your psyche develops as does the pearl, through irritation, and is trapped by its restrictions. In some dreams depicts the shell closed around your inner feelings. Eating oysters is thought by some to stimulate sexuality, and so it could be a symbol of this. And there is the saying, the world is my oyster, suggesting we can find riches and beauty in life once we open the shell. See: Clam; Pod.

Letter P

Pack Packed Packing

It would be worthwhile wondering when you last packed your bags or house, and what you felt. The dream probably looks back at those feelings.

Packing can connect with leaving home, becoming independent or being rejected, It can associate with holiday feelings, and so a sense of ease. It can also link with making changes or wanting to change. Packing somebody else’s bags might therefore either mean you want to get rid of them, or you want them to go away with you.

It can also be a way to get rid of someone, packing their things and telling them to leave. This can often involve feelings of abandonment.

Already packed case: Readiness to meet change or to go on a journey – to meet experiences that promote learning and growth..

Can’t pack in time: Anxiety about details; feeling unready for change.

Packing up or packing away: it may be that you are trying to get too many, or too few, activities into your day

Packing and wondering what to take: Decisions about what stance or attitudes are suitable to meet present situation or change. I can mean you sense of an end in sight, also you might be trying to become more independent.

Packing bags: Suggest you are planning to go somewhere or make a change. Wanting to get away or making changes or a journey. Putting things in order and sorting out what  needs to be done. Or an indication of putting one’s life in order.

Packing a bag might: Be putting something might be reluctance to face up to a problem or situation. It sometimes suggest the womb or sexual intercourse.

Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.  

Idioms: Pack off; pack up; send somebody packing; pack ones bags.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my motive or feeling behind packing?

Do I have a plan to get away?

What is important that I am packing?

See Settings in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Paddle

A dream paddle depicts your efforts to get where you want to go by your own or someone else’s efforts. It can also mean your means of methods to manoeuvre in the area of emotions or life experience. See: Oar.

A paddle is also used in some work situations where stirring or mixing is concerned. So the dream would be about what you are mixing or stirring and your ability to handle the paddle.

In a boat without a paddle: It suggests you are ill equipped to deal with the situation you are in. A loss of motivation and being subject to external events to direct your life. So this might point to indecisiveness or lack of initiative.  Also it might indicate that you will travel without means to really make progress. Could mean paddling on your own, with only your own power, no help from others.

 Example: Then my father gets into a small row boat and I get in. He slowly and carefully goes over the wooden boundary. The motor gets caught. My father says “Uh-oh.” I say, “Don’t tell me uh-oh, when we’re in deep water.” We then get over the thing. Then I’m in a canal. An Indian guide is behind me paddling. He is reciting the legends of our people. I feel like I’m going home.

Example: It was a rare day, as believe it or not, it was not raining, the sun was shining, loch flat calm like a mirror, I was happily paddling along, felt as if I was floating in an in-between world as the sky and clouds  were reflected in the water. On my right side, I became aware of a shape skimming along side of me, only about 3 feet away. I was amazed to see that it was a buzzard; it was so close I could reach out and touch it, wing tips actually touching the water. It stared at me as it flew past, and then let out one of those high pitched ki noises they make, which made my whole body quiver, partly due to being startled by the noise. I am not sure what was actually going on, but it was a special moment, one that will always be with me, I most certainly felt blessed.

Example: Dreamt I was with L my son far out to sea on a small raft like boat. L was about three, and the boat was a flat canoe shaped thing about two feet wide and eight long. It was just above the water. It seemed secure apart from that, but water did sometimes roll over its surface. I could see no land, but felt sure I knew the direction and was paddling with my hands to go in that direction. I felt it would take a long time, but didn’t feel anxious about that. L was sat in front of me, also quite happy.

When trying to explore this dream a little, I felt it was about being afloat on the infinite ocean of life, and the small raft/boat was the rather flimsy attitudes or threshold that stands between me and that ocean. It didn’t seem to matter if I didn’t get anywhere by my efforts.

Idioms: Paddle ones own canoe; in a boat without a paddle.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel I am adrift in life, or in control of my life?

Can I find my way through currents and whirl of emotions and challenges?

See Martial Art of the MindBeing in ControlUsing Symbols to Change Life ProblemsTalking to Inner Self

Padlock

Often in dreams it is about personal security or fear of being ‘got at’ by someone chasing you. It also represent a barrier that someone else has put in place to stop you in some way. It is like someone saying ‘No’.  Or if it is your padlock, you are saying ‘No’. Difficulty opening it either as owner or not, shows how hard it is to overcome this ‘No’. See: Lock.

Sometimes it can represent an attempt to have sexual contact. It depends whether you are locked or unlocked.

 Example: I go to a locked doorway on the left of the building. The lock – padlock – is securing the top of the door, but by pushing very hard I forced entry through the bottom, the lock still in place. I cannot recollect why I entered, but now a man comes from another part of the building and catches me trespassing. He accuses me and I make all manner of excuses.

Example: A man chases me up the stairs to my boarding house apartment on the 4th floor. When I get inside, I put a big padlock on the door and pray that the clasp will hold if he starts pushing on the door.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream showing me I have locked up?

Have I discovered what the key is to unlock myself?

Are my tension and depression signs of my locked position?

See Life’s Little Secrets Avoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Pain

I recently asked a man who had experienced enormous pain through, as he felt, being misused by a woman friend. When I pointed out that this was the woman’s normal behaviour that he himself had described to me, so why was he hurt by it, he said that she should have been more caring for his feelings.  

I then asked him if perhaps he was asking her to act like an adult while he maintained the emotional level of response normal in childhood – namely blaming someone else for his hurt. In response he again justified himself by saying that it was normal to feel hurt from such an action.  I maintain that it is not ‘normal’ to feel such pain, having myself been a mess because of such pain and realised it was my sickness and so I grew beyond it. See Ages of Love

Such justifications, and the statement that it is normal to feel pain in love, at the death of someone close, at the twisting and turning of life events, or because of the unthinking remarks of someone, are the chains that bind us to that misery. Carl Jung wrote, “If we could fully meet our shadow, we would be immune to any moral or verbal insinuations. We would already have seen this for ourselves.”

In a certain sense, the pain arising from abandonment, and feelings attending it, can arise from other losses, such as termination of employment or loss of status. This can be seen as a confrontation with one’s own internal poverty. If this can be accepted, then the situation becomes an opportunity to gradually transform old pains and dependencies. The roots of these frequently become revealed if we accept the pain as a signpost to its source and understanding. Awareness of the part such pain has played in your life is a tremendous means of transformation.  See Avoid Being Victims; Martial Art of the Mind   

Parts of our experience become repressed because there is an automatic reaction in us to avoid pain or pull away from anything that frightens us. Therefore painful experience may never be fully felt or understood at the time. Reliving such experience allows us to review and integrate vital information about ourselves. At times of great physical or emotional stress or anguish we unconsciously make decisions that influence the way we behave thereafter. We may for instance, in feeling abandoned by a parent, reactively and unconsciously decide never to trust a man/woman again. Frequently all the analysis in the world cannot relieve a neurotic pattern or decision until the repressed emotion holding it in place is released to be consciously experienced and therefore understood. In fact being able to meet emotional pain and fear is the way to a wider and more productive life. See Life’s Little Secrets

Example: As the pain between my shoulders went I could feel my neck lengthening. A series of images came, with feeling, of the evolutionary drive that had gradually brought an upright posture in men and women. Somehow, unless we are expressing powerful human feelings, our body doesn’t lengthening upwards. In some way our exploration into humanness leads us to reach up against gravity until we break into cosmic identity. We leave the womb of the earth. We complete our birth cycle, like a caterpillar finishing its life, and the metamorphose into something else. We become free of gravity. Free of the body that gave us birth, and become a cosmic entity.

As Wilda B Tanner writes in her Magical World of Dreams, “All too often, we teach and are taught how to avoid anything which is ugly, painful, distasteful, or upsetting to us. One of the most important things we need to learn is that our problems actually serve as beacons of light or as magnifying glasses, emphasising or pointing out our most crippling fears, our most restrictive attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions which are holding up our progress-things we really must face up to and overcome if we are to grow.” See Method to Manage Intense Emotion

Example: Then the throat pain became unbearable. I investigated it and I became aware of doom. If I didn’t fight it, doom would take over. I was weary of fighting it so I let doom take over and sank into the doom and it was then that I found myself at the foot of the great being and total acceptance of my life. Spontaneously, before I knew it I was offering everything as a sacrifice, including past mistakes and cock-ups, and that I had to do this. And then there were the images again of clefts: the earth, female genitals, undersea-ocean crusts opening and something, as yet formless, emerging. This, I suspect, is my creativity in the world.

 

Paint Painting

There are many sayings that illustrate how paint can be used in dreams. We can paint the town red, paint too rosy a picture, whitewash everything, paint too clear a picture. It can also represent a memory caught in an artistic mood.

These suggest letting loose pent up high spirits; being too optimistic; trying to cover up mistakes; being too honest. Painting can also symbolise self expression, realisation of inner contents, hiding the real condition of things with a veneer of paint, or to put a new appearance on things.

The unconscious frequently senses things, or synthesises out of our experience, views of things we have not been consciously aware of. A dream may depict this as a painting; subtle feelings or realisations; a view we have of or about something.

The realisations connected with a painting or picture can often indicate memories of what live is us unconsciously as our heritage from the past prior to our birth. See seed

 If we look at a painting, we see certain colours on it. That particular painting exists because of the texture, the minerals, the earth and chemicals that go into the paint or ink used. It is also a result of the movements, the skill the artist has put into it. It is an incorporation of all those things and many other things not mentioned. It is also an expression of the light that falls on it. Without the light it is not apparent. In different lighting conditions it will change its character in some way.

So the painting is partly an expression of a human being and their qualities and skills; it is partly an expression of the chemicals and minerals and surfaces involved. As such it is an extraordinary thing. When we look at it we are witnessing all that goes into it. Maybe we don’t realise it; perhaps we don’t see everything that composes it. Maybe we don’t realise that in its present form it has substances from when the earth was you, that its atoms are from the beginning of time, or that the canvas it is on was formed by the efforts of several people not even consciously known by the artist. And of course, the painting is unique. There will never be a painting exactly like that. A copy might appear on the surface as the same, but there will never be quite the same mixture of minerals, chemicals, movements, human qualities, that entered into the painting.

A paint box perhaps shows talent in that direction, or that you are expressing something form within.

If you are painting a picture it shows you in the middle of creating or expressing or realizing something. If you know what the subject of the picture is this will indicate what the connection is. Sometimes things we realise deep down do not easily translate into words. The dream painting is a half way house, and your feelings about it help you put into words your inner intuition.

Are you simply looking at the painting, or is it being destroyed? Whatever the action is this refers to the subject of the painting or your intuition.

Any form of artistic expression: Self expression; expressing ones feelings or intuitions; ones inner situation; creative ability.

Painting as in decorating: Making changes in the way we live or feel about ourselves; expressing feelings; the impression we give to others; what ‘colour’ we are painting things, in the sense of painting a very black picture; a cover up. We can paint the town red; paint too rosy a picture. Or we might be working at changing our appearance or life style. See: photographs.

 Example: So many men and women have not trod this path of being ready to walk directly into the darkness of personal death, because life as it is painted by the extant philosophy and religion have taken away all personal connection with the underlying reality of life in them. Life is a spirit that never takes form yet is in all form.

Example: The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the personality (particularly the anima/animus and the shadow) that are normally not heard, thereby establishing a line of communication between consciousness and the unconscious. Even when the end products-drawing, painting, writing, sculpture, dance, music, etc.-are not interpreted, something goes on between creator and creation that contributes to a transformation of consciousness. Jungian Lexicon

Example: In sleep, we may approach some inner landscape that represents our wholeness – the latent qualities of our own being. The wonderful thing is that our dream is our own. It uses our own symbols, our own emotions, our own understanding, our own possibilities. With these it paints a truly personal wonder we call a dream. Surely this is worth understanding?

Example: She is tall but slight in her figure, which is hidden not only by her clothes but by a long skein of light brown hair that falls below her waist.  I sense her breasts are small and quiescent. Her back is straight and her buttocks narrow. She is still and calm but occupied in pouring powdered paint onto a papier mache relief map, which instantly transforms the territory beyond into a colourful, exotic landscape filled with African animals of all description leaping and running with enormous energy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is ‘painting’ portrayed in the dream?

Is this about self expression or self realization?

Am I putting a new appearance on things, giving them a new veneer?

Is this a play on words such as ‘painting the town red’, ‘painting a rosy picture’, ‘whitewash everything’, ‘paint a clear picture’ and so on?

Are you painting a picture?

What do you feel the picture describes?

What happens to the painting?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsBeing the Person or ThingGenius

Palace

A sense of importance, or privilege. In some dreams about a palace, there are evident feelings of something special happening. This probably links with the way palaces are used in fairy stories, as for instance the palace in which the Sleeping beauty lives. Such a palace represents the wonders of yourself, your amazing mind and qualities that might be sleeping or overcome by enemies – i.e. disuse or ignoring them.

The palace is also the storehouse of your culture and past, the treasure house of your family, your social and racial inheritance. In one ancient palace dating about 884-859 BC, the tree so Life was carved on a wall. See The Sacred Tree In Dreams And Myths

An old place: This is usually a very important dream. What the palace contains or is found here through exploring the dream are signs of a past and what you still need to remember about who you are; probably skills that are still latent in you.

Palace tombs: These also are extremely important. They contain the memories of your ancient past that can only be unlocked by exploring them. See Being the Person or Thing

A golden palace: A dream place where great transformation of yourself can take place, or important realisations can be experienced.

Example: If I explain, if I tell you what I am – I am a palace. I was a wondrous palace. I am only a ruin of what I was. This building. This part of the building wasn’t a ballroom. It wasn’t an eating place. It was a place where certain things happened. It was a place where many people left things. They came here and they gathered and they left. It was a place of exchange. If you could bring something here, then you could take something away. Or you could take something away if you gave something. There is an old story that has to do with how humans sold their souls. That is a degradation of what I am, what took place here. I am a place of exchange, not a place of selling. You would give something of yourself and gain something

Example: In 544 BC, the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya, dreamed her bed was transported by four kings to a high Himalayan peak, where four queens adorned her with jewels and brought her to a golden palace. A white elephant with six shining ivory tusks appeared and painlessly pierced her side with a thrust of its tusk. She awoke to the song of a blue bird and realised that she had immaculately conceived. Her dream was interpreted as signifying that her child would become a universal monarch. Five of the Buddha’s dreams, along with dreams of his father, King Cudhodana, and his wife, Gopa, appear in the Pali scriptures and describe his future vocation as a wandering monk

Example: A Muslim who saw in his dream a huge palace with a cross on its roof. He heard a voice saying that the palace belonged to Jesus Christ and only He could open the gate. Sometime later he was reading Pilgrim’s Progress and saw on one of the pages a picture identical to his dream. It was this experience that directly led to his conversion to Christianity.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were you doing or experiencing in or about the palace?

Did anything happen to you in the palace?

Where you attacked or meet anything that frightened you?

See Settings in Dreams What is the main action in the dream?Clicking On

Palmist

Intuition; or inner feelings about how you want to live your life, or where you wish to go.

Pan Pot

 There is a side to this, however that sometimes links a kitchen-the sink, stove, pots, and pans to represent a person, especially a housewife, with the idea of being a servant or slave in her own household. There may be feelings of anger and frustration associated with these dreams, which would be shown in the handling of the food and utensils-the pots and pans especially-so be aware of all these possibilities. (This was written by a woman who had obviously suffered).

But I, a male, remember when my wife went away for a long stay with her sister, leaving me with four children, how easy it was. The children were all off to school early, and by ten o’clock the house was tidy and clean. The children had helped in keeping their rooms tidy and so I had hours each day to do as I liked. Then I started cooking the children’s main meal so it was ready for them when they arrived home from school, for I had noticed that the children were hungry and would try to snack if there was no ready food. I also cooked all the bread and did all the washing – and cleared out a lot of rubbish.

Of course if the wife also works and she has to do everything at home and the male simply sits or is out drinking, then she needs to kick him where it hurts. I grew up in a working family and learned to cook when I was young, so it was no problem to get a meal ready for my wife if she was late home. I think it might be important for women choosing a man to see whether he can cook, clean or is a mother’s boy. So many people say they fall in love, and actually known nothing about their prospective partner. At the time I had a wife who hated housework. I often struggled to do the work that I did hours a day and year after year, but I did it because I wanted my children and myself to have food in the house and feel warmth.

For cookingThis may link with the care you give to yourself or your family, with everyday life and its needs, or represent some sort of receptive situation.

Chamber pot: This refers to what you need to discharge from you, either emotionally or physically. It also might refer to the female genitals.

Cooking pot or pan: Receptive state of mind and feelings perhaps connected with creativity – cooking – family life or providing for ones needs; everyday life.

Chamber pot: Feelings and values connected with excretory functions; female sexuality.

Pots and pans: Can represent your feelings about preparing food and what you put into it or fail to give of yourself.

Dented Pans: Perhaps you resent cooking and so do not take care of these precious tools of family life.

Handle Broken or Missing: Be careful, you may not handle your task well.

Idioms: Flash in the pan; sex-pot; shit or get off the pot; pot of gold; chimney pot; pot hole; melting pot; coffee pot; pot shots; flower pot; pot bound; from the frying pan into the fire; pan out; a chicken in every pot; gone to pot; piss pot full;  pot calling the kettle black; pot of gold; sweeten the pot

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are my feelings in the dream about pots?

Do I like or hate cooking – if so why?

What was the situation in the dream?

See Context/ThemeTechniques for Exploring your DreamsHabits

Pan the God

In dreams Pan depicts the natural in you unrestricted by modern social codes and rules, It is the wildness and even beauty found in woods and wild places. It may test you in a way that sees whether you want to live a life of civilised people, or a life in which nature rules.

Pan is also the god of natures creatures and they love and follow him. Though in  some minds he may typify licentiousness and sexual indulgence. See Girl in the Wood

Pan epitomises the forces of nature and instinct in you – those urges, fears and delights that are beyond the control of cultural or moral inhibitions. Things that were seen as natural and good in cultures such as the Greek and Roman were under Christian influence seen as sinful and against God. So Pan was then seen as a tempter, and inducer of sexual impulse, and Pan most likely was transformed into the Devil.

So we may still discover this mixture of allure and temptation in connection with Pan. He can call you to lose yourself in the beauty of nature, its animals, woodlands, and in the wondrous natural pull of sexual attraction.

See: devil under archetypes.

Panther

Fierceness; temper; anger; In Christian symbolism it represented power to protect against evil. See: leopard.

Useful questions are:

What attitude or feelings is my dream panther expressing, and how does that relate to me?

If I imagine myself as the panther, do I feel anger, power or fear? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

Is it a male or female panther and what does that lead me to feel or associate with it?

What is my relationship with the panther and what does that suggest?

Panties

Your hidden feelings. Your sexual feelings and desires. See: Clothes.

Pants

See: Trousers; Clothes.

Paper

It depends what the paper is, whether it is a research paper, a newspaper, writing paper, wrapping or Christmas paper, paper objects made by folding, paper towels, paper as in a kitchen roll, toilet paper. If you can look up the particular type you may find something. Also the context in which the word paper appears is important. See Context/ThemeNewspaper.

So having read Context, see if you can begin to describe your dream differently, and see Key Words

Blank writing paper: Unexpressed sentiments or ideas; opportunity to express creative ideas or feelings to someone; feeling a lack of communication with someone else; writers block.

The blank writing paper method: The work of Dr. Caron Kent, gives a summarised version of this method. He began to explore himself because of his own need to deal with his depression by giving himself regular time at a typewriter and writing spontaneously whatever came to mind. In this way he found he began to contact areas of experience and feeling previously unavailable. He developed this in his practice as a psychotherapist into working with the body and feelings directly.

The idea in this approach is to sit down with a pencil and plenty of paper or at your computer. Have a clock or watch before you so it is easily seen. You must now, non stop, write whatever comes into your head, for ten minutes. You do not try to think, you simply write whatever word comes into your head and there is no need for it to make sense, whatever word appears with the thought what does my dream mean. This cuts out the rational thinking mind and leads to you tapping the unconscious.

So you must actually not stop writing for ten whole minutes. If, for a moment, your flow blocks, write continuously the last word until further ideas arrive. This is not done by thinking about what you should write, rather you should drop any attempts to think. There may be rather strange results at first. However, practice will bring the flow and harmony that you are seeking. The benefits of this will only be seen through practice. Try to do this exercise as many times as possible during the next week. Write anything that comes. You simply hold in mind about the dream without thinking about it. Actually, once you have asked about the dream you can drop thinking about it.

Wrapping paper: Depending on the colour and quality – how you feel others see you; the exterior impression of what you are getting or giving in a relationship; the outward appearance of your own potential.

Paper animal or figures: They give the appearance of being real but they are only paper and not real. So it may be about feelings you have about that. “Everything else is paper,” which means that it is not a living impression.

Research papers: May represent important thins you have or are beginning to realise. Or point to things you would do well to investigate.

Taking pen to paper: It suggests an urge to express your creativity or to communicate an idea for you to remember. It also could be a motivation to communicate something important to other or someone.

 Example: I brought my daughter into an attic and it was filled with the most brilliant coloured art supplies, paints, pencils, paper etc. and I said to her, this is all for you.  Then I woke up and couldn’t wait to start clearing out all the clutter. I’ve been working all day!! TK

Example: In the latest dream I was reading a paper with the heading ‘Broken Hearted Babies’, with a picture of both of us as babies, with our names underneath. Amanda – Teletext.

Example: But I couldn’t remember when the baby was born so I got the birth certificate and I started looking for the birth date and how much he weighed at birth, but it wasn’t a birth certificate it was some type of paper that I couldn’t understand so I gave up on looking.

The birth certificate is important. It is saying that there is something you do not understand about you or your baby and its background. It was a dream baby without a father and known background. Because you do not understand what it means to have a dream baby you could not understand what was said on the paper. I believe it was telling you that Life gave you this baby, and it will grow in you to change your life.

Idioms: Commit to paper; not worth the paper it’s written on; on paper; paper tiger; pen to paper; paper over the cracks.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream showing things I usually do with paper or it unusual?

What would I describe as the action in the dream?

If I have written anything what is it and what meaning does it have for me?

See Writing it DownCreativitySecrets of Power Dreaming

Parachute

A symbol the unconscious would use to represent overcoming the fear of falling. It therefore suggests a feeling, thought or technique you use to deal with anxieties. If you are descending with a parachute, it could mean you are coming to a more practical stance after flying high. See: Fall.

Depicts whatever life skill one uses to deal with anxiety about failing or falling; achieving a more down to earth practical attitude after flying high, or retreating into flights of fancy.

If the fall is under control as a parachute descent, it shows a shift in your attitude, a coming down to earth from a too lofty stance – or sometimes sexual surrender. It could also mean depending on context, “Bail out”.

 Example: I was sitting on a very high flagpole. I began to topple over for I lost my balance. A man on the ground shouted, `Use your parachute!’ I had none and so fell to the ground and died.” The parachute symbolized the advice, “Slow down!”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my dream represent overcoming fear of falling, failing, or heights?

Did I feel that I was facing pain or even death?

Did I land safely of fall badly?

See Summing UpSecrets of Power DreamingMartial Art of the Mind

Paradise

This might be that you are feeling in harmony with yourself. It could also suggest you have been practising some form of meditation, and you have felt the timeless state within yourself. The experience of being in the womb is often felt to be paradise.

Experience of being in the womb; feeling in harmony with self. See: heaven.

Sometimes it indicates that you have found a way – even temporary – to deal with you problems and anxieties.

The casting out from the Garden of Eden, from the Paradise of the womb is one of the first and greatest possible shocks the infant faces as it moves into growth. Such immense psychic events are not simply things that happen only once. They are archetypal patterns that express in many ways at many levels. So although the discharge from the womb at birth is the first level of expulsion from Paradise, this enormous sense of loss can also be encountered in the loss of a parent or carer through separation or death. It can be met through the loss of the fundamental state of consciousness that exists prior to the arrival of self-awareness as language is learned and the concept of self develops. Self-awareness usually brings with it the loss of innocence – loss of the guiltless, concept-free condition. These may be experienced as separate shocks or shifts.

When the mind becomes exhausted and collapses through shock, loss or meditation, then what has always existed underneath the noise of thoughts and emotions becomes known. In this state we become a being empty of the massive structure of concepts and thoughts built over a lifetime. We suddenly find that the world we created out of our learned responses and ideas melts away, and we are in the Garden.

The story of the Garden of Eden is a wonderful description of this fundamental state of awareness. In the fundamental state there is little or no sense of self; there is a certainty that this blissful awareness is eternal, and that this is the real self. Along with this there is usually a direct experience of some kind that all creatures, all history, all beings, are part of your existence in the eternal now. Sometimes a jump beyond paradox occurs in a conviction that what you experience in this oneness is the source of all existence (God), and you and it are one and the same. Along with this is the sense that the blissful self-existent consciousness is the fundamental stuff of what we know through our senses as the physical universe. See Programmed

 Example: I was in a very expansive place and . . . everyone was there-thousands of entities like myself who belonged there and were also in spirit . . . we were all one, yet each of us was separate. We were in a paradise of complete warmth, happiness, and comfort. I was shown that the physical is actually almost like what we consider the dream state. I also realised how time-oriented, primitive, encumbered, and tiny the Earth is compared to the place from which I was observing it. There was no time-past, present, or future. It just is. Even though I experienced this, I can’t explain it in words. … Looking at the Earth and the physical realm from there made it seem insignificant. I could not imagine why I had worried and was so concerned about what went on down on Earth. From out there the Earth seemed but a speck of sand. I realised that the concept of time went hand in hand with the physical dimension, one reason being that there has to be a time limit on our Earth lives for the assignments we are trying to fulfil. It is hard to explain the insignificance of an Earth life from this other perspective. While I felt detached from the Earth, I was also still strongly me while on Earth. The most amazing thing, however, was the realisation that I had gotten the whole thing reversed and that the dream is actually the physical.  Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Castle. Dreams of Jeanette Fusco

Idioms: Fools paradise; a stranger in paradise.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I have an experience of paradise in my dream?

What do I feel paradise is like?

Have I searched for it?

See EnlightenmentASCPrisonThe power of HabitsQuestions

Paradox

Part of this potential of dreams is an experience of going beyond opposites, of resolving paradoxes, of moving beyond the limitations of the rational mind and emotional responses.

Going beyond paradox. In this altered state of consciousness something is experienced where all the opposites of life are resolved, where everything is true and untrue at the same time. It is what Buddhists call the Void, in which there is no form, no ego, no certainty, no past, no future, no beginning to move from and no goal to reach. Although it can be a disturbing experience when first met, it has the possibility of bringing enormous liberation. This is because our ego and our usual values are usually embedded in concepts that can only ever be either this or that; only ever be partially true; only ever be a fragment of reality. One might for instance develop ones identity out of being male or female, out of being honest or a villain. The Void strips all this away. Nothing one can think, nothing one can aim at as a standard, is anything more than an insignificant molecule of information in the vast ocean of energy and consciousness. It doesn’t matter whether we think about the sun or a mote of dust, a thought is never ever more than a definition from a particular viewpoint of something that is multidimensional and beyond any final definition. See paradise 

Example: the women of the tribe are dancing in front of me. They are bare breasted and their dance is about being female. My sense is that they are calling my masculine energy, raising or rousing it in preparation for something like an initiation I am about to pass through. I am the elder and they are readying me for a further initiation. What they are doing is traditional, and it is to set the scene for what I am to face or confront.

Now the preparations have ended and I am to go off alone up the mountains to meet whatever waits for me there. Now it feels as if something is flowing into my body. I am now experiencing a state or condition that has been very marked or strong in my life lately. My breathing became very slow, it seems even at times as if it has stopped, and everything becomes very still. It feels like being dead. My body becomes so still it disappears and all that is left is awareness submerged in enormous emptiness or space. There is a paradox in this experience because it feels as if I, my sense of self, has melted away, and yet there is still a very definite experience of existing. I suppose what has stopped is what I have called movement. The movement of thinking, of feeling, of longing or hoping for things.

There is this huge reality confronting us all the time. We call this reality death. And often that has an awful face for us. But I am feeling it as joy, a most wonderful joy. It is here in the darkness I am experiencing – that joy. The waves of this gentle joy flow through me. It is like floating in a subtle ocean and my consciousness, my being, is gently lifted and moved by the waves of this quiet joy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever experienced a paradox fully – knowing both sides without conflict?

Do I ever ascend above the world of thought and words into the amazing space beyond?

What did I meet in the dream?

See What is the experience of enlightenment like?A Look at EnlightenmentEnlightenment Being or Becoming?

Paralysed Paralysis

An expression of how fear paralyses you. Sometimes we become paralysed because unconscious fears attempt to become expressed; or urges we fear attempt expression. We can also be paralysed by sense of guilt, sense of inadequacy, or ignorance. When Jesus healed the paralysed man he said Thy sins are forgiven thee. This suggests the paralysis arose from a sense of guilt.

Example: “I feel completely removed from myself,” “feeling of being separated from my body,” “eerie, rushing experiences,” and hearing “hissing in the ears,” and “roaring in the head.” These events appear to be much like the OBE sensations of vibrations, strange noises, and drifting away from the physical body (Everett, 1983).

Example: ‘It starts as a dream, but I gradually become aware that I cannot move. The harder I try to move the worse it gets and I become very frightened. I can neither move nor wake myself up. Sometimes I feel as if I am leaving my body. But to deal with the fear I have learned – its a recurring thing – to stop struggling, knowing that I will eventually wake.’ Susan Y.

Sometimes while dreaming a person experiences a profound physical paralysis. This occurs because while you dream your brain switches off the voluntary muscles. If you then become partly awake and attempt to move, it feels as if you are paralysed. The resulting fear causes deeper paralysis. If this happens to you it is important to remember what the cause is – temporary loss of ability to control the voluntary muscles – this enables you to wake slowly without the anxiety. See: sleep paralysis.

It can suggest a lack of confidence. It can arise from fear or a sense of not being able to cope, as well as feelings of hopelessness, or that there is no way out of a present situation.

For many people, the emotional results of events in childhood have a paralysing effect in their present life. So if there is great fear or pain associated with the paralysis it would be worth seeking to get behind the fear or pain to its roots.

Dreaming one is paralysed may depict the paralysing effects either of fears we have, or what we have imagined as real in the way described in the entry above. We may be ‘paralysed’ by feelings of guilt, inadequacy or internal conflicts.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is paralysing me in the dream – and can I locate that feeling or situation in my waking life?

Am I aware in the paralysis, as when lucid in a dream?

Are there influences in my life or circumstances at the moment that leave me undecided or in conflict?

It is a good idea to read the following – It is vitally important – 

 

Parcel Package

Usually a memory, idea or experience you have not explored, investigated or cared to open to consciousness. Talents you have not used, ideas you have not applied, loving words we have not uttered.

Also the gifts of love and support received from others that you may not have fully been aware of or appreciated.

Something we have experienced but not explored the import of. A parent may die, for instance, but we may not ‘unwrap’ the feelings evoked enough to see we have taken something to heart. If we did we might find a regret of not expressing the love we felt while Mum or Dad was still alive, and we now want to be more daring in giving love.

Ones potential or latent skills; impressions or ‘gifts’ received from others – such as support, love, their example – but not made fully conscious.

A package deal is a bundle of thing as one deal. A package holiday for example includes the accommodation, the flight or travel all in one. Any wrapped package suggests the unknown.

 Example: ‘An unconventional looking postman delivered a registered package. But I didn’t open it.’

This was taken to mean that due to an unconventional experience, the dreamer had realised something. Something had ‘registered’ on his consciousness, but he had not explored the possibilities of it. The registered package is a double symbol, because it also suggests something valuable contained in it.

The packaging that goes with ‘life’ – which means the unwanted things that come with what you did want. In other words you might need company, but you have to feed them as well. Ask yourself whether you are collecting views or things that are of no use to you.

Package delivered to dreamer: An unknown but possibly good thing.

Carrying a parcel: A responsibility, perhaps a surprise or something you are carrying, such as a grudge, a loving feeling, longing to be recognised that you haven’t unwrapped. 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I sending it or receiving it?

Do I have good feelings about it difficult ones?

Does the parcel or package have connections not explored?

Could this represent talents not used, or good ideas not yet applied?

See Working with associationsInner WorldBeing the Person or ThingUsing Your Intuition

Park

Your public self and how it is growing, or how you see your growth and endeavour from a public viewpoint. It might also associate with relaxed feelings, or even romance.

A park can have associations with so many things, such as childhood pleasure, being bullied; sexual pleasure or attack, games played, a place to do crazy things like setting of a home made bomb, walking the dog, firing off a rifle, having a date, swimming, being in the dark and scared – and so much more. So see if you can see what feelings and memories you have on your dream park.

National park: Meeting your own natural self as opposed to the self you may have to live to survive socially or economically.

Amusement park: Amusement park

Parking lot car park: See: parking lot under car

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was it frightening or happy experience in the park dream?

What memories or associations do I have with parks?

What was the theme of the dream?

See Plot/theme of the DreamBeing the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesAnimals

Parking Lot Parked Carpark

A socially acceptable place to rest, to meet, to make some sort of change or exchange. The parked car might also mean you have stopped ‘going anywhere’ in life, or that you have changed to walking – getting somewhere through personal effort. Or even that you have stopped ‘driving yourself’ – relaxing.

Can’t find parking place: Perhaps you are finding it difficult to relax, to get out of the demands of the ‘traffic’ of your life.

Parliament Congress

Your sense of social unity, or social pressure. The point of decision, of whether the issue is needed by enough aspects of yourself to make it necessary or rightful. Decision making. See: Government.

Parrot

Copying, without judgement, what others do or say. See: Birds.

Party Social

Light heartedness; celebration; social relationship and how you deal with it; sexual or business opportunity. A desire for recognition or warmth.

Your feelings about groups; social skill or lack of it; social pleasure; search for partner.

 Example: ‘Then I was in a place where we were having a staff party. Not very big but people were sitting at tables eating in a party mood. I sat with my child, maybe youngest son, no one else at the table. I felt I didn’t wish to get involved with the others, the feeling I often get at parties, just alone in a crowd. I left with my son. Some young men tried to dissuade us but I pushed away from them.’ Simeon T.

Simeon finds that he does not have a love for groups. The dream shows this is a feelings that started in his childhood – his youngest son.

 Example: I dreamt I was with relatives and friends at a party in a restaurant. I become petrified with fear because a big wild cat, a lion perhaps, or a puma, sniffs round me, rubs against me and stares at me. I am 34 and although happily married I have difficulty with relationships. This dream has recurred for ten years.

The party represents her relationships with friendly people. The woman was anxious about her own uninhibited and unpredictable sexuality. The cat was untamed, and capable of expressing its natural feelings unpredictably. The dream showed the “cat” side of the woman’s nature doing no harm to her or others. It suggested she could relax and allow herself more freedom of expression. The dream recurred because she was stuck amid unnecessary fear and tension over her natural feelings.

Dreamer as the host of the party: Our relationship with the different aspects of self; exploring social relationships or our feelings about groups.

Dreamer as main guest, at birthday party: Wanting family or social acclaim and love, or feeling loved or valued.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I enjoy or loathe parties – if so why?

What do you feel about birthday parties?

Do I organise parties?

See QuestionsAssisted PassageRecurringPlot/theme of the DreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Passage

A way of making a change, or the restrictions you accept to arrive somewhere. The difficulties you face in growing or changing. The passage, like a tunnel, can sometimes depict what you met in being born. It can also be associated with the rectum – the back passage, and the vagina – the front passage.

A sense of being ‘in-between’ regarding work, love or life; change as in a ‘rite of passage’ – so the movement between stages or phases of life; the back passage – rectum, or front passage – vagina and so the birth passage. See: corridor.

If this is a passage in a house it might be showing something about the way you connect with the different facets/rooms of your character. But it is also a buffer zone where a person might be let in to your life but kept away from fuller intimacy.

But a passage can be a passage of music, or passage on a boat or train – thus a passenger – the passage of time, the passage of energy, a bridge is a way of allowing passage, the sage passage, perhaps even a passage through the dilemmas we face.

Example: One man, Hyone and I worked with, dreamt he was in the dim entrance passageway of a house. It was not a welcoming place. When he let himself experience the feelings involved in the dream, he realised the corridor described how he had unconsciously felt about himself. He had held back from sharing himself with other people because he felt dull and uninteresting – like the passage. The positive side of the dream was that although he had not developed a fascinating exterior life, he/the corridor had great depth. This encouraged him to take the risk of allowing more people into his life. The passageway, leading as it did from the front door to the house interior, was an excellent symbol of the part of his own character which connected his own inner feelings and qualities with the people he met.

The ritual, whether it is found in tribal groups or in more complex societies, invariably insists upon this rite of death and rebirth, which provides the novice with a “rite of passage” from one stage of life to the next, whether it is from early childhood or from early to late adolescence and from then to maturity. Every new phase of development throughout an individual’s life is accompanied by a repetition of the original conflict between the claims of the Self and the claims of the ego. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung. See Individuation

The long passage: It suggest a time of searching or looking. It can represent memories of birth and the passage leading to birth.

The dark passage: This may be an initiation into the mystery of death. It is not an entrance into endings, but of release from the limitations she or he has been bound by previously.

The passage of energy: Some people experience vibrating energy passing through or in them. Sometimes they pass the energy on to others for healing.

Allowing passage: Allowing someone to have room to pass you, or offering someone passage on a boat or bus. It depicts a giving of oneself or thinking of other parts of you that need to be moved.

The sage passage: This suggests a move or decision that is wise and allows further opportunity or personal growth. See growth

Idioms: Work ones passage.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I recognise any of the ‘passages’ describe above?

What was the setting of my own passage?

Was I lost or trapped in it or was it a way to somewhere else?

See Collective UnconsciousSettings in Dreams Being the Person or ThingInitiation

Passenger

If in a car, it suggests you are following someone else’s lead or direction.. Dependence on other people’s decisions, energy or drive. Or a mutual or cooperative direction being taken, as in a business venture or relationship. See: Car.

Being a passenger: Feeling that circumstances are carrying you along, either because you are passively allowing them to, or because you feel powerless to change; sense of being carried along by the process of life such as ageing; a joint direction you are taking, as in a business venture or relationship. Passengers are usually those who are important in your life. Even if they are not people you know. What they represent in age, sex or temperament is usually indicating something you need to take notice of. Being a passenger can be a symbol of passivity, if you feel you are allowing someone else or some other force to determine the journey.

The interaction with the passenger often shows how you relate to others that are ‘travelling with you’ in life. They are also people who influence your direction and the choices you make.

Example: I was inside a large boat, probably a tanker. There were a lot of passengers, but it appeared as if we were imprisoned in a huge room. It was very dingy and dismal. I am not sure though whether people realised they were prisoners. Maybe one only realised one was imprisoned if one tried to escape. Bob.

This boat obviously represents a situation Bob finds it difficult to get out of, and is only just realising he is trapped in. It also shows him involved with other people. Does he feel trapped in his body?

Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.

In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.

Example: ‘I was a passenger in a very large eight wheeled lorry, my husband being the driver. We stopped at a pedestrian crossing in our town and my husband got out of the driving seat and went into the local town hall near a crossing. I waited in the lorry for what in my dream seemed hours. The next thing I remember is that I was then riding a bicycle on the other side of the crossing and cycled away up the road.’ Diann R.

Her husband’s involvement with social and work activities – the lorry and hall – make Diann decide to become more independent rather than wait for her husband to be ‘with her’.

Passenger in car: Being motivated or moved by someone else’s viewpoints, opinions or enthusiasm; being dependent, perhaps on who is driving the car; allowing a secondary part of self, such as indecision, pride, or stubbornness, to direct decisions. The passenger door in particular refers to the people you let near you or push away if you do not let them in your car.
Being a passenger in a bus: Suggest you are okay about making a life journey in company with others, or if there is any anxiety it could expresses a worry that someone else is controlling your life.
Carrying passengers: Feeling you are taking the responsibility in work or family. See: car.

Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I a passenger – and in what way am I alone or going along with somebody in life?
What am I feeling about being the passenger?
Who is the passenger and how do I relate to them?
What is happening between the passenger(s) and me?
Is anyone sharing a difficulty with me as a passenger?
See Fantasy and Dreaming – Meeting yourself – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Passport

Symbol of travel, of change, of your integrity or identity. It also relates to feelings of confidence about acceptance, or facing authority.

Your sense of identity, with its connections with racial, national and family background; feelings about travel; authority or confidence, especially regarding your identity. In some cases it suggests the right to exist as a member of the community so can often suggest self confidence or lack of it.

 Example: My advice to a couple of MP’s who are harassing Jim and I for drinking. We both served honorably, with distinction in our wars (WWII, Vietnam). This is after they keep questioning me about some stamps I have, my passport and papers, warning me/us not to drink. I am really angry at these MP’s/top dogs who are trying to interfere in my life (and Jim’s) for drinking.

Example: I seem to cross back over the border several times. At one point I was on the wrong side of the border without my passport and it was only after a lot of walking, traversing secret passageways, etc., that I am able to get back on the right side of the border without getting caught without my passport. Then I seem to be working as a border patrol agent in an office.

If your passport has expired: This suggests that for some reason you are trying to make great changes in life, moving from one set of values or way of life to another, but you haven’t got the right attitude of ability to manage it. See frontiers

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever had problems with my passport?

Were there problems in my dream?

Have I never left the country and so never had a passport?

See Working with associationsBeing the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesSecrets of Power Dreaming

Past

Dreaming about the past often reflects a period of our life and important experiences we encountered. Or if it is an historical setting it often is about what you see in that setting – is it reflecting a romantic scene, a war scene, times of hardship and struggle. Whatever it is ask yourself what it reflects of what you are thinking or feeling.

The past isn’t something we need to look back on or try to remember, it is a living thing inside us and influences our every decision through habit patterns, fears, hopes and words we have taken in. It is alive because we are alive, and what we have experienced is part of our living system.

You might repress it, but then you have blocked out a great lump of your learning – for we learn by everything we experience – pleasure, pain, longings and fears are all ways we learn important lessons, but only if we digest them. See Digest

But much of our past is not recognised. As Carl Jung wrote, “I am referring to the biological, prehistoric, and unconscious development of the mind in archaic man, whose psyche was still close to that of the animal.  This immensely old psyche forms the basis of our mind, just as much as the structure of our body is based on the general anatomical pattern of the mammal”.

For we are an animal that has developed self awareness. See Programmed; Animals in your Brain

Running or walking past someone or something: Everything we pass even casually has an influence on us in our dreams. To find out what it is ask yourself what you associate with it.

 Example: I’m feeling as if I am holding onto something. And that holding on shuts out the growth of many of the possibilities I had developed in the past. As the feeling strengthens I have the image and sense that I have built a thick wall, or a doorway against it. I set my mind against something a long time ago and in some way I am still standing behind that decision.

What is the decision though? It seems to be long buried though because it was something that I put into place a long time ago. Because such decisions were made a long time ago they gradually become built into the structures of my personality that developed later. I have the image of a reasonably simple piece of structure put into a building that gradually was added to and disappeared under other pieces that were built upon it. The original design is no longer visible. It has got lost because it is buried underneath what has come later.

This is fascinating because what it suggests about our personality is that once we have put something in place, a firm decision, a fear, something remains in us creating a response to what is going on in our life, and other structures develop around it to preserve it, to enable it to work, and so on. Then we lose sight of what the original was. It becomes what we call unconscious.

Example: As this emerges into my awareness I realise that most of what I have been taught is that our present-day self, our reasoning mind, past to us from the Greeks, through the Romans, with influence from the Moorish culture, and this gives us our rational self of today. But what I see in these dimensions of the deep mind, are things that are never mentioned. I see that as well as this bright transcendent ability to reason, we also inherited and carry with us the memory of times of torture, of hatred and violence, of fiendish human life. We know deep down that you could be hung for taking a piece of bread because you are hungry and starving – starved because of the dominance of those who have too much money, too much to eat.

I was born in a country town, Amersham, where not so very long ago seven people were burned at the stake for daring to read the bible for themselves. Their names were, William Tylsworth (Joan Clarke his married daughter was compelled to light the faggots to burn her father), James Morden, Robert Rave, John Scrivenor, Thomas Holmes, Joan Norman and Thomas Barnard. All four were excommunicated and subsequently burned up on Rectory Hill overlooking Amersham. See Amersham Martys

I have, in my psychological past, that history. For many people, life in the past meant being subservient to the ruling class. But for some, God-fearing, God loving, may have meant recognising the threat, and remaining submissive. But for some it meant a sense of personal stature and quality despite one’s social status or class. For many, the martyrs represented the strength of human dignity, the power to stand up against oppression. It was the strength enabling people to challenge and change the world. It was a strength that could create a new path, strength to continue even when faced by death. They maintained their direction even though their bones formed part of the pathway that we now tread.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is the past presented in your dream?

Is it a past you have lived or is it one from fantasy?

Do you recognise the past that has shaped you?

See Working with associationsUnconsciousThe Conjuring Trick

When you mention the unconscious, what do you mean?

Past Lives and Dreams

While there may be some evidence for reincarnation in the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, dreams that clearly state reincarnation in their theme most likely represent present life situations.

 Example: ‘I dream of living in China, a long time ago. I was married to a man with whom I had two children. He began to tire of me and brought concubines into our household. I hated him. When I woke I realised I had dreamt about a past life.’ Patricia L.

Patricia had in fact been married to a man in this life who, after her two children were born, began to bring other women home. This broke up their marriage. From Patricia’s point of view, this happened because in a past life her husband and she had not resolved their difficulties, so had to meet them again in this lifetime – Whatsoever ye sow, so shall ye reap. Where such dreams have been thoroughly explored, I have found that their imagery arises from emotions and trauma that the dreamer finds difficult to meet. Placing it in a past life setting enables one to avoid the difficulty of experiencing present life pain. Patricia says she hated her – Chinese – husband. The dream process can create a drama to represent our present situation using any form of structure. It is, after all, the master dramatist. This function of the unconscious explains many ‘past life’ memories elicited by hypnotic regression. Most of them are explainable in terms of present life trauma or situation. See: hallucination and hallucinogens; reincarnation and dreams.  But there are clearer dreams. Captain and Mrs Battista, Italians, had a little daughter born in Rome, whom they called Blanche. To help look after this child they employed a French-speaking Swiss “Nanny” called Marie. Marie, the nurse, taught her little charge to sing in French a lullaby song. Blanche grew very fond of this song and it was sung to her re­peatedly. Unfortunately Blanche died and Marie returned to Switzer­land. Captain Battista writes: “The cradle song which would have recalled to us only too painful memories of our deceased child, ceased absolutely to be heard in the house … all recollection of it completely escaped our minds.” ‘Three years after the death of Blanche the mother, Signora Battista, became pregnant, and in the fourth month of pregnancy she had a strange waking dream. She insists that she was wide awake when Blanche appeared to her and said, in her old, familiar voice, “Mother, I am coming back.” The vision then melted away. Captain Battista was sceptical, but when the new baby was born in February, 1906, he acquiesced in her also being given the name Blanche. The new Blanche resembled the old in every possible way. ‘Nine years after the death of the first Blanche, when the second ‘was six years of age, an extraordinary thing happened. I will use Captain Battista’s own words: “While I was with my wife in my study which adjoins our bedroom. We heard, both of us, like a distant echo, the famous cradle song, and the voice came from the bedroom where we had put our little daughter Blanche fast asleep. … We found the child sitting up on the bed and singing with an excellent French accent the cradle song which neither of us had certainly ever taught her. My wife asked her what it was she was singing, and the child, with the utmost promptitude answered that she was singing a French song. “Who, pray, taught you this pretty song?” I asked her. “Nobody, I know it out of my own head,” answered the child.’ Here is another experience, received in a dream state. ‘I lay in my bed unable to sleep, and because of this decided to try an experiment. We had been discussing earlier the possibility of emptying the mind completely and I decided to see if this could be done. After quite a time had passed in trying I felt it was impossible, gave up and fell asleep. The next thing I knew I was suspended above my body which was asleep on the bed. I felt as if I had returned to the womb, but it was not the physical womb but the cosmic womb. There was a wonderful feeling of love and bliss and being cared for, that completely enveloped me. There was also an awareness of my oneness with God and every other creature and being in the universe, and yet also remaining an individual. There were several questions on my mind at that particular time, and I found that without actually being told the answers I knew them intuitively. I knew my forthcoming marriage was right; also the doctrine of reincarnation and karma which I had at that time been wondering about. I knew that I was surrounded by a love and protection that made all my actions right because I could not go against that which was right in the face of this experience. I wished that I might stay always in this wonderful state and knew that this was akin to what death felt like, and knowing this one should not fear death which was an expansion of oneself. Gradually I returned to my normal sleep-state and woke up, but the feeling of the experience stayed with me for quite a while afterwards.’ B.C. See Reincarnation

Path

The approach or attitudes one uses regarding life in general, or in relationship or work. The direction one has decided on or is following; the way a relationship or marriage is going; a line of thought or enquiry. I often represent the path of self discovery.

A dream path often leads you through certain environments or to someone or a place, so it is important to note where it leads. See Settings in Dreams Plot/theme of the Dream

An old or ancient path: It is a way or inner direction or discipline many people have taken through millennia – a great path to enlightened. See EnlightenmentA Modern Approach – Enlightenment

If a well worn path: A well established or habitual way of doing something; the way other people do it, so following the norm. The path sometimes represents ones overall direction or experience of life within the process of growth and change.

Across the path of another thing or person: There could be a collision so be aware of ‘colliding’ with someone or something. It could also suggest a meeting you will encounter.

Losing a partner on the path: Fear or intuition that the relationship will end or partner die first.

Meeting someone on the path: This depends what is the condition or mood of the person. Are they injured and need help – are they trying to avoid you – are they pleased to see you?

 Example: Now the hare speaks again. “Go back,” says he. “For the path you search for is within you already, as the plant is within the seed. Go back therefore, carry on your accustomed callings, and wait, for it is nigh upon you from within and without. But wait, and you will know it.” Then we all turned around and went back to our village, and carried on our usual tasks, knowing that in time, we would realise our heaven.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was going on regarding the path? (Am I on the path, off the path etc?)

Is this my direction in life? (Describe the path situation in the dream to come up with some idea of the meaning. This is a very broad symbol).

What do I actively love doing?

See destinySettings in Dreams From Hell to HeavenTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pavement Sidewalk

A safe place to be in the activities – traffic – of life. Your public activities, open to the influence or view of other people or social influences. Your present direction, and so an indication of what you are meeting in your life at present.

It also seems a safe place get off busy and dangerous areas – such as parking a car. A sidewalk can also be a good and easy way to get somewhere – except if there are a mass of people on the path.

Example: I touched the ground, I turned into a tree. There was a park on one side and a road on the other side of me and I was planted on the pavement. I was the first tree on the corner and there was a fence around me. My friend arrived and saw me and I told him that I had turned into a tree. He said that I had a good thick trunk.

Example: I come across a group of huge cats (they might be tigers, but I’m not certain) lying down in the street. The pavement is completely covered by them in that section; there might be 50 or more of them. They are a light tan with black markings. I’m pulled aside by one lone cat away from the rest of the group onto the sidewalk. At first, I fear she will hurt me, but she’s very gentle and curls her body around me with a paw over me.

Useful Questions and Hints:
Was I on or off the pavement/sidewalk?
What were you doing or where were you planning to go on the pavement?
Do you ever socialise on the sidewalk?
See Being the Person or thing – Dream Action – Thing I fear

Pay Paid

 

 See: Money.

In nearly all the dreams studied that refer to pay, the action is to pay for something like a fare or goods. None of them are about being paid. This suggests that pay and paying depict concerns about wanting to, or having to, give something of value, either to get something, or to feel a situation is dealt with. The payment can therefore refer to what you have to bring to a situation to make it work, or get positive results.

 

A bill you have can suggest what you are willing – or unwilling – to pay or give of yourself in your growth toward becoming more fully yourself. If the bill relates to others it can either suggest what they owe you – in terms of the service, or what of yourself, you have given them – or what they are giving or willing to give in the way they are rlating to you or working with you.

As human’s we pay an enormous price for being human with self awareness. Look around at the number of people crippled by anxiety, depression and mental illness. Mostly caused by the society or situations we live in, for in so called ‘primitive’ societies such problems do not exist.

Being paid: Results of previous effort or experience. Reward for what you have done or been.

A young man had in fact left a higher paid job and taken a much lower paid work because he felt he couldn’t cope because of a back problem.

Paid experts: The Expert/Patient relationship is something that is badly in need of renovation. As R. D. Laing suggested, what we need is not more experts and organisations, but something seen as a central function in a sane society. We need courage and faith in our own ability to move toward wholeness – and companions who will be with us while we experience the Journey into ourselves.

In search of change in his life, D. paid over $10,000 to the practitioner. There was no observable change in him, yet he could not ask for his money back.

I was barely able to move and crawled about on hands and knees. I went to see an osteopath but she told me that I was in so much pain and tension so she dare not work on me – I still had to pay her fee though! She told me I might have cancer (wrong because it was 20 years past and I still have no cancer). So much for experts.

Paid for: Another form of slavery occurs in the life of many prostitutes who are perhaps enslaved by their dependency on the trade to support them, or are slaves to a pimp, and the pimp may be an addict himself using the woman to pay for his habit and using threats of violence to keep her under control.

Pay attention: When we pay attention our body’s pains and feelings, and what it happening inside of us, we switch from denying the lessons that our body and feelings are offering us, to a student of Life. Giving attention means opening ourselves to all our sensitive being – emotions, intuition/gut feelings, body sensations, awareness of how tense or relaxed we are, and our movements and dreams.

 Example: A reformed alcoholic, John, who told me that his doctor had given him an ultimatum. The doctor had said that John must either give up alcohol or die from liver failure. When he stopped using alcohol he started experiencing the everyday anxieties about paying his bills, the feelings about his past and failed relationships, about his own behaviour and who he was in the world. These were difficult for John to face, so he was tempted again and again to use alcohol to suppress or deaden such feelings. Therefore John changed the wording of the ultimatum to, “Feel my feelings or die!” As can be seen, John did not confront his difficulty until he stopped using alcohol. Sometimes it is an event or change in life circumstances that confronts us with what possesses our will.

Apparently John had to ‘pay’ for his past drinking by facing feelings and realisations previously repressed by alcohol.

Inattention to ones dreams can also lead to a price to pay.

 Example: Another typical case was that of a lady who was living above herself. She was high and mighty in her daily life, but she had shocking dreams, reminding her of all sorts of unsavoury things. When I uncovered them, she indignantly refused to acknowledge them. The dreams then became menacing, and full of references to the walks she used to take by herself in the woods, where she indulged in soulful fantasies. I saw her danger, but she would not listen to my many warnings. Soon afterwards, she was savagely attacked in the woods by a sexual pervert; but for the intervention of some people who heard her screams, she would have been killed.

There was no magic in this. What her dreams had told me was that this woman had a secret longing for such an adventure-just as the mountain climber unconsciously sought the satisfaction of finding a definite way out of his difficulties. Obviously, neither of them expected the stiff price involved: She had several bones broken, and he paid with his life.  Quoted from Man and His Symbols

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I willing to pay or give for my life style, relationship or services?

What am I paying or being paid for?

Do I ever not have enough cash to be able to pay for things?

What life style do I have/

See KarmaFrom Hell to HeavenTechniques for Exploring your DreamsJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Peacock

Pride, outer show, attempt to impress, beauty. Sometimes the same as phoenix. In some cultures the peacock represent the soul or psyche – ones sense of self with all ones individual memories and characteristics. Because the peacock could shed all its beautiful feathers and then grow them again, early Christians saw it as a symbol of resurrection and immortality. As the peacock is a male bird displaying for the sake of a mate, it can also obviously represent male sexuality in its proud, ostentatious or displaying mode.

Pride; self display; vanity; the desire to be more attractive; sometimes the same as phoenix. Outer show, attempt to impress. Due to the beauty of its tail, and the iridescent eyes thereon, it is sometimes also a symbol of the opening in the soul of beautiful spiritual qualities, and a realisation of the eye of God watching us, directing us.

 It can of course represent being as “proud as a peacock” about some accomplishment and would like to “show off.”  But Edgar Cayce saw the peacock as a symbol of the warning, “Pride goeth before destruction.” (Prov. 16:18)

Peacock feather: A peacock feather might represent beauty, self aggrandisement. So it might mean you have achieved the quality it depicts. In India they symbolise spiritual awareness.

 Example: There were trees and a grassy patch of ground. A dog was having puppies. But a great flock of small black birds emerged running and skimming over the grass. I heard myself remark, “They are smaller than the others and there are more of them.” Then, from among the trees emerged a large peacock, tail half raised. The dream left me feeling that from small things could emerge something large and beautiful. Mrs E. E.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with peacocks and how was it shown in the dream?

Is this about pride, or the attempt to impress, what was I feeling?

Does the peacock represent a visionary or watchful aspect of me?

See BirdsBeautyInstinctsFrom Hell to Heaven

Pearl

A beautiful personal quality that has developed through trials or irritations. Pearls are sometimes associated with tears, so might represent loss or pain. See: Jewels.

Pedestal

To place apart, to separate, to place above other things, to idolise, value or worship.

To feel special or to make special; to place above other things; to idolise or worship. Putting someone or yourself on a pedestal can be like seeing that person is “above you” This detracts from you because you are neither superior nor inferior when you are a whole person. See whole

 

Sometimes we put people on a pedestal not to idolise or look up to but to mock, to humiliate or to destroy.

 Example: After they had walked up a wide, elegant, white marble staircase, Eleanor became terrified, “because on that landing was a small white marble coffin on a pedestal.” Eleanor screamed and woke herself up.

Example: The Great Metaphysician, a faceless figure is enthroned on a pedestal made of rubbish. The figure is consciously or unconsciously an ironical representation of the man who strives to discover the “truth” about metaphysics, and at the same time a symbol of ultimate loneliness and senselessness.

Example: Deeper musing upon this theme revealed to me that the habit was also a convenient tool of society. If the religious can be placed on that alabaster pedestal, the rest of us are “safe” as well as “saved.” So I looked at this rigidity and all the structures in the past that had contributed to it and a mantra began to form: “Laughing at what life has held.” I allowed my breathing to deepen and entered into a meditative state… an image formed: People I recognised wore the faces of so many “masters” who had stood in for the voice of the One Master in my life-I faced them and laughed … at first a nervous giggle, then a full-bodied laugh and finally a cacophony of hilarity. Soon stillness settled and I felt a movement-the bodies were forming a circle, joining hands, a new smile upon the lips of the faces. . . the mantra changed to: “Laughing with all life has held.”

Example: He told me what he did to this woman and how he tortured and killed her but he got emotional when talking about me said he would never hurt me and that he put me on a pedestal. Which in real life he does, he adores me and we recently found out we are expecting a baby. He is such a kind gentle person, loved by everyone that’s why it has shaken me so much I do not understand it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about pedestal and what was on it?

Was something on – if so what was it?

Have I ever put someone on a pedestal – or ever been put on one?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsWorking with associationsInner World

Peeping Tom

Perhaps it relates to someone who has not really grown up sexually and so has not met a woman’s or man’s full sexuality with their or full sexuality. So it may indicate infantile feelings, maybe because they have never actually seen the opposite sex naked and full on. See Beware of Love

Reproductive sex does not necessarily require a heterosexual orientation, since orientation refers to a long-term enduring pattern of sexual and emotional attraction leading often to long-term social bonding, while reproductive sex requires only the basic act of intercourse, often done one time only. ” (Quoted from Wikipedia). So the term making love is a fallacy, it should be, “having sex”. See burglar intruder

Pegasus

In folklore and religion we find frequent mention of the winged horse. This symbolises the sexual or instinctive drives that have not been repressed, but allowed, in conjunction with consciousness and reason, to develop the higher possibilities latent in them. Put in plain language this suggests that the sexual drive rises like a wave that carries our conscious desires with it. This energy wave rises, but in fulfilling itself in genital sex the wave falls again, self-awareness with it. However, if the energy is released, and yet not allowed to spill out in the full sexual release, the energy keeps on rising – flying in fact – lifting awareness with it, until it becomes a vast awareness of life and death. Observation of this suggests it awakens parts of the brain that were not really functioning before.

The white horse can have a similar meaning. For instance a woman turning her love of her children into social caring suggests a way of expression that goes beyond personal drives or the instinctive urges toward personal survival. She ‘flies up’ into a wider social context.

But sometimes the sexual or instinctive energy is not actually ‘lifted’ but frustrated and directed into neurotic activities. They are so powerful energies and also creative, that if they are damaged in their development in early life can express as distorted sexual practices or dangerous aggression.

 In mythology Pegasus was born from the blood when Perseus cut off Medusa’s head. (Medusa representing the neurotic activities mentoned). Pegasus then lived roaming freely until Bellerophon caught him with a golden bridle given him by Athena. Bellerophon went through adventures such as the slaying of chimera with the help of Pegasus. But Bellerophon tried to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus (Heaven) but Zeus caused Pegasus to throw him off and fall back to Earth. However Pegasus arrived at Mount Olympus where he served Zeus. The symbolic meaning of this is that when the uncontrolled and undirected processes of thought and intellect are stilled, a new level of experience or energy is released. This new way of relating to sexuality or life energy can uplift or expand consciousness to the point where we arrive at cosmic consciousness. But the old human personality cannot manage this and falls away as a new being emerges. Chimera, the destructive and illusory view of life arising from a purely sensory view of life is killed in the process.

Example: I had a dream last night that I was riding a massive muscular brown stallion. The horse seemed somewhat out of my control at first, but I didn’t feel any real danger. The horse told me to hold on and let go. I surrendered to the ride. We were free falling through the sky for a while. It was exhilarating and scary. I wondered how it would end. I searched for a better grasp on the harness the horse was wearing, then realized it didn’t matter I was staying with the horse regardless of my grip.

 

See: cosmic consciousness; meeting yourselfHorse.

Pelvis

This relates to the sexual function as a whole. This is not simply sex, but reproduction and how you handle this power of life and death. It is the power of life and death because you may kill millions of sperm by protection, and of course your precious eggs, or even abortion.

The pelvis may also link with the way you merge into another person, or if you can allow that merging and emerging, as in deep sexual melting. To merge means a complete loving act in which you give yourself to your partner. Emerging is not about pulling apart physically, but being able to free yourself emotionally and mentally from your partner. I know this connection is commonly called falling in love, but actually it is falling into childhood emotional patterns or habits. See Beware of Love

Some dreams show the pelvis as connected with lizards or snakes, and this shows the powerful instinctive drives and energy that can either flow out in sexual activity, or flow up the spine as expanding consciousness. Our unconscious often connects sex with giving oneself, a death of self, and making connections or bonds – obviously reproduction also.

In woman’s dream: The pelvis may connect with your ability to have a child, or even with early childhood experience. See: Body.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being emphasised in this dream – pain, pleasure, longings – and how does that relate to me at the moment?

Is this dream about my ease or difficulty in relating to me sexual urges?

Is my pelvis moving or vibrating in the dream – is so how am I relating to that flow of energy?

See Sexercises – Stand in roleTune in to the sexual power of your pelvis

Pen and Pencil

Desire to communicate; occasionally male genitals because of shape.

Taking pen to paper: It suggests an urge to express your creativity or to communicate an idea for you to remember. It also could be a motivation to communicate something important to others or someone.

Example: I brought my daughter into an attic and it was filled with the most brilliant coloured art supplies, paints, pencils, paper etc. and I said to her, this is all for you.  Then I woke up and couldn’t wait to start clearing out all the clutter. I’ve been working all day!! TK

Example: The famous visionary artist William Blake’s waking life and dreaming life were closely intermingled. How highly he valued dreams is suggested by the titles of some of his works, such as Queen Katherine’s Dream and Oh, How 1 Dreamt of Things Impossible. His most specific acknowledgement of the inspiration he received from his dreams is found in a pencil portrait showing the facial details of The Man Who Taught Blake Painting in His Dreams.

 

Pendant

See: Necklace.

Penguin

The penguin hardly ever appears in dreams, or in fact in literature generally. so I have not been able to gather from people’s dreams how they use this symbol. From common associations however, it is likely to represent foolishness; a difficult life situation; coldness in relationships.

However, with the recent films about penguins you might have associations to do with great love and endurance.

It can also represent something rare and unusual.

See: Birds.

Penis

For a man the penis represents more than simply his sexual appetite. It depicts the whole drive of life through his glandular system that develops the body type he has. It is therefore often depicting a sense of his own power of self expression, his potency in expressing himself and capability in the world.

The healthy function of the sexual organs predispose a mans body toward male sexual characteristics such as square hips, muscular frame, facial hair and deeper voice. This brings a certain creative explosiveness to his personality, creates urges toward fatherhood and loving his woman, with connected desires to supply the needs of family if he is emotionally healthy. The positive aspect of the penis/masculinity is for him to want his woman to meet his maleness, his caring aggression, his sexual desire, with her own fiery female energy, needs and strength.

So the penis in the male dream can link with any of these characteristics, or in some way indicate difficulties, trauma or fears about them.

Example: The prick stands up for love. Maybe in youth it stands up for performance, or because you are expected to have sex, or because you believe you have no value if you cannot perform. But when you are 60, 70, or 80, the truth comes out. Can you love? The prick stands up when you feel that glow of life that we call love. This sort of love isn’t just there because you said you were going to do it at 12 o’clock that day. This love is an expression of life. Like life it has its seasons. It ebbs and flows. To press it to perform day after day is not to respect those seasons. With such little respect the flow diminishes. The prick no longer stands up except perhaps through artificial stimulation. You do not command life, it commands you. If it does not, you or dead. This sort of love responds to the human need. Perhaps it should be called compassion.

Example: Emily takes my penis and loses it? For a time Emily really did control my penis. I was completely at her mercy. P

This is one of the themes in male dreams, showing how the man is at the mercy of his sexual desires for a woman. In this sense he feels she controls him. It might even be that she is shown cutting off his penis, suggesting relationship with her kills his sexual drive.

Example: I broke it. I broke my dickey. It was dead. I was dead. I was dead and wanted to kill others too. I couldn’t ask for love because my dickey was broken. My prick. I didn’t have a prick. I didn’t want people to look at my prick because it was dead, broken. I couldn’t ask people to love me because they would know my prick was dead. I couldn’t love people because they would know. I wanted love but I couldn’t ask. My pride was gone. I lost my pride because I lost my prick I didn’t want to go on living without it and wanted to die.

“That’s why I killed my daddy. I killed him. I killed him because I wanted his prick. Mine was broken and wanted a good one. So I killed him to get his. 

Example: Dreamt I cut off my penis and used it to masturbate myself. This I did by pushing the penis inside me, where presumably I had a vagina.

Example: ‘My lover Terry, myself and another woman were all on our bed. The other woman seemed very sure of herself and kissed Terry in a very intimate way, he doing the same to her as I lay very near to both of them. Then Terry stuck his bottom in the air and started to lick my chest and breast. I found myself licking around his penis, felt I was under some kind of pressure from both the other two to do so but didn’t feel too shattered as I did it with love for Terry, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth.’ Sally P.

In talking about this dream Sally said she often struggled with what she wanted, and what her partner wanted in sex. She might go along with his needs, but not find it palatable. Even if she did do it with some love, it might leave a ‘bad taste in her mouth’.

Example: ‘I felt as if I were as one with Terry and I realised he was trying to make a journey, as his penis, into his mother’s vagina. Her vagina looked like a long dark tunnel and was threatening to him. I said, ‘You haven’t given your mother satisfaction and you say you will not. Then he was really smashed up in body. Withdrawing into a garden with a high green hedge. I took a leaf from the hedge and began to pull it apart with my hands. Terry said, ‘Look what you are doing, teasing me.’ I felt withdrawal wasn’t the way and started to follow him, walking alongside the hedge. I said, ‘It feels like you are strangling me, so why don’t you do it and kill me?’ We have been going through a lot of sexual withdrawal, Terry saying his sexuality was his to do with as he wanted.’ Sally P.

This second dream of Sally’s is a shrewd summing up of Terry’s sexual fears. In fact Terry suffered a great deal of anxiety about sex, and later uncovered the sort of fear and desire to avoid giving his mother satisfaction in becoming a full blooded man shown in the dream. Our unconscious is a very capable psychologist, and while Terry in Sally’s dream represents her insights regarding him – and must not be seen as a statement of fact about Terry. Nevertheless, such insight are often enormously useful in dealing with relationship difficulties.

Just as women may experience penis envy, men may experience vagina envy. This because there is nothing that a man can do that is quite as miraculous as having a baby. In some men this involves a huge struggle regarding their sexual orientation or easy expression of heterosexual sex.

Example: Was in an underground train. It came out and floated on a lake or river. Then it drew back into the tunnel. I had a baby that I took into a toilet on the train, and put my penis into its back passage, having sex with it. Afterwards, in wiping my penis, a whole lot of stagnant looking sperm came out. I threw it down the toilet.

Although dreamer had never had any conscious urges to have sex with a baby or children, it is not uncommon to dream such dreams. In fact the dream is about the stagnant sperm. His normal sexual development had been disturbed as a baby, and he was reconnecting with it.

Penis replaced by vagina: Could be feeling inadequate as a man or be developing a contact with the female receptive in oneself. It might also show the loss of male drive in sexuality.

Loss of penis: See: castrate.

Penis turns into a snake: Feeling the intense instinctive drive of sexuality. This is a realisation of the drive as existing beyond one’s personality and is an expression of what the sex drive is doing, depending what is happening to the snake. See:reptiles lizards snakes.

Bleeding from penis: Emotional hurts or fears that are interfering with expression of healthy sexual feeling.

In a woman’s dream: Your relationship with, desire for a mate and therefore your relationship with your own desires and male characteristics, such as ambition, work capability, aggression, intellect.

For a woman, the penis may represent your feelings or fears about meeting a man’s full sexuality, as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your father, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in your from your childhood. It connects with your experience of growing from childhood, and how your father met your emerging female sexuality. The penis is also the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression. The reality underlying the symbols of temples and churches, embodying as they do the sacredness of the creative sexual drive and the mystery of life.

The penis might also depict the details of the sexual relationship with your partner. As with the example of Sally’s dream below, the events in the dream define the problem or relationship.

Freud suggested that some women experience penis envy – a sense that their vagina is not as good as a penis. This theme often appears on women’s dreams and may be the nucleus of a powerful conflict if explored.

Example: Dreamt that I have an icicle hanging off my penis

In this dream the man’s sexual drive is show as frozen, probably repressed by anxieties or relationship difficulties.

I was with a very attractive woman and felt to see if my penis was erect. It was, but I seemed to have no power there. When I explored the issue of my sexuality, I realised that when I hold back my sexual feelings toward women, for whatever reason, then I feel slightly depressed, disconnected from the world, and with less personal positiveness in what I do. It is almost like a stream of life flows through me when I am happily sexual, which is diminished by my restraints, whether moral or social. Once the river of life is flowing through me again I feel whole and healed – I feel I can achieve things in the world.

As with the above examples, the penis in a dream is usually a direct reference to sexual feelings, fears, or problems. As these can be quite complex several examples are given below.

Example: ‘So for the third time I held the woman and made love. The woman’s vagina was like a flower. I don’t mean to look at, but in physical sensation. My penis felt like it was penetrating petals of flesh and touching with great pleasure a central receptive area. I was left with the feeling of being able to make love again and again without any negative effects. It was a very positive and healthy feeling.’ John T.

John is feeling confident about his sexual drive. Although a powerful drive, subtle feelings and fears have an intense influence not only on the pleasure of sex, but also the response of the physical organs. The relationship with the penis and sex act in one’s dream shows what fears, hurts or attitudes are influencing the sexual flow. See: castrate.

Example: ‘Was in a house with my wife. Outside the door was Something which wanted to come into her – an invisible being. We were frightened and it said ‘Do not be afraid, I want you to put your penis in your wife and wait for me to activate you. In that way you will form a body for me.’ I woke and realised the dream was moving me to parenthood. Already having three children I realised this would mean another 20 years of responsibility. Nevertheless my wife and I made love. Two weeks later I dreamt my wife was pregnant with a son. In fact nine months later she bore a son.’ Nigel I.

In this interesting dream sequence the penis is Nigel’s drive to be a father. See: bedknobpole; reptiles lizards snakes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is my dream showing my relationship with male sexuality is?

In a male dream – what is my dream revealing about the way I relate to my sexual drive?

Does this dream reveal anything about the way I am in an intimate relationship – if so what is it?

Are there any signs of me growing beyond old patterns of my sexual/emotional behaviour – if so can I enhance them?

Here some useful links – Easy Dream InterpretationSexually InadequateMan In Your DreamsDream Like a Computer Game

Pentacle

Often represents the human body, or the subtle spiritual life of the person. See: Five.

Pentecost

Pentecostal Christianity speaks of gifts of the spirit. These are listed as the gift of: the word of wisdom; the word of knowledge; faith healing; the working of miracles; prophecy; the discerning of spirits; diverse kinds of tongues; and interpretation of tongues.

“And when the day of Pentecost  was fully come, they were all  w ith one accord in one place.   And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing   mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were   sitting.   And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,   and it sat upon each of th em.   And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to   speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Most of these are easily recognisable descriptions of faculties of the unconscious. The unconscious is constantly scanning information and considering the highest probable outcome – thus prophecy. Access to universal aspects of consciousness allows the gaining of insights which might also account for prophecy, wisdom and words of knowledge. See Edgar Cayce

Speaking in tongues is a common way in which the unconscious expresses its feelings and insights. It is a level three expression in Van Rhijn/Caldwell’s levels of consciousness. When the ‘tongues’ are considered as symbolic expression they transform into meaningful words, just as dream symbols do. My experiments with such phenomena convincingly show the common link between these often considered unrelated phenomena and LifeStream. See How it Flows

Discerning of spirits means the ability to look into a human heart and see what is hidden there. Considering how much we can learn subliminally through body language and verbal cues, this is another straightforward unconscious faculty.

But imagine a group of people all ‘worshipping’ as is described of Pentecost, when the disciples were taken to be drunk. (Acts 1:12 to 2:13) There were 120 gathered in a room, men and women being equals – “All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” Considering present day Pentecostalism and other forms of LifeStream, this large group would include people who would be shouting in tongues, others would be crying, moving their bodies, discerning spirits, and generally creating a bedlam of noise. Any newcomer to the group, not having had explained what was being attempted – that each be open to the Spirit and be moved by it – might think the people were crazy or drunk.

Another impulse more embedded in Western culture, but perhaps less accepted today, is that begun by the early Christians. This is very definitely an example of a group of people permitting the self-regulatory action to express itself consciously. It is what we call Pentecostalism, and from the point of view of psychological homeostasis, is in many ways similar to Shaktipat. The guru, Jesus, was the means of stimulating the release, or giving ‘grace’. Because we are acquainted with the dogmas and belief structure of Christianity in some measure, we can more readily see how a natural process, self regulation, can become deified and surrounded by religious symbols and ritual. Just as the views of Buddhism and shamanism edited what aspects of the unconscious were permissible, (i.e. in Vipassana it is not acceptable to go into ‘trance’ or be ‘possessed’. In shamanism it is thought ineffective if one only sits and remains aware of the flow of arising images) so in the Pentecostal approach, what is allowed must in some way link with Christ, God or biblical statements. Nevertheless, the ‘drunkenness’, speaking in ‘tongues’, the flow of cosmic energy — holy ghost — are all akin to Shaktipat and modern homeostasis. See Life’s Little Secrets – Waking Lucid Dreaming

The unconscious often uses mysterious or foreign languages to express what lies within you that has never been thought about or put into words. Much of your most fundamental childhood experiences were pre-verbal and so only accessible as powerful feelings and feeling responses. Even from babyhood we can make profound decisions about what we will reject or accept. These are formulated entirely as profoundly potent feeling responses and become habits that can repeat as many times as they are stimulated. Dreams sometimes express these, and intuitions about your wholeness, as strange words or a mysterious language because such experience had never become part of our conscioius mind and words. If you play with the sounds and let them develop, what they contain can become verbalized. The unconscious, as in speaking in tongues – glossolalia – and of course in dreams, frequently moves toward clear awareness in stages. The strange language is a half way house toward focused critical awareness. If we bring attention to these, as explained in processing dreams, the next step, clear verbal expression, can be reached.  See Habits

You can ask questions of the process that leads us to speak in tongues. If you ask it, “What do this mean?” it will gradually form into recognisable word. See People’s Experience of LifeStream

People or Person

Person and Individuals

“There must have been some dreams that made you wonder why a known person appeared in them. This is especially puzzling if you haven’t seen that person for years. I experience this all the time. Everyone I ever met in my life keeps showing up in my dreams. I can’t blame day residue for it. If somebody appears in my dream, there has to be a special reason for it.

I’ve been entering characters in my symbol book for a long time. Let me introduce you to a few. There’s Peter, one of my strongest helpers. He showed up riding on a horse in my ‘Cracking The Ice’ dream. Riding the horse he managed to crack the ice on a small lake, something I was unable to do on my own. I had to think for a while before I understood exactly why he appeared in my dream. Peter went to the same elementary school as I. One thing I eventually remembered about him was his inventiveness. This led me to realise that I use the appearance of Peter in a dream as a clue to consider whether I need to think of a more ingenious approach to an issue I am confronting.

There’s Frits, whose role I only recently got to understand. I could never see any pattern in the dreams he appeared in. Frits is a high school acquaintance, somebody who was often around, even though we weren’t really friends. I never fully understood it at the time. But it recently hit me that he was especially around when I was rebelling against the boredom of high school. He was having fun whenever I broke the rules, or did something else exciting. With that insight, looking back at the dreams, there is a pattern. Whenever my behaviour in a dream is more active than usual, he is around. He is the part of me that is having fun, because I’m not aware that I’m having fun myself.”

Apart from defining how you see one of your dream characters, and what relationship you have had to them in the past, as Harry suggests, it helps to simply consider how you feel about them, what of their characteristics are most important or noticeable to you. But occasionally it isn’t what you see in their character, but what you feel about them that is important. For instance a person who has frequently appeared in my dreams is a woman called Ann. I felt a lot of sexual attraction to Ann – although she may have felt nothing for me – and she appears in my dreams whenever loving feelings or closeness are being dealt with.

A man I used to work for, Leo, has appeared in dreams where a problem regarding outer activity was concerned. So Leo represents for me ways of dealing with difficulties I face in the world. He is the confidence and courage I have innately to meet things constructively.

But many characters in dreams are not people you have ever met or known, not even characters from films, plays or books. So you can’t look back on them and ask yourself what you observed or felt about them. In such cases it is most helpful to imagine yourself as that character and describe who you are, exactly as you are and how you act in the dream – as the dream character. As an example of this, one character in a dream, an old man, was dying. He was nobody I knew. When I imagined myself as him and described what I felt, and what was happening to me, it was clear he represented the experience I was facing at the time. I was letting my old life, a phase of my life, my old self, die. This was difficult but it was happening, and the dream helped me clarify what I was facing.

One of the most helpful ways to find the qualities of a dream character is to give them a name. For instance you might basically feel that a man you have seen or know slightly seems a practical outwardly capable person. So you could give him the name of Mr. Practical. Mr Practical therefore is your ability in dealing with everyday life, or outward activities. There could also be Mr Sexy, Miss How Do I Look, and so on. Naming characters gets easier if you stand in their role imaginatively as described above. For more information on this see standing in role under peer dream work.

But remember that a word in a sentence changes meaning, even subtly, as it is placed in a different context. The word light, for instance, can be used by saying, “I switched on the light.” Or we can say, “I felt very light-hearted.” Or even, “There was no light.”

Each of these brings about a different sense of surroundings or events. Similarly, the context of a character in your dream may change what you have defined of his or her qualities. So you must look to the context to get the final understanding as to what you dream character indicates in that particular dream.

A person who appeared in many of my dreams was a woman named Su. My relationship with Su was one in which I had been trying to learn to love her without being possessive or grasping. So in my dreams she always depicted my attempts to love in that way, or my attempts to learn a fuller love.

In one dream Su is shown paddling an inflatable dingy to a local town, where I am going to meet her. But there were difficulties about this. At the time of the dream I was dealing with a lot of people in very direct relationships, and Su in this dream shows that I still haven’t ‘met’ or integrated the ability to love without grasping or wanting to posses. The difficulty in the dream suggests that I find it difficult to express this more open love.

In a later dream, experienced just after I had led a weekend activity, I dreamt Su was visiting or with us. But she didn’t look like Su at all, being dark, indecisive and a weaker personality. I was talking with her, or just with her, when I realised that Mike (a close friend) was upstairs with my wife. He had arrived back from America. I wanted him to meet Su. I wanted to hug him, but I also wanted Su to see me do this. So although I hug him with love, there was also something of the purposely done thing about it.

Here Su is actually with me, in my house, so this is an entirely different context than with the previous dream. This shows a fuller integration with unconditional love. But the part at the end where I hope Su will see me ‘loving’ Mike points out that I am still moved by desires for acclaim and public attention.

So to summarise, consider each character and discover what qualities, faults, weaknesses or strength they depict for you. Give them a name, as this helps you remember their quality. But look to the context of the dream to find the detailed and changing expression of what the character depicts.

Couple: Depending on the context of the couple in the dream, they can represent the dreamers parents and the family situation and environment at the age of the couple portrayed; if the dreamer has been married, can depict the dreamer’s marriage situation at the age of the couple; hopes for a relationship; possible outcomes of a relationship; friendship; partnership; some sort of relationship.

Dead people: The influence those people still have in your life – i.e. you are still influenced by them, or your relationship with them, even though they are dead. Feelings about death.

Group of people: A group of people, as in Ivor’s dream below, can depict how one meets the pressure of social norms; public opinion. See: crowd.

Inner People: When you think about a lover, a friend or a person you know, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and they change you and make you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner person can appear in dreams because you still carry the memories or impressions of them, and so they influenced what you hold within you.

Many people are lost and feel as if they cannot more, are trapped, even by past loves. But in fact the more people we can ‘digest’ or accept as part of our own experience, the more freedom we have. Each person we have within us in this way is a new space, a new area or space to live in.

Example: Then I slowly became aware of a deeper sense of the discomfort. It was a feeling of being stuck in one place and not being able to move. It wasn’t anything to do with moving physically but was as an awareness. It felt awful and I tried to move but couldn’t. The only way of describing it was as if we are all made out of the same stuff – as an example concrete – and as such we filled all space. So the little space I filled could not move because all around was filled by others. I felt really stuck and wondered what I could do, but there seemed no way out of it. Yet I could not believe this was really how things were.

Most of this was spontaneous thoughts and movement through the experience, so that was how I was led to thinking about my cousin Sid again, and his situation of being constantly linked with his mother even after he died. Then I realised that I was linked with Rita, and in feeling that I realised that I could move in at least two positions – me and Rita – because of the loving connection I felt.

Then came a flood of realisation, every person I had loved was another position I could be in; and then I knew all the animals I had loved and even people I had a casual relationship with. But there was even more because in dreams and sessions I had become or encountered amazing things, people, creatures, the alien beings and others. I knew then that I was FREE to go anywhere and be almost anything, because their life pattern was now part of me. Then with a rush of wonder, I realised that the more people and creatures I loved, the bigger I became. See Digest

Large crowds: Enormous involvement of self in issue; ones relationship or feelings about the social environment one lives in; in groups we have a feeling of being looked at or on view – how we relate to that may be depicted by what we are doing in the dream group. See: party; roles.

Old person: It often relates to life experience even wisdom. But an old woman can depict your mother or a mother figure; and an old man your father or a father figure.

People from our past: Considering that the major part of our learning and experience occur in relationship to other people, such learning and experience can be represented by characters from the past. For instance a first boyfriend in a dream would depict all the emotions and struggles we met in that relationship, and what we learned from it or took away from it in terms of fears. Therefore dreaming often of people we knew in the past would suggest the past experiences or lessons are very active at the moment, or we are reviewing those areas of our life. A woman who had emigrated to Britain from a very different cultural background frequently dreamt, even twenty years afterwards, of people she knew in her native country. This shows her still very much in contact with her own cultural values and experiences.

Several people in a dream suggest: Not feeling lonely; involvement of many aspects of oneself in what is being dreamt about; social ability.

As social relationship is one of the most important factors outside of personal survival – and survival depends upon it – such dreams help us to clarify our individual contact with society. Human beings have an unconscious but highly developed sense of the psychological social environment. Ivor’s dream shows something we are all involved in – how we are relating to humans collectively. Are we in conflict with group behaviour and direction; do we conform, but perhaps have conflict with our individual drives; do we find a way between the opposites? Much of our response is laid down in childhood and remains unconscious unless we review it.

Example: ‘Walking alone through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment.’ Ivor S.

In some dreams, a group of people represent what is meant by the word God. This may sound unlikely, but the unconscious, because it is highly capable of synthesis, often looks at humanity as a whole. Collectively humanity has vast creative and destructive powers that intimately affect us as individuals. Collectively it has performed miracles that looked at as an individual, appear impossible. How could a little human being build the great pyramid, or a space shuttle? The Bible echoes this concept in such phrases as ‘Whatever you do to the least of one of these, you do to me.’

Example: ‘I was outdoors with a group of people acting as leader. We were in the middle of a war situation with bullets playing around us. Maybe aeroplanes were also attacking. I was leading the group from cover to cover, avoiding the bullets. Paul W.

Despite feeling attacked, either by external events, or from inner conflicts, Paul is using leadership skills to deal with his own fears and tendencies. If a friend told us he had just had an argument with his wife and was going to leave her, we might sit down and counsel them by listening and helping them to sort out the hurt feelings from their long term wishes. We might point out they had felt this way before but it passed – in other words give feedback they had missed. In a similar way, our various emotions and drives often need this sort of skill employed by ourselves. This unifies us, leading to coping skills as in Paul’s dream.

Pepper

Warming up ones emotions; livening up the situation. It can also indicate irritation or stimulation. It is used to mean bombard someone or something when we say we peppered them with questions. It could be used to suggest the warming up of a relationship, a situation or sex.  Can even represent a sexual stimulant if hot peppers.

It can indicate something you use to add to your pleasure. Or a deterrent if you feel attacked. It might indicate hot stuff, enthusiasm, or too hot to handle.

Green and red peppers: Adding goodness if sweet peppers. Can also link with your cooking or eating.

Example: I had been chopping green peppers in the afternoon. In the dream I was chopping peppers with a very sharp knife and I stabbed my hand. I woke and my hand – I was in agony with the pain. I was leaping round the bedroom trying to flex my hand.

Example: I went back to get some pepper sauce. I think a piece of my food fell on the table because when I returned with my pepper sauce and plate of food in my hand, I saw a cockroach. I felt grossed out by it and did not bother to pick it up my food.

 

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have a hot temper, or heated feelings and desires?

Is there a current situation or something that is stimulating me?

Do I cook with pepper or peppers a lot?

Do I like or loathe them?

See Settings in Dreams Because FactorKey Words

Perfume Scent Smell

A smell can remind us of a particular situation or person. Odours attract, repulse, relax or offend. So they depicts feeling responses and intuition, and may summarise what we feel about a person or situation. Frequently in dreams a smell expresses an intuition of something rotten in ones life if the smell is bad. See Nose

A pleasant smell can indicate feelings of attraction, as with perfume or good food smell

Bad smell: Frequently in dreams a bad smell expresses an intuition of something rotten in ones life. Rotten might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship; a hunch or feelings about something, as in the example; memories. So it might show feelings others or you feel about someone or a situation.

 Example: ‘I went back in time in circles, almost as if going unconscious. I went back and back and then there came this awful smell such as I’ve never experienced. I always felt it was the smell of death. I would wake terrified. One night my husband, a practical and down to earth man, said he would read me to sleep to see if it helped me not have the dream. It made no difference I still had the nightmare. Imagine my surprise though. He said ‘I knew you’d had the dream again for there was an awful smell in the room for a minute.’’ Mrs E. C.

Example: While upstairs my wife had come up. As we walked down we got near the toilet and I suddenly smelt powerful smell of shit. It was like the inside of a dead turkey. I somehow connected it with my wife, but asked her if my son or someone had just being to the toilet. She said, “Yes, I had. But I had only done a pee”. Anyway, the smell went and I sat in the sitting-room. She went out then came in again and as soon as she was near the door I smelt a strong blast of shit. Now I knew it was connected with my wife and told her it was in relationship to her. She asked how, and I knew I deeply felt she was like a bag of shit. I saw her face – all the skin on her face – as like a thin paper bag full of shit. I tried to tell her this but my mouth and body just would not say it. I tried but no words would come. I looked at her and the skin looked like it covered shit. It looks like a paper bag, and if punctured shit would come out. Eventually I mumbled out something about shit, and began to realise this was how I saw her, like a middle-aged shit bag.

Good smell: Good feelings; non verbalised intimations or love.

 Example: The bear is just sitting there on the flat steps and looking at us. It didn’t look mean now, only calmer and looking tired. I grab grandma by the arm and told her to get behind me…I can smell her scent and feel the warmth from her arm…I hold her get behind me and look at the bear.

Also explainable by the large number of idioms regarding smell.

Idioms: On the right scent; throw someone off the scent; in bad/good odour with; odour of sanctity; smell a rat; smell of grease paint; smells fishy; something stinks to high heaven; like stink; raise a stink; what you did stinks.. See: nose under body.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this odour call up a particular person or experience, and what is it that I relate to?

Is this about a feeling, attraction, repulsion, or the smell of something fresh or stale?

Is it a play on words such as ‘I smell a rat’, ‘something smells fishy’, ‘stinks to high heaven’, ‘stop and smell the roses’, and so on?

What did you make of or feel about the smell?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsMartial Art of the MindSecrets of Power Dreaming

Perro

See Dog

Person and Individuals

The first part is by a friend Harry Bhosma – http://mythwell.com/

There must have been some dreams that made you wonder why a known person appeared in them. This is especially puzzling if you haven’t seen that person for years. I experience this all the time. Everyone I ever met in my life keeps showing up in my dreams. I can’t blame day residue for it. If somebody appears in my dream, there has to be a special reason for it.

I’ve been entering characters in my symbol book for a long time. Let me introduce you to a few. There’s Peter, one of my strongest helpers. He showed up riding on a horse in my ‘Cracking The Ice’ dream. Riding the horse he managed to crack the ice on a small lake, something I was unable to do on my own. I had to think for a while before I understood exactly why he appeared in my dream. Peter went to the same elementary school as I. One thing I eventually remembered about him was his inventiveness. This led me to realise that I use the appearance of Peter in a dream as a clue to consider whether I need to think of a more ingenious approach to an issue I am confronting.

There’s Frits, whose role I only recently got to understand. I could never see any pattern in the dreams he appeared in. Frits is a high school acquaintance, somebody who was often around, even though we weren’t really friends. I never fully understood it at the time. But it recently hit me that he was especially around when I was rebelling against the boredom of high school. He was having fun whenever I broke the rules, or did something else exciting. With that insight, looking back at the dreams, there is a pattern. Whenever my behaviour in a dream is more active than usual, he is around. He is the part of me that is having fun, because I’m not aware that I’m having fun myself.

Apart from defining how you see one of your dream characters, and what relationship you have had to them in the past, as Harry suggests, it helps to simply consider how you feel about them, what of their characteristics are most important or noticeable to you. But occasionally it isn’t what you see in their character, but what you feel about them that is important. For instance a person who has frequently appeared in my dreams is a woman called Ann. I felt a lot of sexual attraction to Ann – although she may have felt nothing for me – and she appears in my dreams whenever loving feelings or closeness are being dealt with.

A man I used to work for, Leo, has appeared in dreams where a problem regarding outer activity was concerned. So Leo represents for me ways of dealing with difficulties I face in the world. He is the confidence and courage I have innately to meet things constructively.

But many characters in dreams are not people you have ever met or known, not even characters from films, plays or books. So you can’t look back on them and ask yourself what you observed or felt about them. In such cases it is most helpful to imagine yourself as that character and describe who you are, exactly as you are and how you act in the dream – as the dream character. As an example of this, one character in a dream, an old man, was dying. He was nobody I knew. When I imagined myself as him and described what I felt, and what was happening to me, it was clear he represented the experience I was facing at the time. I was letting my old life, a phase of my life, my old self, die. This was difficult but it was happening, and the dream helped me clarify what I was facing.

One of the most helpful ways to find the qualities of a dream character is to give them a name. For instance you might basically feel that a man you have seen or know slightly seems a practical outwardly capable person. So you could give him the name of Mr. Practical. Mr Practical therefore is your ability in dealing with everyday life, or outward activities. There could also be Mr Sexy, Miss How Do I Look, and so on. Naming characters gets easier if you stand in their role imaginatively as described above. For more information on this see standing in role under peer dream work.

But remember that a word in a sentence changes meaning, even subtly, as it is placed in a different context. The word light, for instance, can be used by saying, “I switched on the light.” Or we can say, “I felt very light-hearted,” “There was no light,” or even “I saw the Light.”

Each of these brings about a different sense of surroundings or events. Similarly, the context of a character in your dream may change what you have defined of his or her qualities. So you must look to the context to get the final understanding as to what you dream character indicates in that particular dream.

A person who appeared in many of my dreams was a woman named Su. My relationship with Su was one in which I had been trying to learn to love her without being possessive or grasping. So in my dreams she always depicted my attempts to love in that way, or my attempts to learn a fuller love.

In one dream Su is shown paddling an inflatable dingy to a local town, where I am going to meet her. But there were difficulties about this. At the time of the dream I was dealing with a lot of people in very direct relationships, and Su in this dream shows that I still haven’t ‘met’ or integrated the ability to love without grasping or wanting to posses. The difficulty in the dream suggests that I find it difficult to express this more open love.

In a later dream, experienced just after I had led a weekend activity, I dreamt Su was visiting or with us. But she didn’t look like Su at all, being dark, indecisive and a weaker personality. I was talking with her, or just with her, when I realised that Mike (a close friend) was upstairs with my wife. He had arrived back from America. I wanted him to meet Su. I wanted to hug him, but I also wanted Su to see me do this. So although I hug him with love, there was also something of the purposely done thing about it.

Here Su is actually with me, in my house, so this is an entirely different context than with the previous dream. This shows a fuller integration with unconditional love. But the part at the end where I hope Su will see me ‘loving’ Mike points out that I am still moved by desires for acclaim and public attention.

So to summarise, consider each character and discover what qualities, faults, weaknesses or strength they depict for you. Give them a name, as this helps you remember their quality. But look to the context of the dream to find the detailed and changing expression of what the character depicts.

Couple: Depending on the context of the couple in the dream, they can represent the dreamers parents and the family situation and environment at the age of the couple portrayed; if the dreamer has been married, can depict the dreamer’s marriage situation at the age of the couple; hopes for a relationship; possible outcomes of a relationship; friendship; partnership; some sort of relationship.

Dead people: The influence those people still have in your life – i.e. you are still influenced by them, or your relationship with them, even though they are dead. Feelings about death.

Group of people: A group of people, as in Ivor’s dream below, can depict how one meets the pressure of social norms; public opinion. See: crowd.

Large crowds: Enormous involvement of self in issue; ones relationship or feelings about the social environment one lives in; in groups we have a feeling of being looked at or on view – how we relate to that may be depicted by what we are doing in the dream group.

Old person: It often relates to life experience even wisdom. But an old woman can depict your mother or a mother figure; and an old man your father or a father figure.

People from our past: Considering that the major part of our learning and experience occur in relationship to other people, such learning and experience can be represented by characters from the past. For instance a first boyfriend in a dream would depict all the emotions and struggles we met in that relationship, and what we learned from it or took away from it in terms of fears. Therefore dreaming often of people we knew in the past would suggest the past experiences or lessons are very active at the moment, or we are reviewing those areas of our life. A woman who had emigrated to Britain from a very different cultural background frequently dreamt, even twenty years afterwards, of people she knew in her native country. This shows her still very much in contact with her own cultural values and experiences.

Several people in a dream suggest: Not feeling lonely; involvement of many aspects of oneself in what is being dreamt about; social ability.

As social relationship is one of the most important factors outside of personal survival – and survival depends upon it – such dreams help us to clarify our individual contact with society. Human beings have an unconscious but highly developed sense of the psychological social environment. Ivor’s dream shows something we are all involved in – how we are relating to humans collectively. Are we in conflict with group behaviour and direction; do we conform, but perhaps have conflict with our individual drives; do we find a way between the opposites? Much of our response is laid down in childhood and remains unconscious unless we review it.

 

Example: ‘Walking alone through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment.’ Ivor S.

In some dreams, a group of people represent what is meant by the word God. This may sound unlikely, but the unconscious, because it is highly capable of synthesis, often looks at humanity as a whole. Collectively humanity has vast creative and destructive powers that intimately affect us as individuals. Collectively it has performed miracles that looked at as an individual, appear impossible. How could a little human being build the great pyramid, or a space shuttle? The Bible echoes this concept in such phrases as ‘Whatever you do to the least of one of these, you do to me.’

Example: ‘I was outdoors with a group of people acting as leader. We were in the middle of a war situation with bullets playing around us. Maybe aeroplanes were also attacking. I was leading the group from cover to cover, avoiding the bullets. Paul W.

Despite feeling attacked, either by external events, or from inner conflicts, Paul is using leadership skills to deal with his own fears and tendencies. If a friend told us he had just had an argument with his wife and was going to leave her, we might sit down and counsel them by listening and helping them to sort out the hurt feelings from their long term wishes. We might point out they had felt this way before but it passed – in other words give feedback they had missed. In a similar way, our various emotions and drives often need this sort of skill employed by ourselves. This unifies us, leading to coping skills as in Paul’s dream.

Perspire Perspiration Sweat

Strong emotion, deeply moved, excitement, fear, intense feeling. It can also suggest you are feeling ill at ease about how others feel about you if you are worried about your body odour.

Mostly fear. As we get near to experiencing areas of our memory or inner feelings that disturb us, rapid heartbeat and perspiration are some of the first signs. Also excitement or feeling we are repulsive to others if we feel the perspiration is obnoxious. Pleasurable exertion.

Physiological effects can be caused and switch suddenly through our changing emotions. See Martial Art of the Mind

A pounding heart and sweating can be caused by sleep paralysis. See Sleep paralysis

Sweating and trembling often occur as a realise of unconscious emotions arise when reliving a traumatic experience. They also can occur as a person gets near to the hugeness they carry within them. See Reaction to the unconscious

But sweating is a natural process of regulation and is a way of losing excess heat in the body. Bad smelling perspiration is a sign of an unhealthy body. Somebody recently told me that they sweat enormously when it is reasonably hot, and said it was showing a good system. But people complain when the weather turns warm and also when it is cold. It doesn’t mean their system is working well, but it shows their body does not adjust to changes of temperature. I know of a man who doesn’t have to add great amounts of clothes in the cold weather and is not feeling uncomfortable and sweaty in summer.

Analyses of thousands of hair, blood and sweat samples of people in Britain by Dr Stephen Davies, of the Biolab Medical Unit in London, has clearly shown that toxic elements accumulates with age. Simultaneously, levels of essential elements decline, leading him to conclude that our overexposure to toxic elements and under consumption of essential elements has exceeded the human body’s capacity to adapt and successfully detoxify. The lack of sufficient essential elements makes lead, cadmium, mercury and aluminium even more toxic. The combination of these factors is no doubt lowering our overall intellectual performance and emotional stability. Taking vitamin C can detoxify Lead; zinc counteracts cadmium; selenium counteracts mercury.

 Example: One woman dreamt the same dream from childhood. She was walking past railings in the town she lived in as a child. She always woke in dread and perspiration from this dream. At forty she told her sister about it. The response was, ‘Oh, that’s simple. Don’t you remember that when you were about four we were walking past those railings and we were set on by a bunch of boys. Then I said to them, ‘Don’t hurt us our mother’s dead!’ They left us alone, but you should have seen the look on your face.’ After realising the dread was connected with the imagined loss of her mother, the dream never recurred.

Idioms: break a sweat; don’t sweat it; in a cold sweat; no sweat; sweat blood; sweat bullets; sweat of ones brow; old sweat; sweat it out; work up a sweat.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this about a fear or other intense feeling?

Does this represent some strong emotion, or exertion?

What am I breaking out in a sweat for?

See Being the Person or ThingCharacters and People in DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Pestle

Masculine force, or drive, breaking down problems. Also phallus, when thinking of the sexual use of the words pound or grind.

Pet Pets

Very often depicts our feeling of responsibility or caring; our feelings of affection, such as we might feel for a pet; our natural drives such as procreation, desire to be ‘petted. These feelings may have been ‘house trained’ – meaning perhaps being over disciplined – or caged, or not fed, depending on dream. Therefore the action in the dream will indicate what one is doing with this side of ones nature. sometimes it is feelings of being like a pet – only being able to do what the person you are dependent upon wishes.

But it depends how you have treated pets or animals. Many children and adults torture pets or animals.

An unfed pet: Often has to do with our feelings of responsibility toward caring for someone else, or caring for ones own basic needs. May be the children have grown up and left, and there is no one to spend ones caring and affection on. Or else we are so busy we forget our own needs.

Baby pets: If in a woman’s dream may signify her maternal drive, her desire for children; ones own dependent self and feelings.

If we have kept a pet such as you dream about: What the pet in the dream depicts rests very much on what the dreamer’s relationship with the pet was. For instance a woman whose daughter kept a rat that was well liked, would have completely different associations and feeling responses in connection with rats than many people.

In the dream of a child: Usually refers to the child’s feelings of being dependent. A pet is a creature that depends on humans – perhaps the child – to feed it and care for it. It cannot make any decisions of its own because it is imprisoned in a cage of some sort. So a child often uses the pet to depict its own condition of dependence and inability to make many of its own decisions. The dream may also be a way to child experiments with ways of developing independence. See: animals.

 Example: My pet mouse had babies. I dreamt that the babies had opened their eyes and were running about. Q.C.

This is the dream of a young boy of five. We explored the dream and he said that a pet was something that couldn’t do anything for itself and needed looking after. When asked if he had any feelings about this he said that he sometimes felt like a pet, as he couldn’t do things for himself without his parents consent.

We looked at what it meant that the babies had opened their eyes, and Q. said that when baby mice open their eyes it means they are ready to be independent. This led him to realise that he wanted to be more independent. So from that time on he started doing more things for himself instead of depending upon his parents.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my dream show any feelings of friendship or affection?

Is dependence on someone else, or someone who is dependent on me shown?

Am I not caring for the dream pet, or my own basic needs?

See AnimalsBeing the Person or ThingConditioned Reflexes


Petal

Sensitive and gentle parts of your nature, that may be crushed or destroyed.

Petrify

The normal expression of yourself is blocked through fear or lack of confidence. As an example, you may love your father, but be petrified of showing it due to his cynicism.

Petrol

Emotional energy and drive. Potentially explosive emotions. See: Fuel.

Fuel/gas: Feeling drives; motivation; whatever has ‘fuelled one’s drive’. Petrol/gas is also a resource, something you know you can call upon to achieve something or ‘get somewhere’. So having an empty tank would suggest you have no such resources of energy, or motivation or ‘drive’ to achieve what you desire or need to do. It can sometimes indicate exhaustion and poor health. So it might indicate a change of diet or life style – getting more rest?

There is an interesting complexity here as you need resources – money – to get the resource of fuel.

Out of fuel/gas: No motivation or energy to do what you want. This could also be frustration and irritability or the loss of a meeting or opportunity. Feeling stumped.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream saying about my energy or resourcefulness, and how does that apply to me?

If I am without fuel is there any indication of how I can get it or why I am on ‘empty’?

Is there any sign in the dream what my relationship with my energy reserves is?

Try using Secrets of Power DreamingBeing the Person or Thing

Petticoat

Inner feelings that few see. Sometimes symbolises sexual feelings, or even psychic body or aura. See: Clothes.

The colour and type alter the meaning of petticoats, but in general they signify something like petals do on a flower. A flower is the sexual organs of the plant, and the petals draw attention to the flowers central offering of pollen, nectar and its need to reproduce. So petticoats suggest a softness and femininity, a wrapping around the wonder a woman offers in her physical and emotional love.

A dream might show something like iron or starchy petticoats, and so this is the complete opposite, suggesting an emotional and sexual starchiness or hardness.

In some dreams the petticoats suggest a sort of wrapping around the fundamental sexual feelings or urges. In other words many women would be offended if one suggested their dress or tight blouse was to attract a sexual partner. So they are wrapping their feelings in a sort of obscurity. Petticoats sometimes depict this in a male or female dream. So removing them is to uncover the more fundamental feelings and awareness.


Useful Questions and Hints:

What colour is the petticoat and what does that suggest to me – what do I associate with that colour? See: colours.

What activities or feelings surround the petticoat in the dream?

What do the other clothes or events in the dream suggest about attitudes or stance being expressed here? See: underclothes.

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Phantom

See: Ghost; Demon.

Pharmacy Pharmacist

See: Chemist.

Phlegm

Rubbish, blocked emotions, fears about health, poisons in system of body, or mind. Sluggish, stagnation.

Phoenix

Phoenix2

The ability to find a new impulse, new strength, new growth even in death; the power in oneself to transform the dying, depressed, dark and desperate into new endeavour and growth. It is a fact that we are all dual in nature and so have the dual nature of life and death. Death is as much a part of life as birth. But it is through death that life renews itself.

The following insight arose from a dream the person explored.

Example: Our body is all the time dying as thousands of cells die, and in doing so the new and living body can continue. Suddenly I realised that this was the meaning of the phoenix – it was consumed by the flames, and yet it arose anew. We have the fire of life within us, that in consuming us gives birth to us continuously. It is the warmth of our body, the warmth, even passion, of our emotions and that is life – continuous through death.

Our bodies renew themselves every day: stomach cells renew every five days; our skin cells are replaced every month; the skeleton is replaced every three months; the raw material of DNA is replaced every 6 weeks; our brain cells are completely new every year. The whole body is replaced every two years. Quoted from “The Biology of Belief” by Dr. Bruce Lipton. 

This may be represented in your dreams as a phoenix. See: Death; birds.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about the phoenix in my dream?

Do I ever feel some part of me is dying?

What about the feeling of renewal?

See Archetype of Rebirth or ResurrectionJesse Watkins EnlightenmentBeing the Person or Thing

 

Phone

See Telephone

Photograph Photos Photograther

These are usually about memories, wanting to be remembered or noticed. They also enable you to look at yourself in different ways. Photos are also used for many different reasons. They illustrate news; they show us what someone looks like; we use them sometimes almost like holy icons on an altar of family memories and links; they rekindle love or other feelings; they are used as sexual stimulation; they are almost like the presence of the dead.

Developing photos: Bringing to consciousness what was latent or unrealised before.

Looking at family photos: Realisation of past or present influences in your life. The activity of the family environment, mentally and emotionally.

Photo of yourself: Your self image at the moment, or you need to look at yourself or get an objective view.

Photographer: Indicates you are skilled in capturing memories, or experiencing and recording beauty or events. Seeing and experiencing the wonderful range of human life.

Photos that come to life: The living influence of past experience, and your continuing involvement in what the picture depicts. Something that you held as a thought is taking shape and becoming real.

Taking photos: Capturing a realisation; taking notice of something; remembering.

Useful questions:

Is this a memory or impression that I have forgotten, but is re-emerging?

Is the photo showing how I feel about a certain person?

What is this photo used for or illustrating in the dream?

Physician

See: Doctor.

Piano

Expression of yourself in some way. Subtle feelings or realisations. The music might also link with memories or the past.

Pictures Paintings

Your works, the things you have done, the picture you have painted of your possibilities and inner world. See: Photograph.

Pig

Low, greedy, having no refinement. But due to the sow’s ability to suckle enormous numbers, may also symbolise sustenance of a material sort, or earthy motherhood. Pig headed is stubbornness. Generally represents sensuality, lost in material vices. Can sometimes mean the power of material experience.

Fertility; physical appetites; life directed only by physical needs; sensuality; ungoverned passion or appetites; uncleanness; untamed human nature. The sow represents giving of oneself and sustenance; procreative fertility; lack of spiritual directive. She can also depict a very physical sexuality.

Idioms: Pig in a poke; happy as a pig in shit; make a pig of yourself; pig in the middle; pigs might fly; pig headed.

Useful questions are:

Am I dealing with my physical appetites here?

Does my dream pig relate to ignorance of anything except physical needs and horizons?

Is fertility or sexuality shown in my dream?

Pilgrim

Symbolises the quest for self realisation, or understanding of yourself.

Pill

An experience you need, or are making yourself meet because you think it is good for you; something we ‘swallow’ because we think it is right – we may ‘swallow’ lies or excuses; an attempt to deal with internal feelings by external means.

If we dream of a particular pill, one we have just been taking, it naturally associates with the events or reason for taking the pill, or its influence in your body.

It may not be put into words, but the intimation made by many doctors is that if one is depressed, it is a biochemical situation or a brain malfunction. If one is withdrawn or autistic, it is not that there is a vital centre of personality which has for some reason chosen to avoid contact, but that a biochemical or physiological situation is the cause. It’s nothing personal – take this pill to change the biochemistry, because you are not really a person, you are a biochemical mess.

Countless numbers of people need a sleeping pill in order to sleep. Or else they face the tortures of fear, nightmares and formless anxiety. These arise because sleeping is a doorway to meeting the unconscious with all its hidden and unmet traumas and their pain and fear. It is a meeting with Life and is not in itself a fearful thing, but because we have been raised to forget that we are the products of the universe, of Life, Life which we avoid meeting, kill out any animals within us and outside of us, we grow into diminished people. We forget that it was not us, our ego, which created us, even as mothers we did not create our children, it was the process of Life that formed and nurtured us.

All of what Lisa feels about her life – no child – no external achievement – no partner – no house of her own – not measuring up to her family – are all true, but only in a certain way. What is devastating is that Lisa believes she is what she feels. It is this point that is the fulcrum, the lever that can shift defeat into release. And that lever has nothing to do with repeating positive affirmations to fight the gloom. It has nothing to do with meditating light flooding her being to dispel the darkness. It has nothing to do with taking a pill or injecting a chemical to deaden the pain. It has everything to do with recognising who we really are, and emerging from the locked cell we have been a prisoner in.

 Example: ‘I was in my mother’s bedroom with my teenage boyfriend. We lay in my parent’s double bed and he was kissing my breasts. I realised we were near to making love and told him I was not on the pill. Seeing him taken aback I told him my father has contraceptives in a nearby drawer. The dream fades as he is trying to put one on.’ Julia.

Example: We live in a “pill age.” Millions of people, with no forethought at all, take tranquilizers, penicillin, birth control pills, cold remedies and energizers—and the attitude is that the “pill” is the solution to everything. Ancient Sanskrit records spoke of pills of gaiety, prepared from hemp and sugar. More recently the Assyrians of the seventh and eighth centuries used hemp as an incense. Still later Marco Polo told the tale of the Old Man of the Mountain and the Assassins (Hashishims) he gathered around him—a tale so exotic that it has captured the imagination of his readers ever since. The Old Man of the Mountain, after promising neophytes a foretaste of paradise, intoxicated them with a drug and introduced them to a secret garden where they were fed exquisite foods, drank delicate wines, and were indulged by beautiful women in every whim. The warriors actually believed themselves in paradise, and after their return to the mundane world would defend the Sheik with their lives. They no longer feared a death which promised such bliss.

A pill we are actually taking: May link with feelings or physical reactions to the drug being taken.

Idioms: Sugar the pill; bitter pill; the pill.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I regularly take pills?

What type are they, medical, leisure, vitamins, or pain killers?

What would I use pills for?

Are they taken habitually or because of need?

See Being the Person or ThingDreams are Like a Computer Game – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Pillow

Comfort; support; may represent someone you rely on or want to be close to. Or a substitute lover you are holding. Attitudes you use to soften the blows or hardness of life. Cushions often appear in dreams to do with finding things hidden under them, so suggest searching in what is presently covering what you feel is there. They might also have a link with a particular person if they gave you the cushion.

Some pillows have special functions such as helping sleep, aiding posture, or holding something to influence your mood or confidence. So if ones of these is in your dream then it is expressing that as an influence in your life.

Jacob took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.  And he called the name of that place Beth-el.

A dream pillow: There is the tradition that suggests that if a young woman sleeps with a piece of someone’s wedding cake under her pillow she will dream of her own future husband. Another example comes from an article in Time magazine (September 20, 1976, pp. 94-5), where it was noted that when the Dalai Lama performed the three-day ritual of the “Sermon of the Wheel of Time,” he gave each of his disciples two reeds to sleep on, one for under the pillow and one for under the mattress. He requested that they remember their dreams so that he could interpret them as part of the ceremony.

Similarly we might try placing a letter to our dream creator under your pillow. In the letter you could ask for guidance, healing or inspiration.

Hugging pillow: Feeling alone and needing contact.

Idioms: pillow angel; pillow talk

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the action with the pillow?

Do I feel anything in the dream – emotions?

Am I using the pillow in some way?

See Being the Person or thingConditioned ReflexesCharacters and People in Dreams

Pilot

Someone connected with trust who can guide you through big changes in your life. If the trust is not felt in the dream it might indicate you feel you have no inner wisdom or skill to meet what is happening or what you confront.

The dream pilot is an aspect of you that is experienced in taking control of a situation and acting on it. He or she is trained and is therefore a good adviser. The pilot is a part of you used to having a much wider and inclusive view of where you are going in your life, so trust their help.

Pilot study: A focus on a particular problem or subject. But it is simply you exploring the possibilities or feasibility of your decisions or direction in life. Are you ready to really commit to something – a relationship, a new way of life or a job?

Pilot project: The same as above.

 Example: “I saw a biplane fly overhead. Its pilot was performing daring new stunts. I ran into a house to tell a man who was in bed to run out and see the plane. “David R.

Example: Then for some reason she and another man started practicing for a crash landing and they laid back side-by-side in reclining seats and they were kind of floating in the chairs as the pilot dove downward. As this was happening somehow I knew that they were falling in love. Everyone else in the group including me remained standing. I then realized that the plane was actually crashing but the passengers were not anxious about the unexpected landing. I knew that we would all be fine and the pilot was able to glide down and brought the plane down on an island below in a forest.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I the pilot, a passenger or a flight assistant?

Was the flight successful?

What were you flying to or away from?

Have you ever piloted a plane?

See Allowing the Body SpeakCoreRole in the dreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pimple

Character blemishes if on face; worry about how you appear to others; sense of not being inwardly clean; feelings about ones spots.

Irritating inner feeling that has risen to consciousness. Worries about how you appear to others. A personality trait that is not healthy.

 Example: The bump became a black string tied up in some kind of knot inside my hand. I pulled on one end of the string and it unravelled easily and I painlessly pulled it all out. A moment later, on the same spot on the back of my hand, I pushed through a large amount of pus, as though from a pimple and I saw it come out in one large dark green/black swoop of gunk.

The knot that you pulled out suggests either emotions that were not expressed and became knotted up in an inner tension – shown by past dreams of running away; or a knot that tied you to another person in a way that undermined your self confidence.

 Example: I was looking at my bare back and saw these little pimples that looked almost like blackheads. I was talking to someone, I believe my brother, while I began popping them. When I started popping them these parasite worms Caterpillar things started coming out. The first one was medium sized but the next one I popped was huge. I’m not sure how it didn’t cut my skin because these parasites had sharp ends. I could feel them coming outside of me and in the dream I was just laughing and playfully saying “Ewww” as pulled the huge worms out of my back.

So it seems you realised a feeling or an attitude that got under your skin, and like a parasite was not doing you any good. So you were ‘pooping’ them out of you. (Your words). Such things are disturbing when you realise you have been carrying them around in you without being aware of them.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel when you saw the pimple(s)?

Do pimples bother you when or if you have them?

What was happening in the dream with the pimple?

See SkinFaceInner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pin Pins

Connections with things, as you can’t pin that on me. Good luck. Minor hurt, possibly from someone else. Painful sex.

Small ideas, actions or information that help create something or hold things together; ones connection or emotional bond with things.

If stuck in: Irritation or hurts; irritating or painful sexual intercourse.

Pin can also refer to what in the UK is called a badge, so can link with abilities, affiliation with a group or organisation and what public or personal feelings and acclaim arise from that. See badge.

 Example: the dream of a woman with an unhappy ability of correcting her husband in public: She dreamed she was pinning a safety pin through his cheek in the presence of others. Later she wished to remove the pin, but her husband refused to allow her, saying, “I will wear it all day.”

In analyzing this dream, we had to discover what the safety pin in her husband’s cheek meant to her. She finally realized she had “marred his appearance or image and caused him to lose face.” She could then relate it to the previous day, when, in front of others, she had rebuked him. In the dream, her husband’s decision to wear the pin all day represented the memory of the rebuke which rankled. The dream called for her not only to apologize but to desist from further reprimands, for they were already “under his skin.”

Idioms: For two pins; don’t care two pins; on pins and needles; pin back ones ears; pin ones hopes on; pin someone down; pin something on someone; pin money.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the pin in the dream doing?

Was in sticking in you or someone else?

What do you associate with pin or pins?

Have you used them in creating clothes?

See CreativitySelf HelpThe Seed MeditationPain-Meeting It

Pinch

Hard times, painful circumstances, miserliness, stealing. Test of reality. Someone hurting you.

Pineapple

Fruitfulness of soul. Quality or royalty. Self confidence. See: Fruit.

Pink

This indicates softness, femininity, a baby girl, or babyhood in general, or perhaps tender love rather than passionate love, the sort one might have for a child. It can also suggest happiness, or having a joyful optimistic view of life. See: red .

Pink is the colour of healthy flesh, and suggests glowing feelings or warmth, something alive and with emotions. Because the inside of the mouth and vagina are pink occasionally the colour is linked with deeply sensual sexual feelings. Pinks are also part of sunrise and sunset, and in some dreams suggest a new dawning of something, a resurrection and so a new life – or the glorious ending. It sometimes appears in dreams of ecstasy or religious wonder.

Example: I was standing in a very beautifully carved chapel or religious place. There seemed to be shadowy nun or monk like figures around. But it was the exquisite colouring of the  place which filled me with a sort of ecstasy. Everything was in the most delicate shell pink.  JAS.

Example: Jesus was looking at me. There was a light all around him, beautiful colours of cream, pink and gold. I could hear the most wonderful music and singing. I said to a young couple standing near, “Look at the Heavenly Choir, Oh! just listen to them”. Tears streamed down my face as I watched and listened. Doris.

Pink and white: Suggests cleanliness and warmth.

Pink and red: Sometimes this includes in the dream, feelings about love and passion, love or pain, or love and real hurt.

Idioms: In the pink; tickled pink; rose coloured glasses.

Useful questions:

Are there clues in the rest of the dream as to what feelings this depicts?

Am I feeling gentle love for someone, or is this about just feeling good?

Are there any signs of spiritual wonder in my dream, if so what is it I am experiencing?

Pipe Smoking

Masculinity, adulthood, assurance, calmness, patient and peaceful, fears about cancer.

Pipe Tube

Pipes sometimes represent connections, the passage of feelings or influence between people. A large pipe might depict a difficult way out of a situation, or immense social connections. Crawling through a pipe suggests feelings or fears of being hemmed in, trapped, or in the narrow straits, or difficult circumstances within or in outer life. May also represent birth, either symbolically, or as memories in the form of intense feelings.

Unconscious connections with others; emotions, or things that you feel are ‘on tap’; a difficult way out of a situation; sometimes refers to the experience of being born, especially if accompanied by panic or fear; the ‘pipes’ in ones body – see 3 in the dream as extended perception under esp.

Alternatively, if the pipe in the dream is a conduit, as in a pipeline, then it might indicate communication – hopefully the pipe is clear of rust and corrosion.

Crawling into or through a pipe: Suggests feelings or fears of being hemmed in, trapped, or in the narrow straits, or difficult circumstances within or in outer life. May also represent birth, either symbolically, or as memories of birth. Sexual intercourse – sex creates unconscious links with partner; experiencing unconscious connection with others.

Sewage pipe: The group feelings or ideology, the collective negative aspects of society or ones relationship with others.

Smoking a pipe: The pipe may show a peaceful outcome to a troublesome situation, the “peace pipe.” A pipe can represent knowledge or contemplation, as symbolised by a professor puffing on a pipe.

It can also indicate masculinity, adulthood, assurance, calmness, patient and peaceful, fears about cancer.

Water pipe: The flow of energy or life processes. If the water is descending in the pipe, it suggests an influence from greater possibilities in you, or your potential for positive change.

 Example: I had this dream shortly after my best friend Bill Downs had died. (I quote from memory), ‘I saw Bill standing by a train. It was one of the long distance types of train. He had a bag with him, was dressed in new clothes, and was smoking a pipe, which he never did in real life. He was going on a long journey. The dream left a very deep impression on me.

Example: I am in a store somewhere, trying to decide if I should buy some cheap cigars or pipes or not, but I decide not to, since that would be to start an expensive habit.

The dreamer saw his dream as, “Homosexuality would cost me a lot?”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this suggest masculinity or the assurance of adulthood?

Did I calmness, patience or peace in the dream?

Do I have any memories of anyone smoking a pipe?

Have I ever crawled through narrow spaces?

See HabitsSettings in Dreams What is the main action in the dream?Being the Person or Thing

 

Pirate

Your own piratical or plundering urges or what you feel plundered by; sense of having someone else take what is important to you.

Piss

Letting go of tension or long held feelings. Feelings of relief. The flow of life through you.

Dreams in which we try to go to the toilet but it is mysteriously locked or closed, may be due to the need to pee during the night.

Piston

Sexual energy or expression, or powerful activity. The piston is often an expression of explosive force or power, often of a mechanical or habitual way.

The piston can rise and fall, usually in a hole, that is why it is an image of sex, but it can also indicate what lifts you or takes you down like an elevator, indicating your shifts in awareness or feelings.

 Example: We went to what was his house, which was opposite where he actually lived. It had railings around a basement area. To get down Eddie stood on a large piston like column which acted as a lift. It went through a very narrow gap at street level and I wondered how I could get through especially as I was carrying a bottle of wine or champagne. There was also a shadowy man to my left. A young woman who at first appeared Chinese offered me a small ornamented cup of coffee. I took it and drank, offering her back the cup very courteously. She now appeared as a young English girl. She came straight to me and kissed me. It was very welcome and I held her and caressed her breasts. She then took her knickers off so we could make love. I was a bit taken aback at such speed but held her, though I made no attempt to make love.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any mention of a relationship or sex in the dream?

Was the action mechanical or forceful?

Where any feelings in the dream – if so what where they?

See Clicking OnCompensation TheoryTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pit

Trapped by events or outer circumstances, but due to attitudes and desires, that have led you to the pit. Problems, feelings of being imprisoned and buried by your life.

Feelings or situations you find it difficult to get out of, or that you might fall into. A pit sometimes appears in dreams in which you meet feelings about death, or to do with feelings trapped or forgotten.

Often relates to a mass of unconscious assumptions that have been taken in from our family and culture. These assumptions create a view of the world and life in which we can easily become trapped, and thus are depicted by the pit. See: Abyss; Falling; Void.

Falling and the big black hole are things we avoid in waking life, but should not be avoided in dream life.

Example: “I can remember being dressed as a heroic warrior running through crowds of people or soldiers who were trying to stop me. I pushed or knocked them aside and ran toward what was a huge caldera – the mouth of a volcano. It was hugely deep, and in its depths was a massive glow from volcanic lava. But I knew that this was the core of me, so I ran and leapt into the void falling into what I knew or felt sure was the light at the core of my being.”

The hole is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it you realise that it is the way to your own center and power. It is often the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland and a way to explore your inner world.

But the hole and facing death are really gateways to discover who, or what, you are. Most people say, “I don’t believe in God. There is no evidence for His existence.” Some people say, “I believe in God with all my heart.” But both people are locked into only knowing a tiny part of them based on our conscious self, emotions, words and thoughts. They are so sure of themselves based on an almost infinitesimal small part of them. And the silly thing is that they are so sure of themselves from this small understanding.

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of not facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness.

But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does.

Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel are their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock. See Programmed

Death pit: It may mean you are struggling to meet feelings about death.

Falling into an abyss or pit: Fear of failure or fear of meeting ones own depths of feeling and the hidden side of oneself. It could represent anxiety about some form of death. It can often be a way of facing fears involved in falling, and can be met by imagining yourself falling into the pit or abyss. See FallingSecrets of Power Dreaming

 Example: Court of Assembly, now stands, and into this pit they threw symbolic offerings of the fruits of the earth. Then each man took a small piece of earth of the land from which he came, and these were all thrown into the pit together.

Throwing things into a pit: Dead or murdered bodies are sometimes got rid of that way. In ancient times holes were seen to lead to the underworld – the unconscious – and were sometimes explored or people were sacrificed by being thrown in. In recent times they are often used as place to thrown refuse or things now longer useful. But a sink hole, because it swallows things can ‘lose’ even big things like cars in- – so suggests thing you do not want to deal with and want swallowed up forever.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Were you looking at or falling into the pit?

Did you throw anything into the pit?

Was the pit filled with water? See Pool

Were you climbing out of a pit?

See Inner WorldMartial Art of the MindMagical Dream MachineTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Place Environment

The environment in which the action of the dream takes place signifies the background of experience or circumstances that support the situation dealt with in the foreground.

A helpful way of defining this is to give it a name, a name such as one does with dream people. You do this by trying to sense what your main feelings are about regarding the place, or what happened to you there, and how that left you feeling. You might have felt a lot of conflict in a certain town or while living in a particular road. So you could call that ‘My conflicts’. Or a place may be linked with a loving relationship, so could be called ‘My ability to Love’.

Example: I was near a lake in the countryside. Everything was frozen. I saw some horse droppings still steaming and this seemed to be the only living thing around. Kevin K.

Kevin’s comments on this are that the frozen lake and countryside express his feelings about the world around him. He sees it as cold and uninviting. It is frozen and there is no life in it for him. That is, he cannot find anything in life to excite him or have meaning. The horse dung he realised is the resources he can use to change his life. The dung can be manure or food for growth, or fuel to burn for energy and heat. This made him feel as if there is a way to transform his old unsatisfying patterns of ‘frozen’ emotions into something growing and satisfying.

So Kevin’s dream setting illustrates his view of the world – that it is a cold uninviting place. So it is the feeling state he lives within most of the time.

Placenta

Aftermath of deeply felt dependence. Our dependence on others, or theirs on us. Depending on someone else to nourish or support you in a very fundamental way. Dependence; being depended upon; how one gains nourishment from another.

Dreams about both of the placenta or the umbilical cord might well be showing you what your state of being was before you were born, and any problems that occurred at that period. Although you do not have self awareness at that time, you are certainly a living and responsive being that learns and is impressed by experience.

The placenta can be likened to roots that develop when a fertile seed is planted. It roots into the ‘soil’ of the mother’s body. The dreamt of placenta can also represent connection with other people other than ones mother. In a very real way, the umbilical cord is the flow of life. If it were cut without any substitute the baby would die, or if the link with another person were suddenly cut there can be emotional pain. So the cord is in a very real way, the umbilical cord that is the flow of life. This is true of lovers who make such powerful links with their partner, or mothers with their growing children.

You can often heal or change any difficulties by experimenting with you dream imagery. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

One of Stanislav Grof’s earliest insights, when working as a psychiatrist, was that many of his patients relived experiences connected with their birth and of life in the womb. At first he saw these as something the patient had imagined, or part of a fantasy dealing with their difficulties. But as these experiences continued he came to see that the knowledge the patients expressed far outstripped their education of embryology and the processes of foetal development and birth. Patients described specific details concerning blood circulation in the placenta, and even details about the various cellular and biochemical processes taking place. They often exhibited awareness of actual events, thoughts and feelings experienced by the mother during the pregnancy.

Here is an example of such a memory.

 Example: I am expelled from the womb before my body and soul are mature enough or ready to be separated, ready enough to undertake life disconnected from the placenta. As I experience this I feel incredibly vulnerable. Each sound, whether a bird singing or a car going by, is a possible threat to my existence. I had been physically and psychically attached to my mother. I realise as I observe what is being felt that the broken bond, the feeling of life threatening isolation, enormously increased my sensitivity to threats as a child and as an adult.

 Example: “Watch your children’s eyes when they are told about their birth. They want every detail, and they will remember it. If told things went smoothly they are barely satisfied, and if told of any trouble—if they were born in a taxi, or if they came wrong—they remember all details.”

 Example: I was standing over my toilet and noticed a baby’s head emerging from my vagina. I reached down and grabbed hold and helped finish birthing him. It was a baby boy and he was healthy. I handed him off and then I remember birthing the placenta. What makes this all so strange is that when I gave birth to my real children I had C sections. I never birthed them “naturally”. And I also cannot have anymore children because I had hysterectomy a year ago. But it was vivid so real and I have thought about it ALL morning. What could it mean?

As a woman you have the power of creation, even though you had a hysterectomy. Of course you cannot create physically as you once did, but you can create an inner reality as you have with the baby you birthed. Because you do not have the equipment any more to have a physical baby does not mean your basic nature has lost is creativeness. Lots of women who have had a hysterectomy have dreams or giving birth. This is because it is a way of knowing that you are still a complete woman; after all, a man who losing a leg does not feel he has lost himself in the process. Your dreams know that you are more than body, and even though parts of the body have been lost, you are still whole. Also to give birth to a child in a dream shows you bringing forth a new part of you. It is vulnerable as any baby is, but this new ability will quickly grow into a recognisable part of you. See hysterectomy

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I see any connections between the dreamt of placenta and myself?

Was there a problem in the dream, or did everything go well?

Was I told of my birth and mother’s pregnancy at any time – if not it is worth asking?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMagical Dream Machine

Plait

Plaited hair may suggest youth or girlhood.

The inner strength that comes from uniting parts of your being into one aim, one direction, one leader.

If this is a male dream it can have similar meanings, but in both male and female dreams it depends what the dreamer feels about plaiting their hair. What does it imply? See hair

Plaited hair: Girlhood. See: hair under body.

Plaiting rope etc.: Weaving different influences in ones life together; uniting conflicting feelings or people; maybe a personal relationship triangle situation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you ever worn plaits?

What do feel when you see plaits?

Have you been bringing different things together?

See CreativityGeniusMartial Art of the Mind

Plane

See airplane

Planet Planets

For a quick find, click on these links: Sun and Moon Mercury Venus Mars Earth – Jupiter SaturnUranus Neptune Pluto Alien planet

The influence of the abstract or subtle in your life. What this points to is the subtle but inbuilt things such as place of birth, historical period, financial situation, social level you were born into and that form almost unconscious motivations and hesitations in you.

The planet might portray a desire for the strange or alien. If you have any understanding of astrology, the planet can depict the traditional ‘planetary’ qualities.

A planet might also suggest a different style of life, a new world of experience.

But at a practical level the planets of our solar system are part of the influences that make up our own inner environment. Their subtle effects on gravity and us are the weaving of our own psyche. They are constantly moving and so creating an ever moving web or influence.

A planet very close to us: A marked influence that is effecting you. What the influence is might be revealed to you if oyu can imagine yourself as the palanet hanging in space near you. See Being the Person or Thing

Sun: Vital energy; the giver of all life on our planet. The Self, so consciousness or awareness.

Genesis gives a much fuller understanding of the sun and moon than is usually stated. I am indebted to F. J. Mayers and his book the Unknown God for this understanding.

They represent two aspects of the universe we know, Light and Darkness. They are the power of consciousness – the Light the sun – and the Lesser Light the moon of consciousness the unconscious. Also they are, to quote, “the moon and stars are definitely stated by the author of Genesis to have been created to be ‘symbolic signs of the future’ in that sense, it opens up a very wide subject.”

By this it does not mean a sort of psychic prediction of things, but a creator of seasons and a model of things to be. The movement of the planets around the sun and the movement of the moon provide an ever changing flow and pattern of forces which are also part of our own creation.

Genesis, when rightly understood, is not some religious fairy tale, a superstitious attempt to explain creation, but a careful record of the evolution of consciousness and humankind. Unfortunately it was translated by people who did not understand that Hebrew was a sign language and treated it like we do when translating words, as we have done with ancient Egyptian. Just as we accept that alpha, the Greek first letter means ‘beginning’ and omega means ‘ending’, so each letter of Hebrew had a recognised meaning. This makes Adam not a singular but a plural word – it is not the name of an individual but of all humankind, women and men.

And as for the planets being part of our own creation, the statement in Genesis says clearly that “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ….. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”

It does not say after my likeness but after ‘our likeness’. God is not a male figure but an unknown force behind creation, but when creating it become plural. “Elohim” is a plural name, and yet it is always treated as a “singular” one, and always used with a singular verb.” It was in the “image” of the manifold attributes of God that Adam was to be made.

If you find it hard to believe, realise I am dealing with the unconscious as it manifests in dreams, and it doesn’t matter that you believe or not, because this is how dreams, seen by those who can explore them and not interpret them through the thinking mind, see the sun, moon and planets.

The greater ‘light’ – the sun – is the fully conscious activity of the “thinking” mind. This is the last faculty to be developed in humans, and when fully developed, it completes the human constitution.

The ‘lesser’ light – the moon – is the unconscious mind, is a link between the animal and human. Humankind, in their ascent to the human state of being, was at first in a state of darkness. The unconscious mind alone was active in them. They could not “think for themselves”; but followed the promptings of instinct. The unconscious mind was their light and guide in the “night.” Its greatness and its latent possibilities have, however, scarcely been realised in modern times.

As the activity of the greater ‘light’ of reason and deduc­tive thought commenced and developed in man the lesser ‘light’ of instinct fell more and more into obscurity, it became – unconscious. Its powers, however, will in time re-awaken, not to dominate, but to work cooperatively with Thought and Reason; the unity of intuition and reason.

Moon: See above and also – moon.

Mercury: Intuition and the mind. It represents universal “Mind” the collective unconscious. Because it is the function of intuition that accesses the massive resources of the unconscious it answers to whatever question, difficulty or interest the person has. It has been called “The Messenger of the Gods.

 Its most physical activities affect the nervous system and through that, the disposition. So we speak of a mercurial” temperament, “up and down” and changeable as the mercury in a barometer.

The  or semicircle is the moon or soul sign, a cup or chalice, open to the heavens to receive the influences that pour into it from above – just as the physical moon receives the light of the sun and reflects it to the earth. The moon has no light of itself – neither has the soul. Both receive and reflect. The Mercury sign is also given in the form of the “caduceus.”

Venus: Represents Love, Beauty, Harmony, in any sphere – either of spirit, thought, life, or physical being. Its hieroglyph represents the spiritual qualities dominating the material.  Love, motherhood and femininity, also receptivity.

Mars: Outgoing energy, unrestricted activity either for good or evil. It is the sign of conflicting, warlike forces. In its hieroglyph the lower, earthly characteristics are shown above the spirit sign.  Energetic activity, aggressive action or fire in ones life and feelings; masculinity ruled by passions.

Earth: See Earth

 Jupiter: Represents increase, expansion, growth, preservation. Acting in the mind it denotes “Wisdom”; in the “disposition” it shows as generosity, goodwill, etc. Its hieroglyph represents the soul forces (moon) rising above the material plane – but remaining in ouch with it. It can indicate growth in self and activities, preservation in terms of ones inner qualities, freedom from limitations.

 Saturn: Represents restraint, contraction, any defining, centralising, materialising influences. It is the most materialistic of the planets. Acting in the mind it produces narrow – mindedness – but at the same time very clear cut definite ideas. Acting on the general disposition, it “hardens” and leads to self – centredness, selfishness, etc., but also to “cautiousness,” carefulness and other useful qualities. It is also – in a narrow – sighted way strictly just. The hieroglyph represents the material sign dominating the soul sign.  Fate or karma, the past catching up with us. A retarding influence, emotional coldness, the lessons of life that shape our growth and time.

 Uranus: Its symbol represents spiritual force rising through the “Gemini” symbol of the twin minds. Mind in itself tends to grow only into Intellectualism. Uranus raises the level and extends the field of thought. It gives, at its best, great genius – and at its worst, eccentricity. It has much affinity with the Zodiacal sign Aquarius, and its action shows strongly in many of the most modern developments of Science and Art. It can in your dreams represent sudden changes and fluctuation, but the changes can be signs of genius or whimsy.

It is linked with the principles of genius, individuality, new and unconventional ideas, discoveries, electricity, inventions, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Uranus governs societies, clubs and any group dedicated to humanitarian or progressive ideals. Historically it was associated with the principles of the Enlightenment and radical political ideas of equality and freedom, among other things.

Uranus is known in astrology as the “Awakener,” since its aspects and transits bring sudden changes and shocks. It rules Aquarius, the quirky innovator, and sometimes these upheavals are a necessary break from restrictions in favour of a more liberated path. Uranus the planet of radical disruption, unpredictable events and liberating discontinuity.  See Uranus under planets

 Neptune: Influence most of the “mystic side of people in deep, vague, feelings and ideas and wider consciousness. Its hieroglyph, the Trident, represents the human spirit, mind, and emotions fishing in the great waters. It is at present little understood, and what its ultimate purpose in regard to human life and evolution may be, remains to be seen. One might mention as a very typical Neptunian personality – Madame Blavatsky. It certainly has much to do with the mediumistic faculty – a faculty which, in its present state of development, is still developing. So it can be seen in the unconscious influence in daily life, psychic impressions and awareness of death.

We may find a parallel in Irish god Nechtan, master of the well from which all the rivers of the world flow out and flow back to.

 Pluto: Astronomers demoted Pluto in 2006, and it’s now considered a “dwarf planet,” but astrologers still reckon it to be a powerful force on a collective and individual level. It is an   agent of change. There is a burning away of falsehoods, so that truth can rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. Intuitive leaps can be made on a collective level that are life-affirming for all of humanity. The hieroglyph is very similar to Mercury, but the earth is in the same place but the receptiveness connects with the spirit – so it connects earth/death with spirit/life or resurrection. But resurrection should not be thought like the Christians present it as the rotten corpse being reconstituted, but of soul being given a chance of new life if it hasn’t found it place in the great consciousness,

Pluto is referred to mythologically by the Greeks and the Hindus. In Greek mythology he was nominated as Hades, the God of Death and Sovereign of the underworld. This concept of death is limited however, as Pluto’s deeper significance has as much to do with rebirth as it does with the traditional concept of death per se. Death is simply another transformative stage followed by rebirth. Pluto represents the decay and eventual disappearance of the old in preparation for the new. See rebirth or resurrection

In mythology, Pluto is god of the underworld, which is an otherworld where souls go after death. The original Greek idea of afterlife is that, at the moment of death, the soul is separated from the corpse, taking on the shape of the former person, and is transported to the entrance of the underworld. The underworld itself—sometimes known as Hades, after its patron god—is described as being either at the outer bounds of the ocean or beneath the depths or ends of the earth. In today’s terms, at death  one’s consciousness can longer function in the body and so consciousness exists at another dimension, that is what we think of as the human unconscious. Because most people never gain awareness of their unconsciousness they lose awareness of those who die to body awareness. See Bodiless Awareness

 Alien planet: A totally new experience of yourself, one that you feel is alien to you conscious self, but is part of the expanded universe of your inner self. See Inner World

Plank

Depends what they are used for in dream. Can be security in life if flooring – or sense of losing basic support if rotten floor. See: floor under house and buildings.

If for making something: Ones potential; the materials you have for undertaking a project or ‘making something of oneself’.

If nailed above one: Feeling of being trapped, fear of death; setting up ones own death, in the sense of killing ones chances in work or relationship. See: fence; coffin; wood.

Plank like: Someone who is stiff as a board and so is very tense.

Standing on a plank: This represents the things that give you support. For instance you might the confident about dealing with individuals, but anxious when dealing with a group. The feelings or attitudes underlying the confidence or insecurity are represented by how you are standing in your dream.

 Example: One student dreamed in straightforward picture symbols that he was walking on a muddy country road on what he believed to be planks, placed there to keep people from getting their shoes and feet soiled. As he looked at the planks, he discovered that instead of boards they were Bibles covered with newspapers.

The man had a great interest in religion, and the dream reminded him of the necessity to apply spiritual truths (the Bibles) to daily life (the newspapers): this alone would keep him from slipping into materialism (the mud). The planks represented the firm foundation which he sought.

 

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What were you doing in relation to the plank(s)?

Were they to walk on or to build with?

Was something built with planks – if so what?

See BuildThe House in Your DreamBeing the Person or Thing

Plants

Suggests areas of progressive change in one’s life, emerging personal qualities; occasionally one’s children being helped in their ‘growth’. Many people go through the different stages of plant life in their dreams, some experience the whole cycle of the plant’s life; some would find they grew to a certain place and stopped.

 

A plant cutting that you are going to plant may link with good and growing parts of yourself that you are looking for a life situation to ‘plant’ or experience them in. It may thus depict a search for a caring and ‘fertile’ relationship.

 

Plant substance is very important in human life. In medicine it is of utmost importance. In a real sense, human life processes transforms plant substance into self awareness, and all the expressions of consciousness shine out. In some dreams this transformation of earthy non-living substance into living sentience is shown by plants in our dreams. See: digest; Seed Meditation; Seed; cutting; flowers; trees; weeds.

 

Dreaming of plants can show the deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level and so become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness, but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through – for example exploring the dream.

 

Like a plant which takes the varied minerals surrounding it, and through its living process transforms them into its own integrated being. The plant does not become the mineral. Neither is it shaped by the forms of what it takes up. It is influenced, it is coloured, but its process transforms. The healthy human being can do likewise. A major part of unconscious mental process is to do with taking experience and integrating it into a meaningful whole. If we could trace how the development of such mental activity arose, we might find that it is a reappearance at another level of the process of digestion and absorption. But events need to be experienced to become integrated. We are an enormously sensitive and responsive living process. Our whole being can respond to what we experience or learn – words too have tremendous power within us. Often, however, we have unconsciously deadened our emotions and sensitivities, and we do not therefore properly ‘take in’ what we have experienced. The cosmic figure of ancient China’s Pan Ku-shown covered in leaves to indicate ‘That Cosmic Man (or First Man) simply existed, like a plant, grown in nature.

 

Recently a man made himself a leader in veganism, claiming that we should avoid all killing to eat. Yet he as well as other vegans – he made a show if avoiding killing ants – kill millions of bacteria and continually act as predators on plants. Yet plants are now recognised as having a level of awareness. Plants possess receptors, microtubules, and sophisticated intercellular systems that likely facilitate a degree of spatio-temporal consciousness. It lies in this, that the being has an inner experience, and this is a new factor, over and above the mere reaction.

 

Recently a research scientist – J. Gunawardena – found evidence that even single celled organism are not completely without mind. “Maybe it’s not that they’re programmed to do something,” says corresponding author and systems biologist Jeremy Gunawardena, “but rather that the program provides them with the machinery for actually making their own minds up. But Gunawardena and his colleagues seem to have demonstrated that some cells have a say in picking their response to certain stimulants.”

 

Plants are way up the evolutioinay tree, so have more say than single cell creatures. But here is  a mans exploratioin of this in a plant.

Example: I was dealing with a sick New Zealand tomato tree we had. It was in a large tub, well fed and watered, but had the greenfly, and was also wilting. We had sprayed, but the general debility of the plant seemed to attract the fly. Having spend years training myself to allow my unconscious level of mind to express more fully I wanted to see if my intuition could asses the condition of the plant.

The first thing I felt was an unexpected wave of love, as if the plant was wordlessly saying thank you for caring. Then I had the sense of my consciousness meshing with the awareness/being of the plant. My impression was that the plant was an entity, a form of life and awareness, but it did not have a focused consciousness which could formulate the idea in a human way of what caused its sickness? Because I could ask the question, and because I allowed my consciousness to consider the plant, a new situation arose; my awareness was added to the plant so it could in a way be aware of itself. The difficulty of the process was that everything was direct non-verbal experience. As the experience of plant life was new to me, I had to spend some time allowing the sensations to soak in and be analysed by my rational mind. What arose out of this was the understanding that the root system of the plant needed to spread sideways, not down. We therefore put the plant in a sack, with the same earth spread thin. Within a week the greenfly had all gone, without spraying, and the plant grew strong and luxuriant. I had a new respect for plant life.

I feel that as humans we are so locked in the tiny everyday awareness, we become crazily concentrated on death and killing, forgetting that all natural creatures at all levels eat each other to survive. We forget that we are all life forms which started from single celled creatures and so are different forms of the same process of life. LIFE gives itself to Life – for we are all expressions of that miraciulous process – and the process does not avoid living or dying in its great experiment. So, we are all killers – yes even vegans – but Life has its own amazing purpose.

At the time of Montezuma’s coronation peyote was passed around to enhance the pageantry and splendour of the occasion. Ololiuqui, a somewhat anemic-looking morning glory with a seed that contains lysergic acid amides, was used as a “divine plant” by the Aztecs well before the Conquistadores arrived in – Mexico. In north-eastern Asia, the Tungus, Yakuts, Chukches, Koryaks and Kamchadeles traditionally intoxicated themselves during the interminable winter months on a hallucinogenic fungus called “muchamor” (Amanita muscaria). Natives of the Amazon had access to another psychedelic-the caapi vine-before the white explorers first entered that region. As previously mentioned, the Greeks may have employed “mind-changing” mushrooms – in their “Mysteries,” and the witches of Europe made use of various hallucinogenic substances in ointments and brews during the Middle Ages. The mild psychedelic Cannabis sativa (hemp, hashish, kif, bhang, charas, gangha, dagga, djamba, marijuana, etc.) was described sympathetically by the Chinese Emperor Shen Neng as early as 2737 B.C., and has flourished throughout the world ever since. It presently is used in its varying forms by over 200 million people. By no means is the knowledge of psychedelic drugs confined to the twentieth century.

In contemporary American civilization, LSD and related drugs are being used in a variety of ways by people from many extremes of cultural heritage who are commonly enmeshed in a swiftly changing, mechanized civilization. The results which ensue from these multitudinous “sets” and “settings” bear little resemblance to those of Indians who sit all night in a tepee, using peyote in a highly ritualized religious ceremony.  Quoted from LSD – The Problem Solving Psychedelic by P. J. Stafford. See LSD Psychotherapy.

Cutting down a plant or large plant: Killing out something that was growing in you or in life, such as a work situation or a relationship.

Dead or dying plants: Loss of vital enthusiasm; dying pleasure; lost love; a project that is not flourishing.

Evergreen plants: Represent immortality, because they do not shed their leaves, even in the coldest winter weather. Their connection with Christmas may also link with gift-giving and family.

 

Example: Until I became the seed I had never realised how hungry I was to have other people near me. I wanted to hold and touch in a way I had never allowed myself before. Since then it has been easy for me to hold people, babies, and my wife, with more giving than I could in the past. First I was just curled up. I felt comfortable, and relaxed into it while the others completely covered my body with theirs. It really was like being planted. After a while a flicker of movement arose pushing my head out. This came in waves, increasing in strength, until my head was pushing out and up like a plant growing. I didn’t try to think what I ought to do, just went with the pleasure of it. In the early stages this didn’t seem to involve the others, although I could feel them close. But by the time I was up on my knees there was such pleasure flowing through me, such joy at being close, being able to feel the soft skin of a face against mine, that my pleasure involved the others. It is the nearest thing to making love without sex I have ever come across. (A description of The Seed Group).

 

Example: A guru figure took me into very large greenhouses. Stretching away into the distance tiny seedlings were growing, most of them about four inches in height. As I watched some youths drove in on cross-country motorbikes and roared around the place. Faser Dan Li did nothing to prevent them. But when they had gone he looked at me and said, “Those are your emotions. They are wild and out of control. As such they could damage the tender growth of souls represented here by these little plants. Until your emotions are much more fully calmed and under control you cannot be given the keys of insight into other peoples being.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Try being the plant in the dream – See Being the Person or Thing

What was the main point of the plant in the dream?

What was I doing in relationship with the plant?

Did I arrive at any conclusions or insight?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMagical Dream MachineSumming Up

 

Plastic

It can suggest an artificial relationship or something that may block us from expressing what is real. If it is connected to the body it can be something artificial that was taken into you. Plastic things can also suggest cheap things that are not connecting us with life.

But in daily life many things are wrapped in plastic to preserve them, to keep their newness from being damaged and to make it easy to carry or transport them. So plastic can suggest a protective influence – depending on your dream.

Plastic can also indicate something that can be moulded, bent or stand being knocked about. Plasticity is the general property of all materials that are able to irreversibly deform without breaking, but may be associated with artificial.

Plastic is also often used to refer to plastic credit cards. So might be about your feelings of whether you have value in the world.

We often associate the word plastic with surgery – plastic surgery. If this is part of your dream it might relate to uncertainty about the image you have of yourself, or else attempts to rebuild yourself or your confidence. It is worth asking yourself whether you feel you are your body. Many people are certain their body is them. But which body, for the body is forever subject to change; the body in your mother’s womb; your baby body; the childhood body; the body of a young adult; the body of a mature adult or the ageing body? See Roots

 But one of the main associations we have is plastic refuse or rubbish sacks. In dreams this probably refers to the things such as parts of your experience and feelings you, or society, no longer feel is useful. Occasionally one discards, or considers as useless, some aspect of self, or ability, which is actually valuable. We must realise, however, that all thought and feeling are expressions of our inner energy. As such, while we discard an expression of the energy, we must not discard the energy lest it leave us empty and unsatisfied. This is why garbage, or compost, must be thought of as material capable of being used in a new form. Perhaps by burning it which releases it from its old form.

 Example: I am holding one of my plants, a Kalanchoe in a white plastic pot. I decide to propagate it by taking a leaf cutting and starting a new plant.

Example: My toddler was on the landing and he had red silk shorts on with plastic pants half pulled up over the shorts. I ask him how he got like that as he is too small to do it himself.

Example: I had a two hour session in the dentist chair again, today, and my head is not my own…….went shopping afterwards and couldn’t remember my plastic card number…..felt very stupid and wondered if Alzheimer’s was showing it’s ugly head or just that my nerves were shot to bits!  Must say the dentist is very good with me……one day it got too much emotionally for me and I had to tell him I was feeling very vulnerable and could cry at any moment. (I didn’t tell him that at one point I felt very angry and had a big urge to bite his hand and scream for blue murder; but under that was the vulnerability….he took it all in his stride and now watches for the white knuckles and checks that I’m OK.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the plastic connected with surgery, rubbish or things we find useful?

Do you refer to credit cards as plastic?

Were there any feelings about plastic in the dream?

See Being the Person or ThingQuestionsMagical Dream MachineBackground

Plate

You can have plates showing diagrams or photos, or a condensing plate for research or revealing, a license plate; a breast plate; plate glass, a brass plate or a collection plate or even gold plating. So it is important to define what sort of plate it is. If possible look up what the plate refers to like eating – photos and gold.

To offer or serve up something. A way of presenting things in a clean and attractive way. Sometimes a special way of doing things, as with great or inherited plates. So a way of giving oneself to a person you like, honour or love.

In having a lot on ones plate, it means a lot to cope with or deal with, or get through. The plate with food on it can depict what is in front of you in life; what you have received or earned from life, what is yours.

A simple empty plate it is about receptivity, a condition that is ready to receive or be used to receive something. In general a plate connects with a major human instinct – to eat. But what is on the plate and the circumstances around the dreamed of plate indicates your relationship with food and social settings.

May also symbolise needs, hungers, and appetites. At one time the plate was a symbol of status, when only the rich afforded china or silver.  

If food on plate: What one has a sense of ownership about; what one has received or hopes to receive from others, or from ones own efforts; what you have created or ‘cooked up’ for yourself and now face.

Communal plate: What is available to you but you may have to compete for or share – in work, relationship, life.

Empty plate: Ones needs; appetites; receptivity; perhaps status, as in the past only the rich had plates.

 Example: I noticed that the brain was only an end organ, like a condensing plate, upon which memory and awareness played. The mind, I saw, was not in the brain, the brain was in the mind, like a radio in the play of signals.

Example: As I am jogging, I see a group of people, mostly men, all in a bunch, talking. They have plates that are valuable and are sales men or business men. I have a stack of 6-8 china plates myself, but I’m just carrying them, I’m not trying to sell them. They are looking for the rich old man to do business with.  

Here is a woman dreamer who is walking in the business world and summing it up.  

 Example: “I am at a wedding at which we are being served a celebratory Chicken Lunch. Whilst my back is turned for a moment one of the other guests on the table who is female but whom I do not know removes my plate and substitutes it with a plate of food which doesn’t contain chicken. When I challenge this, I am told that there is no more. At this I rather petulantly decide to leave the wedding.” Brian Y.    

Brian uses a plate of food to represent the good things he feels are rightfully his in life; but his negative emotions in a relationship with a female rob him of this.

Idioms: Handed to one on a plate; on ones plate; clean ones plate; a full plate; plate is full; on a silver platter; step up to the plate. See: food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I have on my plate – food, work to do, a mess to clean up?

What do I hope for, my hopes and plans or my ability to receive?

What needs, hungers or appetites am I aware of?

See Active ImaginationDreams are Like a Computer GameLife ChangesCore

Plateau

Reaching a plateau in ones life – a place where things remain the same, where there is little change; a wider and calmer viewpoint of life, where one is neither climbing ambitiously or descending and losing what one has gained.

Sometimes people dream of racing to a plateau when they are middle aged. This is a summary of the journey they have undergone so far, and how they feel about the future. But the plateau might also indicate feelings of not getting anywhere or a desire for change.

 Example: A woman dreamt she was standing alone on a plateau and she could see two worlds hanging in the sky. In talking about the dream she said her husband had died and she had met another man. This new man was very different to herself and her past husband. The world he lived in was new to her and she was cautious. This helped her to see she had the choice between two worlds, and her dream was simply illustrating her situation – she was alone, on a plateau facing choices.

Something I have met frequently in the dreams of those leaving their youthful life behind is the images of a race and the plateau. This dream from John describes this.

 Example: I recently reached my fortieth birthday and dreamt I was walking uphill. It was quite tough going. When I got to the top I saw the road on the other side was very steep. I felt frightened of going down it. I looked around and saw that the top of the hill stretched away on each side, so there was plenty of space, like a plateau. I realised that I could walk around and there is no hurry to go down the hill.

This suggests that before John had the idea that ageing led directly to a fast decline into old age and death – going down hill. The dream shows a different view of this by saying that in fact he worked hard to climb to a plateau of ability and possibilities that he can now explore. Each portion of life has its rewards, and in fact John depicts this period of his life as more relaxed than the first half.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I striving to reach a plateau or did I reach it?

What happened in regard to the plateau?

Am I middle aged or approaching it?

See Every 7 Years You Change Age and your DreamsBeing the Person or Thing

Platypus

The platypus is a creature that seems to bridge the gap between egg laying creatures and mammals that carry their unborn inside them. The platypus is a warm blooded mammal but lays eggs.

As far as dreaming about a platypus is concerned it depends on what you feel or think about the creature, for it is this that gives the real meanings of our dream. It is a creature that lives on land and also under water so like a duck it can look into what is hidden under the surface of life. And its ability to float and swim on the surface of water shows it can survive in the conscious mind.

But is useful to see what your feelings are about your dream platypus by using Being the Person or Thing

If you live in Australia you may have formed associations with the platypus, and in one state is their state symbol so may have associations with it as a symbol of the state.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever seen or handled a platypus?

What did I feel about the platypus in the dream?

Did I feel afraid or friendly?

See Summing UpEvolutionSuper Organism –   Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Play

As in a theatre: This is often a way of bringing a certain theme to your attention. The theme probably refers to something important in yourself. The play might also be a way of exploring things, as perhaps a relationship, or a dangerous situation. This allows you to practice dealing with it. Also the ‘play’ of your thoughts or emotions.

The play is usually something happening in the public eye, so may also include the theme of being see, being liked or judged, or admired.

Playing

Depends what the ‘game’ is. Whatever we ‘play’ at in a dream might just be fun or suggest great seriousness. As humans we use an enormous number of strategies to gain our ends, as explained in the book Games People Play. So play in a dream can depict a sense of relaxation; a way of practising something without responsibility; not taking something seriously, purposely lying to someone in order to get power over them – and dozens of other games played in order to get sex, money or even to injure someone.

Also: A game can be a way of playing creatively, exploring feelings, ideas and approaches in a safe way before trying them out in life. This sort of self allowing, of letting oneself ‘want’ something without too much serious overtones, can be very creative and the beginning of new developments in life.

I have seen it at work with meeting the opposite sex, where fooling about or play is a first way of meeting someone.

Playing or listening to music is also a way of communicating. It is a way of communicating some of the finest feelings and even philosophy of the musician, singer and listener. See music

Example: The old man loved playing the fiddle, and had spent many wonderful hours teaching his grandson how to play the instrument. Now, alone and with such joy ebbing from him he seemed to be sinking fast. But his young grandson arrived, sat with his grandpa and quietly took out his fiddle and played something. His grandpa’s eyes opened, and the miracle of renewed love and pleasure soon had the old man sitting on the edge of his bed joining in the music.

Playing a role is immensely important. By role play you can find out who or what the characters and animals in your dream are and what they are. Identify with the character, animal or place and discover its secrets. Whether peaceful or aggressive, wise of energetic, these are all parts of your potential. In our dreams we are all experts at acting in roles, but often we fail to really understand what enormous and varied potential we have because we believe all the characters and animals are not us. See Creating a New YouActor Actress Acting

The enormous number of idioms on play defines some of these ‘games’.

Idioms: Come into play; fair play; foul play; make a play for; make play of; play a part in; play along with; play at; play cat and mouse; play dead/possum; play down; played out; play fair; play false; play for time; play hard to get; play it cool; play no part in it; play on words; play safe; play people off against each other; play something down; play the field; play up; play upon a weakness/fear; play up to someone; the state of play; play somebody at their own game; child’s play; play ball with; play it by ear; play fast and loose; play gooseberry; play havoc with; play merry hell; play into their hands; play ones ace; play ones cards right; play second fiddle; play the fool; play the game; play the white man; play to the gallery; play with fire; two can play at that game. See: games.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the game in the dream – can you define it?

Have you played this game or were you aware of having played it in waking?

Are you a playful person?

If the dream was about music what feelings were involved or suggested?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsConditioned ReflexesCharacters and People in Dreams

Plough Ploughing plowing ploughed

It suggests working at preparing or changing oneself or a situation or making way for new growth. It could indicate using past experience for enabling future growth. Also to break and change habits, opinions and attitudes of the past; to prepare for change or the reception and growth of new ideas and to make past experiences fertile.

If the ground is ploughed it can suggest the womb, and maybe preparing it for fertility. If the ground has not been touched it can indicate virginity and purity. Ploughing a force that cuts the earth in an effort to plant seeds so might be seen as a creative force. It is often representing sex, especially the planting of male seeds in a woman.

Ploughing or plough is often used in reference to reinvesting money in one’s business; A prominent formation of seven stars in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), also called the Big Dipper; a yoga asana or posture; to plough on means to continue despite difficulties; to plough a lonely furrow is to go in ones independent and maybe isolated direction; plough through a subject indicates effort to study or to turn over new ideas. Other meanings, preparation, making ready, especially for mental faculties of thoughts and inspiration.

In dreams one often walks in a circle, or ploughs, or is moved in a circle. This means that one is enclosing, protecting or bringing the enclosed under the influence of the power that caused you to circle.

During conception the image of a ploughed field or the earth and the moon often occurs in drams.

 Example: I saw a dark brown fertile field in which a plough was cutting large furrows. Suddenly I myself became the field and the sharp steel plough went easily through the length of my body and cut me into two halves. Although it hurt, it was indescribably beautiful. I experienced myself as the ploughed-up field, and the furrow as my own flesh, but it was not bleeding.

Medard Boss reports this dream of a woman who though experienced in sex, had not previously felt deep love. He says the richness and depth of her sexual feelings when in love, are depicted by the dream and being joyfully cut open.

 Example: ‘I see a little girl humming an innocent tune, plucking daisies in a vast lush green field. Suddenly a huge machine or monster comes ploughing through the field over the girl.’ Debbie H.

Debbie sees life itself as a machine, unfeeling, mechanical, and blind in its functioning. The word juggernaut is from Sanskrit Jaganatha, lord of the world. Devotees formerly threw themselves under a huge cart – a juggernaut – as it moved. Such a huge machine can represent the massive social organisation we are bound up in, or the apparently blind violence of life. Some of us relate well to this process that goes on its way blind to individuals; some are ground under by its demands.

Plough: Making the ground/mind or body ready for growth pr planting new ideas. A means of ‘ploughing’; male sexuality in its move toward parenthood – or sowing the seeds.

Plough under: To clear the way for the new, a type of cleansing, forgiving, letting go, and preparing the mind for the coming new seeds and plants. It may signal the end of one cycle and beginning of another.

 

But to understand the world effects of ploughing see – Kiss The Ground – YouTube

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can you identify with any definitions of plough or ploughing?

Did you note any feelings with the dream?

Was there any sexual activity or sexual feelings in the dream?

Is there any likelihood of conception or a new sexual partner?

See Growth/PersonalSex and DreamsEnergy, Sex and DreamsBeing the Person or Thing

Plumbing

The way in which emotion and energy are directed. If you believe in free love, this belief directs the emotions differently than if you feel that sex is a sin. So each belief or set of attitudes is a different plumbing system. A burst water pipe would therefore represent a breaking out of previously controlled or directed energy or emotions – or it could suggest a problem physically, as it could refer to your internal ‘plumbing’ – intestines, colon bladder, kidneys, etc. Get a physical check if you feel discomfort anywhere in the abdomen. See: pipe; waterTap.

 Plumber repairing: It suggests a healing action is taking place.

 Example: Images of water, plumbing, bathroom sinks or faucets show up in her dreams 24 to 48 hours before she comes down with a cold or congestion. “They say that while you’re sleeping your brain is doing a scan of your body. If there’s anything unusual, it can pick up on that.”  Janet McCall

Example: A colleague’s elderly client was depressed about becoming incontinent. He began telling her about his uncle and aunt who had a lovely old country house, where some of the family lived and which everybody loved. And then gradually he started to introduce the metaphor – that as the house grew older, it got damper, and there were a few damp patches and plumbing problems, but nobody seemed to mind, everybody still loved the house and they kept bringing their families and their friends there. She came out of her depression without even having known that she had had help. Alison Motluk

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I had any trouble with my internal plumbing?

Do your dreams show any water leaking, damp patches or water troubles?

When did you last have to call a plumber?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsBeing the Person or thingQuestions

Plumbline

A sense of rightness, of living according to what you know, deep within, to be the true upright.

Plunder

To abuse someone’s rights and feelings against their real wishes or to feel similarly abused. This might also indicate the way you misuse your own abilities or resources. If a man forces himself upon a girl, and despite her requests for him to leave her alone, uses her body for his own ends, then he has plundered. In lesser or other ways, we are often plundered by others who disregard our real feelings and use force, or vice versa.

 The loss of things valued; the perhaps quiet or surreptitious taking of valuable time, energy, love, either by your own carelessness, or through relationship with others. Or perhaps you are taking these from someone else. It may also refer to feelings of resentment or anger. See: burglar or intruder.

 Example: I screamed out that I wasn’t going to ever get that deep with the woman again, to be sucked dry. This was why the cut off occurred with my wife. I had never gone that deep sexually with a woman before, and I had hit this and resolved not to let any woman into my sexual life to plunder it against my will.

 Example: I dream that I’m lying under a high tree in a dark wood. I want to climb, up, up to the top, and look round over the bright landscape where the sun is shining – plunder the bird’s nest up there where the golden eggs lie. And I climb and climb, but the trunk is so thick and slippery, and it’s so far to the first branch. But I know that if I could only get to that first branch, I’d climb my way to the top as though up a ladder. I haven’t reached it yet, but I shall reach it, even if it’s only in a dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel I am misusing my own abilities or resources against others for my own gain?

Is someone is abusing my rights and feelings against my wishes?

How do I act, as a passive or active person?

See Active PassiveCharacters and People in DreamsBeing the Person or Thing – – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Plunge

Taking a risk; facing uncertainty; going into something unknown or untried. To gain even an elementary understanding of dreams, one must plunge into that strange world of imagination we find in our own minds. It suggests taking the plunge in a new activity, relationship or way of life.

The plunge into the unconscious that dreams take us into may reveal some material, not deeply repressed, and which emerges easily and is understood very readily at verbal levels. Some, slightly more critical, appears veiled at first in symbolic images and dramas, in mythic dream stories. Other material, more painful, less acceptable to us, is obviously repressed to much deeper symbolic levels. To find it, the person who seeks resolution must plunge into weird and exotic gestural and physiological paradigms, or even suffer painful and upsetting symptom formations such as headaches, muscular spasms, and nervous tics and tremors.

I believe that if you really investigate dreams, first you will meet yourself. You will walk again the long road of your growth with the etched-in experiences that shaped you into the person you are. You will however, if you persist, see that there is a vaster self than this present personality, one that can reshape who you are, if you so dare. All of this means plunging into a very different world of experiences, one you need to adapt to.

 Example: Joe no longer fears death. In fact the last time it happened he rather enjoyed the ride. First he was plunged into darkness, and then came a bright light, a field of flowers, and a man in white who told him about his future. Later doctors informed him that his pulse had been flat for 44 seconds. For Joe his near-death experience was a very real preview of what is in store for him after death.

Example: There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

Example: The willingness to plunge again and again into unsavoury emotions and images can also be seen as a necessity. The beautiful is often hidden in the dirt, or grows out of it. It is only when we see that beauty grows out of dirt that we realise dirt is not ‘filth’, but earth. It is the basic stuff of life, the material all growth emerges from; the stuff that our life forces transform in the process of growing. But if we are out of touch with the earth of our nature, our energy has nothing to transform into the flower of our manhood or womanhood. In the East, the lotus growing out of the mud has always been a symbol of this.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I plunge easily or with anxiety?

What was plunged into?

Am I afraid of taking the plunge into anything new?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsInner WorldLearning to Allow YourselfSecrets of Power Dreaming

Pocket

Ones personal secrets or thoughts; self; sense of ownership or possession; vagina. Pockets, can also represent what we carry inside us – memories, skills.

A pocket can indicate memory; inner reserves of vitality, money, capabilities, tools, pen, etc

Hole in pocket: Fear of losing, or the realisation of losing important things, and a hole in trouser pockets could point to the sort of loss illustrated in the second example.

Front pocket: Front pockets near the sexual organs can in some way link with sexual feelings.

Trouser pocket: can refer to sexuality; your intimate space that you only allow certain people to enter. It can indicate the things you want handy, things you use or want to use often, things like personal items you love to have with you. Also medicines or herbs you keep ready in emergencies.

Example: I found a coat/jacket washed up on the beach. It looked very bedraggled. Then I looked inside and it was in better condition. With astonishment and pleasure I saw that the inside pocket was full of personal, interesting things. First to see was a pair of gloves.  

In this dream the jacket – a means of keeping warm and giving social signals – is rough on the outside, but with great interest once you look inside. That suggests the dreamer is considering how he appears to other people. It recognises his lack of formality but inner richness.

 Example: ‘I was in a headmaster’s study – no one I know. We were conversing when he suddenly held before my gaze a small head of a Buddha statue which looked as if it should fit onto something else. Immediately I recognised it as my own, and foolishly began to feel through my trouser pockets, perhaps to see if there was a hole there. I held my hand out for the head, to take it back into my possession, but with a smile the headmaster shook his head. I could not have it back yet, and to explain why he beckoned me to follow and led me to another room. We stood in the doorway and looked in. A large ornate bed was in the room with, I believe, a mirror above it. Suddenly it was like looking into the past. Scene after scene of sexual abandon, performed without love, commitment or any other feeling except the desire for pleasure, arose before me. I knew this was why I could not have the head of the Buddha, and also, more important, why I had lost it.’

Idioms: a pocket of resistance; be in somebody’s pocket; air pockets to form; deep pockets; emptying his pockets; in/out of pocket; pocket money; pocket ones pride; pocket books; burn a hole in ones pocket; dip into ones pocket; pocket extra change; pocket Hercules; pockets of experience; pocket their ball; air pockets to form; pocket Venus; line ones pocket; an odd pocket to be cleared up; I went through his pockets.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I like to keep in my pockets?

Was there something special in the pockets?

What sort of pocket was involved?

See QuestionsProcessing DreamsHabitsBeing the Person or Thing

Pocket Book

See: Wallet.

Pod

Restrictive and protective influence you break out of. Somebody is said to come out of their shell when they break free of reserve or restraining influences. Parental influence could be symbolised as a pod. The pod might also refer to the experience of being in the womb.

A pod is like the womb which not only protects while vital processes of life are taking place, but also feeds the process.

Being in a pod suggests that you are going through a vital and important growth process.

The seed, falling from the pod, and growing, carries with it the essence of the old plant. So it symbolises reincarnation, the starting again, under the influence of past experience and karma.

Talking about a pea pod that appeared as part of her imagery, Constance Newland shows how it represented her father’s penis. The pea associated with pee or urine, and the pod with a seed carrier, the testicles.

 Example: I watched an insect emerging from what appeared to be its chrysalis – shaped a little like a mermaid’s purse. As it emerged it was vibrant with life, movement and colour.  I watched another insect doing the same thing, and began to realise how life was bursting forth in the garden. Looking up in the hedge I noticed a large pod expanding on top of a stalk. Its was visibly getting larger, like a balloon. Suddenly it opened, forming many stalks with leaves and small rose like buds. Another pod was doing the same.

Example: So I was being born and yet at the same time destroying the person I had been. It was a wonderful feeling to sense the rather restrictive person I had been. Yet at the same time it was a process of growth that had to tear its way out of its pod/womb/chimney. It linked with an episode of the TV series in which an electro/organic/mechanical space ship gave birth to its offspring. To get out the infant ship had to fire a cannon to make the opening wider. It worked without any ill effects on the infant ship or the mother ship.

Poem Poet Poetry

Imaginative faculty that may, through inspiration or intuition, express your deepest feelings, feelings and meanings that may be hidden to the more conservative, conscious, self. I have virtually no record of people dreaming about poetry or poets. Where it does happen the poem seems to sum up profound feelings that summarise the dreamer’s best or worst view of life. So it seems a poem is a form of self expression of subtle content or impressions, probably like a gestalt. Therefore the poet would be the aspect of your own mind that forms such intuitive gestalts.

Poetry Writers and dreams

Writing of prose or poetry can arise from many human impulses. It can be the basic sexual urge; the urge to become famous or rich; or the tremendous impulse to get enough to eat and survive, or the simply urge to communicate. But there is also in some writers something that pushes them on to express themselves – the tremendous pressure to express what they are which is often arising from deep within them and may be mixed with feelings of not being recognised, of not being understood, or even a desire to explain their truth.

This may be involved in a type of destined urge to tell things – which may at first be unclear in them – but like a growing bud, slowly gains strength and size until it burst out in all it splendour.

Such urges are often foreshadowed or even inspired by dreams or intuition. Also the ideas of what is written in this way are not thought out or planned, but are projects arising from the unconscious. Often we forget how creative life/the unconscious is. It doesn’t reason or think logically – something many intellectuals forget – for no one is more fully conscious of the real meaning of “creation” than the Artist, whether he or she be painter, poet or musician; or of the difference between “creating” and “producing” or “making.”

Creating is a function of life, for living things create fruits. We are like everything living around us we a part of creative Life. So being creative in one way or another is inborn in us. We want to leave our seeds whether as parents or artists using brush, words, notes or design.

Many an Artist has laboured for years to “realise” outwardly, in concrete form, the inner conception which, once “created,” haunts his soul. Often he fails altogether, and seldom does he feel that he has fully succeeded. His work, as far as he has been able to carry it, may seem to the outsider, to be a “masterpiece.” but to the Artist himself, who holds in his soul the created prototype, it appears unsatisfying. Between the dream and the attempted realisation, he sees the difference between “Heaven” and “Earth.” 

See Art and DreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe UnconsciousThe Unconscious 2Collective Unconscious

 

Point Pointing

For pointing

Meaning: meeting or unity; direction. Arriving at a destination; something powerful or focused enough to penetrate. This can refer to an idea or an experience that can enter us or get through any defences we may have. Pointing suggests a way of directing your attention to something, or drawing attention to some aspect of yourself. See: Dot.

Anything pointed can refer to male sexuality; reaching a point – arriving at a culmination or change; a meaning; a decision to be made; something powerful or focused enough to penetrate. This can refer to an idea or an experience that can enter us or get through any defences we may have; a point of reference or interest. Something pointed to, meaning it is probably important.

Idioms: a starting point; an end point; an important point; point of view; pointed out; at this point; points to ponder; at that point; at some point; point of growth; vantage point; what is the point; pressure points; point of despair; points out; my point of view; at no point; useful points; high point; finer points; mid-point; general points; at this point in time; point a finger at; beside the point; the breaking point; put too fine a point on; point of no return; point out; point is well taken; selling point; point-blank range; pointed questions

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the point threatening or useful?

Did I get the point or was it aimed at me?

Were there any sexual implications in the dream?

Did anything like a remark or feeling penetrate you?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Magical Dream Machine

Pointing: – Drawing ones attention to something; feeling at the receiving end of someone’s attention, emotions or suggestions. Pointing in a dream may mean the dreamer is trying to determine the best direction for reaching some goal. The dreamer may have reached a fork in the road and can no longer proceed along the same old path.

Pointing hand: Drawing your attention to something.

Pointing stick or gun: Aggressive or defensive sexuality or emotions.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I pointing or was someone else?

Did I feel in danger or that I could protect myself?

Is there an indication of a direction to take?

See directionTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMagical Dream Machine

 

Poison

A warning that you might be taking in something that can harm you mentally, emotionally or physically. This might be in the form of words, thoughts or substances. Warning to avoid something; something that will not be good for us; attitudes, emotions or thoughts that can harm us; warning against business deal or relationship; possibly related to foods we are eating that are not suitable.

But thoughts such as jealousy and hate are deeply poisonous to our system. Also to constantly think you are ill and unloved are equally deadly.

And remember that we are all poisoners of the life in us if we eat adulterated foods produced in factories. Each time we eat such foods, such as white sugar, white flour  and white rice our body has to struggle to make it right – as with alcohol.

Poisoning someone else – this can easily be done by feeding them malicious gossip or suggestions. Or being poisoned by someone else is similar.

Thoughts without love are poison. Thought with love is peace.

Poisoned by a snake bite in a dream is not like in waking life. It is about fear of dying. In other words you are frightened of facing the great changes that can occur in your life as you face real growth. You old self will die as the new you emerges. See snake

Example: I was introduced to my wife’s brother in law’s brother. We talked for a while and parted. Afterwards I felt ill at ease and couldn’t relax. I suppose if I had used drink I wold have had a drink and forgotten about it. Being used to listen to my dreams  I thought I would investigate the feeling  like a dream. Quickly the words came to me, “It is him! He was trying to put me down because he wanted my wife.” As this thought came I could see it in action. It was all quite subtle so was not immediately observable, but he had made several remarks I could see influenced me. The next time we were together, my wife was present, and one of the first things he said was what a stupid hat I was wearing – said in such a way  to demean me. I turned to my wife and said, “Here he goes again.”

 Example: There are many sordid hurtful things done that I have forgiven myself for. Maybe some have even been more brutal in their own way. God knows I have enough poison in me. But I cannot forgive the time I hurt those eyes. I cannot forget, or forgive.

Example: But things will not be different even if we run away and start again. For we cannot run away from ourselves. We carry the poison about in our breath, in our words, the tone of voice, the way we sit and whatever thing we do. We have to start right in here, this very moment, this very situation, and wrestle with, change it, do something with it. And in the wrestle with the external some poison is let loose from us, some cleansing takes place, something happens. I don’t know, but we are not really wrestling with things outside, but with ourselves. And we do not change things but change ourselves.

 

Idioms: What’s your poison; poison ones mind; poison pen letter; avoid it like poison.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did I see a label saying poison or did I take it?

Was it from a snake bite?

Am I scared of being poisoned?

See Martial Art of the MindAvoid Being VictimsTalking to Inner Self

Pole

The penis; male sexuality; self expression in its positive extending aspect. Anything upright like this can also represent the spine, with its connotations of strength or ‘spinelessness’. So a pole with flag flying high could show the mood of well-being and rejoicing. The pole thrown down or broken could be a sense of defeat or low spirits.

Also a pole can be weapon or even a way of overcoming barriers like a vaulting pole. See: Maypole; OarPole StarOak .

A pole is sometimes used to refer to a Polish person.

The image of Jesus suffering on the Cross – which is a pole with arms – is a familiar one. What is the mystery of this suffering? There are some mythological parallels, described in Campbell’s The Masks of God. There is the Norse god, Wotan, for example, who hangs from a tree, speared in sacrifice to himself, in order to learn the secret of the Runes. There is also Ixion, forever bound to the Wheel of Life by his passion; yet it is his passion that also creates the wheel and sustains it.

There is the Sun Dance, which involves a pole, has something to teach about suffering. The leather strap from the central pole is gouged into the dancer’s chest. As the dancer leans back, pulling on the strap, he enters into suffering. If he moves too close to the centre, the strap becomes slack and there is no suffering. If he pulls back too hard, his skin tears and he separates himself from the dance. Maintaining the maximum amount of tension that the flesh will allow, the dancer sustains the suffering. At a certain point, the body ceases to distinguish suffering from non-suffering, and at that moment the dancer is initiated into the mystery by a vision.

Example: To prepare for dreaming together, the twelve women arranged their sleeping bags into a “wheel” surrounding a central pole. In addition, each woman had two strands of ribbon attached to her sleeping bag which were then attached to the pole, making a “dream net.” The arrangement is quite similar to the May Pole and Sun Dance ceremonies; except, in this case, the people are lying down, asleep and dreaming.

Example: Regeneration was also a theme of the tree festivity. Involving the rebirth of Dionysus, who, like the later Risen Christ of Easter, was seen as a twice-born young man. Another spring festival is the May Pole celebration of the British Isles, with its flowers and the dancing with ribbons around a pole prepared from a tree. It is almost as if by decorating a barren tree with flowers and dancing around it, the people are trying to coax the tree to imitate the spring in their dance and sprout forth its own flowers.

Snake a pole: The blind instinctive forces of life emerging into conscious experience – in other words the essence of human experience with its involvement in pain, pleasure, time and eternity; the process of personal growth or evolution. This is healing because personal growth often moves us beyond old attitudes or situations that led to inner tension or even sickness.

Totem pole: Like any pole it represents the uprising forces of nature and so is also a phallic symbol. But the carvings are man made and represent the stories that tribesmen honour – the great events of their tribe that are also the traditions that give the people their identity. So in a dream it can represent you links with your cultural or family heritage; your state of sexual energy; or the marks you have carved on the tree of life through your own activities. See identity.

Example: We were trying to cross the hall diagonally toward the exit, but were constantly attacked or haunted by black demons or ghosts. I was fighting them off, but the struggle went on and on as they came back. Then toward the end I had a large pole and I was smashing them aside shouting, “By the power of God within me, I dismiss you” – or words to that effect.

The dreamer says of this dream, “I felt a slightly sore throat as I became semi awake wondering about the dream. I remembered that yesterday I had a flu injection, and what I arrived at was that the blackness depicted serious illness that I had been fighting off. As I was looking at this the black demons became very real for me and I felt I could not really dismiss them as an influence. I struggled and struggled with this, as I had in the dream, but now semi awake. But gradually I became aware of peace, a solid unmovable peace – a steadiness of consciousness – and the steady peace seemed to dissolve any threat I felt. Also the sore throat went”.

Idioms: bean pole; low on the totem pole; may pole; pimple pole; pole vault; poles (negative and positive – north and south); scaffold pole; telephone pole; totem pole; touch it with a ten foot pole; up the pole

Useful Questions and Hints:
Was I using the pole or connected to in some way?
Did I feel any sexual attraction during the dream?
What feelings did I have in the dream?
What was the pole used for?
See Being the Person or Thing – Characters and People in Dreams – Key Words

Pole Star

Your highest intuition about direction. A link with the cosmic sense of yourself. See: NorthStar.

Police Policeman Policewoman

Your sense of what is right and wrong in your personal or social life. It can also refer to your feelings about how you stand in relationship with others, your feelings of ease or guilt for instance. Therefore it might indicate conscience or rules of conduct. But the police can also depict your strength of self discipline in your efforts to transform or grow. As part of this they might link with self-analysis, or the questioning of your motives or actions.

Police are also what we turn to when seeking to solve or help with a problem, to right a wrong, for protection or support. So ask yourself what were you in search of and why.

If you are in the police force it will represent some aspect of your work, or the dream may illustrate a problem you face through your work. See Incubating Dreams

The police do not necessarily represent your innermost or spiritual directions, but only your social or more conscious codes. These, like the country’s laws, can arbitrarily change, and be replaced by other laws or moral codes. The policeman is therefore most often a symbol of outer and social relationships, and how we feel about this. So it can represent behaviour influenced by the need to conform to orthodoxy or uniformity.

The police can also depict a source of help you can depend on in an emergency – or if you have had a bad time with the police, then the power of society to abuse you.

Because as human beings we lost contact with out instinctive knowledge that guided us, we erected religion instead. It was to serve the place of the voice of instinct which had always guided human beings in the past. We split it off from the individual human being and made it a social function. Now society would dictate the direction of the individual.

The external symbol of human instincts – god, the gods – became a means to manipulate individuals. The ability to manipulate – to ‘guide’ humans now their personal guidance was suppressed – led to a new form of human society, the human termite hill, with its hierarchy, and suppressants – i.e. kings, priests, armed guards, police, soldiery, etc.

Calling the police: Very often a sign you are calling out for support or help. In a way these are acknowledgements of our need for love, for caring and protection. But also might indicate our admittance of weakness of spirit.

 Example: My recurring dream – some disaster is happening. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep.

Policeman or woman at ones door: Anxiety about bad news; traditionally a sign of trouble arriving at ones doorstep, or perhaps a confrontation with guilt. It can be request for information.

Policewoman: As general, but more emphasis on moral issues connected with feeling values.

Police Station: Can connect with many things depending on the country you are in. If your dream is connected with collecting mail, giving  identification to a dead person, torture, and alarm connected with police station, taking a criminal to the station, being interrogated, phoning for police, being a hero or heroine with the police, a police person working at the station, judgment or looking down on racial types, then you would need define what the situation was and use something like Settings in Dreams or else Being the Person or Thing

Example: “People being held for questioning in police stations, for example, may be treated humanely, but they get virtually no sensory input,” he says. “If the detention is for short periods of time, I don’t think that’s a problem, but there is talk of extending the period of time for which people can be held on suspicion of terrorist offences. And if people are indeed more suggestible, the longer they are held in isolation, the more that must raise questions about the reliability of their evidence.”

Exactly why people’s brains can be affected so radically by a short spell of isolation is still not fully understood, but Professor Robbins believes that the cells that connect nerve cells and help them to communicate, called dendrites, may lose some of their connectivity if not continually stimulated. There’s certainly evidence of the opposite, that stimulating the brain increases the number of connections. Studies on people with brain injuries have shown that mental stimulation increases the number of dendritic connections that form.

I believe that it is because in general people’s personality or sense if themselves is not founded on a rock but on shifting sand. In other words they depend on being in contact (smartphone use) all time, to not be alone (See Isolation), to be part of a group of friends or family, which you build contact with; or like to be part of a pack or tribe as with football fans or socially way out people.

To be arrested: Can mean something is blocking or interfering with your freedom to make your own decisions or your ability to grow – arrested growth. When investigated one is held back by ones own attitudes or feelings.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening with the dream police?

Where you in trouble, investigated or arrested?

What did they want with me or what where they doing?

See guiltMartial Art of the Mind; Avoid Being Victims

Political Politician Politics

Sometimes symbolises interests in how you govern your outer life as distinct to inner life. Naturally, if you have strong political feelings, it would symbolise the underlying attitudes that produce these feelings or ideas. It also links with shrewdness, or attempts to manoeuvre or influence; or perhaps to do the thing that others will support.

The politician in your dream suggests talents or urges toward leadership or ways of dealing with your social or economic situation. But it depends what you feel about politicians, and if it is a politician you know, then her or she will be an indication of those feelings and in what way they are active in your life. It could suggest you are playing at politics, speaking much and saying little, or whatever you may associate with politicians.  See Characters and People in Dreams

If you have rigid views about politics, religion, society, or the subject of the dream you are trying to research, they act upon the formation of creative realisation just as a rigid tense body would act upon the expression of a dance. As much as possible let go of them.

The new attitudes in women, and new ideas and urges in regard to world politics, religion, family life, music and art, have arisen originally in a few individuals who found a creative relationship with their own inner life. They were able to see through the constricting views and standards in which they were raised. Their own inner frustration and pain demanded to be heard and they listened. Out of that arose the new themes we can now see in the theatre, films, music and social reform. So does your dream present a criticism or a new insight into politics? Our dreams clarify our inner politics, what is going on within us in the huge world of our inner life. And because our inner and outer cannot easily be disconnected, and often we are in conflict with ourselves, shown as feeling ill at ease or depressed, we can do a lot worse than trying to enter the inner world of our dreams.

Politics are extremely important because they often arouse tremendous support or antagonism. The released inner response of our being in dreams and in our life is revolutionary in nature. This is probably why established traditions of religion, medicine and politics often suppress any signs of its appearance.

 Example: Confusion in the street. No matter what I found it was no good. Was that why I was put away in an orphanage? Because I didn’t have the answers. Two children having children (my parents) like E. and G., Kids!. There is nowhere to go. Live under guilt, the anger always mad. Worked with you over the years because of the pain. . Nobody else understands. It’s all my own journey. Always thinking I’m not strong enough, not emotional enough. . . . . . . . . That has a yes to it. (To T.) You did or you have found the right way the right way. It does not accept or deny the different aspects of life from politics to religion. etc. The Buddhists say they have found it but they walk about with the robes on – three meals a day. There is a choice as to whether the west to stay within it. In India- I saw three Buddhists with a rich couple, Big men, the main man was like a Mafia boss. Power.

That is a man’s revolutionary feelings as he explored his actual life experience.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel politics are an important part of my life?

Am I feeling revolutionary feelings about politics?

Do I feel nothing about politics?

What was my dream saying about politics and my feelings about it?

See Avoid Being Victims – Martial Art of the Mind – ProgrammedTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pollen

Sperm, fruition, fertility as from new ideas. Plants and fishes cascade pollen and are fertilised. For pollen is the sperm of a plant. Bees collect it because it is rich in protein and vitamins and minerals.

The Navaho have a wonderful image of what they call the Pollen Path. Pollen is the life source; the pollen path is the way to the center of that life source. The Navaho say,

“Oh, beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty to the right of me, beauty to the left of me, beauty above me, beauty below me, I am on the pollen path.

The implication is that if one has not reached the heart level of love and compassion during a lifetime, the person must be reborn, that is, reincarnated back on earth, in order to try again. Otherwise, the soul is free to move on to higher planes of existence.

 

 Example: A rather shadowy man gave me a leather pull-string purse or pouch. In the pouch was powder that the man suggested I pour onto my rather stained trousers. Immediately the powder started working like yeast, cleansing and purifying my trousers in a spreading action. I knew that this yeast, or pollen, had also penetrated my body, and was gradually working through me, purifying and healing. – Adrian.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my relationship with the pollen in the dream?

Was it in any fertilising, healing or transforming?

What did I sense or feel in the dream?

Was anything planted?

See Working with associationsBeing the Person or ThingMagical Dream Machine

Pool

The inner world of your mind and imagination. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. Sometimes if you are in the pool, or remember being in the pool, it might be referring to a time, perhaps in the womb, when you felt connected with all living things through shared awareness. Sometimes such dreams appear to show you the river of your life stretching through time.

Also an ability to grow beyond your fears by actually meeting them and passing beyond them to a fuller life. See You Are a Dual Being

Being under water in the pool: Looking at what is happening deep within your mind and feelings; an aspect of yourself that is submerged in the sense of being unconsciousness. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. See: water; swimming pool.

Our inner world of thoughts, fantasies and feelings; sometimes a sense of unity with living beings – collective consciousness or the influence other people have on us in a social or group interaction – as for instance when public opinion or condemnation influences us.

Being in a pool or with other people around or in it suggests you are sharing a common awareness in some degree. It indicates an opening up of uncharted territories in the unconscious. The depth of the water, and the ability of the person are all factors reflecting one’s feelings concerning the unconscious.

Psychomanteums were ancient Greek oracles of the dead where seekers could consult the spirits of the deceased. After fasting and certain other preparatory rituals, a vision of the departed was evoked by the seeker’s staring into a pool or pan of water (a technique similar to the practice of “crystal gazing”).

Being under water in the pool: Looking at what is happening deep within your mind and feelings; an aspect of yourself that is submerged in the sense of being unconsciousness. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. See: water; swimming pool.

 Example: And through all this play, consciousness learned to dive in and out of time and space as a marten plays in a pond. Suddenly there were worlds where no time was. Everything went on forever. There was a laughter which never stopped, and love without an ending. There were vistas that stretched out to encompass Einstein’s curved universe in a nutshell. Then awareness hesitated, looked down at the whirling vertigo of time, and the heart missed a beat in sick wonder.

Later, the forms and colours and lights disappeared and melted into nothingness. Then came one final experience that seemed a culmination of all others. In it came an end to the tortured division of self and other, an end to pain, an end to frustration, and there bloomed that radiant blaze of ecstasy which seemed the end of all desire, yet desire itself, the answer to all questions and the end of questioning—the essential eternal “reality.”

The clamouring awareness cried, “This is it! The ultimate reality of all life!” The dissenting intelligence cried, “This is nothing. It has no name, no form, no colour, no sound, no time, no space. You cannot eat it, you cannot use it, you cannot live it out. It is nothing, nothing.”

Example: She remained very quiet for about 2 hours when she suddenly and violently felt herself as a small girl in bed with her father lying behind her and with his erect penis between her legs. She then felt that her legs and abdomen were covered in “slime”, which she knew was semen; as a child it seemed like a large pool in the bed. The episode was clear to her, came as a great shock and was associated with disgust both with herself and her father. The same episode was repeated even more vividly than before with more feelings of guilt combined with an understanding that her father was really mentally ill when she was a child. This release of feelings led to a sense of inner peace and towards the end of the session she suddenly said: “Now I know why I had the migraine headaches. It was those deep hidden feelings, feelings of a mixture of love and hate about my father”.

Example: ‘I fell into a pond. My brother was frightened to be by himself so he jumped in. We were both drowning in the water and we shouted out for Mum. My brother drowned.’ Poppy S.

Poppy dreamt this while young and feeling insecure and anxious due to her father being ill.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have you ever paddled or played near ponds?

Did you ever catch fish, newts or other creatures in a pond?

What was happening with the pond in the dream?

See Being the Person or ThingDream YogaRootsSumming Up

Pop Star

Similar to what has been said about famous people, but might also carry feelings to do with intense teenage sexuality or need; what you hold as an ideal or idol; a role model; egomania.

Pope

Spiritual values or dogmatic religious authority, depending on your associations. A father figure; code of behaviour arising from religious beliefs; God. See: spiritual life in dreams.

There is a tragedy connected with this figure because it abdicates responsibility and allows other human beings to manipulate, through becoming powerful symbols, for ones own power and insight. Thus we have popes, kings, dictators and presidents.

Many individuals barely recognise their own instinctive drives. Yet these drives are powerful enough when manipulated to gather huge armies of people who then march to their death. They are behind enormous hostility between neighbours and nations. Although irrational, and not in our best interest to be influenced by, millions of us are moved by them as if we had little will of our own. The feelings behind them, although seldom acknowledged directly by our conscious self, are often raised to religious status. The procreative drive, the election of leaders, the parental and child raising urges, are all to be seen in the Christian religion as the bones behind the robes and rituals. Why does Catholicism ban the condom and divorce; make a giant figure out of the Pope; worship a woman with a baby in her arms – if it is not based on these mighty urges and biological drives?

The power of the king or ruler has developed out of thousands of years of social interaction between rulers and subjects throughout the world. To explain this social side of the power I include the following description of how identity of a group and of individuals, is deeply connected with a leader figure such as king, queen or Pope.

The attitudes toward leader figures and royalty seen in modern individuals appear to have developed out of the way humans originally related to each other in small groups. This was added to and refined when people began to live in larger social gatherings. In both circumstances virtually all early human groups looked to leader figures for guidance and protection.

One of the greatest factors influencing this relationship between a group, the individuals in it and a leader is that of identity, both for the individual, and for the group. In a small group, such as the hunter gatherer groups which preceded the larger tribal or national groups, we see that the identity of the individual was largely formed out of the relationships with members of the group, and from their collective beliefs and customs. This was and is very evident with tribal peoples – the history of tribal Africa and the Jewish people gives graphic illustrations of this. Thus the ‘identity’ of the Jewish people is still very much alive today, forming obvious links with people otherwise separated by nationality and national culture. The religious beliefs and customs of such a group form a major part of this personal and group identity.

There are obviously negative and positive sides to such identification. See Individuation

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What personal feelings do I have about the pope?

What was the pope doing in the dream?

Did you interact with the pope in any way?

See People from our pastTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Porcupine

The porcupine has immense power to protect itself or even to kill, so might relate to feelings of defensiveness. But it can also suggest independence by keeping others at bay through a ‘keep off’ attitude or even open hostility. Nevertheless the porcupine goes about its business quietly if left alone, so might show that attitude. See: hedgehog.

Useful questions are:

Am I creating a ‘don’t get nearer’ feeling around me?

What is my porcupine doing and what does this suggest? See: themes.

What do I wasn’t to be ‘left alone’ about?

Is there someone else who is being prickly?

Pornography

The most frequent manifestations of the males frantic search for eoritc stimulation can take the form of erotic fantasy. Men may be driven to nurse their fantasies by looking at films and strip-tease shows, or by day-dreaming over pornographic material. This is a crude, primitive aspect of the mans search for his inner woman the anima, which becomes compulsive only when a man does not sufficiently cultivate his feeling relationships-when his feeling attitude toward life has remained infantile. See Archetype of the Anima; Beware of Love

 

Porpoise

See dolphinand porpoise.

Positions

Your stance or position in life; the way you are relating to what is depicted in the rest of the dream – or the way you feel you are relating to it.

above What is superior or has a wider view or possibility than your present standpoint; sense of inferiority in relationship to what is above us; what we strive for.

If we are standing above or high up: Having a wider viewpoint; being intellectual; feeling superior or in a position of advantage.

Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself. See: high; hill; mountain; flying.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the abilities or achievements I feel good about?

What am I looking up to or reaching for?

What or who do I feel is above me?

adjacent/adjoining Suggests a strong connection with the dreamer, or what is wanted or being worked toward. For instance in Japan, rocks or trees that are close together are sometimes seen as married or linked. Dreams use the same sort of symbology to suggest a more than surface connection with someone or some aspect of life. There could also be the suggestion of confrontation or discovery – being near something in this case meaning that we can no longer escape meeting it, or it is near at hand in the sense of being discovered or experienced. The example below shows adjacent as depicting difficult feelings near at hand that the dreamer meets.

 Example: I had a dream in which my best friend, her 4-year-old daughter, and myself were staying in this huge old, Victorian style house. My friend put her daughter to bed in another room, and we went in the adjoining room to watch a movie. My friend fell asleep and then all of the sudden, her daughter came screaming into the room, covered in blood. I didn’t actually see what happened, but I knew instantly that a crocodile had attacked her and bitten her legs off. I tried waking up her mother and I was holding her (the child) in my arms and crying. Then I woke up. The dream was so realistic, and when I awoke I was covered in sweat and shaking really bad. The dream upset me so much that I didn’t tell anyone about it. A week later, I found out two other friends had dreams in which this little girl was also attacked by a crocodile. What could this possibly mean? A.R.E. dream.

The dream suggests a close and perhaps psychic connection with the girl and her mother. See Possession

Useful Questions and Hints:

What or who am I feeling connected to or near at this time?

What is the influence of this connection?

behind The past; what you have chosen to or want to forget – left behind; what one is unaware of – as talk behind ones back; what has been learned or dealt with.

People behind dreamer: taking the lead in relationships; being decisive.

Idioms: Behind the scenes; behind the time; fall behind; put something behind me.

below Something you feel is ‘beneath you’; what is ‘below’ in the body – so the non intellectual or sexual aspects of self; something one can now look back on from a detached viewpoint. If below something else – see above.

Idioms: Beneath my contempt; It’s below my standards.

beside See: adjacent/adjoining above.

close Intimacy; being made aware of or having a fuller awareness of something or someone; what one feels connected with or has ties with; near to, in the sense of making a decision – near to leaving home; close to, as ‘close to finding the solution’; a situation that is near at hand or being confronted or realised now.

Idioms: At close quarters; close fisted; close on; close to home; that was close.

distant Barely conscious of; a long time off; something one does not identify with strongly.

in-front The future; what is seen and understood; what is being confronted.

Lying down or prostrate If Injured shows a possible psychological situation  that has ‘floored you’. If resting you have given up your persona efforts, making way for new ideas or impulses to arrive. If in prostration it shows that you have recognised something bigger, more advanced or powerful than your personality, so you are opening yourself for something better to enter you.

Example: It was the Swami, whose photo I had seen at Exeter. He was sitting on the floor, as was everyone else, but in semi darkness, and partly covered in a coat or blanket. He looked at me, but seemed to sink into himself or the gloomy light. When I saw him I saluted him in complete prostrating, lying face down on the floor.

The interpretation he arrived at was that, “My love prostrated itself before the love of something holy. The love of what lifts ones spirit remains partly hidden, but through your surrender, this love will come to you.

opposite Meeting or ‘facing’ a situation; opposition or resistance to decided direction.

side Supportive feelings as ‘by ones side’; as well as; indication of choice as ‘what side are you on’ or ‘who’s on my side?’

Idioms: From all sides; let the side down; on every side; on the wrong side of thirty; on the right/wrong side; on the side; pass by on the other side; pick sides; put to one side; side by side; side with somebody; take sides; take to one side; the other side – death; safe side; bit on the side; seamy side. See: adjacent/adjoining above.

Possum

A possum probably represents mothering or links with pregnancy. Of course they also can be a nuisance in your house, so can indicate irritation at something in you.

Example: I just called it a possum, not so dangerous but I still don’t want it running around my house, especially not depositing babies.

Post Office

What this means depends upon what you are involved with the post office for in the dream. It could have a connection with money as something you need. It is also a meeting place and where you can receive or send communications. It is like a central point where many things connect, so may suggest your network of physical and psychic connections.

This is often about a need to communicate or to receive communication. It might even at times show mind to mind communication, or your intuitive faculty. The organisation and people behind the mail and communication.

If you are waiting for money it could be about that. But many dreams in my database mention post office as a background for other events. So it might be worthwhile reading Settings in Dreams.

 Post office can be a meeting place, or even a place for flirting or socialising. For some people it is a place of decision, where you wonder whether to communicate the thoughts and feeling you feel.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was doing or hoping for in relationship with the post office?

Was I working there?

What are my associations with the post office?

See Magical Dream MachineActive PassiveFeatures on SiteYou are More than You Realise

Poster

Something the unconscious is trying to show you. Something you want other people to see, know about it or become aware of. See: Newspaper.

A poster can be an attempt to influence you, or even cause uncertainty. A means of attempting to pressurize you to do or buy something. This would suggest pressures you feel from outside. Posters can be ideas expressed as imagery, or words that for some reason you hold within and review in your dreams. Posters confront you with decisions – yes or no – shall I or shall I not?

Then can even be inspiration in time of uncertainty. The example is true description  =of a young man who had regressed to the age of a five year old. The description is how it felt to be five and lost.

Example: There was in fact only one seat left on the train. It was in the middle of four other people, facing a row of five other people opposite him. Cules made his whole body tight, trying to control the magic tides that were still flowing through him like changing winds and waters. He felt sure that if he didn’t do this, the magic would overwhelm him and cause him to cry like the frightened young boy he now was. What made it more difficult was that directly opposite him sat a very motherly looking woman with wonderfully ample bosoms who smiled sweetly at Cules. The magic tore at Cules to fall forward on to his knees and sink his face into her lap so that she would hold and protect him. He had to look away from her and fold his arms very hard to keep control.

Then the train started to move, and this seemed to make things a little easier for him. Even so he wondered with some dread how he was going to make the journey. Then the train entered the long tunnels leading away from the Paddington station toward the outskirts of London. Holding hard on to his own arms, Cules watched the darkness outside the window intersperse occasionally with brilliant light as the train passed through the large open air ducts. Suddenly the train entered another of these ducts, and there in brilliant sunlight was a huge billboard with what felt like a direct message from God to Cules written across it in huge letters. It said, “TAKE COURAGE!” Then Cules knew he would survive the journey.

Postman

Some part of yourself, or a realisation that has brought something to your notice. An experience that has made you realise something. Hopes for contact with or news from someone. See: letter.

This is about receiving communications, expected or unexpected, and also of course you means of connecting and communicating with others. It depicts feelings you have about good news, bad news, and all the feelings in between. The postman/woman can indicate all the hopes, the waiting, the plans that go into the ideas, love, threats and feelings we send out and receive. There can be things arriving or sent in this way to do with change, reward or disappointment.

A postman is also a good guide to finding your way or finding a person.

 Example: An unconventional looking postman delivered a registered package. But I didn’t open it.’ This was taken to mean that due to an unconventional experience, the dreamer had realised something. Something had ‘registered’ on his consciousness, but he had not explored the possibilities of it.

Example: I receive these Xmas cards from Noy and Nothy without a street address, no city. I told them that I would be in the States and they sent them here (Bangkok). It is a miracle that they arrived here. I am showing them to T. And some other people here. My name? I’m not sure. There may have been a big clue on the picture on the card that told the postman where to send the cards. “It is a miracle that they got to me, I tell people.

Postman knock: (A game played by children and youths in a party, where one person acts as a person answering the door. The rest of the group wait to see who the person answering the postman’s knock will choose, and person chose has to kiss him or her.) In a dream it can indicate the pleasure or displeasure of the game. It is a form of practise run for adult sexual meeting – or even promiscuous meeting.

 Example: This came about because of my connection with Joan, because one of my main memories connected with her is about the game of postman’s knock at a party, in which I made a choice of not kissing anybody but Joan. This placed me at odds with the rest of the children and so I left the party because I refused to kiss a girl I had no feelings for.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I recently realised something that was brought to my notice?

Do I have hopes for love, work, or some change in my life?

Am I waiting for news or contact?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions Role in the dream

Posture

Posture in dreams is a major way the dream communicates meaning. It expresses things you may never have put into words. Therefore postures and movements in dreams are expressive of how you feel or think beneath the layer of your everyday life. Because there are so many postures and movement you might make in your dream, it is impossible to list them all here. You can arrive at their meaning by taking on the posture, or exploring the movement, to see what it feels like. When you feel the quality of the posture or movement, take time to put it into words. This is important as it makes the subtle feeling more conscious and known. See: Posture movement and body languageMovement.

Pot

See: Hallucinogens; Hash

See: Pot and PanCook, Oven, Food.

Potato

Depends more than usual on the dreamer’s own associations. Do we regard it as fattening, starchy, forbidden, enjoyable, messy, or what? See: Food

Potential

Another word for it is latent. I learnt about it when, as an eleven year old, I built my own photographic darkroom and enlarger and started developing films and prints. It was always a thrill to me to see the image on the film or paper gradually appear.

I learned later that the images before development were called latent, and it took some effort and skill to develop them. Of course that is like us as humans, we have so much that is latent until it is developed. This potential that we all have I believe is enormous. That too I learned about as a skinny, spotty thirteen year old. I started exercising and changed my eating habits and saw a latent me becoming real as a sturdy, strong youth. But there is so much more of you than an outward appearance and a healthy body. I discovered I had an inner me as well as an outer me. So from a young man who was thrown out if school at fifteen as hopeless, who didn’t even know his ABC, I started exercising my mind and found I had an amazing potential. At sixteen I started my own photographic business but because National Service was in operation I had to join the armed forces. I chose to be trained as a medic in the RAF, and had an honorary pass with accelerated trade test. I was getting weekly test results in the 90’s, so was released before everyone else. See Swaps Camera for Rifle

Later still I learned that we are all born with an immense potential that often remains latent because of the condition of our body, our education, our prevalent social teachings, or our belief that what authority figures and parents say is taken as truth. As Plato said so long ago, “Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and a fool”.

For instance I was brought up to believe that the brain if destroyed by disease or injury destroys not only memory and brain function but you. Yet when I experienced a devastating stroke which knocked out my ability to speak, tore a massive hole in my brain, took away my ability to move, and my face was therefore immobile in a gargoyle condition, I was still acutely aware of what was going on around me,  but had no way of communicating it. I saw then that the brain was only an organ enabling me, my consciousness, to move and express through the body. See Tony’s Experience of Stroke

See also this remarkable video of a young girl who was judged mentally deficient, breaking through the barrier of her body. See Breaking out. 

Example: An example of this is given by Sir Auckland Geddes, a surgeon and one time British ambassador to the U.S., he described the case of a doctor friend who late at night was suddenly ill with acute gastro-enteritis. A brilliant description of such an experience showing how time and space are no longer the same in this condition. Becoming suddenly and violently ill with gastro-enteritis he quickly became unable to move or phone for help. As this was occurring he noticed two levels of awareness. One was normal sensory awareness in his body; the other was external to his body. From the external self he could see not only his body, but also the house, garden and surrounds. He needed only think of a friend or place and immediately he was there and was later able to verify what he saw. In looking at his body, he noticed that the brain was only an end organ, like a condensing plate, upon which memory and awareness played. The mind, he said, was not in the brain, the brain was in the mind, like a radio in the play of signals.

Example: Brain Injury That Turned Jason Padgett Into Math Genius Suggests Dormant Skills May Be Common.

Padgett, a furniture salesman from Tacoma, Washington, who had very little interest in academics, developed the ability to visualize complex mathematical objects and physics concepts intuitively. The injury, while devastating, seems to have unlocked part of his brain that makes everything in his world appear to have a mathematical structure. “I see shapes and angles everywhere in real life” — from the geometry of a rainbow, to the fractals in water spiraling down a drain, Padgett told Live Science. “It’s just really beautiful.” [Album: The World’s Most Beautiful Equations]

Padgett, who just published a memoir with Maureen Seaberg called “Struck by Genius” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), is one of a rare set of individuals with acquired savant syndrome, in which a normal person develops prodigious abilities after a severe injury or disease. Other people have developed remarkable musical or artistic abilities, but few people have acquired mathematical faculties like Padgett’s.

Now, researchers have figured out which parts of the man’s brain were rejiggered to allow for such savant skills, and the findings suggest such skills may lie dormant in all human brains.

Such obvious examples state that what we have been taught is far from true. It shows how our potential can be ‘developed’ if we do not give up on ourselves and those around us.

If you can accept that you have a huge but unexpressed self, you can also probably accept that the latent potential, if it is beginning to show in our present life, will be presented as our future self, the self we can become by developing.

Our future self, which is like a baby, which parents can see can grow in the future into a mature woman or man, has similar promise. In dreams it can be shown as a spiritual guide, an alien, a great spiritual being like the Christ, Mohammed or Krishna, or a dreamt of new born baby.

I see that we are never separated from the infinite potential. But what happens is that often our thoughts, our energies and decisions are so scattered and changing that we never manifest what is possible. It is like beginning to build something, then we leave it and move on to something else that we start to build, and leave that and move on to something else again. So nothing is taken to full form. We need to hold something steady in our being and then the life energy that flows through us cannot help but begin to give it form and life, to bring it alive.

But we need to hold something steady, something that we long for. I don’t mean something like a car or a big house, but of course that could work too. I’m talking about those deepest passions that we have, the things we really long for deep down. We need to recognise them and hold them as sacred. It is useful to put an image outside of us that will remind us because we keep forgetting. It is a difficult world that we live in; difficult to hold on to our ideals and goals in that way because of the distractions and the many and varied currents of thought and impulse that we live in. It is a difficult world because it is so full of images and influences.

Part of our journey and life is the skill to find our way through the those many impacts we meet, and continue to be in contact with our innermost passions and directions. We need to understand how we relate to them and therefore deal with them more easily. There is a lot of temptation to make an image of ourselves in some way. The temptation is to direct an image of ourselves in the world that others will see from a distance and follow or adore – perhaps like happens with pop stars. There needs to be the recognition that we sit together as equals, and so teach each other, “I share life with you. In triumph and in failure I share life with you.”

Well, first we must put aside everything we believe or have been taught. I am not saying discard it, but simply put it on one side so you are open to learn something new. What most people do not admit to themselves is that they – you – are a living example of the greatest mystery on this earth – a living human being. You are Life and life is a mystery that no one has fully understood. So take on the realisation that you are in the middle of a never ending mystery, a never ending wonder that you want to unfold.

There are a thousand paths to do that, and I only know some of them. I know that recording and exploring your dreams is such a path. I know that living a life which treats each day as a wonderful education can do that. I know that treating the difficulties of your life, your body and mind as things to learn valuable lessons from can do that. I know that learning to love without possessing, without jealousy and pain can do that. I know that Love that does not grasp, Power that does not bend others to my will, and living a life of wisdom that lets others look through me upon the face of  Life, can do that. Yes, it is difficult to do those things, and you do not need a thousand dollar course to learn them.

You ARE LIFE with an enormous potential, and if you start trying to live any of them Life will be with you every step of the way. I know because I trod that path. It might help to read Opening to Life – Meeting yourselfHow I Became A VirginProcessing Dreams – Trauma – Street Wisdom – Using Your Intuition

Potter

The drives, creativity, you are shaping your life with, or being shaped by; the Self.

The saying, potter around, suggest a time or feeling that you can be free to do what you feel like or be serendipitous – which means finding out things without having searched for them.

“All creation involves destruction: in order to shape the clay into the desired form, the potter must first destroy its existing form. The same applies to personal reconstruction: the old self must die – sometimes painfully – if the new self is to be born.” Quoted from A Dictionary of Dream Symbols by Eric Ackroyd – an excellent book.

Is there a Big Potter that we are all creations of – or maybe are expressions of? I had an experience where I was look at bubbles I notice each one has an eye looking at me. Fascinated I bend lower to look back at these eyes. When I do so I see they are not ‘eyes’ but ‘I’s’. Each is a tiny reflection of myself looking back at me. Amused I ponder this multitude of me. Each tiny being, with its own individual sense of self, its own eyes and legs and fingers, feels it is separate from its fellows – and it is. But what they don’t realise is that their awareness, their consciousness is a reflection of me. I am their god. Out of me all have their being. – Then suddenly I realised I am myself a bubble. I too have a sense of being independent, with my own eyes, fingers and legs. Yet in reality I am only a reflection of one great life – One Self existent in all diversity and multifarious forms.

 

Useful questions or hints:

What am I shaping or making for my life right now?

Am I being affected or shaped by outside influences?

Am I aware of being in the hands of The Potter?

Have I ever felt part of one great life?

See The HarvesterQuestionsCreating a New YouTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Poverty Poor

Feelings of being inadequate; negative emotions depriving you of well being; sense of deprivation; being tight emotionally and sexually. Sometimes an expression of insecurity.

In a certain sense, the pain arising from abandonment, and feelings attending it, can arise from other losses, such as termination of employment or loss of status. This can be seen as a confrontation with one’s own internal poverty. If this can be accepted, then the situation becomes an opportunity to gradually transform old pains and dependencies. The roots of these frequently become revealed if we accept the pain as a signpost to its source and understanding. Awareness of the part such pain has played in your life is a tremendous means of transformation. See Avoid Being Victims; Martial Art of the Mind

Parts of our experience become repressed because there is an automatic reaction in us to avoid pain or pull away from anything that frightens us. Therefore painful experience such as experiencing pverty may never be fully felt or understood at the time. Reliving such experience allows us to review and integrate vital information about ourselves. At times of great physical or emotional stress or anguish we unconsciously make decisions that influence the way we behave thereafter. Frequently all the analysis in the world cannot relieve a neurotic pattern or decision until the repressed emotion holding it in place is released to be consciously experienced and therefore understood. In fact being able to meet emotional pain and fear is the way to a wider and more productive life. See Life’s Little Secrets

 As Wilda B Tanner writes in her Magical World of Dreams, “All too often, we teach and are taught how to avoid anything which is ugly, painful, distasteful, or upsetting to us. One of the most important things we need to learn is that our problems actually serve as beacons of light or as magnifying glasses, emphasising or pointing out our most crippling fears, our most restrictive attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions which are holding up our progress-things we really must face up to and overcome if we are to grow.” See Method to Manage Intense Emotion

Do you have fullness or poverty of imagination. Without imagination you are on a desert island of opportunity and creativity. In our life in today’s world the imagination of dreams is still very important. Einstein who was one of the greatest minds of recent years said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Considering that we are only aware of 1% of visible light, and 1% of audible sound we live in constant impoverishment. Our dreams which often show that we live in states of mind that reach far beyong our usual limitations and are often of the timeless, are enriching and take away our poverty.

“It is probably no accident that the society which most consistently encouraged the use of these substances, India, produced one of the sickest social orders ever created by mankind, in which thinking men spent their time lost in the Buddha position under the influence of drugs exploring consciousness, while poverty, disease, social discrimination, and superstition reached their highest and most organized form in all history.”

But it is also true that our own society has a very one sided view. It see the richest and best looking as the most successful; completely ignoring the massive poverty of our own western society in which the enormously wealthy live in a world divided by an enormous gap living below the poverty line.

“Did I mention that one in six children in Texas lacks health insurance, the second-highest rate in the nation? So the freedom to die extends, in practice, to children and the unlucky as well as the improvident. And the right’s embrace of that notion signals an important shift in the nature of American politics.”
A sense of poverty or evidence of it can be seen in your dreams. What clothes are you wearing in your dreams and what are the feelings you have about them. Also what social status does the house in your dream suggest? Do the surroundings of the house suggest wealth, poverty or some level of social status? If so try to define it and how you relate to it now or in the past.

We know how much good the wise use of money can do. Few, in these affluent times, realize, however, that poverty, also, has its compensations. For suffering often releases spiritual powers that aid others. Also it teaches us compassion through understanding and gives us greater patience, accompanied by an appreciation of life in general.

Example: One day on exploring a dream I realised that all my life I had worked for money, and in all those years I was no better off financially. In fact I was always in the red. With the realisation came the insight that I could get money to work for me. I started by my wife and I saving as much as possible. I saw people in super markets piling botles of alcohol and other unnecessary expenses – one we couldn’t afford. So gradually we saved a £1000 – enough to enter an investment fund. Gradually I learned how to make money work for me. I learned gradually to keep my expectations simple, and not invest in chancy things. Today I am earning enough to live on. I made money work for me.

Useful questions or hints:
Am I living in the midst of finacial or emotional poverty?
Can I see what directions I have taken or missed that have led me here?
What does my dream say about poverty?
See Funding – CreativityCreating a New YouUsing symbols to change life problemsSelf ObservationTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Powder

Powder is usually either something you produce like grinding, something you add to something else, or put on or in yourself; and the reasons behind the action are probably important.

Therefore washing powder is for a cleansing action; face powder for some changing purpose. A powder can often be used to bring a radical change to one, and gunpowder is for explosive situations. In many dreams powder can also be taken as a drug or poison. So it is important to see if you can define what the powder is being used for. If you can define it you might find help by looking up the relevant word.

Coloured powder is a very powerful thing in dreams, and has been used in ancient rituals and was probably powdered clay or coloured rock.

White powder: Often suggests thoughts or feelings about drugs and your relationship with them, or poison. The dream might be indicating that you are doing something, or have taken in something that is detrimental or beneficial depending on the dream.

Ash as powder: In dreams fire can often be shown as a cleansing or transforming influence. It can reduce solid things to dust, and what is left in the dust is what is lasting and survives all trials, pain and misery. The dust is also the soil, the minerals and fertility for growth. See temple; spirit

 Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it.

Example: I sense her breasts are small and quiescent. Her back is straight and her buttocks narrow. She is still and calm but occupied in pouring powdered paint onto a papier mache relief map, which instantly transforms the territory beyond into a colourful, exotic landscape filled with African animals of all description leaping and running with enormous energy.

Example: A rather shadowy man gave me a leather pull-string purse or pouch. In the pouch was powder that the man suggested I pour onto my rather stained trousers. Immediately the powder started working like yeast, cleansing and purifying my trousers in a spreading action. I knew that this yeast, or pollen, had also penetrated my body, and was gradually working through me, purifying and healing. – Adrian.

 

Useful questions or hints:

What type of powder was in the dream?

Did I make use of the powder in any way?

Did I have any feelings about the powder?

Was colour involved in the dream?

See colourTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsGrowth/Personal

 

Power

There is so much talk and advertising in the West of how we can create our own lives, how we can be successful, the secret of happiness, and the power we have of creating what we want. True we have extraordinary potential, but it only becomes real when we remember where we stand.

We are not separated from other peoples life, will, splendour or their problems. We are none of us separate. Do you make your own clothes – and even if you do, do you make the threads and material? Do you grow your own food, build your own homes, produce your own electricity, gas, and education?

We are all a part of Life and a super-organism, and we would find it difficult to exist alone. Even if we lived on desert island we could not exist without all the chain of life that supports us and the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe.

True we are remarkably creative. We can create our own hell or heaven, but meanwhile we are in the midst of billions of others who are also creating. Sometimes they are creating havoc, war and we might be mixed up in it. Or they might be creating peace, plenty or sharing their wisdom – and all that is taking place all the time and the whole world, in fact the universe is changing. Every little thing we do adds to this change – one way of another. So we need a little humility when we start seeing what we are capable of and what power we have.

In today’s world our power depends upon cooperation with others – or else conflict with the enormous will power of the billions – or even a conflict with the process of life without which we would not exist.

To arrive at your creative power you may need to deal with the attitudes or fears that prevent you being your best in waking life. The psychiatrist and dream explorer Carl Jung described the unconscious as something we must not ignore. He said it is as natural, as limitless, and as powerful as the stars.  Some years ago I taught dreamwork at Atsitsa on the Greek island of Skyros. Windsurfing was one of the activities there, and I watched raw beginners struggle to keep balance and repeatedly fall into the warm waters of Atsitsa bay. But by getting back on the board and trying again, in a few days a transformation took place. The waves were the same, the board was the same, but now the surfer was in balance and harmony with the forces of wind and waves around them, and they flew over the sea. This is exactly the relationship we are seeking with the powerful forces you will meet as you cross the frontier of sleep – not control, but learning to ride and move with the energies within you to the goals you wish to reach.

The danger of this lack of understanding applies to lucidity also. You are dealing with powerful mental, emotional and spiritual processes. It is important to understand what the dream process is capable of and what it does.

That there is another power active in your life other than your conscious thinking and will.

It sounds like just another investigation into the paranormal, but the Wiseman-Schlitz study represents something of a watershed. The sceptic-versus-believer experiment is designed to nail down one of parapsychology’s longest-standing controversies, the “experimenter effect”. This is the curious phenomenon whereby the outcome of an experiment hinges upon the beliefs of the person running it. Believers tend to get positive results. Sceptics don’t.

Nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. This quote is a reminder of the often awful power that huge corporation, public opinion, religious beliefs and media have in our live.

Idioms: balance of power; power to burn; power play; grey power; more power to you; power trip; power user; powers that be;

Useful questions or hints:

Do you feel you have to be in control of the powers you face?

Have you learnt to easily bend and move in adjustment to your inner and outer world?

How was the power shown in your dream?

What was the result of the power?

See Inner WorldLearning to Allow Yourself Meditation with SeedMartial Art of the Mind

Power Lines

The power line is the descending energies that can transform you. If one lets go it suggest you are involved in fear of failure, of being hurt. The power line is also the humility before the tremendous Life energies that can flow through us. The turning to the power of Life in one and the descending power are the same. See: electricity.

There are also some interesting suggestions as to the meaning of how we relate to sp much power. The power lines are seen as descending Life energy or influence, and the difference can be understood by the duality is often shown to highlight the polar opposites inherent in human nature. Because if ones connection with inner influence is certain it leads to a positive relationship with the power being released or realised. If ones connection or attitudes are fixed on values that see no connection with the vast inner potential that you have, or are defending against realising it then the meeting with the power lines can be more difficult.

Low power lines: It depends on how capable you are to deal with the enormous power we all have as a potential. Obviously it could burn out any problems you have, or it could give you a tremendous boost to attain wider awareness.

 Example: We started to walk back towards the house and we both noticed that the power lines were slung very low to the ground about chest height to me. I knew there was a car coming up the road towards us and at the same time felt it was connected up with something to do with the power lines. I was feeling drawn towards touching them, knowing what would happen. Sure enough once I had hold of the power lines my body started to burn up. My body rose to the height of the house windows and I could hear the yells from my burning body, I thought it must be a hell of a shock for everyone looking on. H. C.

Example: I dreamed that huge trees were being cut down on my grandparent’s property. The people cutting the trees were from the power company cutting away from power lines. However, the trees were not in the way of power lines and they were not cutting branches. They cut the trees at the bottom of the trunk. I was enraged and screaming at them. I felt like I was witnessing murder and they were laughing about it.

The dream is a dramatisation of the enormous battle going on inside us and outside of the two opposing attitudes. The view that we are the masters of the Earth and can do what we like with it – and the view that we are part of a huge and wonderful web of Life and we are workers within the web. Our task is to enhance it and therefore our own lives.

 

Useful questions or hints:

How do you react to power or having power?

Does power frighten you, make you want to take control, or do you watch to see what is needed in the situation, read to respond in any way needed?

What way did the dream show you reacting?

See powerMartial Art of the MindLife’s Little SecretsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Pray

Expressive of an inner desire, fear or need. Also an alignment of self with your wholeness. May present information about the inner self of which we are unaware. See: Meditation.

Prayer

Depending upon feelings in dream: Dreaming or praying could indicate you are looking for certainty in face of anxieties; or seeking approval or authority for ones desires. It could be an expression of pleasure and thanks or seeking co-operation of unconscious faculties to aid ones everyday activities. In some dreams it is definitely an attempt to channel the forces of the divine or allowing them to shine out of you, perhaps in support of others or for healing. See: spiritual life in dreams.

 Example: As I did so, once more the door creaked open, and in came the black men. This time none of my waving of hands in the sign of the cross, and all my magic words stopped them. They reached me and their hands went around my throat to strangle me. I woke up screaming and terrified.

The black men were found to be symbols of his own repressed sexual urges. They had been buried so long they appeared as if out of a grave. As with another dreamer, the sign of the cross will not cast out our own internal urges and splendid life energy. After all, it has often been the church that put the conflict there in the first place as a means of social and individual control. So how can the cross help, unless we associate it with love and life?

 Edgar Cayce said that prayer is two sided; we may be asking something from Life/God/ the More – or we are listening to find out what Life/God/ the More might be wanting from us. See Heart Beats of Prayer; Prayer And Dream Interpretation

 In computer use for instance, it is now commonplace to have an image on the screen that connects us either with information stored on the hard disk, or will evoke a programmed response linked with the image. So by moving our cursor to an image and clicking on it we can start a program such as a word processor; or we can cause to be displayed information such as a book, music or a photograph, that is stored on the hard disk. In a similar way, by learning to use prayer, or a condition in which you are engrossed in a directed fantasy – such as meditation or prayer – and by using a dream image in such fantasy, you can evoke responses from parts of you usually inaccessible. See

There are classic ways of using prayer, and each culture has its own traditional methods. But because there are so many different ‘places’ prayer can take us – everything from apparent time travel to contact with the dead – it has to be understood that some of the techniques relate to specific areas of experience. Alcohol for instance has a general tendency to make one less capable physically and to deaden ones sensitivity. Some of the best known techniques are listed below.

✉ Meditation and prayer in their many forms. These may use imagery and fantasy; the mental repetition of a phrase, question or prayer; the stilling of the thoughts and emotions; the evoking of love and passion for a god or God; the directing of attention along particular pathways. This latter may be done by concentrating deeply on a question or problem. In these ways one calls on what is ‘out of sight’ within the psyche to respond. One that I have successfully used is called Enlightenment Intensive.  See: meditation – goals of.

✉ Body postures, movements and dance. Experiments with some body postures in particular setting have produced marked changes in states of awareness. See Body Posture and Religious Altered States of Consciousness by Felicitas D. Goodman which appeared in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Summer 1986. Also see Magnetism and Magic by Baron Du Potet De Sennevoy.

Allowing spontaneous body movements, as occurs in many forms of sacred practices such as early Pentecostalism, Shaktipat in India, Subud in Indonesia, Setai in Japan, can quickly lead to pronounced experiences of holy contact. Given movements, such as the dance of the Dervishes, is also a way many cultures use to produce particular forms of inner experience. In many of these practices, the results may be due to the movements or posture helping the person to let go of their thinking and will, enabling an easier emergence of unconscious material usually suppressed by dominant processes. The whirling of the Dervishes is particularly expressive of this. See The LifeStream.

Human beings of all ages have, when opening to the influence of their larger perceptions during meditation, trance, and prayer, experienced awareness of love existing behind the creation of things, a love that is the source of the big-bang itself, a love that willingly died that we might exist. Humanity became aware of this at a particular stage of the development of self-awareness. See Big Bang and God are the Same

 

 Beads are often used for prayer in some countries, as in Greece, in Buddhism and with the rosary. So the bead or beads might be a way of concentrating on a prayer.

  ‘The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches.’ John P.

In the example John sees the dogmas of the church as an assault and degradation of human qualities of love and moral support. He energetically stands by his feelings about the church.

 Example: In ancient Egypt, dreams were regarded with religious reverence, especially as means of indicating remedies in illnesses’; and that ‘the prayers of worshipers are often rewarded by the indication of a remedy in a dream.’ An Egyptian prayer to this effect reads ‘Turn thy face to-wards me. Tis thou who dost accomplish miracles and art benevolent in all thy doings; ‘tis thou who givest children to him that hath none. Tis thou who hast created magic, and established the heavens and the earth and the lower world; ‘tis thou who canst grant me the means of saving all.’

Example: The following dream has a very deep meaning and a clear guidance-message: The dreamer is in a dark, swampy forest. It is night. He has lost his way and is desperate, not knowing where to go, wallowing in the morass . . . He is not religious, but he falls on his knees and begins to pray, imploring the Higher Forces to help him out of this predicament and to show him the way!. . Suddenly a clear ray of light appears from the black sky, moving and showing a stable way among the boggyness. He rushes forward! But after several steps on the right path — he loses it and feels very frightened and lonely. He falls on his knees again, praying and begging for guidance and help. . . The golden ray reappears from above, leading him out of the dark and swampy dangerous forest. . Three or four times he goes astray, losing the right way. The helpful golden beam always reappears after he offers a sincere and deep prayer to be shown the right direction, where to go, the way out of the darkness and bog. . . His prayer was right: he asked no favors, no gifts, only the right way.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Do I dislike prayer or feel prayer is for the weak?

Have I found prayer uplifts or strengthens me?

How do I pray – always for help – or sometimes from the joy of being?

Have any of my prayers been answered?

See Jesse Watkins EnlightenmentUsing Symbols to Change Life ProblemsMyths Legends and Fairy Stories Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Precipice

Fear of falling, therefore feelings of insecurity or anxiety. Fear of failure, or if you are at the foot of the cliff or precipice, you are facing a difficulty in attaining your goal. But the precipice is also an opportunity to leap into the unknown or make a great change. Remember that in dreams you can fly, and never get hurt. So all you are facing is your fears, and they are holding you back from a new experience of yourself. So while awake, imagine jumping over the edge and flying, or seeing what is beyond. See: CliffFall.

 Example: I dreamt that I was at the top of a smooth top cliff, there were metal rails, that had a gap you could walk around, I had moved to the outside where I could look down at the sea, a really long drop, where I knew many people jump into the sea.

My niece Emma and Shane her husband were there, Emma pushed at the back of my head not to push me off but to encourage me to move. I decided to jump I experienced the jump, but then I realised that I had not got wet, saying to Emma my hairs not wet. How did that happen? Brenda B

In exploring her dream Brenda said: When working with Tony, he asked me to become Emma, to speak as her. I started by saying that as a child I had to stand on my own feet because of my parents. Also I had to find my own way in the world. That made me quite tough and I wouldn’t let anyone – especially men – get near me. I felt this made me different from a lot of other kids, and sometimes a bit pushy. I have a habit of jumping into things, which is why I nudged Brenda to take the jump.

I instantly felt as I spoke as her that she was a part of me, having to be independent at a young age, a tough armour, ready to react to anything, no support.

Dropping into the sea was me dropping into my unconscious which felt that I was in my element, a place that I could move freely.

In becoming Shane, there is a feeling of an ex military man, who has a sense of loss, who is putting on a brave front, keeping it all together on the outside, with a loss of family. For him family being army mates. I understood this refers to me, I feel the loss of what I thought my family role would be. It is good to be faced with that feeling as it has been around but not shown to me for a long time.

If at the top: Fear of failure; on the edge of losing confidence; loss of all security; choice of direction – toward safety or into extreme stress or fear; near to a leap into the unknown or great change.

Being at the top or edge of a precipice can also represent having the courage to look into the vastness, to realise the enormity of space. It can confront you with your own littleness, your own small beliefs because it is a confrontation with reality. Because of that it might be leading you to enlightenment.

If precipice drops into a void: Death; the unconscious or unknown. See void

If at bottom: Sense of insurmountable obstacle in life.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Where are you in relationship with the precipice?

Are you scared of it or is it enlightenment?

Have you jumped off it or ready to?

See EnlightenmentThere Is A Huge Change Happening –  Summing Up – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Predators

Predators in dreams can indicate the sexual or someone or something that watches, plans and lies in wait to use you often in awful ways. Apart from animals that are part of natural cycles, there are human predators, men and women.

A police reports says, “A woman needs only to get a guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask him home for no strings attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach. After several beers, men will often succumb to the desires to sleep with horrific looking women whom they would never normally be attracted to. At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life’s savings, in a familiar scam known as “a relationship”. Obviously this applies to men also.

Sex in one form or another is usually at the base of most dreams including the theme of predation.

I have lived alone for ages now – it means doing everything; keeping up with the requests; cooking, house cleaning; keeping the garden tidy; feeding the cats and odd jobs about the house; putting myself to bed – I sleep like a log; oh yes, and clearing up body parts left as gifts by my cats. Sometimes people complain to me that cats are such predators. And I have to smile, because cats are very open about their predatory life. But everybody especially humans and dog owners are tremendous predators, except they have all the enormous killing done out of sight and the results neatly packed up.

I know there are arguments against that – the red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest stuff – but the great predators are in a symbiotic relationship in that they kill out the weak and so strengthen the species.

In recent years, a species of wild ducks were dying out. So wardens killed their predators, a species of hawk. To the warden’s surprise, the ducks were dying faster than ever. It was then found that the ducks had a disease, the hawks had been killing the diseased birds, and so helping the survival of the healthy ones.

A similar thing was discovered with herd animals, the predators aided the health of the herd.

But we are all predators, even vegans, for it is now known that plants too have a form of consciousness. According to David Attenborough, “plants can see…count and communicate with one another…react to touch and estimate time.” These claims are supported by the facts that plants turn towards the light, and even prepare themselves for sunrise by facing east in anticipation; trigger hairs on plants react to touch; there is even a social element in plant behaviour in that they fight enemies for territory and compete for mates in order to ensure the survival of the species. Even bacteria share information with each other? They share what they have learned even with species of bacteria that are different. They give each other building blocks of what they have learned. If they have learned how to deal with a particular substance that is poisonous to them, then they will pass that information on to other bacteria. They give what they have learned. That is so fundamental to life even bacteria do it.

But the so called primitive tribal people usually give thanks and honour the animals and plants they predate. Such honour means they care for what they take.

Pregnant Pregnancy

A new area of your potential or personality developing; a deepening relationship with your potential is producing a new area of experience, talent or facet of your personality. It is still unexpressed but is developing; a new scheme or creative idea ‘hatching’.

This can point to the development of a new approach to life, a new project you are creating, a new outlet of expression, or new faculty.

If you are pregnant when you dream this, don’t be too worried by anxiety dreams about the baby. Virtually all women have them. Only get worried if they persist. A scan can quickly see if you are anxious or intuitive. See: pregnancy and dreams, and your dream baby for a longer description.

 Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.

The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy. The little fish also points to her having conceived.

In a woman’s dream: May refer to desire for a child; fear of being pregnant – i.e. in a relationship but not wanting to be pregnant. For a woman being pregnant may depict what is resulting from a relationship with a man she has become deeply involved with. The following example illustrates this.

 Example: I dreamt I was pregnant and was certain the father was a man I feel a lot of love for. However as I was dreaming I realised he had a vasectomy so couldn’t be the father. This caused me to feel great uncertainty and I was questioning who the father could be as I hadn’t been with anyone else. Also I realised the pregnancy lasted 11 months and the baby was due. Angela.

Angela felt a great connection with a man who had told her he could never be her partner, and although good friends, had pulled away from any sexual contact. This caused great confusion in Angela because she had got a lot from the relationship, shown by the pregnancy. The confusion as to who the father was probably depicts her search for a man who could help her ‘give birth’ to the new and positive direction in life that had arisen from the current but platonic relationship. See Women’s creative power

If pregnant at time of dream: Anxieties regarding pregnancy and birth – Carolyn Winget and Frederic Kapp researched on the dreams of 70 pregnant women. Those women whose dreams included a high percentage of anxiety themes were the ones who delivered their babies in the shortest time – less than ten hours. The conclusion was that by allowing feelings of anxiety in our dreams we are less influenced by anxiety in waking, and we can deal with situations more confidently.

In a man’s dream: A man who cares for his partner and children will often dream about his partners pregnancy – or even dream about himself being pregnant.

 Example: Was in a basement. Brenda/Sonia was giving birth to a Baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it, without a doctor being there. I remember Sonia chewed through the cord. I looked at the baby, it was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious. Then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!”

Here the man gave birth to a new special part of himself, aided by the love he had developed for two women – Brenda and Sonia. A man’s love develops out of his feelings for women in his life, and this was what enabled him to birth a new and special part of his potential.

 Example: I went into the house. My wife screamed due to some trouble of her period. She was pregnant, and the troubles she was having were the traditional signs that she was pregnant and bearing a special child. I felt that the whole pregnancy would be difficult due to these signs of the special child, but the delivery would be easier. I didn’t feel too pleased about her having a baby, but soon adjusted to the idea.

This dream occurred about eight days after he had sex with his wife because he had dreamt a powerful spirit had spoke asking him to help form a body for it.

Pregnant without a man involved: See No Man

Someone else pregnant in dream: An aspect of oneself about to bring forth new characteristics; an intuition about that person. See: Example under girl; cave; third example under penis in body; second example under baby; birth dreams during pregnancy. See also: birth.

 

Useful questions and hints:

If you sum up, what are your dreams saying about being pregnant?

Are you feeling okay now about scary dreams?

Do your dreams give you insight into what is happening with your unborn baby?

See African Babies Don’t CryThe Limbic ImprintMy Needs As a Premature BabyInfluencing Your Unborn Child

Pregnant in my Dream

A young woman send this dream, and there are so may like it.

I had a dream that I was 3 months pregnant. I don’t know who the father is but I have a feeling I know who. What does this mean? Will I get pregnant soon?

Many women get pregnant in dreams without any man involved. And in fact you are pregnant now – not in a physical way but within you – for you carry a new life, a new you that can be born if you treasure it. The new life is a part of you that wishes to become active in your life, a part of that that hasn’t had the opportunity to be expressed before.

Of course it is shown as a baby because anything new in us that is seeking life is vulnerable and needs to be cared for and nurtured.

Will you get pregnant soon? Well that depends on whether you want to or have the opportunity to. But the dream does suggest that you are ready for being a mother and that your dream is perhaps a practice run.

Example:I dreamt I was heavily pregnant and naked, lying on the floor of a dark room with one light directed on me. My ex-boyfriend was next to me, naked, stroking my hair, telling me everything was going to be alright. In the dream I felt physically sick but inwardly perfectly calm and at peace. But I am confused as I am only 15 and there’s no chance I’m pregnant.

Within the virtual reality of her dream, Sandra is experimenting with her ability to attract a man using her physical appeal. Having tried this out in her dream Sandra may or may not use this in her everyday life. The dream Joanne describes is common among young women. It involves either being pregnant, or actually giving birth. In both cases it is a way of gaining confidence and meeting anxieties about the possibility of pregnancy. It allows the dreamer to gain experience in an area that would be difficult, painful or dangerous to experiment with in waking life. In this and many other ways, your dreams allow you to explore without the risks you would meet in waking life. See: magical dream machine.

Prehistoric Primeval

Levels of being that developed in you in ages past, and are given to you as a physical and mental heritage. We feel these as instincts, as profoundly strong reactions to situations. It is the part of us that makes the hair stand up at times when we sense something we do not understand consciously. See Levels of the Brain

This usually refers to deep levels of your unconscious; your basic and instinctive responses to life events and people, or perhaps unconscious powers and activities. The levels of your brain and body that developed in ages past. Your own primeval urges and drives, such as fear, territorial aggression, mating rituals, survival; urges that have not been integrated fully into our present social situation, perhaps because they were repressed during childhood or because you were not strong enough to meet them.  Many of our social rituals – such as the father giving the daughter in marriage that possibly arose out of the need to allay aggression between males, and break the father’s sexual bond with the daughter – arose from these basic drives. Also our babyhood or prenatal life.

 Example: A number of us, soldiers, were moving up to the battlefront. We had to climb over a pile of rubble, like a wall, and ran across open ground. There was a great fear of being shot down as we came into the open. This did not happen, and once passed the obstacle I felt it was actually a sort of training circuit getting us used to battle conditions. We moved on into the fighting. A volcanic type of eruption from the bowels of the earth spewed up a prehistoric monster. There was a lot more, but cannot clearly remember.

The dream came just before the man was able to allow a deeply buried childhood trauma to emerge. The prehistoric creature was a release of a power that was the means of releasing such ancient and trapped emotions.  See Life’s Little Secrets

 

Premonition

When we have a premonition in a dream, it may not necessarily materialise. Sometimes it must be taken symbolically. To dream of a fall down a ladder may easily symbolise apprehension with regard to the loss of your job, failure in marriage, or losing the esteem of others. A premonition of a drowning son may symbolise the feeling that hopes in life are being drowned by anxiety. But of course, a few such dreams do predict actual events. There is usually a particular tone about such dreams that one can learn to notice. It is usually very clear and direct.

Prescription

This may be a suggestion from your unconscious that you should take seriously.

 Sometimes is can be a warning to take particular foods or vitamins or even a warning against taking a particular medicine. Or it can be a health or attitude situation that needs help with. It is often not prescribing a medicine but something you should do, a new direction in life or new attitudes.

Example: After getting inside the dentist’s office they called my name and I went up to the desk.  They gave me a prescription I have never heard of.  On the bottle it said that it “was for calming, but not to be taken by those who are over active with the main vein.”

 Example: He was not able to work and then we lost our house. It was obvious, after his death that he kept his prescription addiction a secret and unfortunately, I was not aware of the depth of his condition when he took his life. My husband passed away from a drug overdose on Feb. 28, ’11. I have had several dreams of him and feel him around me all the time (even with objects that have been obviously moved to get my attention) – but not once in these dreams does he speak.

Useful questions or hints:

What did you understand from the dream prescription?

Are there things you can apply or do?

Is it a response from a health worry you have?

See Water WonderlandBody DowsingSuper OrganismTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Useful questions or hints:

What did you understand from the dream prescription?

Are there things you can apply or do?

Is it a response from a health worry you have?

See Water WonderlandBody DowsingSuper OrganismTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Present Presents

Depends very much on who or what gives the present. May symbolise the giving or receiving of love, recognition, depending on the context.

If you can, examine the presents given and what you feel about them and wish to do with them. Are they life affirming or dangerous?

Receiving: Pleasure, expectation or disappointment. Being affirmed; feeling recognised or loved; gaining something from a relationship.

Giving: feelings of warmth or even love – or it might be a habit or duty through expectation. Giving of self – negative or positive; perhaps having sex. If it is a present actually received in life, probably relates to giver and how it was given. See: parcel or package.

 Example: Dreamt last night I visited S. at a house. She came to the door and gave me two presents. I put them in my pocket. One was a revolver, and I believe the other was a ring. Then I walked along a lonely road, I believe it was dusk. The road led past an army camp on the right – perhaps American? Before I got to the camp I was stopped and searched by two soldiers. This was because the camp was very important, or secret, and only those known to be safe were allowed near it. When the revolver was found, I was immediately suspected of ill motives. They said, “Well, even if you had no intentions of using this gun in connection with the camp, the fact you are walking that way, and carrying a gun, makes you suspect.” I felt I was in a very awkward situation, and kept thinking what a fool I was not to have realised the gun would be seen in this light. But as one of the men was examining it, in some way it fired. Instead of a bullet however, a little flag popped out. On it was written, “I love you.” The atmosphere immediately changed, and became even more positive and loving than it would have been without the original suspicion.

 Being present: Represents readiness to listen to or respond to what else the dream shows you.

Example: I’m making love to Howard. It is pleasant. Then he turns and presents his butt so I can lick his penis. I’m not thrilled, but everything else is so pleasant, I guess I can accommodate him.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Was I giving or receiving? See giving; receive

What feelings did I experience or were suggested in the dream?

What was the present(s)?

See Key WordsContext/ThemeContext/Theme Being the Person or Thing

Press

See: Newspaper.

Prey

Either the victim or others’ desires, or victimising others. The fear of being hurt or destroyed in some way. There is a play here between the top dog and under dog; the victim and the victimised.

This depends on who or what is the victim and what or who the hunter. It may show you being the victim of others’ desires, or victimising others as preying on another. The fear of being hurt or destroyed in some way. Preying (possible pun for “praying”).

If it is a bird of prey it might appear as a threatening influence. Also because it often represents wider awareness it may at times feel as if you are ‘carried away’. Being lifted into the unknown in this way can cause unwarranted fear.

The word prey can also indicate how millions of people why fall easy prey to petty worries, fears and self-pity. See Martial Art of the Mind

The man who fears the communications of his inner world is as much afraid of the feminine element in himself as he is of real women. At one moment he is fascinated by her, at another he tries to escape; fascinated and terrified, he flees so as not to become her “prey.” He does not dare to approach a beloved (and therefore idealised) partner with his animal-like sexuality.

 Example: Last night I had a dream that I went out on my back deck and a hawk swooped down right in front of me, into a pool of small birds and caught one. As it settled over top of its prey it clutched its prey tighter. It was now gigantic and its wings spanned clear across my backyard. As it arched it’s back it spread its wings, and made direct eye contact with me as it knocked the birds out of the sky that were trying to get him to release his prey. As it begins to take flight it reached down and pecked its caught prey in the head killing it. Then it began to hover where it was in front of me flapping its wings in a soothing motion. I remember I was really excited and was gripped with awe, so much so I began to jump up and down in disbelief that he was 10 x’s as big as me and that no one else was seeing it or had seen it. Then I woke up and was still so excited and at awe to have seen this.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Am I the prey in the dream, or am I preying on someone else?

Does this represent the fear of being hurt or destroyed in some way?

Do I feel I am victimizing others?

See Because Factormeeting things I fear or dislike in my dreamDream YogaTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Priest Priestess

Depends on the attitude to priests or priestesses, and experiences of them. May represent religious or spiritual aspirations. Sense of sin; sympathy; a sense of community; a non sexual relationship. Sometimes an expression of your own wider awareness and wisdom.

Ones religious beliefs; ones relationship with religious beliefs.

There is a sentence in some marriage ceremonies which says, “With my body I thee worship.” This may seem like a statement of religious nonsense, but I sense it comes from a deep insight into the innermost nature of women and men.

I see that because we are creatures created by the laws of nature, which are the laws of the universe, without which we would not exist. It is also obvious that you and I would not exist without the universe, and living beings on our planet are in some mysterious way a fulfilment of the forces and possibilities of this universe that is our home. Therefore, if we are part of and an expression of the forces integral in our universe, why shouldn’t we reflect the universe in some way, and its dimensions? Isn’t that the message of the mysteries? “Let us make them in our own image.” See

As an image of this glory we are all priestesses and priests; but we may not know it until we dig deep in ourselves to touch our core self. See Core Self; Creation

When we touch our core we come to recognise a woman’s body as the centre of creative forces which can bring forth a new being – creation. As such she is a thing to be worshipped. This should not be seen as worship of her personality or ego, for it is the holiness of the Life function of creation that is worshipped not her personality. That is why she is a priestess rather than a person. For a priestess is a server of the divine. There Is A Huge Change Happening

The same applies to the divinity of manhood – the priest.

 Example: Then, in standing in the role of the woman, I felt my beauty as a female. Not that I was particularly beautiful, or like a film star in my own looks. My feelings were that simply as a healthy woman I was beautiful – that womanhood is beautiful. I felt the fullness of my body with my rounded arms, full breasts, round thighs and calves. I had stood naked revealing myself in this act of worship. This had no lasciviousness in it or any connection with pornography. It was a ‘revelation’ of female beauty to be felt and worshipped.

And I, wandering and at ease with the paths And ancient stones, Came to a low wall

Above an open rising courtyard. And then below me, in that place of worship, a woman stood naked and adored.

No painting beauty, yet beautiful. Full limbs with Swelling hips and breasts, simply and wonderfully woman.

She was and is the revelation – There for any to see the splendour of this most ancient goddess – Revealed and revealing – While I knew all the ancient fires that burn in worship, and heard the voices singing to her flowering.

 

 Useful questions or hints:

Have I ever sensed in myself the splendour that made me a priestess or priest?

Do I ever dream of such a person I love and adore?

Do I feel religious feelings are foolish and I don’t need them?

See Diving into the Depths of MindTalking to Inner SelfEntering the SilenceTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Prince

Conscious (or in a woman may be unconscious) intellectual, masculine qualities. Sometimes it depicts the attitudes and qualities in us that searches for truth, tries to find a way through personal difficulties, or attempts to direct or use the physical and mental heritage. It is also often used to represent the best in a man, and an ideal male in a woman’s dream.

The best aspect of the dreamer if male; ones brother or lover/boyfriend if female. It can represent the animus in a female dream. Conscious (or in a woman may be unconscious) intellectual, masculine qualities. Sometimes it depicts the attitudes and qualities in us that searches for truth, tries to find a way through personal difficulties, or attempts to direct or use the physical and mental heritage. It is also often used to represent the best in a man, and an ideal male in a woman’s dream. See: anima; animus – under archetypes.

A prince can also indicate noble birth and the possibility if inheritance. In a dream it can suggest a fuller expression of your innate immense potential; also your ability to be of service to others. The negative side of it is that you might believe yourself to be superior or of better class than others, perhaps feeling you have the right to order others about.

This might be likened to the story involving a young prince – Buddha –  who lived a life of intense advantage and in looking at the life of those not so advantaged felt their pain. He did not preach a way of the rich sharing what they had with everyone, as was and is done in such systems as the Native Americans or many tribal people, but taught a way to escape from pain by killing their sense of self. And of course it still carries on, and today we are a people who are medicated out of their social pain.

Example: With a prince in Chaing Mai. Unlike another prince he is driving a white Toyota Corolla. A very nondescript car and not a new one at that. I have a feeling the car is stored for him in the auto club.

The dream obviously indicates the advantages of class, but the prince does not show off his position but drives an ordinary car, another indication of class.

We partake in that extraordinary moment of creation all the time. And it is only when we can love broadly that we can be a part of it. It is only when we can love that broadly that we can enter into it without manipulating it. But there is a quiet presence to be drawn upon if we so seek. That presence enters every moment. There is no moment more significant than another. This is the moment of creation. This is the moment when you can recreate yourself – again and again and again. Or perhaps you want to create yourself again, and hold onto that moment. Or you can play with it until you have exhausted it and let it lie in the way. Isn’t that life, when we hold on to moments, a lover, a beloved, the child, the lost waif, princess and the prince, business person, the world dominator – my God, the roles we can assume are extraordinary. And it’s all okay because it is all a part of creation and creativity. Nothing is ever lost or destroyed.

Another prince represents another path. The prince in the story The Sleeping Beauty represents our conscious mind, our intellect and worldly experience, that feels incomplete, that knows a longing for this ‘other half’. He is more than just our ‘conscious mind’ however. He is a particular state of consciousness, for he dares to search for a Myth. His longing, his incompleteness makes him brave, ready to test the truth or falsity of the Legend. He is certainly not an indifferent consciousness, who stumbles accidentally on the Beloved. He has to cut his way through the terrible briars and thorns surrounding the hidden castle. In these brambles others have been lost and died, for they are all the confusion, pain and ignorance that surround and hide our own ‘Sleeping Beauty’ that lead others to depression and suicide. To reach her we have to face, to experience, to cut through this hedge of ignorance, fear and cynicism that has grown around our own happiness and completeness.

Example: I am out in the countryside somewhere walking along and it is wet – raining? – a swamp like area and I see one crocodile in the water, then another, then another. I start to flee in one direction, and then I see another. They are everywhere and it appears I am going to die. Then a man – a kind of Prince Charles-like figure – very calm, self-assured, steady, and deliberate – shows up with another man and the Prince Charles figure fires a shot at one of the crocs and I am saved. Because I was so frightened I want him to keep shooting, but he doesn’t really need to and doesn’t. The threat is over.

The dreamers comments on this are: I feel like I am going to be overcome by archaic instinctual forces, but I am save by a calm, forceful, self-assured, steady, deliberate masculine part of me.

Useful questions or hints:
What qualities feelings do I associate with the ‘prince’?
Does it represent a positive or a negative attitude?
Do I feel the specialness of being created by the universe?
What was my relationship with the prince?
See What Can be Done – Active Passive – Context/Theme – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Princess

Conscious (or in a man may be unconscious) emotional, intuitive, feminine qualities. Sometimes represents the inner self, receptive, gentle, sympathetic nature. A sense of beauty and love in alignment with life. The princess in a woman’s dream can depict her strength to search for meaning and ways to positively deal with difficulties and personal problems.

The best aspect of the dreamer if female; ones lover/girlfriend if male. It can represent the anima in a male dream. See: animaanimus 

 From the examples below you can see that dreaming of being a princess can mean you expect to get your own way in life, or being regarded as someone important or of higher rank in the social order.

 Example: I am an important person, maybe a princess. I am in a wheelchair and go out for a walk. I am surrounded by reporters and gawkers that crowd around me and get in my way. They are shouting questions. I am aloof and angry. I intimidate them. They want to rush forward and help me, but I stare at them and they don’t dare. Barb S.

Example: I am a queen or princess. I can have anything I want. I feel sexually excited and grab a man and slide him under me and make love to him. I don’t care who he is. I have an orgasm.

The princess in the story of Sleeping Beauty depicts another aspect of a dream Princess. The Princess is part of the duality of each of us, male and female. It not only is it the female aspect of a male, or the essence of femininity in a female, but the Princess also represents what is lost in most of us, put to sleep by losing awareness of our whole world of faculties – the unconscious. Literally it is only gained by going to sleep – our waking intellect has to ‘go to sleep’ to be aware if it. But the princess has to go to sleep in us so that the critical intellect can develop. When this development has taken place, then the two aspects of self, the rational and irrational can marry.  

The frog and the princess who aids the frog to transform in a prince are about the power of transformation in our inner world. The things we despise or avoid are often – in our dream world – the things that have wonderful qualities of transformation. See transformation; creative dreaming

 Example: I entered through an old fashioned drapers shop to find several people there at some sort of meeting and realised it was a group of royalty with their aides, etc.  I was to join Princess Diana as a princess. I think I stayed by her and she told me how to behave and what to say to the dignitaries. She told me not to be nervous and that I would soon get used to the life. I sat next to her and she had on her lovely print going away outfit with the print ostrich feather hat. I remember saying to her that it still looked smart, and, “I don’t suppose you will be casting it off yet?” I had my eye on it.

This Princess dream appears to be an exposure to old world values and ways of behaviour – Princess Diana was obviously a role model that she must have admired  and ‘had her eye on’ and so became an inner world figure. See Inner World Making

 A subtle and negative form of a dream princess is one who asks her male to answer question that are riddles. If the men cannot answers the questions, they must die-and she wins.

This depicts the men in a destructive intellectual game. It is typified in men who are so locked into the neurotic pseudo-intellectual dialogues that the man is trapped in his feelings of intellectual superiority and is stopped from getting into direct touch with life and its real decisions. He reflects about life so much that he cannot live it and loses all his spontaneity and outgoing feelings

There are many more stories with deep meanings, like Snow White and the seven dwarfs, and Cinderella; the Greek hero Perseus saves the Ethiopian princess Andromeda from a sea-monster and later marries her. These are all variation of lifting inner awareness out of its dark imprisonment and welcoming it – and, indeed, submitted to it – as an indispensable factor in ones life and happiness.

 

Useful questions or hints:

What was my relationship with the princess?

Was I the princess – or in love with her?

Was she a dominant figure in need of rescuing?

See Myths Legends and Fairy Tales in DreamsInner World MakingIndividuation–   Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Prison Prisoner Imprisoned

Most often it depicts feelings of being imprisoned by the inability to cope with circumstances, moods, or relatives. You may be trapped by inadequacies, fears, moral codes, ambitions, sense of superiority or a relationship. If the person imprisoning you is a male or female, you need look at what is happening in your relationship that either makes you dependent, or robs you of freedom in some way. See Beware of Love

One of the most frequent sources of imprisonment is your own habits, trapping you in old ways of feeling and responding. But it can be the result of any limiting influence within, or outside of you. If the influence seems to be from outside, it is only because you have not yet discovered your own attitudes that make you subject to that limitation. So they trap you through your own anxiety, patterns of behaviour, and concepts such as right and wrong, good and bad.  See HabitsAvoid Being Victims

 Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression of having been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity. Suddenly I realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was myself. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. I dropped the attitudes and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I dropped other habits of emotion and thought with which I had trapped and tortured myself. I realised I could be totally free within myself. One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. So intense was it I cried out. The cell mates called a warden. They stood looking at me as I experienced a radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was mad. Nothing would ever be the same again. Andy.

Andy in fact achieved this freedom by applying what he learnt in the dream. But it took practice and using the wonderful lesson.

Useful questions or hints: What does the dream show as the cause of being imprisoned?

Was there a ‘because’ factor involved? See Because Factor

Did I dream of a way out of imprisonment?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming See: imprisoned; wolf under animals; cage or cell; escape; holding; trapped.

Prize

Some gain in self understanding or insight found through your endeavours. Realising or achieving something valuable. Recognition of your own skill, growth or achievement. A desire to win, or be superior. Fear of losing. Feeling rewarded; occasionally intuition about a coming acclaim; feeling good about yourself, therefore self congratulation; can also be compensatory in that you want or need praise and recognition.

 To understand what the prize refers to, you must remember that most of the processes of your life take place unconsciously – for instance digestion, heartbeat and cell regeneration. What you might not know is that this unconscious action sometimes expresses as if it were an independent part of you. It comments through intuition and dreams on how well or badly you are treating these vital life processes, in fact life itself. So a dream prize can be a positive comment from your unconscious that you are relating well to Life.  

This was shown in woman’s dream in which her prize was the realisation of the part her masculine side played in her life and success.

If someone else is receiving the prize do you feel jealous? If you do, then you are feeling unrewarded and in need of praise. The unconscious respects above all else efforts toward becoming a fuller and more balanced person. Even if the dream prize is for a race or tournament, it can still be about succeeding in the human ‘race’ we all take part in.

If you are generally unrewarded in life, the dream might be compensatory because you need encouragement. In which case take time to recognise the things you have achieved and are good at.

 Example: There are a bunch of tiny burros and we try to ride them. If we stay on long enough, we win a prize. The prize is permission to make love to a person of our choice, if they agree. Several men try to ride and don’t make it. I manage to hang on and win. I am given a small container with birth control stuff in it. I like this one man and am shy and want to ask him, but am afraid to. I am on a bed area that belongs to my parents. Then I put a small kitten in a car where his puppy already is. I get into the driver’s seat of the car with the animals. A part where I choose another man to make love to and get into a cubicle and we start to thump and bump when the man of my real choice is upset and tries to figure out a way to intervene. He does interrupt, maybe making a noise or sending someone in or slamming a door. I come out before the thing has gone to orgasm.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Are you receiving the prize?

What is the prize for?

Have you been rewarded in life generally?

Have I gained some self-understanding or insight?

Is this about the desire to win or to be superior?

See KarmaThe Fundamental ProcessHow it FlowsSurvival SkillsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Problem solving dreams

See: creativity and problem solving dreams; Using symbols to change life problems; Problems in Pregnancy; Communications With Vicky; Life’s Little Secrets; Self Observation; Releasing Your Inner Genius.

Procession

In dreams witnessing or being part of a procession often depicts ones life and it experiences passing before you, and it often involves feelings about death.

A procession can be about many things, a celebration of a famous or loved person’s visit; a royal or state celebrity visiting; a lot of decorated floats as part of a towns annual event; a march of war veterans; a show of power as when a country displays its weaponry; the end of a war celebration; a statement of opposition such as the black people’s march or as a statement of opposition or protest; an expression of a peoples creativity and nature as in Mardi Gras, Rio Carnival and of course the showing of beauty and the gay community.

So in considering your dream you need to decide what sort of parade it is. Is it a protest or claiming territory march; a parade of beauty; a political procession, or a famous person and her followers. Also what is happening in the dream. To help with this see Plot/theme of the DreamRole in the dreamThe Bare Bones

 (The picture is of a beautiful woman in the Notting Hill Carnival in London each year).

 Example: Then I was in a building overlooking streets packed with people. It was a festival and procession in this strange alien world, in which everything had a rather dark, dilapidated look. I had a camera that took a three-dimensional moving picture that was displayed in a still form. Like a print you could hold in your hand that moved, or even responded to you. Again a magic of this world.

On a raised mobile platform a goddess stood as she was carried in a procession which                   flowed past. I loved her and flew to her, skimming above the heads of the people. She had agreed to let me photograph her. I talked to her. She told me that the only love I could receive from her was that which I gave to a human woman. Inasmuch as I gave love to a human female, she would love me. She was all women.

Example: I am standing alone in a wood. It is very wet under foot. Suddenly I hear the tramp of many feet. I walk to the edge of the wood and watch a procession of hooded men in long black cloaks walk past. They are carrying a coffin. I join the procession which walks several hundred yards up to the top of a hill. There a grave has been prepared. When the coffin is lowered into the grave, I turn to the man nearest me and ask who is being buried. He turns and shows a featureless face. He then mentions my name. At this point I always wake.

Example: I was in a procession for some important occasion or other and my job was to be at the front and behind me was the big important car with whoever the bigwigs were in it. I had an elaborate costume on and someone asked me about it and I explained, ‘You know how in the early days of the motor car someone had to walk in front with a flag? Well I’m the flag!’ and I opened out the costume which sort of draped from my shoulder to reveal the flag and then I and everyone else could see it was the royal standard!

Example: I was on a wide, sandy open plain. There was a high rock coming up out of the desert on my left hand side. I was in a long queue of people who seemed to be either very old or very young. We were all wearing long robes, and all weeping bitterly. We moved forward slowly towards an opening in the ground where steps going downwards could be seen, and gradually the people in front of us made their way downwards. There was no panic, just an orderly procession and the sound of weeping. I woke up before I reached the steps, and I was crying bitterly. Mrs. W.

Example: I was present at a funeral, and moved about in the house among the mourners without being in the least degree able to realise the death of my friend as a case for mourning. I saw the coffin placed in the hearse, and in due course I was marshalled to a place in the funeral procession, which proved to be not in the mourning-coach, but in my own carriage. By my side, in the shadow, sat a gentleman, who, after being silent for a short time, said to me in a well-known voice, “I agree with you that death ought not to be regarded as a subject for mourning, and that the trappings of woe are out of place on an occasion like this.” I looked up to see who it was who had thus divined my own thoughts, and saw, without the least feeling of surprise or fear, that the speaker was no other than the friend whose body was then in the hearse on the way to the grave. It seemed to me to be quite natural that he should thus divine my thought, and that we should be together, he talking and I listening, as if death had not parted us. It also seemed quite natural that a moment or two later he should vanish away as he did, and I be left alone as I was, with a strong conviction that I ought to be able to come and go, divine and speak as he had done.

Example: I was present at a funeral, and moved about in the house among the mourners without being in the least degree able to realise the death of my friend as a case for mourning. I saw the coffin placed in the hearse, and in due course I was marshalled to a place in the funeral procession, which proved to be not in the mourning-coach, but in my own carriage. By my side, in the shadow, sat a gentleman, who, after being silent for a short time, said to me in a well-known voice, “I agree with you that death ought not to be regarded as a subject for mourning, and that the trappings of woe are out of place on an occasion like this.” I looked up to see who it was who had thus divined my own thoughts, and saw, without the least feeling of surprise or fear, that the speaker was no other than the friend whose body was then in the hearse on the way to the grave. It seemed to me to be quite natural that he should thus divine my thought, and that we should be together, he talking and I listening, as if death had not parted us. It also seemed quite natural that a moment or two later he should vanish away as he did, and I be left alone as I was, with a strong conviction that I ought to be able to come and go, divine and speak as he had done. He was aware of a faint glow of light in their eyes, however, which suggested a potential for greater animation and vitality.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Was I in the procession or an onlooker?

What did I observe was happening in the crowd?

Did I have any emotions or feelings?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsProcessing DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Project

In a dream may be shown as something you or someone else working on something. Often you are working on a computer. Or is the project something in you – self change you are working on. What are you cooking up inside you, imagining or fantasying is often the beginning of a new project. Occasionally the project is a real expression of yourself that is rewarding.

Does it show you at work at a desk? Is it with a feeling of pleasure or something you are working at/on? Am I at the beginning of a new project or way of life that is still at the seed or embryo stage?

A project might be like plants or plant, your vulnerable growing parts of you that need care and attention to help them grow. So it could equally apply to a new project or aspect of yourself you are working on.

An abandoned or aborted project: Something that you were involved in and had life for you at some time, but is now either in the past, or that you have withdrawn energy or enthusiasm from, or perhaps given up on. It can be an example of one of the functions of dreams, which is to release held back sexuality and emotion. See: alone; functions of dreams; hero/ine.

 A new project: This may often be shown as the birth of a baby, or opening or entering a door you haven’t been in before. It may be a new opportunity is in the dream, or even a different approach that allows you into a new phase of your life. Sometimes a new relationship brings out new opportunities. Often shown as starting building something. We often say, “We will ‘entertain’ a project, relationship or possibility.

A project that could not get under way: May show in your dream as a beached boat, a stranded car. However if you beach the boat and get out, then it shows the end of a journey, project or relationship.  See Create Creative Creativity; Woman’s Creative Power

Fear that a project will not work: A boat or car capsized or crashed. Or the smashing of something you had started to make. A flag at half mast. Fear of miscarriage can mean the loss of new idea, project or growing aspect of self.  Seeing a hearse may represent the death of an idea or project – but sometimes to can be resurrected. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

 Example: This is a major step forward in the projects I am facing, made possible by the new technology. I hesitated in getting on with because its size, but I decided to finish this amazing and ambitious project.

Example: I am in a meeting room with many people.  Some are from IBM and some from the agency.  We are discussing our project.  We have come up with great, innovative ideas but Ed thinks we need to get permission before we can implement them.  I shake my head to the person sitting next to me that permission isn’t necessary.  We should just do it.

Example: I am asked to work for a project, which is led by a small black boy; perhaps he is 6 years old. He would have to teach me how to make a website and I would have to write texts as well to inform the world. At first I did not want to do it, and then I changed my mind and I made a ‘high five’ with the black boy, as a sign of our agreement. Later I tell my partner that this is what I have been waiting for all of my life and that I said no at first, but that I will do it.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Were you aware of what the project was?

How was the dream presenting it – successful or not?

Was there any advice given or insights about what it would lead to?

See Potential – Energy Sex and Dreams –  Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMagical Dream MachineLifeStream

Projection

The realisation of what you hold within you unconsciously is projected onto the screen of your mind while you dream. This can also refer to illusions arising from within if it in any way connects with trickery. See: Film

All the images, people, animals, places we see in our dreams, are simply your own feelings, fears, hopes and wonder projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind as images. So, it makes sense to take the image of your dream person, thing or animal back into you and own it. In that way, you are actually meeting and dealing with the things about yourself you are not owning or conscious of. That is why dreams are often difficult to understand, because we are hiding things from ourselves. To do this you can use Being the Person or Thing

 It is also important to realise that every image, every scary or terrifying thing, is taken place inside you, in your mind, as you sleep. This means that every awful animal, every scary thing or person, is created out of your own fears and must not be seen as outside you as happens in waking awareness. The problem is that we are often scared of or frightened of actually experiencing our emotions and so they confront us in our dreams. Avoiding them or controlling them is like running away from oneself – there is no escape. If you face them and feel the feelings they will transform into personal power.

Freud felt that in projection thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that we tend to avoid taking responsibility for as one’s own we tend to see them – project them – onto other people. This is sometimes called transference. This is a defence we use to avoid seeing the negative side of ourselves. So instead of seeing that we ourselves are an awful spreader of critical talk, we accuse others of doing it.

It is a way we try to avoid seeing who we really are. for in dreams we often create an outside person – a criminal, sexual pervert, a murderer, a down and out – who are all aspects of oneself. But these are usually not dominant parts of your nature – but even so we are all murderers because we kill or suppress parts of our self; we hold within us at the baby level a completely non moral self, for a baby has no moral judgement and is purely an instinctive being.

The way you talk about others reflects who you are (projection)
For years I walked around with my shoulders hunched, as if my head wanted to crawl into my chest to protect myself against external attacks.

In reality, this attitude reflected that I was filled with aggression, but I did not dare to admit that I harboured such (“bad”?!??) feelings.

Take a piece of paper and write down the name of a person you greatly appreciate.
Underneath it you write down ten individual words (no sentences) that express his or her good qualities.

If you are done you erase/delete the name of this person. Instead of his or her name you now write down your own name and you try to feel that these words reflect your own valuable properties, whether they are still potential properties or already developed and expressed.

Initially you will probably have to overcome a strong resistance to say these things about yourself. Let’s try anyway, and if one or the other word does not match the way you perceive yourself, you can at least try to find the core of the definition that applies to you.

When you learn to pay attention, you realize that each time you talk about other people you are expressing a part of yourself as well. You perceive others as you yourself are or can be. The deeper reason for recognizing and empathising or estimating and rejecting other people is in fact a kind of recognition. Understanding has something to do with consent.

Perhaps the way you perceive this experiment is: No, he or she is like that, but I am not. Maybe you do not even dare to delete the name of the other person and write your own name instead.
“Projection means that you cannot accept certain properties that belong to you and therefore you attribute them to another person. These can be so called good or bad properties. Maybe other people own these properties, but there is also a message in it about your own identity and your inner world.
If we want to learn to know more about ourselves, we must not neglect this message otherwise we deny and repress a piece of knowledge about ourselves from our consciousness. Maybe we deny and repress because we still tend to believe we cannot say anything good about ourselves, or because we believe that it is wrong to experience so called “bad” feelings.

You can then indeed try to banish illicit feelings out of you, but you do not succeed. The human organism cannot simply get rid of an important aspect of his or her life.

The “best” you can do is to banish these feelings out of your conscious life. You cheat yourself; deny your experience and put your head in the sand.

In a relationship knowing the other person is simultaneously recognition. When you are talking about someone else, you’re actually saying: “He/she too.” In this “too” you have expressed a message about yourself.

We can indeed be wrong about the person we are talking about or judge, but we cannot be wrong about this “too”. In this “too” knowledge of one’s self is hidden. This hidden message about ourselves when we talk about others is more reliable than what we say about others.

Projecting means that we not just omit this “too”, we also pretend as if it does not exist at all. So it’s a kind of unconscious displacement of the boundary between you and the others, which can cause a lot of confusion in communication.

Example: Johann feels sexually aroused by Susanne. Inside him grows the desire to touch her and to sleep with her. But these are matters he does not even want to think about, because Susanne is married and has four children.

He says: “She wants something from me. I have to be careful that she does not seduce me into doing something stupid”. His unconscious behaviour is directed towards meeting Susanne as often as possible though.

Feelings that are not owned, that are not allowed to be experienced (this does not necessarily mean that you have to express them) in an open and honest way sneak out disguised through the back door (for instance over projections) and so the responsibility for such feelings is pushed towards “Susanne”.
In the projection, we move the boundary between us and the rest of the world a little to our perceived advantage, so that thoughts and feelings that we do not want to own are pushed towards “the others”. Instead of saying: “It’s hard for me to accept me as I am,” we say, “I am not like that. “He or she is” or “Nowadays people are like that”. This way you can pretend it is not about you and push the responsibility for your own feelings away from you to the other.

People who project a lot, make a plaintive impression. They are always the “victims of circumstance”. They speak as if the circumstances are responsible for what happens and so there can be no change. But … this way you live without energy and you have your life less and less in your own hands.
Sometimes people who project a lot are very aggressive and they want to constantly change the other. Actually they fight in others what they hate in themselves, and they want to transform others to the unattainable model with which they torment themselves.

Another way to project – with which many people switch themselves (and so their energy) off – is comparing.

First they project their ideal on the other (“You cook so well, therefore I’d rather stay away from the stove” or” My neighbour is such a good mother; she is never grumpy; her four children always look perfect while I with my child … “) The qualities of the other are hyped up. Then follows the faint-hearted, lamenting: “When I compare myself with that …”

Example: Two beetles crawled simultaneously out of the ground on May fourteenth, about one meter apart. One was dark brown, the other white and they were both beautiful. The white one decided to migrate to the east, the Brown went west. So they met each other soon. It was a beautiful, almost summerlike day, and its bristles were vibrating with pleasure in the warm light. Then they saw each other; “What a beautiful brown beetle”, thought the white,” just see what a warm, rich colour”! “And then he looked at himself and was so ashamed that he lowered his eyes to never look up again.

“What a beautiful White” thought the brown beetle, “how clean and bright this colour is without any spots!” And then he looked up and was so ashamed that he lowered his eyes to never look up again.

Despondent and with downcast eyes they crawled back from where they had come. They did not fly a single time.

“People do not acknowledge me because I am a Jew” has (apart from the fact that this may be true or not) at the same time an emotional message that says: “I have not yet accepted my own Jew-Being”.

In the political field is an example of projection in the groups that I would call the plaintive progressives. “The board is not-accessible to new ideas” or “We students do not have students any influence to the administration. We have to keep our mouth shut; otherwise we are dismissed “etc. …

If we attribute power and possibilities always to the “other side” attribute (which are then circumstances or reactionary structures, etc.), then we ourselves need not do anything anymore.
The “advantage” that you reach by projecting is: You never have to fight anymore. In advance you have already appointed yourself as a loser. You then need not even admit that you are afraid of taking a risk when you would decide to fight for something.

You will, however, grow more and more dependent and you will have less and less to say. The other is the only one who can bring what you need. Gradually, you do not have your own opinion anymore, no views, no own eyes and ears, no energy.” Written by Bruno-Paul de Roeck – German: Gras unter meinen Füssen http://www.amazon.de/Gras-unter-meinen-F%C3%BC%C3%9Fen-Gestalttherapie/dp/349917944X

Useful questions or hints:

Are you aware of anyone you particularly dislike?

What is it you note so often as faults in others?

Can you catch yourself doing it?

See Self ObservationDefence Mechanisms and ResistancesStreet WisdomTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Projector

The realisation of unconscious content if projected onto a screen. This can also refer to illusions arising from within if it in any way connects with trickery.

A film projector in your dream is an important image. It projects images that give information or a story, so it is important to see of you can see what the information or story is about. But a projector is not in itself the story or information, but something that projects, so what is the projector in you. See if you can find out by using Being the Person or Thing

Every image and person in your dreams is an expression of your own life process. As such it is alive and intelligent and is something sent to help you. A dream is like a projection from a movie projector, except that you are the projector. Whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

Everything you see as outside you is coming from you, your emotions, your fears, your beliefs, your joys and explorations and are all you, clothed in the dream images and drama. So when you dream of someone you should not feel you are dreaming about that actual person. As with most dreams, the person in the dream is not the person themselves, but is a collection of memories, associations and feeling about him or her.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Are you aware of any intense likes, love or dislike that might suggest projection?

Have you every explored a dream image and realised it is a projection from yourself?

Do you realise that we often use images because we are scared of seeing what they really represent?

See Reaction to the unconsciousTechniques for Exploring your DreamsPotential

Prop

An idea, belief, or outer influence, like alcohol, or drugs, that you may need at a particular time to keep from falling or failing in some way. We may take a particular medicine due to a fear of ill­ness for instance. Although we may not be ill at all, a medicine helps to suppress the fear. Dreams often aim at removing the prop and facing up to the fear which caused us to lean upon it.

But the prop may also represent what you are doing for someone else, or for another situation, propping up a person or an activity by your support. Also a prop can represent strength without which what was supported would fall/fail. Also there are many kinds of prop or props – a clothes line prop; a prop/propeller; a stage prop; prop up the bar.

 Example: There were ordinary train type or bus type seats there, but there was no place to put my feet because if I put them down there were sort of emergency brakes and so I had to sort of prop them on the cow catcher.

Example: Look, this is how it works. Your sister is a stage prop and represents whatever you associate with her. For example, if she is a support to you then she acts as that in your dream; or if she is someone who is always needy and desperate, then she represents that in your dream.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Is this a prop or crutch I am using in life such as alcohol or drugs?

What I am doing for someone else, propping them up by my support?

What props do I use to support my self confidence – perfume, make up, clothes or what?

See Key WordsAutonomous ComplexSecrets of Power DreamingLearning to Allow Yourself

Propeller

A driving force or interest. The driving energy of your emotions or decisions. This energy might arise from ambition, your will, desire to be somebody, or to get somewhere, or just energy you need to express. If there is damage to the propeller, it could suggest you have lost the enthusiasm or energy that usually gets you ‘off the ground’ in what you undertake.

 Example: I was flying with an Xbox remote controller that had a small propeller attached to the front of it. To my surprise the fan was generating enough power and lift for me to hold on from it and fly. I flew quite a bit, it was really easy to manoeuvre with, but at some point I felt that my hands were getting tired of holding the remote controller. So I decided to land. It was so much fun.

 Useful questions or hints:

What is the driving energy behind my emotions and decisions?

Do I sometimes lack the drive to do things and can I see what does it?

What part did the propeller play in your dream?

See InstinctsEmotions and Mood in DreamsPlot/theme of the DreamTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Prophesy

See: Premonition.

Prosecution Prosecute Prosecutor

Either a fear of having done wrong, a desire to do so, or guilt. Or is this the feeling that someone else has wronged you and you have a drive to right what is felt as a wrong.

If you are being prosecuted it might represent anxiety about possible results, or anger or desire to fight against the prosecutor. Prosecuting is an active action and might even be seen as persecution.

 Example: In court I am discussing the case with the prosecutor (top dog). We go over various people/categories and he wants to prosecute them all. Some I agree with, but some I don’t. One a woman – we call her “thirds” for her need for 3 sex acts – seems to be out of control when she is drunk but okay otherwise. He wants to prosecute her, but I don’t agree.

Example: A woman picks up one of the kids in a car. I tell the younger kids they can’t come in my house. They have to wait outside. I am very angry. I will call the police. The phone rings and it is a mother wanting to know what I plan to do. I say I will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law because of the poor turkeys. It is difficult to talk because I am so angry. I can’t breathe.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Have done something wrong or feel guilty?

Has someone wronged me and I desire to take action to right this wrong?

What are my feelings in the dream?

See Active Passive Emotions and Mood in DreamsWorking with associationsProcessing Dreams

Prostitute Prostitution

May depict the misdirection of love and affection for financial ends, or selfish motives. Or feelings of sexual inadequacy. Desperate sexual needs.

The whore is also a symbol of the earth in its destructive mother aspect. The swallower of souls, of masculinity and attempts to mature. It is the whore, or mother, from whose emotional or sensual hold on us we have not found a way to break free. So it represent powerful feelings of need that we feel angry about, and therefore project aggressive criticism to our mother.

Dire sexual need unconnected to feelings of care or respect; sexuality breaking out of deadening moral restrictions; feeling you have ‘sold out’ or betrayed your real self or real feelings in order to survive or for money; on the game, or playing sexual games. See Archetype of the Prostitute; Archetype of the Female Choice

 Modern slavery is also often shown as a way to force someone into prostitution.

In some societies such as England and the USA they do not want to admit or face the prostitution and crime surrounding it, so instead of admitting to ourselves we dream of awful ghostly or forbidden images that haunt us. In other countries prostitution is accepted and legal.

Sterility in men and women has been incredibly important for people through the ages, and in the temples of Isis and Seraphis in Greece and Rome, with Diana in Ephesus, or Ino in Sparta, a cure was achieved through a form of sacred prostitution. In fact during the late 16th and 17th centuries in France, male impotence was considered a crime, as well as legal grounds for a divorce.

Woman’s dream: Unacknowledged sexual longings; feelings of ‘cheapness’ or guilt in sex; desire to be more free sexually.

Woman dreaming another woman is prostitute: Ones own hidden desires; feeling the other woman is promiscuous or might be in competition with her; uncertainty about ones own sexual value.

Man’s dream: Wishing a woman was more available; wish that sexual relationship were as simple as an exchange of cash; being ill at ease about his sexual practices; feeling unable to break free of sexual dependence on partner/mother.

 Example: Dreamt I was involved in having a prostitute work for me. Terry.

On looking at my dream and wondering why the prostitute was working for me it was obviously to do with love and sex. What it showed me was that I always try to use love and sex for personal gain. It always has to be on my terms instead of loving a person for their own sake.

 Example: The woman has been pushed into being aware in a rudimentary way of how the class system pushes women of lower birth into a terrible dilemma. I stood in the role of the woman and described how those in positions of authority, and that meant almost anyone born into greater wealth and education, were all used it to manipulate the lower class. It was used like a pressure to push women into taking a man in one form or another. As the woman I felt that I had avoided prostitution by accepting that men wanted sex, so I could choose either to have it unwillingly with one man or with many. I chose the one man option, and did what was necessary to keep myself in that role, as the other options I felt were worse.

Example: The dream felt as if it was set in Germany, but I was my present age and temperament. I was relaxing in a city, it was daytime, and I was sitting on a bench on a wide pavement. There didn’t seem to be many people about. As I sat there a woman came up to me and asked me if I wanted sex with her. I told her that I was not interested in sex and she took hold of my arm in a way to make physical contact with me, and said to me something like, “Oh yeah!” I put my hand over hers in a very warm compassionate way, and I could feel that gentle love for another human being who is having a hard life. As I did this I said to her that I didn’t want sex but if she was hungry we could go to have a meal somewhere. She looked at me and said that she didn’t want to do that as she had to work. I understood that if she didn’t work she couldn’t survive in her world.

I explored the dream involving the prostitute. It was clearly a confrontation with the possibility of sex. But it was sex represented in a particular way, the power of being possessed by the desire. The prostitute gains her living because men are directed to her by their desire, a desire they cannot stand aside from. They therefore risk disease, social condemnation and personal accusations. However, I do not reject this with any judgement, simply with compassion. In fact the dream felt as if it incorporated the wonderful feeling of transcending much of what ties the human soul in bondage.

 Example: I went to a place with my mother and her best friend where we had intercourse with male prostitutes, one after the other. I was lost, and before my turn came I was in a corridor from which I could hear but not see. This was the most exciting part. I felt that my orgasms would be extremely intense since the men were “professionals,” and since I was excited, and in a brothel with my mom. From Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney.

 Example: We have no money, no food. We think about ways we can get money. We decide the only way is to be prostitutes. We lure 3 guys in 3 cars to us. I have 3 men in my car, 2 standing and one lying down in the trunk. I sit on top of him. I’m so good that he has orgasm in just a few seconds. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I’m a good prostitute. One of the guys standing hands me $15. I say, “No, I said $50 to $100.” He says, “Take it or leave it sister,” and sneers. I feel calm. I stand up and put my hands on my hips like Wonder Woman and use my mind power. Their wallets float to me. They looked flabbergasted. I smile.

Other associations might be: Feeling you have ‘sold out’ or betrayed your real self or real feelings in order to survive or for money; on the game, or playing sexual games.

Useful questions or hints:  

Does this involve selling yourself?

Are you a slave to your need for sex or a woman or man?

Does dreaming of a prostitute produce feelings of desire or repugnance?

Or do you feel it is a service to mankind?

Does this indicate a lack of love and affection?

Is this about sexual longing, but feel I have lack of skill for an everyday relationship?

See Being the Person or Thing – Characters and People in Dream – Growth/Personal – Beware of Love

Proverb

Many people dream of a popular proverb, or sentence from a poem, hymn or song. This is because it summarises their feelings, desires, or inner realisation as depicted in the dream.

Prowler

See: Burglar.

Psychic

See psychic faculties; ESP; Prediction and dreams; Foreseeing

Psychoanalysis Psychoanalyst Psychologist

Often used as a dream symbol of your attempts to understand self, to release self from problems, to find one’s true being. In these dreams the analyst usually depicts your strength or character brought to bear on the difficulties you are trying to redeem.

If you are undergoing therapy, it can represent the dynamics and the personal responses you are feeling about what is happening. The psycho-analyst represents the part of yourself effecting change, mental and emotional growth, insight, ore even your resistance or difficult feelings about the dream character.

It may also be used as a symbol of a fear of mental illness, or the difficulties you experience in meeting the irrational part of yourself. See: analyst under roles

Example: The psychologists have trained a pack of theories and facts which they keep in leash, like so many bulldogs, and which they let loose upon us whenever we depart from the strait and narrow path of dream probability. Helen Keller

Example: My psychologist has diagnosed me as transsexual. Tony Crisp diagnosed me as human; and as Tony Crisp pointed out, human beings are paradoxical. That makes me the biggest paradox of all time.

Useful questions or hints:

Did the psychologist give me any insights or useful information?

Was I the psychotherapist in my dream?

Did I agree or disagree with the psychologist person?

See Active Imagination IndividuationCollective UnconsciousTechniques for Exploring your Dreams – Analyst – Guru.

Pubic

See: Genitals; Hair: Vagina.

Puddle

Dreams often present the puddle as some sort of obstacle in the way of where the person is going or driving. Sometimes puddles represent a wet and soulless place with rainclouds and down feelings. Or maybe a child’s memory of making a puddle on the floor.

But to the child’s mind puddles are often seen as things of delight the temptation to splash in them and see how deep they are – so would suggest childhood pleasure and curiosity, or danger of going in very deep.

 The puddle was deep enough for me to see a tree upside down in its world. I stood away from the edge in case I should fall in, scared because I was underneath the tree and face that looked back at me. It was a boy, with too dim a face for me to know him. And then I saw it – A bird floating deep down in that up place of the puddleworld.

And the bird flew away – With my breath.

So a puddle can also be a deep place in yourself to see things and explore your inner life.

 Example: Now, I am pedaling a bicycle, with Dwight riding on the back. We turn to the right and go past some construction. The road is muddy. We then go down a steep hill and are on the water’s edge, through a lot of muddy puddles. I wonder if I’m even going the right way, or if I shall have to turn back and backtrack.

Example: Now I’m seated on a toilet seat and peeing and no matter how hard I try to not let it leak out and get on the floor it goes down my leg and all over the floor. My father and my mother and an Aunt are in the tiny bathroom with me and my father is trying to fix the molding around the edge of the room and this yellow urine puddle is building. I am so embarrassed. I say, “I’m sorry. No matter how hard I try to keep it in the toilet, it leaks out.” They help clean it up and try to make light of it. “I’m not even sitting on my raised toilet seat,” I say, “and there is no reason why this is coming out.” I guess I waited too long before I went and had too much to release. It was an unstoppable flow.

Example: They are trying to find a special treasure. I see a mud puddle by a door to another part of the house. I feel in the water for the treasure. The water slowly drains away. I see some ceramic figures in the muddy bottom.

Example: Well this is really weird because me and my boyfriend went to bed last night and I was awoken by this dream ” we had sex and we was laying there and I looked down and seen I was laying in a very large puddle of blood, as I moved back a little there was a large chunk of meat laying in the puddle of blood it was smooth and slick almost looked like a kidney.” well when we both woke up this morning getting him ready for work I told him about this dream and he looked at me strange and said he dreamed the same thing. Both of us dreamed the same thing in the same night.

Useful questions or hints:

What part did the puddle play in my dream – an obstacle, puddle of medicine or blood, or a child’s memory?

Explore puddle to see what wonder or barrier it is for you.

What my memories of puddles?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsInner World MakingLetting things Happen

Pull Pulled Pulling

Doing something about a situation; positive action or expression of will. Through effort we can pull a memory back to awareness or pull something out of the unknown within us through a creative action. Also you can pull someone or something out from its hiding place.

A great deal of the words pull and pulling are connected with human issues like ‘pull yourself together’ – ‘pull together’ – ‘pull apart’ ‘pull all the stops out’ – and ‘pulling out’.

Being pulled: Being influenced by someone or something else; being pulled by your emotions – perhaps attracted to someone; going along with something – as when ‘going with the flow’.

Pulled against ones will: Being influenced by aspects of your nature that you feel at odds with; influenced by someone else against ones own inclinations.

Idioms: Have pull; pull away; pull back; pull ones socks up; pull out; pull through; pull together; pull something off; pull strings; pull the women; pull together; pull up ones roots; pull rank; pulled over; pulled up: pulling it down; pulling out;.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Do I ever feel I am coerced or pull in a direction or by someone else?

What was being pulled the dream?

Was the pull a help or something you resisted?

See carry the dream forwardLife’s Little SecretsAvoid Being Victims

Pulley

The philosophy or ideas that enable you to produce results, or effect changes. An attitude or standpoint that enables you to overcome obstacles or barriers. Also it can be a way that you can access your immense dream strength. Sometimes the effects are through cooperation with another person or people.

 Example: After walking for a long time I come to the high banks of a dry river bed. After I do much moaning and groaning about having to go back again, some guys come forward and suggest that there is another way across – by a pulley system (hanging from a rope while someone pulls me across to the other side). I am reluctant to try it, but another guy who did comes to tell me that he did it. And so I am about to do it myself with lots of people watching. It doesn’t look that dangerous – not that high off of the ground, but I am afraid I might get tired and drop anyway. At any rate, it’s either that or a long walk back around to where I started.

 

Useful questions or hints:

What was the pulley being used for in my dream?

Have I ever used a pulley and wondered at how one can be so strong when using it?

Did the pulley increase my strength or overcome a barrier?

See Active PassiveKey WordsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Pulse

The state of your enthusiasm or energy; feelings about health; anxiety about death.

Put your hand under your clothes so you can feel your heart beating and the pulse of life in you. There you have it, the conscious you is touching and directly experiencing in a quiet moment how that mystery we call Life is right there in every moment of your being spontaneously giving you existence. You are touching the unconscious. You can feel it moving right under your hand. You know it is not your conscious will, knowledge or beliefs that is pulsing that beautiful movement. Right now life is breathing you and beating your heart. And that is just the very evident surface signs of what it is doing. Feel it! Do you really fully understand that? Isn’t that an amazing miracle and mystery? Wouldn’t it be wise and wonderful to get to know that mystery directly and more fully?

Part of acupuncture involves reading pulses. In both Chinese and Japanese systems, the pulse is read – in three positions and at three depths – at the radial artery, just above the wrist. We use our index, middle and ring fingers, placed side-by-side along the course of the artery. In total, then, there are six positions: three on the right wrist and three on the left wrist.

Pulse-reading is an aspect of the medicine that, for most, requires many years (decades, lifetimes) of practice in order to master. It requires great energetic sensitivity — a capacity to “listen” very deeply. It is an art-form as much as it is a science. I’ve also felt it to be something very much like a language, or – to use computer lingo — an operating system. It’s a means of translating information from one medium (the client’s bodymind) to another (the practitioner’s bodymind) which depends upon the creation of specific cognitive/perceptual alignments.

J. Esquirol, a French psychiatrist noted for his humanitarian attitude toward patients, spent considerable time in the 1830’s sitting beside sleeping mental patients, observing their facial expressions and movements and noting their pulse and respiration. He claimed that he often knew when patients were dreaming and could predict the general nature of their dream content from this combination of behavioural and physiological indices.

Another example of pulsing it given in this mans dream: The bull then turns to the left, where a cow is visible. The halter is still hanging from its neck, so to prevent it being hindered I approach it to remove the halter. I am careful because its horns are long and splendid. I notice that the very tips of the horns are delicately carved in a simple curved design. I manage to pull the halter off and the bull sees the cow. It responds, its whole body indicating a change. I particularly notice or see its tail. This appears to be stretched out on the ground as if the bull is lying down with tail pointing backwards. As I watch I see ripples of movement in the tail, surging and pulsing. I have the impression of deep impulses of life surging in the body of the bull. The cow at first does not want the bull. There is some memory of the cow running for the open gate, but it doesn’t go out. It is unnecessary anxiety.

 

Useful questions or hints:

In what way was the pulse mentioned and used?

Do I worry about my pulse/heartbeat?

What does my dream say or suggest about the pulse?

See Understanding this SiteBeing in ControlUsing Symbols to Change Life ProblemsLife’s Little Secrets

Pumpkin

Empty-headedness; foolishness. When double, a symbol of the material world and the underworld (consciousness and unconscious). Even as a single gourd, the pumpkin has associations with the underworld, as it plays a role in fall harvest rites and the dying of the natural world.

Associated with Halloween – so could suggest meeting the dead in your dreams, or 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day which is dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers. Within Allhallowtide, the traditional focus of All Hallows’ Eve revolves around the theme of using “humour and ridicule to confront the power of death.” Which is probably a way to ease the anxiety most people feel about death and the dead.

Its origins may be from the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, but it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain”, which comes from the Old Irish for “summer’s end”

Samhain/Calan Gaeaf marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year. Like Beltane/Calan Mai, it was seen as a liminal time, when the spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí) could more easily come into our world and were particularly active.

A gourd was often used as a mask, but a pumpkin also may be likened to an alchemical cauldron, especially of the ‘vegetable soul.”

 

Useful questions or hints:

What was the pumpkin used for or seen as in the dream?

Was there any ghostliness or strangeness in the dream?

Was it part of festivities or a festival?

See Myths Legends and Fairy StoriesSymbolism of Dreams and their ImageryTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Puncture

Physical problems or injury; let down by something unexpected; unexpected delay in some area of your life; frustration or irritation.

Punishment Torture

Depicts the internal pain, or fear of retribution, that occurs inside us due to conflict between our social training and internal drives. The more rigidly moral we are, the more Hell and punishment we dream about; a means of allaying guilt out of childhood feelings of responsibility for such things as being unloved by parent (we must have done something awful or be awful), death of parent, abused by adult. See: hell.

We have to remember also that not so long ago historically torture was a common part of everyday life. It was used in all manner of ways to force people into slavery, obedience or confession. Millions died in this way, and we still carry the racial memory of it inside us – either as tortured or torturer.

Some dreams illustrate self punishment or self harm. This can arise out of guilt or holding back of your own natural feelings which then turn back on you and express in dreams as forms of torture or punishment. Sometimes we cannot recognize our own natural or instinctive urges and punish or even torture ourselves. This shown in dreams as trying to kill the animals in our dream. The urges in you that are natural but are judged to be anti social or bad, might need to be helped into modern life or transformed in some way, not killed out, maimed or tortured.

A man with problems he associates with his mother may torture or injure his woman partner because he unconsciously wants to hit back and hurt her.

Stanislav Grof, in observing the experiences of many people facing the agonies of their birth during therapy noticed the imagery that often arose was of being in hell tortured by the devil. When these same patients moved toward pleasure, the images became heavenly or cosmic.

The struggle with and fear of ones own natural drives – the resistances to change and wholeness – is often the fundamental pain of life in birth and the after effects in adult life that produce images and feelings of torture. We all have an underbelly of human life; this is often exposed by difficult circumstances of ones life and can reveal what is hurtful or torturous.

Male control over women was often done by physical punishment, and often linked with sexual pleasure, or the oppression and authority of the ruling classes or the punitive minions of the state.

Looking for evident themes of self punishment we can see such dreams as – ‘I was waiting for my friends all night but they never turned up’ – ‘My fiancé married somebody else.’ Such self punishing themes occurred with greater frequency in depressives people’s dreams. These themes can be changed by recognising that depression is partly a set of habitual responses that can be changed. Try imagining each dream reaching a more satisfying conclusion.

 Example: I kept saying, “I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t.” This was expressive of a sense that the pain inflicted to my face (nose) during the operation, must be because I had done something wrong. I could see that I associated inflicted pain with the punishment a parent gives because of some “bad” action. I could not understand why the pain had been inflicted on me. Also, I felt that religion itself was a projection out of the unconscious, from such fundamental premises. In other words, inflicted pain equals punishment. Pain equals God’s punishment.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Was I receiving or giving punishment?

What sort of punishment or torture was shown in the dream?

What feelings were experienced in the dream?

See KarmaMartial Art of the MindAvoid Being VictimsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Puppet

Manipulation or feeling manipulated; feeling powerless against what feels like an external influence – the power of alcohol or drugs for instance. The puppet maybe links with your speech or actions not being wholly your own, but were probably from past programming that we all receive from our parents. It is probably a habit that you have not noticed previously. See Programmed 

 

If you are working the puppet ask yourself if this is about manipulating others, or is it about taking control of yourself. Perhaps even that you need to feel in command?

If you are the puppet, look up at who is pulling the strings. What do you see and what does it mean?

Watching a puppet show suggest becoming aware of how apparently everyday events are controlled by something or someone behind the scenes. What sense do you have of that?

Rudolph Steiner says there is an action in human life he named Ahriman. It is the power of ignorance, of reason without feeling values, of dry intellectualism, the emphasis of materialism and a science that leads to lack of aim, lack of contact with all life; an education that is full of facts, but without any wisdom or insight, that does not develop the power of intuition. The mass media, and dictatorship, making puppets of men to a regime, a man, a fear, a totalitarianism. The power of spirit alone puts these forces into their place. Only then these act as powers of growth, development of understanding, the energy used to rise up. They are then unveiled as evolutionary powers that were threatening only because we could not use them correctly.

 Example: I am a teacher at a grade school. A man teacher follows me around teasing me to be in a puppet show (hand held puppets that are so heavy you wear part of it). He’s funny and I keep laughing. He won’t let me alone, so I’m laughing and saying no and telling him to go away. Then I reluctantly agree to do it. I play a lady horse. The wire and cardboard on my arm is very heavy. I sashay around and sing and shinny. I’m very funny. The guy is aggressive, sharp-witted and persistent. He likes me but it’s overwhelming.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Are you manipulating the puppet?

Are you the puppet?

Is it a puppet show you are watching?

See HabitsEasy Dream UnderstandingSettings in Dreams Because Factor

Puppy

Youth, heedlessness, spontaneous affection and enthusiasm. It often represent a child, or feelings about wanting a child, being pregnant with a child, even one of ones own children. Also vulnerability or dependent needs. Like any young animal, it can depict your need to care for or love something, or be loved.

Purchase Purchasing

This often indicates some level of choices being made, decisions faced; there may also be elements of how much or little you are being influenced by internal desires or external sales pressure. One dreamer says when she feels so good at work she immediately goes out to buy a new house. This suggests confidence and social power are involved in purchases. But sometimes we make purchases when things go wrong, as a means of counteracting the down feelings. In some dreams the question of your financial status arises, so purchasing may be dealing with how you are feeling about your money situation or whether you can afford what you want.

Have you ‘bought’ or accepted an idea, or bought into a situation or condition? How much did you pay, or what is the ‘price’ you had to pay for this. Is it worth it? You can buy into a something without realising – to buy into it is to accept an idea behind it – I never bought into the idea of a federalist Europe – Let us not buy into it by purchasing these lumps of farmed meat; chicken breasts from animals that have no natural life and whose normal cycles have been manipulated for sales and production.

Buying a bargain: Feelings of capability.

Purchased from: Success or failure to succeed, depending on whether the sale is made; may also indicate change, as when one sells a car or house. See: sell; shopping.

Purchasing a house: In general this may relate to making a decision to change, or wanting a change in your life or circumstances. Purchasing something in a dream also often involves the process of deciding or being uncertain. The decision making is to do with clarifying what you want, what you would like.

 Example – I am a car. Joel has recently purchased me, and he is driving me, largely because he feels I will help him gain respect from other people. I am quite a large car, and have a lot of power. But even with all this energy I do not make my own decisions. I am directed by Joel’s desires and wishes, and enable him to fulfil them more readily.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Did I quickly decide on my purchase of did I ponder about it?

Was I looking for a particular thing?

Did I buy something or was I selling it.

See Secrets of Power DreamingProcessing DreamsRoleDream Visualisation

Purgatory

See: Hell.

Purification

See: Baptism.

Purple

This has always been associated with royalty, with spirituality and the law. In terms of the personality it is seen as relating to the ability to deal with practical matters and with spiritual power. But it can suggest an overbearing attitude. It might also relate to the body, suggesting poor circulation, heart problems, palpitations or indigestion.

Example: When I looked into his liquid brown eyes I just saw directly through his soul and it went way out into some deep purple void which I knew to be the ultimate universe. PL

In the example the deep purple suggests an as yet unexplored or known dimension of experience. This links in some dreams with serenity and peace.

Purple is also the colour of a bruise, and in some dreams can either indicate hurts you feel, or sexual passion.

Idioms: Born to the purple (royalty); purple with rage; purple language; purple rank.

Useful questions:

What are my major feelings in this dream, and where do they appear in my waking life?

Does my dream link the colour with deep wonder or cosmic powers?

Is there any feeling or imagery to do with sickness – if so what does it suggest about me?

See: Colour.

Purse

Something in your nature you value and try not to lose. Your sense of identity and power to be socially acknowledged as an effective person. Sometimes it represents a woman’s sexual feelings, the vagina. See: Bag if USA purse.

 Losing your purse can often signify that you have lost your way in life and you need to reconsider the direction you are going in life. It can also mean losing your power – as without money or cards you sometimes feel powerless. So check yourself to see if you have lost such qualities such as patience, love, generosity, forgiveness, and other moral principles. Therefore, losing the bag is like saying you feel undermined or helpless. But the bag or purse also has many things you value, and so its loss points to feelings of losing something that you might miss intensely.

A purse or handbag often carries your means of getting about in the world and being effective. It also may contain personal things you would not want anyone else to see. So it can depict your sense of power or helplessness, depending upon whether or not you posses or lose it, and also your personality, your identity.

In some dreams the purse or bag has definite links with sexuality or the vagina. What you are doing with the bag in such a dream indicates unconscious feelings about your sexual activities and feelings.

Whether the key word is losing, finding or emptying, this is the important message of the dream. Having defined it, you could helpfully ask yourself what you have lost, found or got rid of.

If you found a purse, remember that it is intimately linked with another person, so it is like having a strong link with that person. How do you handle it?

If the purse is given to you, depending upon your gender, it could be a sign of intimacy, or an offer of friendship.

Carrying a purse in a dream may signify the secret place of important possessions, which are being closely held.

 Example: We are arguing. I get away. I think the man is upstairs. My mother comes out and catches the woman going through her purse. They get into a fight. My mother is sitting on a chair and the woman is standing in front of her and I either feel my mother is going to bite this woman’s breast or I see her do it. I feel a sense of danger.

Example: A rather shadowy man gave me a leather pull-string purse or pouch. In the pouch was powder that the man suggested I pour onto my rather stained trousers. Immediately the powder started working like yeast, cleansing and purifying my trousers in a spreading action. I knew that this yeast, or pollen, had also penetrated my body, and was gradually working through me, purifying and healing. – Adrian

Example: A young college girl who had decided to have sex with anyone dreamed: I found myself with my boyfriend in a street lighted by a red lantern. I believe the town was Las Vegas. The next minute I was adrift on an angry sea holding tightly to my purse. I knew I had a valuable jewelled cross in my bag which I must not lose. A little boy, however, assured me it was all right to release my purse and put it down. When I reached shore, I discovered to my great horror that I had lost the purse.”

The red lantern indicated a “red light” district and symbolized not only danger, but the free love to which she had agreed to through the advice of the little boy. The little boy represented immaturity of thought. Las Vegas heightened the warning that she was gambling with her inner life. The little boy in the dream was the one with whom she was having sexual experiences. Alone and at sea” with the angry waves showed the drift of her soul. The loss of the purse and the valuables, especially the jewelled cross, pinpointed the purpose and message of the dream—to re-evaluate her life and to return to the safety of the shore and feelings arising from her core, even though it meant a crucifying of the sexual urges she had felt.

Idioms: hold the purse strings; you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

 

Useful questions or hints:

What happened to your purse/bag in the dream?

Did you find the purse/bag?

Did someone give you the purse/bag?

Were sexual feelings indicated in the dream?

What do you feel in regard to the purse?

See Working with associationsMakes InnerYour Core SelfBeing the Person or Thing

Pus

Emotions infected by fears, self doubts, jealousy, etc. Occasionally a sign of physical illness.

Negative feelings; possible malfunction physically; stagnation or lifelessness in area in which pus is seen. Pus in mouth would symbolise inadequacy or degeneration of ways of communicating with others, feelings of repulsion or not talking from your authentic self.

 Example: The respite was short lived. Ten days after the doctor’s treatment, I dreamed: I saw an index finger with the little flap of skin turned back to expose pus.

I checked my finger carefully and noticed pus around the base of the nail. The infection had come back to life. I resumed ointment and castor oil treatment. I anxiously sought dream information. The resulting dreams indicated a connection between the infection and my overly strong preoccupation with it. It was difficult to reduce my preoccupation since I was constantly reminded of the problem by the ever present protective bandage and the fact that I typed several hours each day. Nevertheless, my finger did improve noticeably.

Example: The bump became a black string tied up in some kind of knot inside my hand. I pulled on one end of the string and it unravelled easily and I painlessly pulled it all out. A moment later, on the same spot on the back of my hand, I pushed through a large amount of pus, as though from a pimple and I saw it come out in one large dark green/black swoop of gunk.

The knot that was pulled out suggests either emotions that were not expressed and became knotted up in an inner tension – shown by past dreams of running away; or a knot that tied you to another person in a way that undermined your self confidence.

 Example: “Was looking at my knuckle and saw that I had a nasty boil which had come away as I did the washing up and all that was left was a big hole, pink and healthy looking skin around. It felt very close to my knuckle bone. My lover had told me he was leaving me for good, and going back to his children. That evening, I cried most of the night.” Hilary K.

In Hilary’s case the abscess has released its pus, or painful feelings, perhaps through her prolonged crying.

 

Useful questions or hints:

Where is this pus located? (The location would point to the underlying problem)

Is this about stagnation, lifelessness, or a negative quality of some kind?

What part of my body was the pus coming from?

Push Chair – stroller – buggy

Relating to babyhood, being dependent or even pregnancy. It could also suggest having responsibility if you are pushing it.

Many of us have memories, not always nice ones of being in stroller/buggy/push chair.

 Example: When I arrived there was a baby boy in a push chair near the front of the house, with lots of people around. I started talking to the baby and he really responded to me with a lot of pleasure. Later I had a strong urge to hold him, and eventually asked the mother if I could hold her baby. I mention this because I realised once again how strong the female in me is, and how much I can relate to children through that part of me.

Useful questions or hints:

What memories or associations do I have with being in or pushing one?

Did you even experience any fears connected with the stroller/buggy/push chair?

What feelings do I have of seeing my child in the stroller/buggy/push chair?

See Role in the dreamInner MotherMagic Mirror of DreamsBeing the Person or Thing

Push Pushed Pushing

Pushing: Being positive in what you want; exerting ones will or effort of will. It can also indicate manipulation or control of something. If you are forcefully pushing someone, then it is usually your anger that is involved. Ask yourself why you might have feelings of anger in regard to that person or what that person represents. But pushing something or someone away is also an act of rejection or resistance, as is being pushed away.

Pushing back at someone might not be about anger, but about holding your own ground.

Being pushed: Feeling coerced or taken for granted. Feeling bullied, attacked or rejected. It can also suggest resistance of some sort.

Idioms: Give someone the push; when it comes to the push; push off; push/press on; push-over; push ones luck. 

Useful questions or hints:

Have I felt pushed around – and how did I react?

Did I push someone in anger of as defence?

Was I active or passive in the dream?

See Active PassiveAnimals in your BrainBeing the Person or Thing

Pyjamas

This can have many associations, depending upon the context in the dream. It can, for instance link with being in hospital where you have to wear pyjamas, and so suggest you are dealing with an issue that needs healing or transforming. See: clothes.

Sometimes this links with sexual feelings, but if so these are usually obvious or suggested in the dream. See Sex

It can be about sleeping and dreaming – linking with the parts of yourself you meet when you drop your guard in sleep; or about intimacy with another person. Do you feel properly dressed in pyjamas? Sometimes a dream shows us still in pyjamas while we are awake and the day is passing and perhaps we are dealing with people. This can suggest we are not properly prepared for what we are doing, or are unclear about how to present ourselves to others.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

If this connects with hospital, what is it I am trying to heal or deal with?

Am I uncertain about my direction or how to present myself to others?

What am I feeling or seeing in the dream, and can I translate this into waking situations?

See Summing UpEasy Dream UnderstandingAges of LoveMore than you Presently Know

Pyjamas Pajamas Nightgown

Being casual or intimate; sexuality; difficulty in facing life or sleeping. See: Clothes.

This can have many associations, depending upon the context in the dream. It can, for instance link with being in hospital where you have to wear pyjamas or a nightgown, and so suggest you are dealing with an issue that needs healing or transforming. See Associations Working With

Sometimes this links with sexual feelings, but if so these are usually obvious or suggested in the dream.

It can be about sleeping and dreaming – linking with the parts of yourself you meet when you drop your guard in sleep; or about intimacy with another person.

Sometimes a dream shows us still in pyjamas while we are awake and the day is passing and perhaps we are dealing with people. This can suggest we are not properly prepared for what we are doing, or are unclear about how to present ourselves to others.

In street or public in night clothes: Revealing ones, perhaps honest, self to others; inappropriate attitudes.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this connects with hospital, what is it I am trying to heal or deal with?

Am I uncertain about my direction or how to present myself to others?

What am I feeling in the dream, and can I translate this into waking situations?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Pyramid

In popular association, the dead, mysteries. Its shape, however, would speak to the unconscious in another way. Having a square base it represents physical stability, while its triangular sides symbolise the material connections with creative processes, or the hidden side of life.

It also links with entering into the deepest secrets of your nature, and therefore with death.  Your enormous potential and so again wider awareness, which can lead to integration of self. Sometimes it is an invitation to explore the realm of death and memories of past sojourns. Being triangular in shape it might refer to the number three or the triangle in relationships. See Three; Triangle

In popular association, the dead, mysteries. Its shape, however, would speak to the unconscious in another way. Having a square base it represents physical stability, while its triangular sides symbolise the material connections with creative processes, or the hidden side of life. Also a perfect expression in matter of invisible, or creative, forces. The point denotes the Unseen or Unknown/Life, where all things meet. The top stone stands for the link between our human qualities and the unknown potential we all have – See Spirit; Core Self

Power flows down from the point to the base, and up from the base to our core self. From The Fundamental Ground proceed the gods, the Elohim, or divine powers, who are the active agents of creation. From the fundamental processes of nature proceed all the hierarchy of the unseen forces of creation, with the various orders from highest to lowest.’ The rising power represents evolution of form and consciousness, from the lowest to the highest.

Therefore, the inside of the pyramid represents initiation. It is the descent of divine power resulting in the growth of expanding consciousness and faculties in man. The stages of this unfolding are the stages of initiation – the levels of maturity we are capable of. Humans are therefore, as an initiate, the descent and ascent of divine creative power. The descent is the formless spirit into incarnation into matter; the ascent is the realisation of one’s divine potential. The Queen’s chamber represents Baptism, the King’s chamber rebirth or spiritual consciousness and the pit the soul lost in material values. See Baptism, Death.

The shape of a pyramid with its base pointing upwards represent the physical world or self  reaching up till at its apex it is nothing – it become the formless spiritual. The capstone is the final piece that completes the physical structure and leads toward the spiritual. Referring to Christ – our best – it has been called “… the Stone the builders rejected.”

Another term for the capstone on a pyramid is the “all seeing eye”. Which suggests the beginning of break through to wider awareness? The first stages of this are intuition and steps onward to enlightenment. It is because at the top of the pyramid you have a full view of everything around you. With that view you can predict events because you can see those moving in a way that would bring them into contact with others – thus prediction. See Enlightenment.

 Example: I am on top of a huge pyramid structure, and I am placing the capstone into position, it is inscribed with various Egyptian glyphs and slides into place with a clunk, the outer scaffolding we have used to build the structure is removed, and I become aware of the tremendous height and feel a little insecure. I get a grip and decide to abseil down, I arrive at the bottom safe and sound, a female who was with me, says something quite strange, I love you, pointing to some other person present. Then again to another, she then turns to me and says, but most of all I love you! She then kisses me passionately. I am taken aback by all this, as it was definitely unexpected. This dream had a BIG feel about it, and I felt that whoever this female was, I had to go with her.

Placing the capstone in position is an incredible thing to do. It seems like an end to a long journey that has occurred in your dreams. It is an end but of course every end is a beginning. And it seems that the love you were seeking at the beginning of the dream journey.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening to the capstone in the dream?

Did you have any sense of its importance?

What do you feel has been completed in your life – or missing from it?

See Easy Dream UnderstandingInitiation – Settings in Dreams Avoid Being VictimsThe Harvester

Letter Q

Quadrangle

The boundaries of your life experience. The garden of your mind and soul. Physical experience.

Quantum Physics

To some, science is treated as a religion. But if treated in that way the specialist preaches a vein of beliefs without understanding the other branches of science. However, science and religions do not look at the big picture of the Universe or Nature, owing to the impact of poor education.

Quantum theory has put forward theorems that show how this might be feasible. Irish physicist John Stewart Bell put forward a quantum theorem that has revolutionised the way reality is considered. In brief, the theorem states that when two sub-microscopic particles are split and moved to a distance from each other, the action on, or of, particle ‘A’, is instantaneously reproduced with particle ‘B’. This interaction does not rely on any known link or communication and is considered to stand above normal physical laws of nature, as it is faster than light. Prior to such findings it was thought nothing could transcend the speed of light. This suggests that the fundamental particles of our body exist beyond time and space, and if a dream touches this level then it expresses a very different experience of time. Yet we still hear scientists talking about the boundary of the speed of light.

This difficulty in crossing the boundary of knowing into the unknown is a sort of general blindness most of us suffer. Considering that dreams portray a very different view of life in which this boundary often does not exist, we can say that dreams are a leap beyond our blindness into full supersensual life. In our dreams we can often see the meaning of life experiences we are failing to understand in waking; we can look ahead into what our attitudes and temperament are creating in our life; we can look deep into the workings of our body, and in general extend our senses and awareness beyond any known limits. See: Cayce, Edgar.

Many modern physicists, working with the information arising in experiments with quantum theory, tell us that our view of the world is based upon our blindness, and is very limited, and through its limitation, unreal. Yet this view we take to be the REAL universe. For instance we are only able to see a tiny fraction of the visible spectrum of light and as small amount of audible sound, so we are almost blind and deaf to the world around us. See The Real World

The physicist Bohm defines this problem by saying that there are two orders in our experience of the world around us. There is the “explicate” order and the “implicate” order of the physical universe. He defines the explicate order as the impressions of the world gained via our senses and the interpretations the brain places on these impressions. These impressions and the brain’s interpretations – based on millions of years of evolutionary experience and input – lead to a view that we each have separate minds in isolated bodies. The implicate order is the universe as it is when we move beyond the limitations of the senses and the brain’s evolutionary programs. Then we begin to see the universe as a single indivisible whole and ourselves as intricately part of that whole.

Bohm says that “if we don’t see this it’s because we are blinding ourselves to it.” He goes on to say that “If we don’t establish these absolute boundaries between minds, then it’s possible they could unite as one mind.”

Stanislav Grof, looking at this from another angle through witnessing thousands of LSD psychotherapy session in which he says:  My 17 years of research into the non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles .

The theories underlying quantum mechanics are very similar. Some of the latest thinking in connection with physics states that a careful examination of the phenomena underlying the physical world suggests that we can never finally know what reality is. All we do is give a name or definition to an observable aspect of the phenomena, and in observing and naming it, in some way we create what we call reality. So the argument which surrounds dreams – do they have an innate meaning – may be relevant to every aspect of our daily life.

To quote Gary Zukav, ‘Quantum mechanics is the theory. It has explained everything from subatomic particles to transistors to stellar energy. It has never failed. It has no competition.’ The implications of the theorem are enormous. Something can be in two places at once. Apparently distant objects, or people, are intricately linked in an immediate way. There is no separate existence as we previously thought. Our view of the world is not one supported by the facts of physics. Time and space are transcended. David Bohm, an eminent physicist, goes as far as to say that all things in our observable universe are inextricable linked. Nothing has separate existence.

The fact that light is both a wave and a particle is astonishing enough. More astonishing is the fact that its nature changes according to the way we observe it. Regarding this Mansfield describes an experiment where one particle/wave is made to pass through a series of mirrors along different arms. A single particle/wave is called a photon. As the single photon is passing through the series of mirrors, the method of observing it and measuring it is altered. This means that on its entry into the system the photon is a wave, but when the method of observing is changed, the photon becomes a particle. The astounding thing is that not only does it become a particle from that point on, but its nature is also changed in the past.

This demonstrable fact faces our rational mind with a conundrum or paradox. To quote Mansfield, ‘Now here is a real conceptual knot. It seems that our choice at the last possible moment determines what light did in the past.’ Mansfield goes on to say that if we made the experiment more dramatic it illustrates the enormity of the findings. To do this he suggests that instead of thinking of light passing through mirrors directing the light in different directions (arms), we think of the light reaching us from the stars. He says ‘Let the arms be billions of light years in length. Then we have a billion or so years between the interaction with the half-silvered mirror and the full-silvered mirror (used in the experiment). This means that my decision today effects what light did a billion years ago! This is too weird even for physicists, noted for their playful imagination, to contemplate. How could my decision today influence the universe billions of years ago?’

Therefore, when examining the model of our mind, we need to leave space on one of the walls for a door. It needs to be a door that opens onto a different sort of universe than the one we may previously have felt to be solid reality. It is a universe that alters its appearance – no, its very nature – according to the way we observe it. Each question we ask of the universe, each attitude with which we approach it, each viewpoint we take, reveals to us a different universe. The universe is therefore not separated from us. We are intrinsically a part of it, and are participating in it. In some way the universe is constantly being created by us as participants. It seems as likely too, that the ‘we’ the participants are constantly being created by the universe. And the past is not set in concrete. In some mysterious way it is linked with what we do in the present.

We cannot yet say these revelations of science explain coincidences. However, they do point out that the universe is stranger than we previously believed. Therefore the coincidences you experience or hear about may hopefully be an anomaly opening a new door for you. It is a door that can reveal more of yourself, and more about the world around you. Coincidences are like the cartoon cat that runs to the edge of a precipice and carries on running without falling. Suddenly the rules of the world we are so sure are fundamental truths, are thrown into question. Like the worm-holes or the time-warps now common in films and television, coincidences allow us entrance into other dimensions of experience. See The Holographic Universe

Quarrel

Conflict within yourself or with exterior situation or relationship. See: peopleit describes some of the main areas of human conflict – also Conflicts

Quartz

Fundamental internal processes, such as those shaping your body – consciousness can influence these, so the dream may show what relationship exists between your personality and the unconscious forces at work within you. Your wholeness or sense of the timeless. See: Crystal; Rock.

Also the Self. See: Archetype of the Self; jewels.

Quay

 In some dreams people are facing danger or making decision about their direction. See: .

Departures; meetings and partings; leaving a phase of life behind, or meeting a new one, and how we encounter such changes. See also: Harbour; beach.

 In some dreams people are facing danger or making decision about their direction. It is a place of decisions, of great emotion where we might be leaving or meeting someone, also a place of change and new opportunities.

If you have worked on a quay then you need to see what feelings, what you learned from being there and any big events that have added to your life experience. See Working with associations or Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your situation with the quay – working, leaving or arriving?

Do I have any memories of being at a quay – if so what are they?

What new experiences or worlds of experience did it lead to?

See BackgroundLook at IFeatures on SiteMagical Dream Machine

Queen

Feelings connected with your mother. Ruling passions. A desire to rule over others emotionally, or to be respected. Also your need for recognition and acclaim.

Queue

Waiting for something you want; feelings about where you stand in relation to others; or whether you will get what you are seeking. There might also be feelings about what you deserve, or what you can allow yourself – i.e. maybe you feel other people deserve more.

Waiting for something you want; feelings about where you stand in relation to others; or whether you will get what you are seeking. There might also be feelings about what you deserve, or what you can allow yourself – i.e. maybe you feel other people deserve more. See: waiting.

End of a queue: Feeling left out, unconsidered, forgotten; putting oneself as not important, being late or not a lot of hope or even feeling last.

Orderly queue: This suggest feelings of consideration for others and that you have respect for others rights.

Disorderly queue: Shows feelings of the strongest win, or those who wish to grab and push their way in without regard for who was there first.

 Example: I was going to make a trip to London. My mother said she would pay my fare – she died two years ago. She packed my case and laid 5 pence on top of the clothes. I set off to the station. stood in a long queue for my ticket. When it was my turn to pay I opened the case for the money only to discover in place of the money was worthless scraps of paper all torn to shreds. I was unable to make the journey.

Example: ‘Yeah, yeah, you love me. I’ve got it. Yes, sure you love me. Sure, I understand. Join the queue. I’ll believe it when I see the payments. I’ll look it up next month when the accounts come in. I’ll see what you paid in. Okay love? See you.’

Idioms: join the queue

Quicksand

Feelings of hopelessness that undermine your plans, hopes, or efforts or fear of losing ground in competition with others, and emotions that engulf you.

Quicksand may suggest losing secure footing and sinking into one’s mess of emotions. It can also represent personal situations in one’s business or life that one is not in control of.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you feel threatened by or might be lost in?

Are you feeling trapped in some way?

Do you feel ill?

What is causing a sinking feeling?

See Avoid Being VictimsMartial Art of the MindMeeting yourself

 

Letter R

Rabbi

Symbol of your attitude to your religious tendencies, or to Jewish religious ideas.

Rabbit

Due to human associations with its rapid breeding it is often linked with sexual desires. Also its softness and non aggression sometimes to the point of depicting us as a victim, or foolishly passive;  may thus represent unworldly idealism. Perhaps because of its tendency to be the victim of predators, is often used as a sacrifice in dreams, which suggests the hurt we might experience to the soft, vulnerable parts of our nature as we experience the pain of meeting reality in the maturing process; feeling hounded by someone; ones vulnerable child self; docility or humility.

If the dreamer hunts rabbits: It could mean some element of self or others being criticised, attacked, ‘hunted down’ or hounded; instinctive urge to dominate.

Pet rabbit: Wanting to be petted or cared for; gentle contact and caring; responsibility.

Rabbit hole: Alice down the rabbit hole illustrates this – a going within self an experiencing the world within, that many are totally unaware of. So, going into the unconscious; the womb; perhaps attempting to escape from problems by turning being an introvert. Going into a rabbit hole could also suggest sexual intercourse. See: unconscious.

Rabbit in your garden: A quiet attack on your resources or personal growth; also may connect with the general definitions above.

EXAMPLE: Then they brought in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons. And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents. And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of tear. Anna Kingsford, From Dreams and Dream-Stories.

EXAMPLE: The nightmares returned – one terrible one in February 1896 about a tramp, seen holding over a well ‘washing, but with a kind of amused tenderness, an object that I thought was a rabbit, but I presently saw that it was a small deformed hairy child, with a curious lower jaw, very shallow: over the face it had a kind of horny carapace. . . made of some material resembling pottery. ….. The horror of it exceeded all belief.’ A. C. Benson, quoted in David Newsome, On the Edge of Paradise.

These two examples show how our dream process links the vulnerability of rabbits with childhood or children, and our own vulnerability and human pain.

Useful questions are and hints:

What part or role in my dream is my rabbit playing?

Can you put words to it?

If the dream rabbit is vulnerable what vulnerability in me is this reflecting?

If the rabbit transforms into something stronger in what way am I myself changing?

If I stand in the role of rabbit what do I feel?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMagical Dream Machine

Raccoon Racoon

The raccoon is a survivor and can take advantage of many situations to get its needs. So it can be a bandit type attitude in us, so it can be about thoughts or feelings that are like looking in dustbins and scrap heaps in your life instead of giving of your best and getting the rewards you deserve. So it might represent the fact the you do not rate yourself highly enough, that you have a poor self-image, or even that you are or like being a rascal – or even an amusing and entertaining friend. See Animals

People associate raccoon with many things, for instance the face marking of them is like a mask, but this does not mean if you dream of them you are hiding behind a mask. Better to ask yourself what mammalian aspects you can see in yourself. We all have a section of our brain that deals with our own mammalian instincts. See Mammal Brain

Because the raccoon can use its hands to do many more things than cats or dogs it has developed more strategies to survive, that’s why it can represent the survival instinct we all have in some degree. In the USA it can carry rabies, so it may be you have associated it with danger of infection.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel or associate with a raccoon?

Do the dream raccoon’s actions suggest any particular quality?

What is the raccoon up to?

See Becoming One With The Animals Animal SpiritAnimal Children Meeting the Animal

Race

Feelings of competitiveness, questions of capability, worthiness, success and failure, or fear of losing or being inferior. It can also show your passage through life, your participation in the human race, and how you feel you have performed. What you do in the race, how you feel, may show what you put into your life and creativity.

Racing car or bike: Competitive drive; sexual energy; daring.

Running the race: Exerting yourself; expressing yourself; the struggle or contest of life; participating or being involved; the course of your life.

The finishing line: Your goal, or a goal you are aiming for or have reached, perhaps like a point in your life. Achievement of something in life, for instance achieving confidence; the end of life.

Marathon: The marathon depicts our participation in life. In it we are part of a ‘race’ – the human race. The imagery of the marathon is wonderful in depicting this. In it is all manner of human expression. Some participate out of competition. They want to struggle to achieve, to break barriers. Others are there almost crawling on hands and knees. They stay the course despite their condition. Determination, anger, fury, show on their faces. Some are participating for the sheer fun of it, in funny costumes, seeing the comedy of life. Others are putting in this enormous human effort for others – to collect funds for charity. Still others just love being with the crowd, meeting, mating, communicating. Apart from the various ways of participating by running, the crowd of onlookers are also a vital part of it; as are the recorders, the police, the helpers by the wayside, the officials who organise behind the scenes. The race is all of these in its totality. This is life.

Below is an example of the meaning of marathon.

Example: My husband has a gamy – crippled, damaged – leg in real life. In his dream though he is running in the London Marathon. He is running along with everyone doing okay. He sees the finishing line and all his family are there cheering him on. Then he crosses the finishing line and we all rush forward to hug him. We are all happy except for his son in law who is crying. He keeps wondering why his son-in-law is crying. Edna. LBC.

So the dreamer sees himself as a part of all this. He has two good legs because he feels his life has been full and adequate despite the condition of his body. He doesn’t feel crippled. At the end, the finishing line, death, he realises he has developed bonds of love with his family that will go with him over the boundary line when his life is finished. But there is pain too as his son-in-law cries. This is most likely due to the real sense of death and the ending of all the experience of the ‘race’, all the togetherness and loss of what he has been and done as a young man.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel that I am part of the human race?

Do I question my worthiness as a person, or fear of being inferior?

Does this indicate my progress through life and how I rate myself against others?

What part did I play in the dream – participant, watcher, helper, or official?

If I was competing who or what was I competing against?

Do I have to win or do I not mind losing but just being a participant?

See YES – You Can Dream a New LifeFeatures Found on Site Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Radar

Intuition, with which we sense things out of sight. It may particularly deal with threats we sense.

One’s subliminal sense of other people – or of what feelings or ‘signals’ other people are giving out. Exploring beyond one’s usual ability or senses. As described in the last example knowing things clearly through intuition, but also touching the More of your own potential

Example: I am in a spaceship flying to the moon. Initially we are flying very low, seeming only to dodge large objects near the ground. At first I am frightened, but as the trip continues without mishap – it as though we are controlled by radar and a computer – I feel more and more secure. Later, when we take off into space, I begin to feel ecstatically happy. I am free to explore the wonders of the universe!

Example: This is an operation to rescue a bull moose, I think. We have to go thru some elaborate manoeuvrings, sending three small jets into the air one right after each other in three different directions very close to the ground to evade enemy radar and get this operation under way. (I am in one of these jets). We are proud of our cleverness.

Example: ‘It started as an inward light, went outside me many years later, seeming to control me by long distance radar. Then it came nearer, close above my head, becoming something I felt rather than heard, and spread down the neck and over the shoulders. It told me what to do, not only in emotional crises but in quite practical matters at other times. I knew of lodgings to go to five minutes after they had become vacant. I knew where clothes that I needed were to be found, in shops I did not consciously know existed. I knew that I ought to write a special letter to my mother, and failing to do so suffered bitter remorse, since she died only a few days later. This voice is now my guide from beyond, and has become something like the ‘More’ of which William James speaks when describing mystic experience.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my ‘radar’ pick up on the emotions of other people or places?

In the dream what is the radar used for and how does that relate to your life?

Is it used to find my way or to avoid attack?

Am I aware of other people in a radar sort of way?

See Secrets of Power DreamingUsing Your Intuition Body Dowsing – Releasing The Unconscious Wisdom

Radiant

See: Light; Glow.

Radioactive

Powerful energies arising from within, that seem to threaten the conscious self. Contamination, harm through unconscious influences, such as emotions picked up from others, attitudes radiated from others that we have not noticed, but have been influenced by, most likely in a negative way.

The effect on one’s self from other people’s thoughts or feelings. A subtle influence from other people or one’s surroundings. Usually other people’s negative attitudes or ill wishes. Hidden influences that can be destructive or damaging to your health.

If the dream points to something that is causing an effect, it is worth checking if the thing or stuff is in fact bad for you.

Radio activity is often used in healing some dangerous illnesses, so if you are receiving such or in need of it you might see mention in your dreams. If so, take notice of what the dream suggests.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream a warning about something affecting you?

What does the dream suggest or imply?

Is a health problem involved?

See Health and HealingDealing with StressEmotions and Mood in DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Raft

A flimsy philosophy, or inadequate motives or ideas, with which we hope to deal with life. A relationship that might be drifting without purpose, or afloat on flimsy principles. Or in some dreams a lifesaving change in yourself or situations.

Something lifesaving; feeling adrift without control or direction. If it is rough going on the raft it might be saying that you feel you are a victim or circumstances. Sometimes people feel threatened by the great sea creatures, but this may be fears of meeting their larger self. See The Life Will and the Human Personality

But as the second example shows the raft represent a close association with the enormous sea of the unconscious.

 Example: I was on an obstacle course race and I was paired up with an indigenous mother and her daughter to the foreign land we were on and the first part of the obstacle was to be race on a make-shift raft by myself in the middle of a huge lake and I was to meet up with her on the second part. I reached the end of the first part of the course and the lake had turned into a river. Everyone else had started out ahead of me and I was having trouble manoeuvring my raft initially. Everyone who was participating were my friends and family and they had left me far behind, but I was not upset about it, in fact I found comfort in taking my time even though I was struggling with the raft so much, but the part of the dream that stood out most to me was after the dream had turned into a river.

The obstacle course is your life as dreams see it. The obstacles you meet and overcome are real life issues and when you overcome them you are learning it and it is then applicable to everyday life. But the obstacles are all big things that were put in your life to learn from and grow spiritually. It seems that you were not born with the best equipment to deal with the life issues you meet – the make-shift raft. Also you are left behind by your family in their performance. But in fact you have a very valuable gift that will soon put you ahead. The gift is that you are not blaming others for your difficulties, and that is a rare gift.

 Example: Dreamt I was with L my son far out to sea on a small raft like boat. L was about three, and the boat was a flat canoe shaped thing about two feet wide and eight long. It was just above the water. It seemed secure apart from that, but water did sometimes roll over its surface. I could see no land, but felt sure I knew the direction and was paddling with my hands to go in that direction. I felt it would take a long time, but didn’t feel anxious about that. L was sat in front of me, also quite happy.

When exploring this dream a little, I felt it was about being afloat on the infinite ocean of life, and the small raft/boat was the rather flimsy attitudes or threshold that stands between me and that ocean. It didn’t seem to matter if I didn’t get anywhere by my efforts.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I on a raft or watching one?

Was being on a raft troubling or a good feeling?

Did I feel alone or deserted?

See The Unconscious Nothing Can Hurt You in Your DreamsBeing the Person or Thing

Ragged

Without neatly defined morals, philosophy, or social sense etc.

 The first example however describes a very different situation. It shows an enormous increase in his life energy, also the increase led him to be with a woman and stimulated his sexual desires. It may have arisen because he was no longer locked into having to conform.

 Example: I was an elderly tramp, dressed rather raggedly. Much of the dream is forgotten, but I remember that the sun began to go into supernova, getting brighter and brighter. I realised that everything would be burnt, and sought shelter in a nearby barn. As the sun got brighter and brighter it shone in through every chink in roof and walls and I saw that it was no protection at all. I walked out, but the sun seemed normal although everybody else except one woman had been destroyed and there was no sign of them. I walked off with the woman – somebody else’s wife – and started to hold her from behind.

 Example: I came to a spot where a train had crashed years before. It must have plunged into the ravine, and rails and parts of the train were embedded in the rock and earth. From here I could see that a road ran nearby. I climbed up onto the road, hoping to hitchhike, but I was too ragged. At least, I got no lifts.

 The dreamer, Frank, said that he had jumped off a train to escape a woman he had become a sexual slave to. He carries on and describes his mental condition as, “I knew that a great change had overtaken me during my imprisonment to the girl. I had lost all the previous regard for myself. I really inwardly now felt like a down and out, without any pride or respect for myself. I was not criminally moved, simply empty of all normal human self-regard.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

Were you the ragged person or were you an observer?

What do you associate with being ragged?

Did you notice any feelings or emotions in the dream?

See TrampMagical Dream MachineTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Rails Railway Train Station

Opportunity or choices in life; your life direction if on train – or the direction the events in life are taking you, perhaps your direction of growth. Sometimes the train refers to the direction or events you are involved in with others, a train of events’ in fact.

Carriages: A particular compartments or facet of your life. The situation or environment you are in at the moment – perhaps with particular people.

Leaving someone behind or being left behind: Feelings about loss of spouse; or break-up of relationship; being left; change of some sort; watching someone take a direction or get involved in things that mean parting.

Lines or tracks: The rails themselves represent orthodoxy, the accepted way of going about things, moral values or a direction that is hard to change, and perhaps shared with others. Thus one can say someone has gone off the rails. A communal or generally accepted direction; habitual pathways of thought or action; rigidly fixed to certain attitudes or way of life; inflexibility.

Missing the train: feeling left out of opportunity; sense of inadequacy; held back by one’s own hesitations; hidden desire to avoid change or to make one’s individual journey; not connecting with an opportunity or events.

Railroad crossing: A need for awareness and observation in case of danger. Possible block to progress. Conflict between your personal direction — the car – and the prescribed direction of the train.

Railway station: Moving toward something new; making a choice or having a choice of directions – directions that may need decision, planning and or choice; changing scenes – i.e. from family to work environment; leaving something behind – a relationship, one’s youth; one’s ability to change; effort to get somewhere in life or experience something new; parting or meeting, saying farewell or waiting for someone; changes in a relationship or work. The station can also depict the ‘station’ you have reached, or are moving toward in life. So it might therefore be a situation you are in or trying to reach.

Sometimes ‘station’ in your dream can mean your life state or station. So it is your present life situation. The station you try to reach is the place or situation you will arrive at when you bring your desires and actions under direction.

The train journey: The aspect of our journey through life that has connections with other people and has a predetermined end unless you change trains. It is therefore limiting your individual will, and passing through certain stages. It may show a journey into self-awareness. And because you are being pulled along by a power other than your own efforts, it can refer to ageing and death – especially where there is a feeling of ‘departing’ or ‘time of departure’; the train of thought or experiences that carry us through life. But it refers in general to your movement through life as time passes.

The journey might be one you remember making in the past, or meeting someone from a previous journey. These can both refer to influences in your present life from prior to your birth.

Ticket: See ticket

Train engine: The energy that takes us through life; libido.

 Example: I lived in a village/town at the foot of a huge mountain. I felt desperate and that I had to do something – I must climb the mountains straight away. I ran away from home, family, to straightaway start to climb the mountain. The beginning of the journey was on a train. Although it had been night and raining, now it was light and blue sky. As the train slowly climbed the mountain, I looked out on the scenery behind us. There were strange rock formations, mountain valleys, lovely vistas, so beautiful I wept openly at the beauty. Others in the carriage noticed how moved I was.

Idioms: Go off the rails; lose track of something; make tracks for; on somebody’s track. See: airport; ticket.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I was on a train, where was I going?

Did anything important happen on the train?

Did you or did you not have a ticket?

See Being the Person or ThingJourneyJourney InwardWater Wonderland

Rain

Generally rain symbolises emotions, release of feelings.

If the rain is gentle it is usually a relaxing experience and suggests a release from ideas and intellect. If it is a downpour and storm, it is feelings which may drench us, as in sadness or grief about a friend passing. If the land is inundated, then our common sense is lost to sight in the emotions released, and danger may threaten.

But rain may also show a return of feelings after a long spell of dry intellectualism or drought of feelings.

Some dreams show a massive downpour and feel that they have to wade through a flood, making it difficult to move; also it can be dangerous because visibility is poor. This suggests either emotions or natural events make it difficult for you get around as usual. A heavy falll of rain can also can be a start of very big changes in ones life and feelings.

If the rain is entering ones house it can signify worries about ones living conditions and comfort.

Rain can be a cleansing experience when it clears the ground and plants grow because they are watered. So it then represent a cleansing of worries or thoughts and emotions.

If a flood or huge rainfall washes your house away or other things it may be that it is about a way of life, an attitude that has been radically changed. I can suggest a new beginning and a new and better way of life.

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.

Example: I happened to rub or scratch my flesh and felt like bits of something on me. I looked and saw they were maggots. They had come off the blanket. I tried to brush them off, and it was like pieces of dirt or scum coming off the body, but I could not seem to get rid of all of them. Afterwards I saw my sexual feelings rise like a thermometer. This didn’t clear the maggots, but I felt impressed to rise thermometer right up to my head. I watched the liquid rise. Then it came out of my head like a fountain, raining down on my body. This fell upon the maggots, which fell off me. As they did so they became seeds that grew in the ground.

Idioms: Come rain or shine; it never rains but it pours; saving for a rainy day.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel about the rain in the dream?

Was the rain gentle or a heavy downpour?

Do you dislike or like the rain?

See River – water Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsMagical Dream Machine

Rainbow

At the core of each of us is an amazing potential. Throughout history religions have been built around connecting with or recognizing this potential. The reason being that it holds the possibilities of enormous transformation of body and mind. From it can emerge healing of illness and enormous change and enlargement of your mind. The action or release of this core potential into your everyday life is shown in dreams by anything shining or deeply beautiful, and the rainbow is such a symbol.

We also associate the rainbow with calm after a storm, or respite after rain. So it can be a way your unconscious tells you that better times are ahead. This might well apply to your health, signifying that your body is reaching a greater balance. But it could apply to everyday circumstances you face.

Lastly, the rainbow, in the phrase, ‘chasing the rainbow’, suggest we are pursuing something we will never achieve. This only applies in your dream if you are in fact trying to get to the foot of the rainbow.

A sense of better things to come; illusion; an awareness of the beauty and value of life in the midst of difficulties. imagery.

It can mean a symbol of God’s promise, the rainbow which came after flood, which promised humankind would never be wiped away in total destruction again.

The Rainbow Tribe is used to signify people of difference races, beliefs and religions acceptance each other.

The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photo receptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colours you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum.

 Example: I looked down and saw fields and villages below. I noticed something very strange, rising from the ground. It was like ripples or bands rising from particular points on the earth; like rainbows, only with many, many three dimensional bands going right down to the ground. I couldn’t really understand it, but wondered whether it was people praying.

Example: it had a peak the same as a spinning top almost pointing to his head. What I felt was wonder as I realized it was a rainbow representing all the colours.

I think it is an experience of your life energy gaining strength. The colours also show how the flow of energy in you lifts your mood – thus the feeling of wonder.

 Example: Through admitting my own weakness, failure and ineffectiveness I have grown out of the chaser of rainbow ends and mirages to one who can accept an imperfect world, my own imperfection, and take cups of water from shaking hands. I take my place as a man among mankind – not the saints. “When those Saints go marching in, I am not to be among their number.”

Example: I see the outline of her robe her veil, her folds in her veil and robe and her face. The outlines are all in the colours of the rainbow. She does not speak she is above my bed in mid-air she is there for a few minutes. I close my eyes and open them again she is still there. It is only years later that I find out colours of the rainbow are always mentioned when others have seen visions of our lady.

Example: ‘Then I had a vision that I was walking along a narrow trail through the brush-no tall trees. It was a beautiful day. No wind. Plenty of sunshine. I walked along this trail for about an hour until I heard the sound of tinkling bells in the distance. As I came nearer to the sound, I saw four men sitting around something that was round. Above their heads was something across the sky like a rainbow. One of these men called me his grandchild. He said, “You are supposed to tell the people once in a while when you are in trouble about something you know, something that’s in you.

Before his assassination Henry IV dreamed he saw a rainbow over his head. This was seen as suggesting a violent death.

Idioms: Chasing a rainbow.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you feel and think when you see the rainbow?

Was there a storm before the rainbow?

Did anything follow the rainbow?

What you feel and think in your rainbow dream is your personal message from the rainbow. Note it well.

A preceding storm suggests that things have been difficult for you and are now improving.

If something happened in the dream after the rainbow, this might be a clue to what is emerging in your life. What does it suggest to you?

See – QuestionsMagical Dream MachineBecause Factor Look at I

Raincoat

Attitudes that protect you from emotion, worry, or outbursts, especially other people’s. See: Clothes.

The attitudes we use to meet difficult emotions or events; often appears in dreams of dead spouse, suggesting tears or the release of emotions. But in many cases it suggests a means of hiding what we feel or our vulnerability, or protecting oneself.

Dubious characters are often dressed in raincoats in movies, and so this cliché is sometimes used in our dreams to suggests something underhand or shady, or even threatening is being faced or felt. See: rain.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the feelings and dream situation surrounding the coat – i.e. is it happy, sexual, threatening – and where does that feeling appear in my waking life?

Whose coat is this, and what associations or memories do I have with it?

If I am not wearing it, what character is shown in it? See: Characters and People in Dreams.

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Ram

Tenacity, masculine strength, toughness, leadership and power. A man’s strength. The sacrifice of the ram is a surrender of this strength to the spirit that it may be directed by wholeness.

Masculinity; sexual drive; the aggressive defensive side of ‘sheep’ – i.e. of ones conformity, being one of the group, the passive employee; power of renewal; leader of a flock or group of people, or the less dominant aspects of self; being dominant or pushy. Idioms: Battering ram; ramming ones point home; like a ram among sheep.

In ancient cultures the ram was often a sacrificial animal, and possibly represented to offering of ones power or seed – genitals – to God to bless. Also the ram is the symbol for the sign of Aries in the Zodiac. This is the ‘Cardinal’ ‘Fire’ sign. It depicts the pouring out of new life, power, energy, impulse, activity. The person born with the sun in Aries is said to posses initiative, a pioneering spirit, etc. The sign is represented as a young “Ram,” lying down with one foot bent under it, and its head turned backward, looking as if it had been slain as a sacrificial victim. This possibly shows an early stage in the psychological development of human beings, in which the instinctive drives were killed out or purposely repressed in order to develop the personal will and identity. If one is born as an Arian, a ram in ones dreams may represent ones fundamental qualities. See: sheep below.

Example: I was looking through a circular window with lead lights in it. I was looking down into a field. Below I could see myself lying on the ground on my back with a ram standing over me making sexual movements. I only watched and felt nothing. Cath H.

Useful questions are:

What character does my ram display?

Is it dominating, sexual, sacrificial, etc, and what does that suggest about me?

What is my interaction with the ram?

If I am born under the sign Aries, what does this dream tell me about myself?

Rape

This can mean you are overcome by events, by other people dominating you, or by your own internal unwanted emotions.

Rape in dreams is very different from rape in real life, as we create our own dream, so why introduce rape? Perhaps in the example below Mrs B. discovers her own power in the situation as she realises the weakness of the male.

Example: ‘I tried to turn but my legs were like lead. The man caught me and I fought. He tried to rape me but couldn’t do it. As I talked to him I began to feel sorry for him and not frightened. I realised that inside he was a nice person. In the end I found I liked him so much I began to kiss him myself.’ Mrs J.B.

Example: ‘A man is trying to make love and at the last moment I repel him as I know it will cause a pregnancy. When I was about ten I was raped and for many years had a fear of men.’ Anon.

This is the other side of rape. Rape in this dream may be memories, the effects of that are still visible in the life of this dreamer, causing her pain in warm sexuality.

Example: ‘The Devil attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was repressed sexuality. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available sexual or emotional energy. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the Devil was my sexual warmth and love that had become negative through restraint.’ Neil V.

In this male dream, it is the conflict with his sexuality that causes the ‘devilish’ rape. When he can find tenderness the negative aspect disappears. Rape also depicts the real evil of another person disregarding our personal needs and feelings, abusing not only the body, but particularly the ‘person’. Being raped by someone known: Feeling anxious about sex with them; fighting off desire for them.

This can mean you are overcome by events, by other people dominating you, or by your own internal unwanted emotions.

Rape in dreams is very different from rape in real life, as we create our own dream, so why introduce rape? Perhaps in the example below Mrs B. discovers her own power in the situation as she realises the weakness of the male.

Example: ‘I tried to turn but my legs were like lead. The man caught me and I fought. He tried to rape me but couldn’t do it. As I talked to him I began to feel sorry for him and not frightened. I realised that inside he was a nice person. In the end I found I liked him so much I began to kiss him myself.’ Mrs J.B.

Example: ‘A man is trying to make love and at the last moment I repel him as I know it will cause a pregnancy. When I was about ten I was raped and for many years had a fear of men.’ Anon.

This is the other side of rape. Rape in this dream may be memories, the effects of that are still visible in the life of this dreamer, causing her pain in warm sexuality.

Example: ‘The Devil attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was repressed sexuality. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available sexual or emotional energy. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the Devil was my sexual warmth and love that had become negative through restraint.’ Neil V.

In this male dream, it is the conflict with his sexuality that causes the ‘devilish’ rape. When he can find tenderness the negative aspect disappears. Rape also depicts the real evil of another person disregarding our personal needs and feelings, abusing not only the body, but particularly the ‘person’. Being raped by someone known: Feeling anxious about sex with them; fighting off desire for them.

Occasionally some rape dreams are traced back to sexual assault by the father when young, or another member of the family. Here is a quote from the book Dreams and Sex by Dr. Gayle Delaney.

The terror Deborah felt in this dream was so great that it led to her recall of incest with her father thirty years earlier. When she told her sister about the dream and the memories, her sister refused to talk to her. But later her sister confirmed that she had experienced similar nightmares and memories. Both had worried that they might be falsely accusing their father of incest, but after a few months of therapy, they decided to confront their parents and found solid confirmation of the abuse.  I have written about it because there are so many adults who have been abused as children and do not yet know either what to do about it or that they have plenty of company among others who were abused and are still ashamed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was I raped in the dream?

If so did I fight successfully or unsuccessfully?

Was it a frightening experience?

How did you deal with it?

See Active PassiveMagical Dream MachineLifeStreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

Rat

What you sense as sick or negative, so can depict your fears or anxieties, frightening instincts or urges, physical sickness or anxieties about health. Perhaps also feelings of sexual repulsion, or using sex to gain material aims. But this was caused by the fallacy that rats carried the plague and are unclean, but rats are very clean.

It was found out by historical research that it wasn’t the rat that brought the plague to Europe but the gerbil was the culprit. Sometimes a rat in your dream can remind you of love that was betrayed, or intuitions about a person being a ‘rat’ or ‘ratting on you’ – doing things behind your back or underhandedly – or deserting a relationship when difficulties arise.

The rats can point to threatening things going on that you are not clear about, or a view of the underhanded side of yourself or others – the evil side of human nature, its dirt and squalor, or time gnawing away at your life. The unacceptable parts or oneself. In some dreams the rat has the character of most rodents, the gnawing inquisitive searching out of things. It can therefore relate to one’s anxieties, self questioning and worrying mind that disturbs or eats away at things like peace of mind or confidence.

Because we may have associations with rats used in laboratories they may suggest healing and sacrifice.

Pet rat: Quite different to general rat associations; vulnerability, instinctive intelligence, the caring feelings or drive to care; responsibility for caring. The rat is an intelligent creature, is a great survivor and explorative.

In China where various types of rat are cooked and eaten, the astrological symbols are replaces by animal symbols. The rat (sometimes referred to as a mouse) is the first of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. People born in this year are expected to possess qualities associated with rats, including creativity, intelligence, honesty, generosity, ambition, a quick temper and wastefulness. People born in a year of the rat are said to get along well with “monkeys” and “dragons”, and to get along poorly with “horses”.

Idioms: Rat on someone; rat race; smell a rat; feeling ratty; cornered rat; rats leave a sinking ship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I confronting or remembering something that I feel is repulsive or evil?

Am I in a relationship that I intuitively feel difficulties about?

Am I being a rat in a relationship or situation? Is a worry or irritation eating away at me?

See animalsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Razor

Intellectual acuteness, the ability to cut through the useless or misleading to the real issue. But such cleverness may be dangerous if we are not humble, for you can also cut away feelings and pleasure in living. It can also depict the thin dividing line between wisdom and folly, life and death, genius and insanity, self and spirit.

Occam’s razor was the principle stated by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian. The principle can be seen as “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” So it might suggest either that you are making your thoughts or views too complex – or that you have cut down to the simplest to arrive at truth.

The middle way can depict any behaviour or attitudes that are not one-sidedness, which otherwise would lead to imbalance within the individual. But at the same time it is not about being perfect or a saint, but the balance between the black and white, that leads to a balanced and whole human being with very wide choices. Walking it we balance between the opposites facing us.  See The Mountain Path

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is the razor being used in the dream?

Does this represent a ‘razor sharp mind’, or something along those lines?

Is this illustrating that thin edge we sometimes walk in life between opposites?

See The Con About Evil Summing UpIntegration – Meeting yourselfTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Reach Reaching

The desire for something; attempt to grasp, control or manipulate something or someone, depending on dream; extending or giving oneself; acquiring something new. Being reached toward: Feeling of being asked for something, or demands of other people.

Reaching is nearly always an extension of your energy; it conquers space and gravity in your reaching and is quite an extraordinary thing, although we tend to accept it as of little account. Yet every time we reach out our hand we are extending something more than our hand.

Reaching can be in many different ways – reaching up, to, down, into, forward or backward, further, through, toward, deep, away from, over, not reaching it, within, reaching us, reaching out for a mate, for something, for it, out or to someone, reaching the end.

 Example: The feeling was of not reaching out positively for what I wanted. I had reached out with everything I had as a baby and nobody had come, so I closed down. To reach out and find emptiness was too painful, so best to become passive and wait. But now I will be able to reach out for what I want. I can give myself more fully to others because I can myself reach out for my needs.  

Example: We are running through an office building where I work but we can’t find a way out. I distinctly remember reaching to hold my sisters hand to keep her with me. Eventually we hide in an office and hope the dinosaurs don’t find us.

 

Example: I had a drback eam recently of going into my house. I saw someone had put a thin curtain up over a wide door. When I started to push the curtain aside a strong hand grasped mine. And then I knew it was my mother reaching through that thin veil that separates us. So much love came to me.  

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I looking up to or reaching for?

In what way is my intuition or awareness reaching beyond myself?

Am I reaching out for my own needs?

What am I reaching for or to?

Am I trying to reach somewhere in my life?

See Body PosturesPostures Movement and Body LanguageLiberating The Body –  Water Wonderland – The Mind Reaches beyond the Body

Read Reading

Realisation, thinking, learning, looking at self, across, reviewing ideas, considering something, or memorising.

Reading of books represents th en, information and proof, and also packets of different contacts, a different person’s soul, which adds to your own life experience in some way. What you read may often impress you enough to appear in your dreams, as next example shows.

 Example: Looked in the mirror and saw that my face had certain `Mongol’ features, especially the lower lip. Realised that I had always had these, but they had remained latent. In the dream I knew that this was Bright’s disease, of which I should surely die. Then it came to me that this had all come about through stopping sex and if I started again the features would go.

The Bright’s disease is something that was read about a few days ago. It was in connection with premature death, so probably links with fear of death.

 Example: Dreamt I opened a paper at the comic strip. Began to read and became involved in the story. A small speedboat was on the sea. But the sea dissolved anybody who fell in. One man fell in but held himself together as a blob of water, and jumped back to the speedboat. I remember the words, “The sea is a great solvent.”

Reading a dream is a bit different to reading a book, for we have fairly well defined definitions of words. But dream images are completely different, for the dreamer creates the images out of their own personal experience with their own associations. See Working with associations – An example can be heard by clicking  Dream Exploration

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I ‘reading’ myself (looking at myself) in the dream?

What ideas or new information am I taking in?

Did the reading give any new insights or emotions?

What was happening in the dream?

See Makes InnerEvery 7 Years You ChangeMartial Art of the MindClicking On

Reap Reaper

Experiencing the results of your actions; harvesting the results of your life. See Karma And Past Lives

Autumn in dreams often represents the second half of your life, or a time of reaping rewards from past action.

Unfortunately, women reap the harvest of what has probably been sown by the man’s mother. The woman he feels ‘in love’ with then appears to be an angel of light, or a destructive witch, or even a femme fatale.

Knowledge learned goes beyond the individual. At this stage a man can look at life and discover that if corn is planted, a harvest may later be reaped. This realisation can be passed on. At its lowest level it is learned response. At its highest level a collection of conscious realisations about life.

 Example: Death or the grim reaper inside a room with a woman. She tells him to leave. He took her husband. She tells him to leave – forces him to leave. His hand caught in the door, finally he leaves. She concentrates on his leaving. It is her force of will. It is her intense hatred that forces him to leave.

Example: During the last year, three of my family have died. I dreamt I was in bed at home and I woke up. In front of me was a black shape just standing at the foot of the bed. I was so frightened my body was shaking. Then instead of the black shape my dead mother, sister and brother were there, young again instead of old.

The black shape is the darkness and fear of the unknown. In fact, fear of death! You met the dark stranger three times this year, and our culture paints a pretty dreadful picture of the reaper. Images of skeletons and rotting bodies are the order of the day, and you are dealing with the emotions connected with this view of death. You literally shake with them.

But your dream then goes beyond this to a meeting with your family where sickness and age are wiped away, and your feelings of fear melted. Here is the bright side of death, and it is a message for you in your old age that you need not go to the unknown with dread, for your family are waiting to greet you. Find your way to them in peace.

Idioms: grim reaper; you reap what you sow; sew the wind and reap the whirlwind

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does my dream deal with what I sowed in my life’ (experiencing the results of my actions)?

Can I actually see and recognise that cause and effect are tied together?

Can I see that what I ‘reaped’ are because of what I ‘sowed’?

See Emotions and Mood in DreamsWorking with associationsInner WorldMeditation with Seed

Rebel Rebellion

Conflict with the father can lead to feelings of not being loveable, acceptable or capable of love. It can also implicate you in a desire to go against family and social ‘principles’ and lead a life of rebellion – or certainly one that is alternative. A great deal of anger and the urge to inflict hurt or to criticise may be involved in this. See: animus under archetypes.

One may rebel against being a part of normalcy, even to rebelling against one’s personal sexual characteristics. The alienation can also occur because for one reason or another you cannot live within the patterns of behaviour accepted, or built into, your family or social group. This is particularly evident in religious or political groups, which, to function well, requires a high degree of conformity.

Dr. Morse was part of a long term research on children who had a Near Death Experience (NDE), they showed an absence of any drug use. They have little rebellion against authority, and showed a keenness to learn and be active in the world. Their maturity and wisdom was marked, and they each claimed that during their NDE they had learned profound lessons about how to live and the meaning of their life.

Experiments with expansion of awareness showed the constriction and limitation of the ego and its rational verbalism; this too meant nothing to those who had never transcended their conscious ego limits or the clanking machinery of reason. In this conception was an attack on the validity of social sanctions, which aroused sympathy among social rebels but was hardly likely to gain any favour among the powerful and well placed.

Certainly they have a point; but they have ignored another point, perhaps more basic. Modern man is inextricably involved with and dependent on the body social that we are all a part of. This leads to being seen as rebels against society and its institutions, incurring its disfavour. So rebelling can bring relentless penalties. He may not feel guilty, he may completely disbelieve the rationale of his punishment, but he suffers it all the same. But there is another path for rebels, it is called creativity. The creative rebel might write songs of protest and so reap the rewards of popularity. See Archetype of the Outcast

 Example: Then somebody, the man (?), who had called up the beast or fish, said that the next thing was the most difficult. The beast then came out of the hole, and changed into an enormous eight-foot tall woman. She was tremendously obese. She had breasts full of water, hanging down to below her waist. Everybody scattered, but the fat woman caught a rather spinsterish woman by the arm. She then applied a lighted taper to the woman’s arm. At first the woman was petrified and took it – allowed it. Then she rebelled, much to the fat woman’s astonishment. Her arm flung up and hit the fat woman hard in the face.

Example: There were some rebels who were defying the government – holding some government people hostage. They are told if they surrender and let these people go, they will be free to go. They agree. But it is a trick. And when the Police Chief comes back, he is laughing at how easily the rebels fell for this trick. He has some pictures and spent bullets showing how the rebels were killed. Everyone is laughing at how easy it was to trick these poor rebels. I am an observer of these people gloating over their success.

Example: (I get drunk for the next two days after this dream. I played a classic game of ‘Drunk and Proud’ – rebelling against my wife who said that she wouldn’t be home on Saturday because she had to take her mother to the doctor. “Not again! Last week you weren’t going to be home because you had to see your friend that you hadn’t seen in 32 years. This week it is to take care of your mother again.”

Example: After this, my brother and I went through many difficulties due to a difficult separation between our parents, with whom we became increasingly estranged. Our father was physically not far from us, however his response to the separation was to bitterly cut away any chance of an amicable future with my mother, for the sake at least of good parenting.  My brother and I both rebelled heavily against our parents, in our own ways.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did you rebel or learn from authority figures?

What is my relationship as a member of family, a group or society – is it a rebel, a participant, an outsider or what?

What have you ever fought it rebelled against?

See Every 7 Years You ChangeMartial Art of the MindProgrammedEdgar Cayce

Rebirth Resurrection

Something new has been brought to life within you and the old,  your old self, felt it had died.

The ideas of rejuvenation and resurrection after a form of death were an important part of the beliefs of ancient societies. These convictions probably had their roots in the many examples of people suddenly reviving after they died and the stories they told of their experiences. These near death experiences, which count in hundreds of thousands, were very evident to ordinary people who witnessed them. In today’s world they are still there in the thousands but usually take place in hospitals so are not so impressive to the general public.

Also we are told again and again that nobody has ever come back from the dead and so when dead that is the end – but in fact thousands have come back and have left a wonderful body of knowledge about the immortal nature of humans. See Near Death ExperiencesThe Wonder of You by Lynn Russell

Of course, many authorities try to explain such experiences away if they have not experienced it themselves. But Dr Morse examined the possibilities of drugs influencing the brain, and other possibilities and found these did not apply. Again and again, people could witness and report actual happenings around them while they were apparently unconscious or without a heartbeat.

Melvin Morse, M.D., and Paul Perry in their book Closer to the Light, say that deep in a secret chamber a solemn group of men sought guidance from death. They dressed in white robes and chanted softly around a casket that is sealed with wax. One person is carefully counting to mark the time. After about eight minutes, the casket is opened, and the man who nearly suffocated inside is revived by the rush of fresh air. He tells the men around him what he saw. As he passed out from lack of oxygen, he saw a light that became brighter and larger as he sped to­ward it through a tunnel. From that light came a ra­diant person in white who delivered a message of eternal life.

This was the cult of Osiris, a small society of men who were the priests and pharaohs of ancient Egypt, one of the greatest civilizations in human his­tory. This account of how they inspired near death is an actual description of their rites from Egyptologists who have translated their hieroglyphics.

One of the most important Egyptian rituals involved the re-enactment by their god-king of the myth of Osi­ris, the god who brought agriculture and civilization to the ancient Egyptians. He was the first king of Egypt who civilized his subjects and then travelled abroad to instruct others in the fine art of civilization. His ene­mies plotted against him. Upon his return to Egypt, he was captured and sealed in a chest. His eventual resurrection was seen as proof of life eternal.

Each new king was supposed to be a direct reincarnation of Osiris. An important part of the ceremony was to re-enact his entombment. These rituals took place in the depths of the Great Pyramid and were a prerequisite for becoming a god-king. It is my guess that many slaves perished while the Egyptians exper­imented to find exactly how long a person could be sealed in an airtight container and survive.

Altars can link with a place of death, but also of rebirth, and thus a meeting with the universal life of which you are a part, and a connection with it through self-sacrifice or surrender. The ‘death’ of self comes through self-sacrifice and leads to rebirth.

Example: Then I seemed to be at a slight distance watching my dead body, and I saw my father, who had died some years before, come and carry the body over a threshold into a heavenly meadow. There a resurrection took place. I was given new life. And the new life came from all that I had given to others, and all I had received from others during my life. That was my spiritual body and life. A

Example: In ancient Egypt the crocodile was worshipped as the god Sebek the crocodile-headed god, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Osiris too was Lord of Death and Resurrection, of destruction and rebirth. It was the Egyptian symbol of a new Life and the divine within. It possibly represented the forces of the unconscious, because of the observation of the crocodile emerging from hidden depths to lay its eggs on the river bank. In this sense the crocodile or alligator in some dreams represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Mummified crocodiles in Egypt have been found with baby crocodiles in their mouths and on their backs. The crocodile – one of the few non-mammals that diligently care for their young – often transports its offspring in this manner. See Example under Alligator

Example: But love can resurrect that vital animal life and consciousness within you and the world. The following dream and commentary illustrates this.

I dreamt two great wolf like dogs were on a headland. They had to be killed for some reason. I shot them. They seemed to take a long time to die and I felt compassion for them. Now horses seemed to be lying with them. The death struggles became the horses – mares – struggles to give birth. I saw the vagina parted to show a head. Birth would follow. Nathan.

Nathan explored his dream and had the following intuitive response to it as if someone was explaining it to him: “When you were trying to murder the lower forces in yourself they would not die; they only thresh about. Try the bringing of life to them. The bringing of love is represented by your desire not to have them suffer. Great love turns the destructiveness of the lower forces into creativeness. The gun was the destructiveness of the fears and angers in you turned against yourself. The love redeemed this power, directing it in a new way. Love enables new life to emerge from the whole. The new life promises strength where there was only fear. When you love yourself, you lift parts of your being into new life.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How did my dream mention or suggest rebirth?

Did I experience it in the dream?

How would I describe the experience?

See death and rebirthArchetype of Rebirth Techniques for Exploring your DreamsDreaming of Death

Receive Received Receiving

This is usually about a straightforward receiving of something like feelings from a relationship, or ideas that are helpful.

But receiving or being able to receive have many possibilities as these quotes from dreams show: we were receiving a heavy attack; a wonderful experience of receiving and giving; same time receiving sexual satisfaction; receiving a flash of light; receiving some form of healing, or redirection of energies; not receiving enough attention; am I receiving information; receiving or giving love; people, receiving it, worshipping the light shining from me; on the receiving end; receiving the power to speak from the word; you are now receiving the cosmic impulses; the breast is the soul receiving its own sustenance.

As can be seen the way of receiving and what is received can vary enormously. So to understand your dream it seems important to define what or how you are receiving, and whether you welcome or are scared of receiving. Having done that you can use the following to make the dream clearer see Dream Understanding also Being the Person or Thing is useful.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I willing to admit or receive whatever is being depicted?

What am I giving of myself?

What is involved in the relationship with whatever or whoever is giving or receiving?

See The Keyboard ConditionLife’s Little SecretsMartial Art of the Mind – Incubating Dreams

Receptacle – jar jug cup bottle kettle.

A receptive state of mind, or your body and what you put into it. What feelings or thoughts you ‘contain’ or pour out; the womb or vagina – see first example under fish.

In some dreams it indicates the womb – i.e. the reproductive drive, the unconscious desire for a child or more children, and the possible neglect of those feelings and longings.

The condition and fullness or emptiness of the receptacle is also important, showing how fit you are to receive or contain new ideas or insight, and how empty you are to allow more in.

Receptive state of mind; our body and what we put into it; what feelings or thoughts we

If the receptacle, bottle or bowl has little creatures swimming in it might suggest in a woman’s dream that she has conceived. Also see kettle; cup; bottle

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

There anything in the receptacle?

What was my relationship with the receptacle – what was I doing?

Were sexual feelings involved in any way?

Do you ever feel receptive or empty?

See Using Your IntuitionEnergy Sex and DreamsEasy Dream UnderstandingSettings in Dreams 

Recipe

The way to use yourself, or the right proportion of things to aim for.

Recluse

See: Hermit.

Records

Paper or filmed: Usually memory or information you may have forgotten or not accessed before.

Records – paper or filmed.

Usually memory or information you may have forgotten or not accessed before. See: CD

Any video or film, even if the characters or theme seem strange, is nearly always a depiction of some aspect of you. Some drives or areas of self act or express despite what we would want. These are named autonomous complexes. Recent research into brain activity shows that in fact the brain has different layers or strata of activity. These strata often act independently of each other or of conscious will. Sensing them, as one might in a dream, might feel like meeting an opposing will or being possessed by an alien force. Integration with these aspects of self can of course be gained. See Animals in your Brain

You are yourself an amazing recording apparatus. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences, along with all the feelings or problems met while living with or loving someone, and they are what make you the person you are – they are YOUR memories. Your dreams tend to put these memories  into the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences/recordings left in your from the relationship. See this wonderful example.

But if you are not honouring what you have taken into you, it might be giving you indigestion of the soul. What I have found over years of investigation is that everything we take in, experience as well as food, needs to be dealt with in a particular way. We are a living process like all living things. We have to transform what we take in into living processes. For instance when a plant takes in water and nourishment it changes it into living cells the same with us if we are healthy, we change food into our living body and awareness. As I wrote years ago, “We often take for granted some of the most astounding facts about our everyday life. They seem so normal we barely notice them. But just think, the potatoes or rice you ate yesterday is today capable of sitting and laughing at a television program. When you digested the food you ate, in some way that is truly astounding, it transformed into your movements, and feelings, and being able to do maths and enjoy a video”. (Quoted from SuperMinds).

How we do that with our experience, well we have to digest it fully by experiencing it fully. If we do not do that it is like plastering stuff/experience on ourselves that is like thick coating which leads to all sorts of mental disorders. Look around you and see the massive crap many people are carrying. Experiencing it fully is a life process like digesting our food. We cannot do it ourselves (we do not consciously digest our food) because Life in us does it. You help it by imagine taking an image if a person in your dream, or the recording or instrument into you. Literally imagine that you are going to take them into your body and you are accepting them – not as outside people, but as the experience you took into you. Then you must allow any feeling to surface fully – that is how we digest experience. In our culture we have been taught to repress everything, that is why we have so much social sickness. See Life’s Little Secrets and People’s Experience of LifeStream

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I sought access to in this dream?

Were there words, information or music in the dream?

Have I in any way digested the mass of experience recorded in me?

Are my memories simple lifeless ideas I have, or have they become living parts of me?

See Memory and Dreams; The Long Memory of Existence; Breakthrough to Memory; Water Wonderland Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Rectum

The rectum is the final part of the colon or large intestine just prior to the exit, which is called the anus. Sometimes the two words are confused, so the exit might be called the rectum. What matters in regard to your dream is what you have understood it to mean prior to the dream.

This whole area is one that is very sensitive to emotions and sexual experience. It links with very primal feelings and may easily become tense, or respond to hurt in oneself or others.

One of its main functions in life, as with the bladder, is to control or release the excretion of faeces. As a baby the process is spontaneous and beyond our control, so has to be learned. It therefore frequently becomes a physical focus for any problems or lessons to do with control or letting go. Thus we have the phrase ‘he/she is really anal’ meaning they hold on to everything or try to control everything.

This holding on or ability to both control and let go, are at the very basis of dealing with adult life, and influence whether we can allow our creativity and sexuality flow. Problems here deeply influence how we deal with our sexual and emotional love, and our ability to let ourselves flow out into activity and creativity. Tension and holding on can lead to a type of auto-homosexual experience. In other words instead of the flow going outwards to others and the world, it is turned back on itself and become in turned sexuality and aggression. See: Faeces.

This whole area is one that is very sensitive to emotions and sexual experience. It links with very primal feelings and may easily become tense, or respond to hurt in oneself or others. One of its main functions in life, as with the bladder, is to control or release the excretion of faeces. As a baby the process is spontaneous and beyond our control, so has to be learned. It therefore frequently becomes a physical focus for any problems or lessons to do with control or letting go. Thus we have the phrase ‘he/she is really anal’ meaning they hold on to everything or try to control everything. As already mentioned, this area, which links very strongly with the genitals, psychologically links with the earliest stages of our development and our earliest experiences as a baby. Many muddled or unconscious experiences are contained in this area of our psyche regarding sexual feelings, desires and self expression. So if you are dreaming about this area it might be that you are becoming more aware of these things. If so you may begin to experiences many sexual urges and confusions that previously remained unconscious or buried in your body. See This base area of the body also depicts the powerful instinctive and biological forces or potential lying at the base of our being – at the base of our personal development. These forces, sometimes represented by a snake or lizard – the instinctive reproductive, flight and fight drives – are the power flowing into our life. If they are not allowed to flow into the development of our personality, we will lack energy and power in some way. In other cultures they are encouraged to flow beyond the fundamental pathways of genital sex toward the functions of greater awareness and insight, thus opening their other possibilities. See Energy Sex and Dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints: Am I meeting any experiences to do with controlling or letting go – if so what is involved? Am I getting rid of some of the crap I have carried around internally or externally? What struggles with infant feelings or sexuality am I meeting – if so what are they? See Use the body to discover dream powerWhat is the main action in the dream? Victims

Red

Even where red appears quite casually in a dream, as with the hat in the example, there is frequently fear, screaming, horror or a sense of danger in the same dream. Red also represents ones basic emotions, earthy nature, and sexuality. In this sense it depicts your strength or vitality and your down to earth health and power. But because of the modern association with traffic lights and warnings such as brake lights on cars, it may sometimes be used as a warning, or a way of saying ‘stop’ or ‘no’.

Example: These men were throwing a big red rubber ball into a field, and if we didn’t catch it, we would get shot. Example: ‘An old woman with a very pink, lined face, and wearing a clashing red hat, knelt close to my face. The woman leaned forward to poke my hand, and I recoiled, screaming myself awake.’ Joy S.

But red must also be understood in context with the other ideas presented. For instance a road accident where blood is seen has a different feeling in your dream that a lovely young girl with red hair – a sign of a lively and perhaps passionate woman. From findings concerning early humans we know that the colour red, and substances such as red ochre, played a large and important part in their life.

In Africa red ochre was, and still is, called the ‘blood of the earth’ and is used in rituals to do with death and renewal. Because red is connected with blood and blood’s obvious links with health, being alive, and the process of childbirth in women, ochre and the colour red were and still are, often used in healing practices. Red wine is also seen as blood in the magical rituals of the church and other groups. See: blood under bodyarchetype of blood; wine.

A recent research team of U.S. and German scientists found that the colour red influences the way people function. It reduces the ability to perform well at whatever task they are doing. University of Rochester and University of Munich researchers reported that even if people being tested were aware of even a hint of red, their performance would be reduced in quality to a significant degree. University of Rochester psychology Professor Andrew Elliot, head of the research, said people associate the colour red with mistakes and failures.

Less frequently: Red can link with blood; menstruation; the biological life force; conception; reproduction; death. Pale pink: Baby feelings; gentle love; weakness.

Red and grey often appear together: Emotions connected with depression or lack of motivation and pleasure.

Red brick building: Homeliness; warmth.

Red clothes or motif: Sexuality; passion; strong emotions.

Red earth: Fertility; richness; the healing power of the body; the collective memory of past human struggles and discoveries which we now inherit as personal or social skills, or ease of performance of things that would have been difficult or impossible for our ancestors.

Red eyes: This usually suggests feelings or fears about sickness or being irrational or deeply emotional.

Red face: Anger; high emotion; illness .

Red hair: Passionate thoughts, angry ideas, great energy like a fire. See: hair.

Red flowers: Love; passion; dangers of passion.

Red furniture or decor; Plush: richness; comfort.

Rose pink: Love, as one might give to a child.

Idioms: paint the town red; redneck; see red; in the red; red carpet; red letter day; red light district; red faced; red handed; red tape; run a red light.

Useful questions and hints:

Are there signs of powerful emotions in the rest of the dream – if so what am I feeling passionate or emotional about?

Is there a warning of danger here, or a message to stop – if so what does that apply to in my life?

Do I feel in any way connected to the earth, to the spirit of nature or life in this dream – if so what does that tell me?

See Colours Emotions Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Reed

Humility, flexibility, in religion and mythology the reed represents the human will that has been surrendered to Life or the spirit, and is thus directed by the Life will. It does not represent weakness, for it takes a strong will not to be moved by worldly ambitions or sensuality, but to surrender or sink personal interests into those of the universal. See It is important the 2 wills

 Example: I move closer to the reed that is growing in the shallows of the lake and while doing so I see some goldfish in the lake in front of the reed. I reckon I will scare them away when I reach the reed and I am surprised to see that they are not afraid. I think there are three of them. Two I remember; one is an orange goldfish and the other one is white with light orange coloured parts on its body.

It does not represent weakness, for it takes a strong will not to be moved by passing sense impressions and flitting ideas, but to surrender to the subtle impressions beyond thinking and senses.

In some dreams reeds can also be used a breathing tube, either to hide under water or to help a person with a blockage to breathe. Reeds can also be used a roofing in a dream, protection against bad weather/emotions. Reeds are sometimes used to tie a boat to or to hang onto if in rushing water. Both ways of securing something or feeling secure.

 Example: As time passed he showed me a collection of musical instruments he had. I held one in my hands. It was shaped like a reed flute, thin at the mouthpiece, widening to a horn shape, but with an extending lip like a shoe horn. It was black and at times I thought it was slightly transparent. The man told me it was made of some sort of asbestos. I suggested it was an early form of the clarinet, and he agreed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part did the reed(s) play in my dream?

Were they to hold on to, breathe through or protective?

What did I feel about the reed or reeds?

See Dreams are a reflection of your inner worldUsing Symbols to Change Life ProblemsMountain PathJesse Watkins Enlightenment

Reflect Reflecting Reflection

Reflections from a mirror or water usually represent, especially if they show your face or body, what image you have of yourself, what you feel about yourself. Sometimes what you see is an unconscious image from the past that needs re-evaluating. To do that you need to ask yourself where those feelings or that image arose from. In understanding it you can re-appraise it.

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. So the person you dreamt about is not them, but is a dream image made out of your feelings and memories.

Looking at your reflection in a mirror is usually about concerns over ones ‘image’ or how others feel about you, self-examination, self-love, negative only if the love is not shared with others. In some dreams it reflects anxiety about changing or ageing. There is the possibility of self-assessment, so how you are judging yourself at the moment. But also being absorbed in yourself. The mirror particularly depicts self-awareness in the sense of insight into your behaviour or character traits.

Present view or opinion of oneself – because few of us define how we really see ourselves, the self image may be largely unconscious, therefore shown as a face that might be different to what we are used to seeing; how we feel others see us; may also be aspects of ourselves the unconscious is showing us that we may not have been aware of.

We are all playing the game of life – the game we play in which we face or run away from the things that scare us; in which we explore the depths of our existence or learn how to love – or simply meet a reflection of our own weakness, terror and of course the wonder of your inner genius. For that is all it is – a magic mirror in which we see ourselves naked of pretence.

Also we can reflect on and learn from experience. Reflecting on a subject in dreams is often a way to see it with wider significance, and even solve problems.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feelings or impressions do I get from or in the dream?

If I was looking at a reflection of myself what did I see or feel?

What was my dream reflecting of me?

See Dreams are a reflection of your inner worldMagical Dream MachineSecrets of Power Dreaming

Refrigerate Refrigerator

To cool down our emotions or sexuality; to be cold emotionally or sexually; a romance that is cooling off; something we have put in ‘cold storage’. To keep things such as feelings fresh or preserve them. See Frozen

It is noticeable that many characters in American films and dreams have bottles of beer they carry around. They usually get them from the fridge. We can see from such films that they get a bottle of beer out of refrigeration and walk around with it in their mouth (like a babies bottle without a teat on). As alcohol is a downer, it may reflect a national characteristic to repress their sensitivity, like switching from one level of awareness to another one.

 Example: He kissed me once, then twice, each time more lingering. He said passionately, “Here, put the beer in the fridge and come here!” My brother Dwight, who had come in behind him, said, “Whoa! I guess I’ll go sit in the car.” I had been putting the beer into the fridge. I noticed that “Harry”, had written letters and messages to me on the beer cartons. I read one about the president getting him enlisted into the navy. I picked up a little Budweiser and gave it to Dwight.

In this dream there are themes of sexual passion, bear drinking and not wanting to see what was really happening, which is a form of refrigeration of one’s feelings.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel difficulty when I experience emotions?

What do I keep repressing/refrigerating?

Have you ever noticed how much you edit/cut-out what you think and feel?

See Self ObservationIndividuation –  The people we carry inside usTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Refugee Refuge

A feeling of not having links with your surrounding and having to forge your own way. Seeking refuge from something that has made it difficult to stay where you were.

Perhaps you are meeting new aspects in people and surroundings. Or perhaps are trying to escape from something or someone,

 Example: I am at a strange gathering – an `encampment’ of leaders of refugee communities all around the world. They are there along with their houses – the `houses’ are the key. They exist simultaneously in their native setting on earth, and in neat orderly rows on this immense mud flat under cloudless blue skies. The dwellings are all very different. All show the endlessly creative innovations of design and use of materials taught by harsh necessity. I am very impressed with the beauty of the dwellings and of the people, even though there are people screaming at each other in various languages from time to time.

Example: I was with a huge crowd of people in some kind of large school with many rooms, I had the feeling that we were all refugee’s trying to escape from something.  I was in my nightwear and people kept coming and demanding that I go with them to help with unruly children who refused to comply with whatever was needful for survival.

Refuge: I believe we each need a safe refuge.  We each need to know there is a place we can go.  Maybe that place is a physical place.  Or maybe it is something we hold inside of ourselves, perhaps not realising it is there.  What I have come to realise over the years is that there are certain people you can trust entirely.  The trust emerges out of experiencing the good and the bad with those people, and finding that no matter what, they still have a link with you and you still love them.  If you are or know of one of those people you provide or are a refuge.  If you went through Wonderland and through hell together, you have a lasting link with them.  No matter what, you probably never destroy that link with them.  To me, that sort of trust is the proper definition of love.

Do you have a religious belief or belong to any group that give support, because dreaming about them can represent a refuge, as does one’s mother or family at times.

Dreaming of an ark or Christ can also be a wonderful image of something you have within you than can give you peace or a sense of safety.

 Example: In this dream a primitive, powerful country had invaded the United States and I had found refuge, together with friends and relatives, in an underground shelter so well provisioned and camouflaged that we could survive the duration of the war there comfortably. Unexpectedly, enemy shock troops attacked the shelter. My friends and relatives scattered but I was captured and forced above ground, where I was ordered to round up those who had escaped. As soon as I did, I realized, these barbarian shock troops would destroy us all. C.N.

Her spontaneous understanding of this is as follows:

About fifteen minutes after having taken LSD, this dream which had been incomprehensible spontaneously revealed its meaning – The underground shelter was obviously meant to be a symbol for my unconscious mind which existed below the surface and had been so well camouflaged that it could survive indefinitely without being discovered. My friends and relatives in the shelter were symbols too – of my symptoms and neuroses which could have survived the duration comfortably had not those barbarian shock troops discovered the underground hiding place. Those barbarian shock troops, I quickly realized, were symbols again – and very apt symbols – for Doctors E and M who were using the barbarian (experimental) shock therapy of LSD. They had already forced my unconscious above ground, and were now asking me to round up those friends and relatives (symptoms and neuroses) that had escaped. As soon as I did round them up, we were to be destroyed. As this interpretation unfolded, the nightmare lost its terror and became instead an encouragement: unconsciously I might be frightened at losing my neuroses but consciously I was delighted.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel like you have no home or are dispossessed?

Have you ever been without a home country or be shifted about?

Have ever been deserted by family or a lover?

See Archetype of the OutcastTechniques for Exploring your DreamsMartial Art of the Mind

Regeneration

See: Death.

Relationship

Relationship in dreams is a fundamental theme. But the men and women you meet, love and fight with, are most frequently showing how you relate to the many and varied attitudes and abilities you have. The great love affair is therefore the drama in which you meet your own masculine or feminine self.

Relatives

A great deal of who you are was absorbed or learned from the close or difficult relationships you experienced while a child. Extremely powerful feeling responses developed to deal with what you needed and what actually happened to you. For instance a man who was placed in an orphanage while young, to top from sinking into deep depression, had to learn to get love from whatever females he could make contact with. As an adult he still experienced a drive to have several women he could turn to when in need.

Relatives in dreams, therefore usually depict family values, a way of life, or particular feelings or responses. In some way they show aspects of what you are doing now in your relationships and activities. So look for such issues as security; attraction or repulsion to males, females; introversion or extroversion as a way of life; dependence or independence and their many levels of growth or action; sickness or anger as a means of getting love, and so on.

Seeing parents dead: Sometimes dreamt at a time you are learning to become independent, so you are letting their influence or power in your life die. See: Brother; Sister; Father; Mother.

Remember Remembered Remembering

A huge percentage of your experience remains forgotten in a general sense. You cannot easily bring it to consciousness. But occasionally a smell, a scene, triggers powerful remembering. In dreams such remembering can happen also. It is then usually about parts of your experience that are important in their connection to the present.

See: AmnesiaIntegration – Meeting yourself

Rent

Interpersonal responsibility or relationship; what we have to ‘pay’ for what we have or want.

When the word rent means torn, it can represent a tearing, perhaps forcefully, of something. The ‘something’ might be your feelings, emotions torn apart. If you are doing the rending, then you are destroying something. What feelings caused the action?

Back rent: Represents locked up energies in past repressions of pain etc. These have to be paid up, to right things. Sometimes feeling stressed because of not being able to pay.

Being the landlord: Feeling more secure because extra money come in. But it depends how you see the people renting from you. In any case you have a relationship with the person or people, and the way you handle the relationship shows how you relate to Life.

Collecting rent: What we want from others, or what we are getting from them in the way of feelings, influences.

Unable to pay rent: Depends on your feelings in the dream. Do you feel you cannot keep up with the demands of everyday life? Do you feel that life owes you a living and you have no intention to pay the rent? Do you feel that the financial system and the social system are all awful and so you feel you can disregard their demands? Whatever you decide, honestly ask yourself whether you want people to do the same to you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What situation were you in with rent in the dream?

Can you justify your actions in the dream?

Do you feel fine about paying your way?

Is the demand too much?

See Understanding this SiteSecrets of Power DreamingBusiness and dreamsEmotions and Mood in Dreams

Reptile

Any reptile in your dreams may depict your surface feeling reactions to that creature, such as like or dislike, attraction or repulsion. But in many cases reptiles such as a snake or lizards are used to portray your very basic instinctive responses to life, such as the fear reaction, flight or fight response, the sexual drive toward reproduction, territorial display, and ritualistic social behaviour – shaking hands, bowing, etc.

The reptile also frequently shows how you are dealing with such enormous flows of emotional or nervous energy. For instance fear is a great protector, but in human life, because we can keep stimulating the response by imagination, by words, it can become overactive to the point of illness. A gazelle may be chased by a lion. If it escapes it doesn’t spend days shaking or drinking alcohol to cover its fear. In a few minutes it is quietly grazing. A human in such an encounter can replay it over and over.

The point is that you cannot become a fully mature human being until you learn to meet these ancient drives and integrate them into your everyday life. So it is important to develop a working relationship with the snakes, lizards and frogs in your dreams. Also the reptile in our dreams is often an expression of our physical makeup. See: Reptile BrainSnake, Alligator, Frog.

Reptiles lizards amphibian and snakes

These often depict our basic spinal and lower brain reactions, such as fight flight or freeze, reproduction, attraction or repulsion, sex drive, need for food and reaction to pain. This includes the fundamental evolutionary ability to change and the urge to survive – very powerful and ancient processes. Our relationship with the reptile in our dreams, depicts our relatedness to such forces in us, and how we deal with the impulses from the ancient part of our brain. See Animals in your Brain

Modern humans face the difficulty of developing an independent identity and yet keeping a working relationship with the primitive or fundamental parts of their nature, thus maturing and bringing the primitive into an efficiently functioning connection with the present social world. The survival urge at base might be kill or run, but it can be transformed into the ambition that helps an opera singer meet difficulties in career. Also the very primitive has in itself the promise of the future, of new aspects of human consciousness. This is because many extraordinary human functions take place unconsciously – in the realm of the reptile / spine / lower brain / right brain / autonomic nervous system. Being unconscious they are less amenable to our waking will. They function fully only in some fight or flight, survive or die situations. If we begin to touch these with consciousness as we do in dreams, new functions are added to consciousness. See: the dream as extended perception under Esp.

Amphibious: this suggests that like a baby in the womb you lived in the water and then emerged from it. But it can also say the you as an adult can dive under the water surface and survive. In other words you can can enter another level of your mind often called the unconscious or wider awareness. See Personal Unconscious  Dimensions of Human Experience

FrogThe deeply unconscious psychobiological life processes, that transformed us from a tadpole/sperm, into an air breathing frog/adult – therefore the process of life in general and its wisdom. The enormous information such symbols hold if we explore them gives them their power; meeting with what we find difficult or repulsive in life and ourselves, that if we can accept transforms into personal potential and power – the frog into the prince story. It is often a form of love that transforms the dark sides of oneself, the toad or beast, into something that is life enhancing; a sub-personality, an aspect of one’s character that is usually unconscious, but occasionally shows itself in behaviour. See Clicking On

The frog has also been associated with the power of resurrection and renewal.

Frogs spawn: Sperm, ovum and reproduction. See: sub-personality

gecko Although a gecko is a lizard, and many lizards are not liked or welcome, a gecko is often seen and welcomed in people’s houses. It is a useful creature to have to rid a house of irritating insects. So it could represent feeling or ability to get rid of irritating feelings and thoughts.

There is the possibility that any lizard can represent the unconscious life of the dreamer.

Lizard: Very much the same as snake, except it usually lacks the poisonous aspect; awareness of unconscious or instinctive drives, functions and processes.

Chameleon: Either one’s desire to fade into the background, or adaptability.

 Example: ‘My wife and I saw a large lizard on the wall near a banana. It was there to catch the flies. The lizard turned so it was facing away from us – head up the wall. We then were able to see it had large wing like flaps that spread from its head in an inverted V. With amazement we saw on these flaps wonderful pictures, in full colour, of birds. In fleeting thoughts, I wondered if the bird’s ‘paintings’ were to attract birds, or were some form of camouflage. But I felt certain the lizard had ‘painted’ these wonderful pictures with its unconscious art.’ David T.

In the example the banana is both David’s pleasure and sexuality, while the lizard is the creativity emerging from his unconscious through the attention he is giving it – in other words he is looking at the lizard, his instinctive life, through exploring his dreams. See the information about the reptilian brain under brain levels and dreams.

In this next example it can be seen how allowing the influence of the instinctive ‘lizard’ life into awareness is strengthening.

 Example: As we were walking something touched my leg or ankle. It was some sort of alien lizard type creature. I realised it had scratched me and thereby put something into my bloodstream. There was slight anxiety about what this would do, but as I stood wondering I could feel some change going on with my hand and wrists. I looked at my right wrist and saw it had become thicker and stronger. It looked really powerful, and I could feel the same sort of change and strength occurring throughout my body. It was like a positive viral attack. As we walked along further the changes deepened. All of us were now changing and metamorphosing, a process we were learning to direct or change in some degree. I remember making my head bullet proof and my body almost armoured with a sort of scaled chitin.

Just after this dream a massive storage heater in my cottage fell on my right foot as I was cleaning it. The pain was awful and a large swelling came up immediately as if the impact had burst a blood vessel or broken bones. It was about two inches across. I thought I had crushed my foot, but was relieved to see I could just about move a couple of toes. The pain was too much to do more. Within an hour and a half all the swelling had gone and the pain was disappearing. By the evening my foot appeared normal apart from small abrasions. This was so amazing I wept to see how my body healed itself so quickly. The next day I went for a long walk with a friend without any pain.

snakeSnakes in dreams often represent the energy keeping us alive at a basic level. But we can express this energy in many ways such as kindness, love, anger, killing things, creativity and so on. See Levels of the Brain and Dreams

It is usually depicting the fight, flight or freeze instinct. It is also an image connected with the force, purpose or energy behind that power of growth and unfolding. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us. It leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully. That energy, like electricity in a house, can be heat, power, sound or vision, and lies behind all our functions. So in some dreams the snake represents our sexuality; in others the rising of that energy up our body to express as digestion – the intestinal snake – or as the creative or poisonous energy of our emotions and thoughts, even disease. In the throat it becomes the destructive or constructive speech and language – expressed or repressed feelings and speech. In the head it becomes thinking, perception and higher cognition.

 Example: Last night, prior to going to sleep I explored the coloured snake dream. When I imagined myself as the snake I clearly felt I had no voice. I could not speak, and my existence was of being impelled by impulse and response to the environment. At its peak this was a very subtle feeling of existing as unconscious life – a living being that finds its way through experience without thought. I felt there was great richness in the snake, but it was still unconscious, so unknown. This was shown by the many colours.

In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy you. We tend to depict this facet of the snake as biting or attacking us, even though we have ourselves given rise to such poisonous emotions as hate and guilt. Because our thinking and emotions are an expression of our life energy, you are capable of directing the creative force of life toward self-destruction. As an example of this, a dreamer exploring her snake dream saw that it represented her flight or fight instincts. This linked with her aggressive and protective feelings in connection with the way men had acted with her. The problem was that the snake was in a poisonous, strangling and killing mode. This, she realised, showed how she had withheld, strangled, her anger about what had happened, and that anger was turned inward, poisoning or strangling her flow of full life.

The opposite is also true. The power of life and death can be directed creatively. Then the snake is seen in its healing role in dreams, and in ancient times was shown in the form of the staff with two snakes coiling up it – caduceus – still used today as a symbol of the medical profession. See: energy emotions mind.

The Hebrew word for the serpent in the Garden of Eden is Nahash. The snake can represent many different things, but usually the energy that expresses as our life processes. If we think of a person’s life from conception to death, we see a flowing moving event, similar in many ways to the speeded-up films of a seed growing into a plant, flowering and dying.

A crowned or light encircled snake: When our ‘blind impulses’ our instinctive or unconscious urges and functions are in some measure integrated with our conscious will and insight, this is seen as the crowned snake or even winged snake. It shows real self-awareness and maturity.

 In coils of snake: Feeling bound in the ‘blind impulses’ or habitual drives and feeling responses. Instincts and habits can be redirected, as illustrated by Hercules labours.

Sitting on snake: Mastery of the instinctive nature and transformation and the making conscious of the wisdom and power resident in the unconscious.

Snake biting oneself: Unconscious worries about our health, frustrated sexual impulse, our emotions turned against ourselves as when internalised aggression poisons us causing very real illness, so may be shown as the biting snake. It may also suggest an influence in one’s life – the venom – that takes away one’s identity and perhaps opens one to a life beyond self, the spirit.

Snake biting others: Biting remarks; a poisonous tongue; emotional energy turned against oneself or someone else.

Snake coiling up tree, pole, cross: The blind instinctive forces of life emerging into conscious experience – in other words the essence of human experience with its involvement in pain, pleasure, time and eternity; the process of personal growth or evolution; healing because personal growth often moves us beyond old attitudes or situations that led to inner tension or even sickness.

Snake coiled around you crushing you: The way you are caught up and constricted in your own or other people’s emotions. Being crushed by emotions, fears; struggling with powerful emotions and urges.

 Snake Colours – Green: Our internal life process directed – perhaps through satisfied feelings, love and creativity – into a healing process or one that leads to our personal growth and positive change.

White: Eternal aspect of our life process, or becoming conscious of it.

Blue: Religious feelings or coldness in relations.

Snake in connection with any hole: Sexual relatedness.

Snake in the grass: Sense or intuition of talk behind your back; danger; sneakiness.

Snake with tail in its mouth: Sense of the circle of life – birth, growth, reproduction, ageing, death, rebirth; the eternal.

The Africans believed the dream of a snake round the leg signified slavery, while the dream of a dragon round the body is a symbol of bondage in Artemidorus.

 Example: ‘A small snake about a foot long had dropped down my shirt neck. I could feel it on the left side of my neck. Fearing it was poisonous and might bite me I moved very slowly. At one point I put my head on the ground, hoping the snake would wish to crawl away. It did not. Then I was near an elephant I loved, and hoped it would remove the snake. It did not. Even as I slept I felt the snake was an expression of the attitude of not sharing myself with anybody except family.’ David T.

or months prior to the above dream David had experienced a great deal of neck pain. After discussing the dream with his wife, and realising much of his thinking and feeling was in-turned, the pain disappeared. So the snake was both ‘poisoner’ and ‘healer’ representing the power of David’s negative and introverted emotions and thoughts on his body. This may be why snakes are used as a symbol of the medical profession.

 Example: ‘I was in a huge cathedral, the mother church. I wanted to go to the toilet/gents. As I held my penis to urinate it became a snake and reached down to the urinal to drink. It was thirsty. I struggled with it, pulling it away from the unclean liquid. Still holding it I walked to a basin and gave it pure water to drink.’ Bill A.

Here the connection between snake and sexuality is obvious. But the snake is not just Bill’s penis. It is the direction his sexual urges take him that he is struggling with. Out of his sense of love and connection with Life – the cathedral – he wants to lift his drive toward something that will not leave him with a sense of uncleanness. In this sense a snake might be something one wrestled with, depicting the wrestle one has with inner drives and hungers, especially sexuality or anger.

Snake raising you: This suggest that as a baby, and perhaps afterwards, you were easy and in tune with your very basic life lessons and instincts.

 Example: Dreamt that a snake – a huge python — had raised me. I had the sense that it had cradled me in its coils when I was a baby, and that it had taught me without words how to survive. This was a sort of jungle/life wisdom.

See: brain levels and dreams; colours; anxiety dreams; death and rebirth, the self under archetypes; Greece (ancient) dream beliefs; snake in cellar under house and buildings; hypnosis and dreams; jungle; paralysis.

toadDeeply unconscious drives and processes, such as the biological activities to do with intestines and cells, so what we might feel squeamish about – might therefore connect with abortion; the power of life in us; a cold blooded or ugly part of ourselves. See: frog in this section above.

tortoise: Our vulnerable feelings or hurts that hide behind a defensive shell – perhaps of shyness, introversion or withdrawal – could be anger; in ancient China the tortoise represented the cold dark of North and death. See also: crab; shell; snail; shell fish under fish and sea creatures.

turtle: There are so many different sizes of turtles it is difficult to be specific, but turtles are creatures that can live under water and also on land. They also have a protective shell they can withdraw into, and these are probably the main points your dream uses to depict something of yourself. So this part of your dream may link with deeply inner feelings or even vulnerabilities that are surfacing or being felt at present.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling vulnerable at the moment, and if so what about?

Are there ways I withdraw sometimes, and in what way do I do that?

What am I feeling deep within me?

Rescue Rescued Rescuing

Intervention in your life by someone else’s action or emotions; something that changes the situation you are in, or changes mood. An intervention or action that has brought about a radical change in yourself, possibly from real psychological or even physical difficulty. It is worth defining what brought about the change, so you can use it in the future.

Being rescued can also mean that you were trapped by your own inner problems or attitudes and was rescued by your own higher self – your core self. See Core

Rescuing someone else, or an animal: This is an action you take to preserve something important inside yourself from being destroyed by common held attitudes or ways of life. For instance a sense of wonder and creativity can be destroyed or ‘drowned’ by materialistic or cynical viewpoints.

Rescued by animal: The supportive and loving action from the unconscious ‘animal’ level of oneself. See Animals in your Brain 

 Example: I am looking at a scene from the top of a cliff. There are large rocks sticking out of the sea at the bottom of the cliff. As I watch this scene a large black – wild? – horse charges towards the edge of the cliff. It carries on running, straight of the edge of the cliff. I am looking down the cliff to see where it will land. I lose sight of it but I am sure it will hit the rocks and be killed. Then I see it swimming straight out to sea. Sometimes it goes under a wave but its direction is strong. Suddenly I realise what the horse is doing. It has been trained to save lives. It had gone into the sea to rescue some people who would otherwise drown. Leon C.

 The horse here represents the natural drives in ourselves we have harnessed for generations and made sociable, and lifted to a spiritual purpose.

Can also relate to one’s desire to do something admirable or noble, such as saving souls, helping someone in distress, and thus having power in life.

Rescuing someone of the opposite sex: Breaking the bonds of emotion, sexuality or dependence that tie us to parents or others.

See Animals in your Brain

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where you rescued or rescuer?

What was the situation you were rescued from or rescuing someone from?

Considering that all dream characters are created out of your own memories and feelings, what part of you was in trouble and was rescued?

See Being the Person or ThingDealing with FearSumming Up

 

Reserve – as in nature reserve

As can be seen from the examples, it can be a place of discovery when explored, or a place of terror. It is a dream situation in which we are on equal terms with our inner the animal nature we carry within us. Usually we want to control wild animals and do so with iron bars an enclosure that make escape impossible, not like in the first example to stop people’s influence to get in. See Animals in your Brain and Animals 

Example: I came across a very large enclosure made of wire, covered above as well so not even the birds within could get out. It felt like an enclosure for animals, like a nature reserve, or special environment. I entered it through a flap in the wire.

Inside the enclosure I saw it was slightly different to the surrounding fields and woods. I didn’t see any birds, but there were many creatures or life forms I had never seen before. One was like cellophane, shaped a bit like a starfish but flat and with rounded ends on the ‘legs’. The creature was on a rock, and I was sure could move. I also saw some creatures with seaweedy texture, with a central part from which many fronds or legs spread. These were fairly solid, and could also move.

Then as I was standing on the higher ground of the enclosure, I felt one of the creatures crawl up my trouser leg. Then there were several on my skin. I realised I should have tucked my trousers into my socks, but it was now too late. I didn’t feel panicked or repulsed by the creatures, but I did wonder how to get them off me. I thought of taking my clothes off to pick them off my skin, though they were not parasites or harmful to me. But I realised if I had my clothes off it would allow more to get on me.

I had a very strong awareness of them on my body, as I suppose one would if any creature that size, about a tea-plate size, clung to one. Then one of them communicated its name to me. It was about three words including the word express – something like Atlantic Express Data. There was no speech, but a definite awareness of communication and intelligence. That was the end of the dream. It reminds me of the snake dream last year.

I worked on the dream and the major understanding came from feeling the difference from being in the enclosure and outside. I had thought the enclosure was to keep the creatures in, but I felt, with emotion, how it was to keep the influence of human beings out.

The farming land all around was so controlled, so changed, so constantly cropped, fertilised, ploughed. While the ground inside was left to be influenced by it natural forces. This allowed creatures to develop that would never have grown elsewhere.

I understood from this that the silence I have managed to find or create within myself is the enclosure. My everyday attitudes are incredibly controlling as far as allowing new aspects of myself to emerge and develop. The creatures are in fact processes that are beginning to influence my body and psyche. I am still tentative about allowing them to be integrated into my conscious self. I felt that they would take about another five or ten years to really develop fully. The changes would produce a self more merged with the collective awareness than I now have, and of course a life that was also more connected.

 Example: I had a dream that I went into a nature enclosure/wild animal reserve with a few friends. I did not know these people in real life but in the dream they were 2 men, one quite reckless, the other relaxed and resourceful. There was also a woman who in the dream was my sister; she was bold, beautiful and fearless. I felt anxious in the dream, with a foreboding that something bad would happen. We were driving a sort of buggy cart, and all the time I kept saying we needed to get back as it was getting late. We carried on. It started to get late as we approached the area where I knew the lions would be. I kept seeing flashes of lions and had the feeling they were hunting us. I became very scared, like my foreboding was coming true. Hearing screams from the reckless man we were with, we realised he’d been attacked and killed, so we tried to escape, we were on foot and losing the light, it was terrifying.

It seems that bold, fearless and reckless were no the right attitudes with which to approach the wild within us. The next example illustrates a different way.

 Example: I was overlooking the forest from inside a building/resort, (stilts levelling the building on a hill/mountainside, so everything was far below me from the window), snow covered pines to my left and just forest straight ahead. As I admired the beauty of the scenery, and eagles flying over the forest, I noticed a pack of wolves far below in the dry area of the forest. A split second after I saw them I was down in the forest right in the middle of the pack. Only a moment of uneasiness took me before I realized, even though in human form, I was part of them and they were part of me. I was one of the pack and feared no danger.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I was frightened, fundamentally what was the fear about?

Did I explore the dream?

If I felt no fear, how did I manage that?

See Being the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Rest Room

See: toilet.

Restaurant

Sociability, relaxation, friendship. Search for sustenance or strength, or ways of directing your life. Perhaps also a search for company or sexual partner, the nourishment of companionship.

Search for emotional or sexual satisfaction; hunger for company or sexuality. Because ones sociability might at times be a fear of being alone, might represent this. Also an experience of giving or receiving, and therefore to do with sustenance or revitalisation. See: Food.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel was the main points or feelings in the dream?

Was the restaurant about relaxing or about impressing people?

Did you plan to celebrate an event or being with someone?

Was alcohol a part of the meal?

See AlcoholEat EatingDigestTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Revolution

Major changes in yourself, in viewpoint, understanding, activities, in governing desires. It can also show conflict between major parts of your personality. For instance, some people dominate their behaviour with rational thinking, suppressing their feelings. This is akin to the Russian and French aristocracy dominating the working class. The result can be revolution. It also suggests personal conflict and a battle fought to reach a new way of life. 

Revolve: Many dream descriptions use the word revolve suggesting the dreamer constantly return to feelings or thoughts about a subject like parents, an animal or a frightening thing or person. Or else issues revolve around a central part of the personal makeup.

 Example: I had an insight that I had got into a negative feedback loop. Because I had got stuck in this place, then I feared I was stuck there in reality, which produced the certainty I was stuck, which produced the inability to move out. We feed back to ourselves images of failure and feelings of unattractiveness, and all the other negative feelings we all meet during the week. Instead of looking at them and seeing them as passing feelings, we take them as impressions of reality and drown in them. We accept them as true and start to live them. When that happens we see conformation for the negatives and so it goes on.

If we still believe the loop to be playing a truth, then we only strengthen the action. So for its cessation we need to realise that our sense of self is a constantly moving fragile thing that has no stable reality. We aren’t ANYTHING – stable, so how can we be a failure, or a success, or great, or of no account, or any thought or feeling? No thought or feeling represents our reality. No feeling, or sense of ourselves, is anything more than a sense, a feeling, it is not us. So how could this feeling represent some sort of permanent personal reality?

Rhinoceros

Throwing your weight about. Using your influence. The same thing applies sexually. The old business of I’ll get you in films if….?

Rich Riches

In your dreams when recorded over a period of time you begin to see how rich you are, not in terms of what money you have stored or acquired, but of what you are of have, or will have if you express your potential. Our real riches are our talents – either expresses of unrealised – our wealth we hold within us from inherited tendencies from our ancestors, our own unconscious information and insights, the enormous creativity shown in our dreams. Every night you create a new drama. You conjure out of your own being the people, the creatures, the surroundings of your dream. Then you give life to what you create – not only life but purpose and drama. You are a supreme dramatist, playwright, actor and actress. You are the great Creator – in your dreams. Considering this, have you ever wondered why that enormous creativity does not flow into your waking life? You can see that some people have that creativity and are enriched by it personally and financially. Why not you? See: BankMoney.

The animals you dream about, the many different people in your dreams, the old and new places and environments, are all aspects of your own possibilities and potential. It adds to the richness of your life to actually get to know your dream characters, places and animals.

People: Consider each character and discover what qualities, faults, weaknesses or strength they depict for you. Give them a name, as this helps you remember their quality. But look to the context of the dream to find the detailed and changing expression of what the character depicts. See Being the Person or Thing; The Conjuring Trick; Autonomous Complex; Sub Personalities

Places: You get to understand what the places you dream about and what riches they hold for you by trying to sense what your main feelings are about regarding the place, or what happened to you there, and how that left you feeling. You might have felt a lot of conflict in a certain town or while living in a particular road. So you could call that ‘My conflicts’. Or a place may be linked with a loving relationship, so could be called ‘My ability to Love’. See Place Environment

Animals: In fact, we all have animals inside us for your brain has levels, the lowest being the reptilian brain, the second level being the mammalian brain, the third and last the human brain. So often when we dream of animals we are looking at parts of our own nature. See Animals in your Brain

Of course you ARE an animal, and your conscious self is just a rider on an ancient beast. The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it – I say recent rider because we are all from seeds, and seeds do not suddenly appear from nowhere, and carry a massive and ancient history. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Without understanding your inner animals, you are only half functioning and have lost a huge and rich part of your heritage. See Archetype of the Animal

Joseph L. Henderson, writing on Ancient Myths and Modern Man in Man and His Symbols, points out that Perseus had Athena; Theseus had Poseidon. This, Henderson points out, represents the wholeness of oneself (one’s potential which as a woman includes an inner man, and as a male includes an inner woman.) from which we can draw strength – the conscious personality that we identify as ourselves, expressing as it does only a tiny part of the totality of our possibilities and experience. See Archetype of the Animus; Archetype of the Anima

This guiding inner figure is one of the ways the unconscious depicts the unbelievably rich and unimaginably immense cultural information we have absorbed, along with the innate potential arising from the process of life that carries us miraculously through conception and life in the womb.  Or it may be things learned in a rich life that you could not put into practice because of circumstances. In a real sense these enormously potent dream figures, or holy beings are our future self. This is often because they influence us and can change the direction of our living. The new direction when lived becomes our future, and we are often influenced in this way by our own massive potential which is our future announcing itself.

The story of Adam and Eve which has been presented as two individuals who were divinely created and walked the earth in a golden age. But seen from the perspective of our dreams it suggests it is actually a symbolic presentation of periods of human development as we emerged from being instinctive creatures on the verge of self-awareness.

Is the story of Jonah and the whale literally true? Are the stories of Jesus about a historical character? Or are they wonderfully evocative images which tell of another sort of truth than that of historical fact?

This side of the Bible which gives us a wonderful insight into human nature is incredibly rich. It stands beyond all the attempts to fix a literal and dogmatic meaning to it, and speaks of life experience which most of us can identify with and understand. If we look at the Bible as if it were a description of a dream instead of a statement of history, light shines through the stories and enlivens us. See The Secret Bible – The Kabbalah

In many people’s dreams they dig up riches and ancient things. If you are digging up treasure or rich things, this is an uncovering of your past, or your ancestral past. This can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage. See ancestors.

Below is a description of a woman who led a dream group using Peer Dream Work.

“It was a rich dream, and we know we only were able to touch on those

two parts, but those two parts were so meaningful for her. I think
the most enriching part of the evening, for me, was to see her gain
insight as she was describing herself as an image in the dream. It
was watching the change on her face, the way she was suddenly not
speaking anymore.  She saw meaning so clearly, so deeply.”

 Example: A black man is the chauffeur. The rich guy smiles and says, That way you have room for all your friends.” He says, “I got this car for you because I don’t want you to have to drive.” I laugh and say, “Oh ho! Well, let me tell you, I will too drive. I’ll buy a van with hand controls with my own money.” He looks upset. I say, “Well, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever drive it, it just means I have the power to do it if I want to. That’s called independence.”

Example: I dreamt I was on a garden with an old man, a young boy and a young man in his thirties. The plot of land had something of the feeling of an allotment. It was well tended, and I had the sense the young man had been doing most of the work on it. The soil was rich but at the moment dry. A XE “A”  few shoots were just breaking the ground from hundreds of bulbs which had just started shooting.

The old man was kneeling at the edge of one end of the oblong plot of land. He was digging up bulbs one at a time and looking at them, then putting them back in the soil again. As the soil was dry he had to dig the hole a bit bigger to get them back. The bulbs had good roots and the shoots were firm. I was agitated about the old man digging them up though, and felt he should let them be. This seemed to link with my own propensity to dig up seeds when I was younger, to see if they had germinated.

The young boy was simply watching and was quite shadowy. The younger man was getting on with whatever work he was doing. I spoke to him after leaving the old man. Henry G.

Henry, the dreamer is a man in his late fifties. He explored his dream and summarised what he realised as follows: In connecting with the feelings in the dream the different aged males are all facets of myself. The old man is my own sense of ageing, and the feeling of dryness and being outside of the opportunities that I associate with those younger than myself. My feeling that nothing is growing in my life makes me want to dig under the surface of things to see if there are any new things that might arise. The younger man is the active and creative period of my life during which I did in fact ‘sow a lot of seeds’ which are now emerging into reality. The boy is my impatience but also the aspect of myself from which new ideas and directions can emerge. He is that part of me which is still growing, like the bulbs. The garden is my soul/soil. It is all the work I have done to cultivate skills and attributes in myself and create things in the world. What is important is that even though I am in my fifties, these younger parts were skills and attributes I developed in the past and are still active and devloping in me today.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What riches or sense of being rich was shown in my dream?

Did I manage to have the riches?

What do I consider the riches of my life are?

Does the dream in any way compensate for what I feel as a lack?

Do I feel I am rich in my talents or life?

See Compensation TheorySelf ObservationSurvival SkillsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Useful Questions and Hints:

What riches or sense of being rich was shown in my dream?

Did I manage to have the riches?

What do I consider the riches of my life are?

Does the dream in any way compensate for what I feel as a lack?

Do I feel I am rich in my talents or life?

See Compensation TheorySelf ObservationSurvival SkillsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ride Riding

You can ride on a bicycle, a car, a horse and other domestic animals, or even on a person’s back. Also you can ride on a plane, funfair rides, a sledge a rough water ride in a boat, a hot air balloon or dirigible, a surf board, a snowmobile, a water ski, or on skis. In dreams you can ride on any of these or even on flying animals such a centaur and on current is air.

Each of these has different skill requirements and different meanings. So for a surf board you would need skill in constantly adjusting to the wind and waves, a fine balance between your own sense and awareness of nature. With a horse it needs skill in relating to the horse – of course the dream horse – and its moods, life energy and movements. For other rides see the relevant entries such as FunfairAirplaneBoat ShipFlying horse.

Flying on air currents is about feeling the subtle energy currents within you and suing them to attain new awareness, yet link it with everyday life.

 Example: That night I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.

Then I glided down and approached the field to land. It was near where Piggots Orchard council houses backed right onto the open hillside above the two old elm trees. A young girl of about six was playing in the field. As I came in to land she saw me and ran away very frightened. I was gliding in the same direction she was running and called out to her not be frightened. She stopped and I landed. In amazement she looked at me and said, “How did you get to be up there?”

Without realising it we are all riders. For instance, you may think you are your body, but most people are only aware of a tiny part of your body processes. Many people are even frightened of or at odds with their natural body feelings and functions, struggling with their eating or their self-image, or even their sexual appetite. Depending on anti-depressants, alcohol and other tricks to feel okay. But all the time they are carried along by their life processes into changes that many fight – fear of dying of illness. In fact, you are riding a very ancient beast, your body, and many of us fail to learn how to ride it well.

This beast that we ride has a healthy fear of much that goes on in today’s world. Fear is a guardian that protected the ancient beast from uncountable dangers for millions of years. Although it appears like a great and ancient beast – the process of Life – it is full of mystery and magic. It has brought about living beings in incredible variety. It has possibilities we cannot even guess at. Within itself it holds the secrets of creation and destruction, of sleep and waking, of the intricacies of mind and spirit. It has unimaginable power and tenacity. It is beyond us and yet intimately of very core of self. We relate to it, we enliven it, we call it out or imprisonment or deaden it by every act we do.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital. As I often point out to those I am advising we are a human face on a long line of beautiful animals. In fact, “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. Some ‘riders’ do not understand their animal needs – and the fact that we have several levels of brain that are independent of each other proves this. Still active in us are our Reptile Brain, our mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain, and the reptile and mammalian brains are still very active and constitute a large part of our human unconscious. See Brain Levels and Dreams and Levels of Awareness in Sleeping and Waking.

Idioms: Along for the ride; a rough ride; ride something out; let it ride; ride roughshod; take somebody for a ride; riding high.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it you ride?

Do you ride well or with difficulty?

If it is difficult what skills do you need to develop?

Are you ridden or riding something or someone else?

Have you learned how to look after the amazing beast you ride?

Rifle

Penis; male sexuality; anger; confidence in defending oneself against criticism, etc.; fears or anxieties; attitudes we use as a defence against our own emotions or realisations – a man might feel depressed about growing old, and defend himself against these with positive thoughts; also the bulldozer emotions we sometimes use against others, like a pistol held to their head.

Rigid

Strength, maleness; unbending emotions, dogmatism.

Ring Rings

This may represents your relationship with the person who gave it to you, or the feelings that drove you to buy it. Or perhaps the reason it was given. Thus it can symbolise marriage, engagement, or can represent wholeness if it is not one which has been given you. The feelings we associate with the ring. See: Circle.

Your wholeness; one’s essential self; connection with the All. See Core Self

Wedding or engagement ring: The state of the relationship, as in example below, where Mary is ‘choking’ on or ‘can’t swallow’ her relationship.

Ring finger: This concerns your creativity, what talents you have and whether you are an artistic intellectual or physical type. In the west it has obvious connections with marriage and relationships. Can represent the finger of success, popularity or creativity, and art. It is obviously the finger indicating marriage. Symbol of marriage, vows, promises, and commitments.

Rash Under Ring: Shows problems with commitment or the relationship in general.   

Heirloom or parents ring: Psychological influence of the family or parent, even if dead. See See Inner Mother

 Example: ‘If I swallow I am going to swallow and choke on my engagement ring. I seem to be trying to stop a ring going down my throat.’ Mary S.

Idioms: Have a hollow ring; have a true ring; ring around my heart; run rings round someone.

Useful questions and hints:

Is the ring shaped well or misshappen?

How do I feel about wearing the ring?

Is it an heirloom?

See: Shapes and Symbols; Archetype of the Self; Heirloom; Marriage and wedding; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Riot

See: Revolution.

Ritual

See: Ceremony.

River Stream Creek

The images of rivers used in drama help us understand their symbolism. The river can be calm, in flood, or even dried up – representing our state of feeling about our energy, sexuality and emotions – the energy that as anxiety can cause illness, or as pleasure sustain health. Similarly, we can drown in the river – drown in despair – float on it – be carried along by prevailing feelings, or cross over, suggesting change or even death.

Each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change; and is fought like hell by many as they are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death.

The river is a wonderful message in our dreams, not only does is  it represent constant change for wherever you stand, the flow of the river is constantly bringing the past to you, reminding you that you are the sum total of all you have lived – good or bad.

Example: This was an answer to a dream, where the answer was given in ‘spontaneous voice’.

The river really lives within you; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes is because they represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.

Example: I am in a landscape and notice that everything is brown; the whole world is brown and lifeless. There is also a feeling of solemnity or dullness. I have enough lucidity to wonder why the world of my dream is so brown and dull. As I ask this I become more aware of what feeling the brownness expresses. It is seriousness – with no room for humour or fun. The feeling deepens, real enough and clear enough to look at and understand. I see it is my father’s attitude to life that I have unconsciously inherited. I realise how anxious he always felt about life, and how I took this in. That is how I became a ‘brown’ person. I see too that I do not need to be either brown or serious anymore.

Then the landscape changes. There are trees, plants and animals in brilliant colour. I wonder what this means, and the landscape begins to spin until the colours blend and shimmer. Suddenly my body seems to open to them, as if they are spinning inside of me, and with a most glorious feeling, a sensation of vibrating energy pours up my trunk to my head. With this comes realisation. I see how stupid I have been in my brown, anxious existence, how much life I have held back. The animals and plants are the different forces in my being that blend into energy and awareness. I feel I am capable of doing almost anything, like loving, writing a song, painting, telepathy, or speaking with the dead. This sparkling vibrating energy is life itself and can, if I learn to work with it, grow into any ability or direction I choose. I wake with a wonderful sense of my possibilities. Jon.

Jon’s dream illustrates both the flow of the river of Life through us, and also how changing one’s feelings and insight changes what one creates.

Being in river: Being influenced by or immersed in one’s internal flow of feelings and energies. For instance, one may have fallen in love and never developed a relationship with that person. Years later in an unsatisfying life situation one might be haunted by memories and longings for the love that might have been. Thus one would be immersed in such feelings.

Brook stream creek: A small flow, perhaps a relaxing feeling, depending upon the condition of the brook. Sometimes dries up, so may suggest you can go through ‘dry’ periods. 

Crossing a river: Making great changes. If you are in the water to cross, it means meeting a lot of emotions in the process of change. So not being able to cross the river shows a barrier in your external or internal life that prevents progress or personal growth – such as the ability to love or be creative in some way.

Crossing a river can also mean the experience of death, especially if you swam across. See death

Diving into a river: It suggest you are ready to face what life brings – the  current, the struggles, other people who may be in the river with you.

Seeing someone cross a river: Feelings about death, or sense that the person is dying or dead, as does falling in the river.

Going against the current: Resisting one’s own feelings; going against prevailing influences or attitudes; going back to the womb.

Going Under the Surface: It suggests bringing internal contents to consciousness; remembering the womb experience; letting our ego surrender a little; looking at death.

Also it shows that we, our conscious self, has entered more deeply into the enormous depths of our consciousness; we have literally dipped below the level of our conscious self. See My Body is a Moving Sea

Directing a river: Channelling one’s emotional or sexual energy. See Energy Sex and Dreams

Roaring torrent of a river: This probably represent the release of an enormous amount of energy that was trapped and has been released. It can happen when a life problem has been healed and the energy locked in it has found a way to express.

The torrent can also be a force that carries on clearing out old debris and trauma in the body and mind. Also it can be a wonderful energy of creation. See A creative relationship with your dreams

Stagnant river: Restrained feelings or sexuality; holding yourself back.

Stream: As it suggests, this is streaming energy, but not with the force of a river.

 Example: In Genesis it says that a great river ran from Eden which split into four. The suggestion is that from our primal being, four formative urges arise. The urge to exist, to be. The urge to create a form, the body. The urge to survive in that form. The urge to reproduce that form. There is a suggestion also in Genesis that within the last – reproduction – there is imbedded the urge to reflect or express or know the primal source of the urge to exist.

If I am troubled by purposelessness, then I can bathe in one of the streams which give purpose. If I take a sexual partner, if I maintain a sexual relationship, if I become a caring parent, then I bathe in one of the streams of purpose. If I become ambitious to achieve, to succeed over others; if I desire to become famous or dominant, then I bathe in a river of purpose. If I put myself in any situation that has some risk in it, such as being without income and food, being in a social upheaval, being in a relationship with society in which something is expected of me, then I bathe in one of the streams. In this case the stream of drive for personal survival.

I notice that if I have a job of work in which I am even slightly involved with other humans, I have a sense of motivation and purpose. If I have a lover, I have a sense of purpose. If I am wanted because of my ability or skill as a person, then I have a sense of purpose.  

On the other hand, if I am purely self-motivated as in writing when the thing written is not commissioned; or in studying for my own satisfaction; or if I avoid sexual relationship, if I stop eating, then I stand out of the rivers. I have, or are achieving, a greater sense of freedom, but I lose the motivations arising from beyond self.

In the Buddhist view we are all bound to the wheel of birth and death. It rolls on endlessly carrying us with it. On the wheel we do have a sense of purpose though – even if illusory. To break free of the wheel – which means to stand outside of the basic drives of sex, hunger, aggression, domination, personal survival – means we lose the illusion of going somewhere or achieving anything. There is no past or future. Being and becoming are one.

It does strike me that once one has stepped out of the streams that give purpose, it doesn’t stop one bathing in them again. One can go in and out as one chooses. If one is in them and never stepped out however, then one might not know the freedom of not being carried along by the current, such as sexual mating, or ambition.

I realise I am an explorer of human experience. I realise also that when I accept the emptiness of drive, the absence of motivation as a powerful place in itself, and not just the loss of drives, which I was immersed in for so long, then I can tolerate the situation and move around in it a lot more freely.

Useful questions are and hints:

What condition was the river in (calm and peaceful, fast and rushing, flooding, dried up and so on)?

Does the condition of the river depict how my current energies are working in life?

Is this simply an illustration of the passing of life in general, as in ‘the river of life’?

See Animals in your Brain Open to LifeCore SelfPractical Techniques  for Exploring your Dreams

Rivet

Binding connections or relationships. Sexual organ.

This can also indicate your attempt to mend, give stability to or in some way solve a problem or ‘fix’ something.

 Example: As the cleansing programme begins I become aware of a fibre glass or man-made structure, something like a Michelin man, riveted together.  There seems to be encrusted material caked on in places, rather like temporary dental filling or Polyfilla.  As it has been there for quite some time it is quite hard to remove and I become aware that to do so could mean the whole structure will fall apart.  Tony assures me that it is safe to let it die.  As the water continues to jet onto the filler I become aware of a new born life form which has been protected by the structure.  Its skin is slightly mottled and I become acutely aware of its breathing and the strong sense of magic pervading from and all around the creature.  The creature lies in a crib in the centre of a room, alert, curious, enchanted and I am fascinated by this incredible discovery.  From death new life miraculously arises!  Beneath the man made structure behold a faery child!  I reconnected with the magic that lies at my very core; the newness, the freshness, the playfulness and innocence.

Example: I looked up at the wall above the bed. It was an unlikely shade of green, but what was remarkable was that on the clear expanse of the wall I could see a huge circle, alive and full of movement. My attention was riveted by this amazing circle. At its centre was an unmoving emptiness, nothingness. Yet out of this void sprung all the forms of life as plants, trees, animals and people. They were constantly emerging from the pool of emptiness, dancing in time to music.

Useful questions are and hints:

Was my attention riveted, or was I fixing something?

What was the rivet doing or fixing?
Was I building something, if so what?

See Potential Build BuildingExplore a Dream Character or Object Water Wonderland

Road-Motorway-Freeway-Interstate-State-County

Whatever state or county you dream of, is it the place you were born or brought up in? If so, it most likely represents your basic personal traits, ones you picked up from your parents, siblings or the attitudes you met where you lived as a child. Of course such things change but it shows you reacting to people and events in a similar way.

Of the state or county is one you were not born in, then you need to ask yourself what are my feelings or memories about the place? That is because dreams seldom ever use words to communicate something important, instead they use images, places or memories as the words. So whatever you decide the state or county symbolises, realise it is only a word in communicating to you.

Your prevailing direction in, or approach to, life – this direction/approach can be either self-created out of your own actions or decisions or arise out of other people’s social influence or even randomness. The road can also suggest things that are entering your life, depending on the dream.

The road or avenue can indicate the norm in social behaviour, therefore the direction in life taken by many people; your predispositions; any direction you are taking, such as a love affair, a business, a new attitude; your public activities. Entering a road or street suggests you open yourself to new impressions and experiences, whatever they may be.

The size, richness, cleanliness, amount of people, and situation of the road shows how you inwardly see either the direction chosen, or the choices confronting you.

Alley: Limited possibilities or horizons; present limited possibilities will be overcome with effort and initiative. Alley with dead end – concern about a tight situation that appears to have no way out.

Bend in road: Suggests that the way you are going is not ‘straightforward’ – but may be not awfully difficult. It can also mean a change in direction, and therefore a new opportunity, new things or a new things to face.  This can depict something new ahead that you couldn’t see until you make the change in direction.

Black road: This might link with feelings or fears about death or depression. It can, in some cultural symbols, point to difficult or ‘dark’ times – a period on your life in which you pass through trials.

Coming toward you on the road: Usually suggests and event or happening coming your way. If it is people then it is about a coming meeting or relationship. If it is a hearse then it is a brush with death – so be careful. If it passes you by it is a good sign.

Crossroad: Change; decision; indecision. See: crossroad.

Cross roads or deciding which road to take: Arthur’s dream in the second example shows cross roads as depicting his many choices. Arthur’s choice involves his attempt to include his wife’s needs.

Cul-de-sac/dead end: Feeling or intuition that your direction will not be rewarding or lead to openings or opportunity. Sometimes indicates sexual opportunity.

Detour:  A unplanned direction. Being directed a way you did not plan or want.

Dirt road: A direction or a path that you or others do not use very often – a personal direction that is not popular enough to be made a proper road but may be one that you are making in a new personal direction. Possibly an exploration of a new way of life or behaviour.

Fork in the road: Something to decide; parting from accustomed way or relationship.

Going out from house into road: How others see you; being in public view.

Going the wrong way up a one way street: Going against prevailing attitudes; defying public opinion.

Hole in road: Difficulty ahead. Death or death of person falling down the hole.

 

Known road: Feelings associated with that road; what you have already done; the past; habits.

Lane: Individual direction. Obviously not a road taking a lot of traffic or one used often, so could indicate meeting new experiences, or being more independent in your chosen direction.

Many roads: Many avenues of experience, many new things or many choices, thus sometimes indecision or confusion.

Motorway/Freeway/Interstate: Like any road it indicates your prevailing direction in, or approach to, life – this direction/approach can be either self-created out of your own actions or decisions or arise out of other peoples or social influence.

But a freeway is a major direction and quick route to where you want to go in life – unless of course it is chocked with other vehicles, then it indicates delays in your plans and frustration. For some dreamers it will represent facing more power or threat than they feel relaxed with. Also it can indicate that you are making a big change in your life.

The freeway is a direction in life taken by many others, so can indicate what everyone else does, the norm, or the established. But if you have particular memories of this route and where you use it to get to, then that is important in understanding your dream.

An exit on a freeway/motorway suggests either branching off from a main flow in the direction you were taking in life, or perhaps a nearness to a goal you have been ‘driving’ toward.

If you are on foot and trying to cross the motorway it can suggest a difficulty in the way of your progress, or even danger.

One way road: Rules and regulations that are imposed on you.

Road ahead: The future; aspects of self not yet expressed; new areas of endeavour.

Road behind: The past; what you have already achieved or done.

Road being repaired: Activity to make the way you are going easier. It could also suggest it is difficult to travel in the direction now.

Road under construction: It can suggest so many things such as a rough road ahead, or that there are many obstacles to deal with. You might have to decide on a new direction, so continuing might be difficult. This might be a way for others to use also.

It could be that you will have to develop new ways of doing things, learning a different approach. May imply building new habits, new ideals, new patterns of mind; learning new ways to approach old, and so daring to travel new territory, and so a journey into the unknown.

Running into road: Danger.

Stretch of road: If it is behind you it suggests the ground you have already covered, so your past. If it is ahead it can be what is before you, or what you feel or fear you face ahead.

State:

Unpaved road or track off to one side: Going off the beaten track or being side-tracked.

Walking up a strange road or street: Can indicate a new direction, exploring a new impulse. Also a new sexual encounter.

P. feels her life is something she must ‘struggle on’ with, but it is an endless circle of confusion in which she gets nowhere. This illustrates the road as a symbol of one’s approach to life. Perhaps it is her fear that creates this sense of life for her.

 Example: ‘Janet my wife was cycling beside me. We came to the end of a short road. I said we should turn left, but Janet thought we ought to turn right. We got out into the middle of the road without turning either way.’ Arthur P.

Arthur feels he is unable to get along with his feelings about his wife wanting a different direction.

 Example: ‘Walking alone along a road through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment. Then I walked on and came to an open stretch of ground.’ Ivor S.

Ivor’s dream shows how roads can represent different sorts of social behaviour. To choose one’s individual ‘road’ may be difficult, because others are so sure they know best. Patterns of behaviour such as needing an authority figure to follow, are also here depicted as a road.

 Example: ‘My dream is of an eternal journey, that takes a road that turns into a circle or maze that is endless. Behind me is a large fat young man with blond hair. I can’t get along and he catches up with me, I say, ‘We can’t go back we must struggle on’. He takes my wrist. I am trying to hide my fear of him and the pathway, when I wake up.’ J. P.

Idioms: On the road to recovery; road hog; end of the road; take to the road; middle of the road; the high road to.

 

 Useful questions:

Where am I heading on the freeway/life, and with what attitudes?

Am I the driver or is someone else making decisions in my life?

Is this about frustration or stress, and if so where is that appearing in my daily life?

See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Habits – Associations Working With; AlleyCrossroadCul-de-Sac

Roar

A roar can occur in a dream from several causes. It can be a roar of anger, of pain or aggression. Once when I was working near a football stadium I heard a sound that made my hair stand on end. It was a roar, a battle cry, from thousands of throats. But animals, and we in dreams, can also roar, not in aggression but in self-acclaim, like a stag bellowing to shout, “I AM.” Or a lion roaring to say, “This is my territory and my pack.”

Often in opening to life and allowing it to express through us – as happens in using LifeStream – it expresses as various animal sounds, or just sounds. Sometimes this is to explore the animal qualities we have, or to make the voice mobile enough for Life to express hidden sides of our self. See Animals in your Brain

Example: I went out to go downstairs. It was a huge staircase. Lounging at one of the landings were four youths. I knew that they were thug’s intent on beating me up. It was too late to run away, so I charged at them uttering a terrible scream like a roar of fear to destroy their morale. The scream woke my wife who woke me.

 Example: I was like Tarzan, walking through a street. Lots of people watched and walked along. They were curious. Then I began to roar like a wild animal and my feelings of ferocity matched the sound. As I walked I caught a couple of people who got too near, and threw them about.

Then I was in a large room. A number of women were in there, stripped to the waist. Most had firm breasts, but one had an inturned nipple. I had the ability to tell their fortunes, due to being intuitive in an animal sense. That is, I could look at them and see them as they were.

Example: I feel like a chimpanzee at the moment. I haven’t got words yet but I want to say something. There is the feeling of being a really physical animal. Being a physical animal is really strong. I can feel all the life in me. Not super strong, but just vibrant. Beautiful feeling. It is a feeling of knowing that I am capable. Capable of being quiet, capable of aggression if needed, capable of sexuality. I’ve got all these aspects to me – the wonderful creature that I am. I have all these instincts to work with. I roar and feel ready to fight and rend anything which might attack me. I am a powerful animal. But is that all I am? Am I just this powerful wonderful beast?

Useful questions and hints:  

What am I roaring at or about?

Can I put into words what the roar expresses?

Do I sometimes feel I am expressing it in everyday life?

See Key WordsAutonomous ComplexSecrets of Power DreamingWorking with associations

Rob Robbed Robber Intruder

Dreams nearly always deal with actions or responses taking place not in the outer world, but in your inner world. This is the often neglected world of your beliefs, your thoughts and feelings. People often do not realise the incredible power of this world, and how it directs almost everything we do. So being robbed is possibly an action, probably on your own part now or in the past, that has robbed yourself of qualities or talents. It might also have a sexual connection – loss of something valuable. 

We can be robbed of health or peace of mind by the way we think, our beliefs and our tendencies to fret and feel anxious. Many illnesses have as a contributing factor our state of mind.

People can also sometimes feel ‘sick of sex’, and that anxiety about sex can rob them of that pleasure for a lifetime.

My son was for while laid low by an enemy. If I can put a name to the enemy he was laid low by, if I can point to a form, then I would say it is called by many names, some of them being Cynicism, Despair, Commercialism, Materialism. Whatever its right name is, it robs hope from some children. It tears down their ability to create a world for themselves, and instead forces on them a view of the world – no, not a view, but what feels like a concrete reality – that is barren and where nothing grows except in connection with industrial factories, economic necessities, sexual and social manipulation. It is like a cage in which the soul feels itself trapped. See Martial Art of the Mind; Anxiety

 Example: I was walking up a hill pushing a bicycle. Several other people went by riding theirs but that didn’t worry me. I went on up the hill and could only gasp in wonderment when I got to the top – I could see for miles and everything was in the most wonderful colours you could ever imagine. My first thought was ‘How wonderful God is to create such a beautiful world for us.’ I thanked him then and there. I thought ‘I wonder if it is like this behind me?’ as I looked around, right up close to me was what seemed like a huge black wall. As I looked along the wall, right at the end the marvellous view started, this continued round to the side of me and in the huge expanse in front. I can’t remember any road or pathway going down the hill, onwards. Muriel M.

 This type of dream occurs often and illustrates that for many of us early life is a climb and needs much energy – the bicycle up the hill. The bicycle and her relationship with others illustrates that she doesn’t see herself achieving as much as others, but this does not perturb her, or rob her of her wonder at life. The dream is packed with information, for the black wall suggests that the past, the territory she has already covered, is now gone and only what she lives and creates in this moment is before her. Also there is no track going downhill, suggesting that there is no end to life, because going downhill suggest approaching illness and death.

One can be robbed of confidence, of your sexual honour, of your creativity and of your identity. Did someone take it from you or through trickery make you give it up? Fortunately, we can never loss what was ours completely, but thoughts, beliefs, threats of pain or death can put such enormous barriers in the way. If you can understand how it was done that is the first step to regaining what is yours. See the links below under Useful Questions.

I believe that the discovery and expansion of unconditional love in one’s life is the prime force for dealing with these life sapping links. And by unconditional love, I mean a love that does not cling, does not desire to possess, looks upon jealousy and rage as a sickness, and reaches out despite pain. Possessiveness, jealousy, the rage at being left or abandoned, of being overlooked, can all become focal points for the energy that becomes a possessive demon. That is sickness — and until we admit it is such – it can still dominate us and rob us of the richness and fullness our life could attain otherwise. See Life’s Little Secrets; Beware of Love

 

Useful questions and hints:  

What is it I feel was taken from me?

Do I know who or what was the cause of my loss?

Can I see a way of regaining what was lost or stolen?

See Burglar IntruderThiefSelf ObservationSecrets of Power Dreaming

Robot Robots Robotic

Dreaming of or being a robot can suggest several things, perhaps the most common being responses that are automatic or not thought about, acting purely on social or imprinted – perhaps through pain – responses. The robot in some dreams is linked with the future and how we feel about it. It also can suggest being defended, in the sense of armour defending against hurt, so having no feelings. This might be expressed as being a zombie. See: Autonomous Complex; Habits; automaton.

Human behaviour is often automatic and even robotic. Habits do not require much thought or concentration. Let us take the example of language as a form of behaviour that is passed on. It already existed before your or my birth. It existed prior to the birth of our parents or their parents. All of us were born into its prior existence. We may partake of it, we might even slightly add to or modify it, but it has an existence quite apart from our own single identity. So we have a pool of behaviour as well as a DNA pool. It becomes almost robotic in the habits of speaking, the use of ready-made explanations such as in clichés.

This is so incredibly important that I will explain it in a slightly different way. Although human beings originally developed language, as each one died, what had been created and perhaps added to continued its existence, not only as a form of behaviour, but as a consciousness altering factor. It is certain that genetic pool of data gathered slowly from the beginning of life on this planet, and is now experienced as one’s personal body. Also certainly the behavioural pool is passed on largely unwittingly, unconsciously, making us like robots who are simply running programs instead of acting with some awareness. See Clichés

Most of us identify our body as US/Me, your personality. But from the point of view of some dreams, our body is actually linked with our core self, the source, which exists in a different way, and projects our body sense of self into time and space. Like the operator of an underwater robot who looks through the lenses of the robot’s eyes, you too – the sense of self –  may perspire, your heart may race, your spirit feel defeat, as the robot achieves its task, or is threatened or crushed by its environment.

Example: The dream changed to being in a house with my immediate family i.e. parents and sisters. Every so often there was a shaking like an earthquake. On examination it seemed that some kind of structural joints that had something to do with the stability of the structure had been made badly, so that although they articulated, they were not completely sound and had been worn into malformed shapes, so that every so often there would be a shaking, and we (mostly my mother and sisters) were trying to determine how to fix it. A metal robot had something to do with this and was threatening in some way. I found it trying to cover up the joints with metal plates and when I tried to stop it, it stopped what it was doing and came into the house. We all seemed to be in its power. It picked out my father and I tried to intervene because I thought it was going to torture him, and I put myself in the way instead to deflect its attention and tried to plead with it but as I did so I knew it was useless because this creature had no feelings.

I think the dream of the house and the robot is about this. The faulty joints underpinning the house represent the faulty joints in me between my solid foundation and the structure of my life that I’ve built on that foundation. This is something shared by my family which is why we were all in there. I saw the robot trying to patch them over with rigid metal and while I recognised this would do, it would be very inflexible and was a botch-up that would not get at the cause. When I stopped it from doing that it came indoors and picked on my father and I felt the robot would torture him. I experienced this robot as having no compassion and I tried to plead on Dad’s behalf but knew this was futile. I think that was just indicating that the faulty joints come from my father’s approach to life. Sarah.

 Example: I go back upstairs. I sit on the bed and hug my nanny. She is an old square robot, and not very sophisticated. I ask it, “Why aren’t there any nice men for me?” It says, “Look, there are,” and shows me two of them (on a screen on its chest). I say, “But if I take them, what will be left for my brother!” Nanny laughs and shows me many women for Dwight. I am still worried.

An interesting dream showing the programs that robots run. Her Nanny is an old square robot without sophisticated programming. It shows how her inner nanny has programs that are to take care of her grandchildren and does so quite well despite its limited behaviour repertoire.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Can I see any connections between the dream robot and my way of living?

Are the things I do habitually a way of being a robot?

Some of our body functions such as breathing are a bit like a program that runs without any attention.

What happens if I learn to control my breathing, does that make me less robotic?

See The Slow Breath Self ObservationThe Fundamental ProcessTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Rock Menhirs

Reality, but not just physical reality, but also the reality of meeting the challenge of change and adaptation; the physical world; the eternal as it is met by our waking self; stability; a remembrance of something or someone important to us; a source of power, or the spirit – in ancient times rocks were thought to be the dwelling places of gods. The image of the rock may therefore link our conscious personality with innate unconscious archetypal forces or strength. See Archetypes – Links to

 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.  And he called the name of that place Beth-el.

 

For Jacob, the stone was an integral part of the revelation. It was the mediator between himself and God. In many primitive stone-sanctuaries, the deity is represented not by a single stone but by a great many unhewn stone’s, arranged in distinct patterns.

The rock has often symbolised security, refuge and protection on the physical or social level. As a characteristic it represents rigidity or being unmoved in face of opposition. Inwardly it signifies faith that can see you through turmoil. Mentally it represents the ability to understand, and not be moved.

If the rock is sculpted in any way it shows what you have done with your life that will last through time, what has impressed itself upon eternity.

Rocks or stones are the nearest material thing we have to eternity. They thrust up from the deeps of the earth. As upright columns they are often used as phallic symbols. They are placed upon graves, symbolical of the spirit outlasting the decaying flesh. As symbols of eternity they are used to mark places where holy experiences have happened, or where a person contacted the divine. In temples a rock was the original altar, or contact with eternity, upon which you sacrificed or surrendered yourself.

If the rock is sculpted or painted: What our life has expressed to enrich your own spiritual or eternal nature.

 A small rock or stone: The unconscious sees our personal existence as a part of the material the cosmos is made of – another pebble on the beach. The rock portrays how we shape the material of our nature through our life – similar to the parable of the talents. See: Stone.

 Example: In front of me was a colossal stone column of a design I had never before seen. It was the height of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, but very much wider. On top it had a design that was so subtle and unique I cannot even recall it. This design had been carved into the solid rock. This suggests, I suppose, that this uniqueness has not been brought through to consciousness.

The column seemed to be of solid rock, neither natural or man-made, but formed by some inconceivable mystery. The design at the top was alien; not in the sense of being a threat, but with a sense of otherness. The form was not natural, yet at the same time it was not man-made. Perhaps I would describe it by saying it seemed as if nature and human intelligence had somehow blended to form it. For they had the naturalness of form that an anthill or honeycomb has, where “nature” expresses itself through its insect bodies. This was in a class with those works of nature, yet more complex, showing Life and I had used a higher order of intelligence.

I feel this is an example of how Life processes expressing as nature, and especially in connection with the human consciousness, often produces things that the reasoning mind cannot understand. It is wise then to sit in awe of what has been created.

Useful questions and hints:   –

In what way did I react or feel about the rock?

Have I ever felt any influence when near a rock or mountains?

What happened in the dream with the rock?

See Gods in Stone Diving into the Depths of MindKey WordsHoly

Rocket

Your energies seeking release from boundaries and limitations. This might also indicate the power to lift consciousness beyond the level of sense impressions and mundane thoughts and feelings. It can be a way you represent the enormous thrust of sexual energy as it either flows out through the genitals, or is lifted up through the spine to functions in the brain, and there, like increased electrical current, lighting up processes of the mind previously dark or unconscious. See: Spaceship.

A Fireworks rocket: Can mean many things in your dream depending on the feelings and events experienced in the dream. It can suggest a feeling of wonder and beauty; a warning signal your dream is showing you; a signal saying here I am I need help; or a prayer sent up that can be experienced by many.

 Example: I set off a firework/rocket that shot into the sky and became about nine balls of coloured light. They chased an unseen alien craft in the sky, and disposed of it. All the people rejoiced, and I was a hero for ridding the world of this unknown menace.

Example: A group of people who are old, senile, worn out, are led into a room where a young attractive nurse sits. She was inwardly unhappy, without love, and she gave a demonstration to show this. She hopped along the floor of this huge room on one leg, like an ice skater in posture, in great leaps and beautiful, and dived right through a brick wall, smashing it, her long hair flowing backwards. Then she flew back at the wall as if rocket powered, and crumbled it into a huge hole. She was a metallic person, and a group were to be turned into such beings also. They did not seem to see her pathos and unhappiness. 

Example: The can was going along like a rocket carrying us along the Beaconsfield/Amersham Road. The idea was to take off and go to the moon. When we went down Gore Hill we eventually took off, but only a few feet. Then we had another can full of fuel which I set light too. It burnt slowly like meths. There was a hole up on the side, and the can leaked. I set light to both holes, but not enough power was generated to go along, just a slow burn. Also we could hardly find anything to hang onto. Then we had a stainless steel small rocket, still in the shape of a drum, but with a proper exhaust nozzle, and works. We also have space suits on with a harness and clips which fastened to the rocket. 

As soon as I explored this dream I felt the new rocket and nozzle was my recent freer expression of sexual feeling. Going to the moon was making connection with my head and creativity that had been floating in space (floating head, my thinking self was not connected with my body). The old can reminded me of the dream prior to the last session, the barrel into which I was poking food – i.e. I was eating too much hoping to gain some energy. The hole in the side is my chest pain, where I have often said “energy leaks out”.

Useful questions and hints:

Have you ever felt an enormous shift or energy release that gave you a new view of your world?

 Do you ever plan or daydream where you are going in expressing the energy of your life?

Where have your energetic activities taken you?

See Energy Sex and DreamsResistancesThe Creative DreamerTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Rod

Your will, or your aggressive force. The penis.

Rodent Rat

Rodents are a massive and diverse collection of animals. Rats and mice are the ones we usually associate with rodents, but there are also squirrels, chinchilla, guinea pigs, rabbits, beavers, chipmunk, capybara, prairie dogs, naked mole rats, marmot, gerbil, voles, maras, kangaroo rats, agouti, porcupines, hares, but as there are over 2000 of them in the species I have only listed the most popular. See Mouse.

 Only some are listed in the dictionary. See beavers, rabbits, porcupines.

Rat: What you sense as sick or negative, so can depict your fears or anxieties, frightening instincts or urges, physical sickness or anxieties about health. Perhaps also feelings of sexual repulsion or using sex to gain material aims. But the sense that rats bring disease and dirt was caused by the fallacy that rats carried the plague and are unclean, but rats are very clean. It was found out by historical research that it wasn’t the rat that brought the plague to Europe but the gerbil was the culprit.

Sometimes a rat in your dream can remind you of love that was betrayed, or intuitions about a person being a ‘rat’ or ‘ratting on you’ – doing things behind your back or underhandedly – or deserting a relationship when difficulties arise.

The rats can point to threatening things going on that you are not clear about, or a view of the underhanded side of yourself or others – the evil side of human nature, its dirt and squalor, or time gnawing away at your life. The unacceptable parts or oneself.

In some dreams the rat has the character of most rodents, the gnawing inquisitive searching out of things. It can therefore relate to one’s anxieties, self-questioning and worrying mind that disturbs or eats away at things like peace of mind or confidence.

Because we may have associations with rats used in laboratories they may suggest healing and sacrifice.

Pet rat: Quite different to general rat associations; vulnerability, instinctive intelligence, the caring feelings or drive to care; responsibility for caring. The rat is an intelligent creature, is a great survivor and explorative.

In China where various types of rat are cooked and eaten, the astrological symbols are replaced by animal symbols. The rat (sometimes referred to as a mouse) is the first of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. People born in this year are expected to possess qualities associated with rats, including creativity, intelligence, honesty, generosity, ambition, a quick temper and wastefulness. People born in a year of the rat are said to get along well with “monkeys” and “dragons”, and to get along poorly with “horses”.

In Indian tradition, rats are seen as the vehicle of Ganesha the elephant god, and a rat’s statue is always found in a temple of Ganesh – the elephant god the remover of all obstacles. In the north western Indian city of Deshnoke, the rats at the Karni Mata Temple are held to be destined for reincarnation as Sadhus (Hindu holy men). Rats are eaten by some people in India also.

Idioms: Rat on someone; rat race; smell a rat; feeling ratty; cornered rat; rats leave a sinking ship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I confronting or remembering something that I feel is repulsive or evil?

Am I in a relationship that I intuitively feel difficulties about?

Am I being a rat in a relationship or situation?

Is a worry or irritation eating away at me?

See animalsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestions

Role Model

Nearly always when people dream about someone they know they automatically believe the dream is about that person. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream.

So to some extent an uncle, aunt. cousin or friend can be a role model in our dreams. We gather from their success or failure strategies for our own life. Whatever feelings we have about them, whatever we think of them, the dream will use this to illustrate something for you. So consider how you would describe your uncle, what sort of person he is, and how you feel about him. The dream will be using his image to illustrate the role you see him in. If he is a success, ask yourself what in yourself you are facing regarding success. If you feel he is a failure, ask yourself what of your own feelings about failure you are facing.

Most adult figures would suggest either a parent or authority figure as possible role models; or a target for admiration or sexual attraction, perhaps even because of some form of security in love and being cared for.

Athletes, film stars, teachers, a great leader,  a wonderful mind, a person who you admire, the number is endless. As a youth I read stories about Tarzan and Wilson, a sort of Tibetan yogi and they became role models for me. Also an uncle in my fathers family had a tremendous positive influence on me.

Such a person can have a powerful influence on the way you choose to live your life, the actions and ambitions you have, and the general quality and mood of your life. The imagination is a tremendous force and is a great power in your creativity. See Characters and People in Dreams – Being the Person or Thing – Hero Heroine

Roles

The different people in our dreams, such as doctor, lawyer, business person or tramp, in general represent the different abilities, weaknesses or interests we have ourselves. Even if we know the ‘role model’ it still depicts that person’s quality or skill in yourself. The only difference might be that our personal reactions to that particular doctor or schoolteacher will also play a part. Roles often play an important part in our self-image. Without an appreciated social role, we may feel uncertain and ineffective. Maturity might require the acceptance that we are nothing but can be many things.

If it is you in the role, so the different roles you play in your dreams, such as actor, lawyer, soldier or cook, usually represent the different abilities, weaknesses or interests you have. We all have different roles in everyday life. So, a woman can be cook, lover, mother, counsellor, accountant, etc. A man can be a worker, gardener, father, handyman or builder, a chauffeur, and so on. What is important is to see if you can get at is why the dream is showing you in that role and how it is relevant to your life at the moment. Therefore, define what skills the role has, and see what the dream is commenting on them in regard to yourself.

See the various roles such as: baker; barber; Characters in Dreams; beggar; chemist; gardener; inventor; nurse; potter; sub-personality; victim; waiter.

Roller Coaster

It refers, depending on its context, on the swinging between exhilaration and depression or anxiety, fun and the meeting with playful fear. It can also refer to a thrilling experience, being daring or sex.

Sometimes it is a way you meet fear, stress and confidence or lack of it. Or even a form of initiation to teenage. In a way such things allow you to see how much you have grown, because you can now ‘bear it’ or not.

Example: I am coming down a tramway, roller coaster and I am telling some people about having ridden a bus for 7 years. “I saw pretty near everything,” I say, “people passing out, vomiting, etc.” It’s a very steep drop down this tramway-roller coaster, some of it over water. I am only occasionally frightened. I wonder why it is such a steep drop from where I was (S.F.?) to Long Beach. It’s also a long trip.

I feel like I have gone downhill ever since I lived in San Francisco? Ever since I stopped teaching in Thailand.

Roof

The philosophy, beliefs or coping strategies we use to protect yourself from stress. The roof can also suggest how you are dealing with the energies of emotion, and whether your ‘house’ or personality, is sound. See: House

Hole in the roof: Suggest something that has attacked your sense of security. Or if you are on the roof seeing into a room below of an unknown house or a previously unknown room, it suggest past dwelling places, past lives, and therefore seeing into them one can see things that could be useful in today’s life.

A person climbing out of a hole in the roof can symbolise becoming a mature man/woman. In legends and folklore this process of climbing out, being pulled through the hole in a rock, crawling out of a narrow passage, is a frequently recurring image of birth or rebirth.

 Example: I suddenly realise I was on the roof of my old home, though it didn’t resemble it at all. Standing there I could see a hole in the roof that allowed me to look down into a room, or an area, that had got walled off as the house was being renovated. I saw things in the room that I knew belonged  to me and I planned to get them. This is an important point because, 1) I have dreamt this in various ways many times. 2) Our home was a huge project and never completely finished. So the dreams show these unused areas – sometimes enormous. Also it shows areas or aspects of self that were lost in the past and are now realised.

Standing on a roof: Heightened awareness. See: spiritual life in dreams

Mending roof: Developing new coping strategies; feeling vulnerable; developing the qualities on your life that lead to wholeness.

Leaking roof: Need for new coping strategies; a suggestion that you need to deal with personal problems.

No roof: If not a threatening dream, suggests no barrier between personality and psychic or spiritual awareness; a sense of connection with life or wider awareness. If threatening, feeling invaded by forces outside oneself.

Roof garden: Spiritual or mental growth or flowering of new ideas, insights or abilities. See: Last example in window.

 

Room

A particular feeling state – for instance the room might feel sinister, warm, spacious, cold, etc. – so depicts whatever you feel in the dream room. It can also indicate experience of life in the womb, or your present life situation if it is a room you are living in. In this sense the room can depict what difficulties, what traps, what poverty or richness of life you are living in.

Sometimes a room, because of its spaciousness represents the amount of potential or opportunity you have. The ‘containing’ quality – feeling restricted – of a room may also depict involvement in your mother.

The décor of the room usually suggests how you feel about the quality of your life.

Bare room: This may suggest you feel your life lacks comfort, or the joy of your own created environment. It can also suggest potential.

Entering another room: Entering a new experience or phase of your life, a new feeling.

The finding of extra or secret rooms: A common dream theme – recognition or discovery of previously unnoticed aspects, abilities, fears, or traits in yourself. If the discovery is distressing, this may reflect a feeling of a change in your status quo which is disturbing. But the hidden room can indicate entering a new dimension of your awareness, one that reveals previously hidden or unknown facets of your personality

Example: ‘There was a room in my house I had never been in before. It was filled with water and had three kittens submerged in it. While in the room I didn’t need to breath.’ Audrey P.

The room here represents Audrey’s childbearing function – her womb i.e. the reproductive drive, the unconscious desire for a child or more children, and the possible neglect of those feelings and longings. The room can therefore depict mother or qualities of mothering.

Example: I am at my original flat but come across an extra room or sometimes part to the flat no one knows about. I am always surprised when I find it, but inside myself I know of its existence. It is as though it belonged to me although I am unaware of ever having used it. It is usually a bedroom but sometimes a lounge with a bed in it. It’s obviously lived in. The bed is unmade and it’s a little untidy but comfortable. I feel very familiar with it but recognise none of the contents as mine.

The dreamer explored this dream and discovered it help her artistic abilities left to her form er father’s influence.

Sometimes the room can hold old attitudes or things you left behind because of life’s necessities. Or at other times it can be things you did not want to admit to yourself, as in the following example.

The room immediately reminded me of the way I had described my awareness of my sexual stagnation during the first dream session – like a room that had been closed for years and had been unopened. Everything had been left as it was. Perhaps a murder had taken place, and the powerful aura pervaded the whole place.

Room without doors or windows: May represent the womb and life in the womb. What is happening in the room may show the state of a pregnancy, feelings about pregnancy or feeling trapped.

Small Room: Lack of space or opportunity or small time dealings. It could suggest a limitation of vision or potential.

The room:  Love has only one place of expression – The ground floor. That is, love cannot be expressed unless it is brought down to earth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What feeling did you or do you have about the room?

Did something happen in the room, and can you describe it?

Does the room have a history, if so what impressive memories do you have about it?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Root

Your beginnings, basic levels of consciousness, things you are tied to by necessity, love or connections.

Root Roots

Your connection with the past, with your family heritage or influences; the things you are tied to by necessity or love; your fundamental physical characteristics as they express in your personality; the aspects of your culture or family ties that you particularly identify with or find connection with.

Roots in dreams represent the hidden and often unconscious links that reach deep into our body and its long past. For our body is an outcrop of the life that began when life began on this earth, and it carries with it ancient memories. The dream roots give us entrance into that long past and what it brings with it into our life today. See The Conjuring Trick 

The root can sometimes indicate the ‘root’ of your biological potential/energy – the root chakra or centre. As such it shows your undifferentiated self – the you rather like an energy, like electricity. that is invisible until it flows into an apparatus/body, which enables it to show part of its enormous potential – movement, feelings, hunger, self-consciousness, etc. It is described as a sleeping, dormant potential force at the base of the spine. It is in its sleeping or dormant state at the base of the spine or trunk and it is pictured as a sleeping snake with seven heads. This part of or segment of the body is where the legs connect, and so can be thought of as the seat of energy or movement. See Energy, Sex and Dreams

We have roots in our digestive system

Rope

Strength to connect to or with some others or to something; to secure or bind things, or pull you up or along – or someone or something.

 The rope can also act as a safety barrier, or a feeling of confidence as a rope does as a person climbs down a hole or a mountain face. In this case it is supportive connection or feelings of confidence; the safeguards you use in attempting something risky.  Or a symbol of control, as are handcuffs, chains or a rope.

 A rope can be used for strangulation of the flow of pleasure and creativity that would otherwise stream through you. In such a case the rope needs to be removed and a new way of relating to yourself developed.

 A rope can also suggest a lifeline that links you to or with someone else, or a means of escape from a difficult situation.

  A rope that is neatly coiled represents organization, inner twining and balancing of mind, body and soul. A rope that is frayed or knotted represents disassociation.

Feeling tied up. Feeling in knots. Feeling restricted.

Ropes connected with sailing suggest skill and wisdom in dealing with all manner of ‘weather’ in your life.

If you are tied up: What is holding us back from expressing? Strength turned against oneself.

Tying someone else: Restraints we use to hold back particular parts of our feelings or drives; sometimes sexuality. See: cord; knot.

Plaited rope etc.: The inner strength that comes from uniting parts of you into one aim, one direction, or one leadership. Weaving different influences in your life together; uniting conflicting feelings or people, or a triangle situation.

 Example: I find myself feeling nauseous.  I have an image of a thick rope coming up from the depths of my entrails bringing bile.  I am ashamed.  I retch.  The more I focus on the image of the rope, the more I gag.  Tony offers to bring me a bowl and leave the room but I feel I cannot take the urge too literally.  Perhaps I am not ready yet.

 Idioms: end of my rope; roped together; give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself; rope into; know the ropes; learn the ropes;  show you the ropes; hangman’s rope.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is the rope being used?

Is this about connecting to something, or securing something?

If I am being tied by a rope, does this indicate feelings of being restrained, holding myself back from self-expression?

See Working with associationsMakes Inner WorldBeing the Person or Thing

Rosary

Prayer and its influence, therefore to do with spiritual exercises, spiritual gifts or meditation. Stages of your inner growth or experience. It might also represent your feelings about its use if you are or have been a catholic. A spiritual exercise is something you use to open your awareness to the new, as with, if I put my hand on my heart and feel the Life in me beating away, and I open to the strange mystery of Life in me, then Life is telling me part of its mystery, and if we remain open to that mystery we may enter a new dimension of self-awareness. See How I Became a Virgin

 Beads are often used for prayer in some countries, as in Greece, in Buddhism and with the rosary. So the rosary or beads might represent your attitude of mind in prayer, or what you meet from prayer or meditation. They might therefore indicate precious things you find in yourself. See: jewellery.

 When used for meditation it could mean you are concentrating your thoughts and therefore making your aim more powerful – rather like magnifying glass focussing the suns rays.

 Example: I was the top of a hill on my knees digging in the earth with my right hand. It was fairly easy. I pulled up what felt like coins, and found they were all joined together, forming something one could wear. This was in the form of a necklace from which ran a long loop from one edge to the other, perhaps reaching fairly well below the breasts. There were coins set a little way apart all around this loop. Then in between there were two connections from coins going down in a V to a single line that connected with the bottom of the loop. From this single line, and the coins on it, there were connections to the coins on the loop, reaching low on the trunk.

 The coins, or really, medallions, were shining silver, depicting Christian or ancient saints and martyrs. It was, I knew in the dream, like a rosary, which one could use in prayer. But instead of just the Ave Maria’s, and the Our Father’s, all the other saints were included. Thus it was a very comprehensive guide to prayer. Some of the silvered chains between the coins were missing, but these had been mended with something else. The shape of it suggests the sign of the cross people make on their body. But it shows the right way to do this is first touching the brow, then to two breasts, then down to the genitals – the real sources of power. Richard.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I sending a prayer out in the dream and if so, what was it for?

Do I sense any stages of inner growth or experience?

If I am catholic, what do I feel about the dream rosary?

See SpiritSpiritual Life In DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Rose

Love; the flowering of personal qualities, your soul or self. Sometimes the vagina. The flowering of our ripeness to live, love and reproduce, and its passing. Because flowers are the beautiful sexual organs of the plant it often refers to our own flowering of our sexuality and the wonder of love that is connected with such opening.

But sexuality is often seen as only relating to the urge to reproduce, but unfortunately people take that to simply mean sex. But we are actually seeking the reproduction of our whole potential; namely a healthy physical body – the ability to relate in a caring loving manner to each other, which starts with the relationship between father and mother and child. But from that it expands to a relationship with the culture and society of the time, with the great learning we have been left, and then a relationship with Life/God itself. I use the word IT because you cannot call the amazing emergence of our universe and ourselves a He – for it is all inclusive and is still a mystery we are still exploring. See Opening to Life

 The Rosicrucian’s, who use the cross with a rose at the centre, speak of it as symbolising the trials and difficulties of life, upon which the soul personality of man opens and blooms like a rose.

The rose has always represented love, and has even been a major symbol in Christianity, the Virgin being called The Mystic Rose. In general, the rose depicts a quality in you opening and flowering. It can also signify deep sensuality, sexuality and the vagina.

But the most common association is the giving or reminder of love. However, the colours have gradually assumed different meanings, indicating what type of love is given. So in some countries you would not give a woman red roses unless she were single and you were sincerely in love with her. The red rose is passionate, sensual love.

The yellow rose has the meaning of friendship and gladness; the white rose depicts purity, silence, even secrecy. Pink suggests gentle love, ‘thank you’ and appreciation. Orange roses are expressing desire and enthusiasm. A red rosebud is an image of girlhood, passion but still unexplored or just opening. A thornless rose is saying ‘this is love at first sight’.

 Example: I came across a hawthorn tree woven into which was a rose bush. The berries and hips were loaded, but not quite ripe.

Example: I began to realise how life was bursting forth in the garden. Looking up in the hedge I noticed a large pod expanding on top of a stalk. It was visibly getting larger, like a balloon. Suddenly it opened, forming many stalks with leaves and small rose buds. Another pod was doing the same. As I watched I noticed a young woman nearby. I called to her to witness this extraordinary explosion of growth and life – a dynamic extravagant springtime of activity. I wept at the beauty. I wept because of the profound wonder of the formless reality that underlies the vast ever changing world of phenomena.

Example: One person, “looking for herself, came upon a tightly closed box. Tearing it open – in her fantasy – she found inside a lovely rose, and realised that she had been enclosed in a box of Puritanism, of self-denial and physical shame. The outer petals of the rose, pink and mauve, seemed to whirl and dance; they sent her fancy spinning off like a ballerina into flowered landscapes of delicious femininity. The inner petals were shaded from the light, obscure and mysterious. Here the colours darkened to deep crimson and velvet purple. They reflected her deep animality. These she avoided, until she realised that it took both the light and the dark to make a lovely rose. She could not have one without the other. Gradually the rose became a nourishing symbol in her life and growth.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What colour are the roses?

Did someone give them to you?

What are you doing with the roses?

You might have a personal association with the colour of the roses, if so what are they?

Who gave you the roses in your dream, is it a special person or love in your life, or a person who deserves attention?

What you are doing with the roses indicates how you receive love and attention. Throwing them away for instance would show you rejecting the love offered.

 

 

Rotten

In dreams a bad smell expresses an intuition of something rotten in one’s life. Rotten might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship; a hunch or feelings about something.

Sometimes dream show that we have or are taking in Things said to us, thoughts we have, or things done, that have a destructive effect on you. Maybe something you ate or that you are taking in rotten information or feelings. But as usual it depends on the context in the dream.

A painful or rotten part of one’s feelings, life or relationships; angry or regretful words. It might also of course suggest a problem with a tooth.

Maggots are simple signs of something rotten in oneself, and how when our attitudes become positive they are seeds of life. Remember that maggots only live on rotting things. Because of this they are sometimes used on humans to eat rotten flesh. As soon as they have eaten all the sick flesh the maggots drop off.

Sometimes dreams play on words and symbols together. Thus, if we dream of finding an old leather bag which did not belong to us, unlocking it with a key, only to find rotten and evil smelling food inside, this would be a very caustic comment on our sexual relationships. In effect it is saying, I picked up an ‘old bag’, had sexual intercourse with her, but found it unsatisfying and in the end, distasteful.

 Example: Other branches of the hardwood tree are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

Useful Questions and Hints:  

What do I feel is decaying of rotten in my life?

How do I meet these feelings of something decaying?

Is it about ageing?

Round

Wholeness or completion. See: Circle.

Row Rowing

Making personal efforts to get somewhere. If there is someone in the boat with you it suggests efforts in a relationship. It might link with fitness if you use rowing for exercise. Or competition or cooperation if you are in a rowing team. See Boat

 If someone else is rowing the boat, it shows someone else is making an effort for you. See Characters and People in Dreams

Row: If this is a row as in arguing: See: argue.

 

Rubber

See: Contraceptive; Elastic.

Rubbish

See: Garbage.

Ruby

Emotions, passion, sympathies; extending self to others. It may also depict a connection with blood. The feelings, sympathies, love, arising from the spirit, rather than material values. The ability to reach out and contact others. See: Jewels; Blood.

Rudder

The principles you guide your actions by; the strength used to deal with the pressures taking you away from where you want to go.

Sureness about direction in life; ability to take a direction in life and maintain it against other influences.

 Example: I had a dream last night where I was in a boat that was not working well. It was floating and I would suddenly find myself in the water checking the rudders of the boat to make sure they were steering the boat. I would get nervous when I saw the boat approaching shallow waters. The other people in the boat did not seem to be bothered by the shallow water and I would feel better about it and think it was alright since no one else seemed bothered. I did not know who the people were in the boat. At least I cannot recognize them now. When the boat arrived at a destination, everyone was happy because we were out at sea for quite some time.

I feel this describes how you relate to other people, especially in groups. Your dream gives me the impression that you need to know where such relationships are heading – thus the rudders – and are cautious about getting in situations you cannot manoeuvre.

Even so you do not like to be ‘at sea’ too long – any ship that was out of sight of land was in an uncertain position and in danger of becoming lost. Again you need to get your bearings and links with wanting to know where you are in relationships. This is again portrayed in the mooring of the boat. You need a firm mooring in some way to feel okay and certain

Rug

Sometimes depicts one’s financial state, bare floorboards being poverty; can be the colour or design that are important; comfort or lack of it in life – do you feel satisfied with self; a cover up; feeling of being walked on.

Rugby

A powerful and full ‘contact’ sport which in dreams can represent being able to take the rough and tumble of life and to give as good as you get. It also represents for many people the strong drive to identify with a tribe, a group. It is therefore ways in which the person gains identity and a sense of connection with people around him/her. In growing internationalism, such games may be of vital importance to maintaining a sense of identity within what may feel like being lost in a multitude.

It may also indicate your feelings about the nation you were born in.

Example: I was playing rugby & getting beaten, then something in me changed and I scored a touchdown and felt great.  

Ruins

An old and now useless way of life you led in the past; a particular personality structure that has now broken down; feelings you have abut some aspect of your life. The ruins in many dreams are shown as a castle, and this suggests the defences you used at one time to survive, but are now not necessary.

Rules

These are often about the rules we live by, often without realising them, or the effect on our life. Often they are felt or pictured as a trap or prison that one cannot get out of, and sometimes there is a lot of fear involved in going beyond them.

They are like a boundary or an unknown territory that one cannot go beyond. Most of us interiorise our morals or beliefs into our dream life. In other words, we take as a truth that what is important outwardly is as important inwardly. In other words, you are as upset by a dream as if it had actually happened in waking life. Such mistakes make us feel things that are ridiculous. This happens with the morals we live with, by and may be necessary in waking life, we try to make them fit to our much bigger and freer dream/inner life and that causes conflict because the two worlds are completely different. So in dreams about sex we do not have to live by the same small moral world often necessary in waking life.

We are often made ill by living within such rigid morals, or are trapped within boundaries we dare not cross. See WallTrap; boundary; Morals

Run Running

Running with exuberance in a dream suggest you are flowing with life energy, or strong and easy motivation.

You can run to or run away, or even run from someone or something, so it is important in some dreams to define which one it is. Also it is important to define if you are running to get somewhere, to reach a goal, or simply running as an expression of exuberance, or to get fit. See: Chased.

Running away: Avoiding something; trying to get away from something, your own emotions or sexuality for instance, so not meeting problems in a way that will resolve them. This can indicate anxiety about what you are running from. It might be old painful experiences or feelings of guilt.

Running to: Trying to reach a goal, so an energetic attempt to get somewhere. If you are running toward someone or in relationship to someone such as children, this suggests feelings of responsibility and self-giving. But in some dreams it is evident the dreamer is sometimes running toward danger.

Running to get fit: It can suggest you are taking your health seriously. It depends on why you are running though. Are you running because you have an underlying fear that in fact is making you run to avoid death? If so it is better to meet the feelings of fear of death, and when that is done you can run with good feelings. See Fear Frightened

Running something like a business: Meeting the challenges of running your own individual way of life. Or depending what the dream is maybe about your own business information. See business woman/man

Running with great pleasure: The unhindered flow of your innate self, so an expression of the person you can be if the tensions, blockages and hesitations are dropped away.

Running without knowing why: Uncertainty or lack of clarity about what you are feeling or expressing – where you are going to or from.

As if made of lead: Held back by one’s own hesitations. Or maybe, because you are a life-form, and so are created by the process of Life, and because life has a flow or current which carries you forward all the time, through babyhood, childhood, adolescence, and onwards, you could be trying to fight the current. See: Paralysis; Sleep Paralysis; Opening to Life

Idioms: Run for one’s money; run of the house; out of the running; on the run; run along; run down; run for it; run out of steam; run out on someone; run up against; run wild.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Does this show a sense of urgency and haste?

Am I trying to escape from an emotion or fear?

What do I feel as I am running or watching someone run?

Could it simply be a feeling of exuberance and life energy?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Working with associations – Makes Inner World – Allowing the Spontaneous

 

 

Rust

Negligence; sense of ageing; seeing how transitory worldly things are. It might imply that something connected with you has not been taken care of, is worn out and might not be of service. So something encrusted with rust suggests not only age but also lack of use.

Rust is a sign of how iron consumes itself, so there may be a suggestion of this in the dream, rust appearing on something that is consuming itself. Is something corroding your life?

Rust on some things makes them work less efficiently, so the dream rust might be saying things need cleaning up for your life to work well. If you dreamt of rust, it might indicate neglect, lack of care, old age, or a “rusty” skill.

 Example: It was a big room – a bathroom; old-fashioned and high-ceilinged. It was a mess, and I thought the first thing I could do was to set-to and clean it (the bath, sink, everything was dirty and grimy). However, when I went to the bath to clean it, I saw that the back of the bath had all rusted away, so it was beyond being cleaned, a completely new bath was needed.

Letter S

Sack

Things you carry around with you or feel a need for, so may link with acquisitiveness on a mundane level. May suggest unemployment, or fear of it if the dream connects with work. But the sack sometimes refers to the womb, or feelings connected with the womb state – non-striving, peace, and a feeling of being part of things. Being in a sack might show you facing feelings about death.

The phrase ‘hit the sack’ refers to going to bed. The sack may hold things that you do not know about, only to be revealed if you explore or are shown – the future perhaps?

Americans use of sack can mean a strong paper or plastic bag for groceries – in the UK and US sack means a strong large bag made of hessian. (He turns around so we can see his butt. Two pounds of butter is in a plastic sack and stapled to his shorts.)

A paper sack suggests something similar – things you carry around that you feel are needed. Mostly this indicates sureness about being able to meet the various demands of daily life. The paper sack might also connect with emptiness and fullness – whether you have your needs or have got what you want.

Things you carry around with you or feel a need for, so may link with acquisitiveness on a mundane level. May suggest unemployment, or fear of it if the dream connects with work.

Something alive that you have captured and carry with you.

But the sack sometimes refers to the womb, or feelings connected with the womb state – non-striving, peace, and a feeling of being part of things. Being in a sack might show you facing feelings about death.

 Example: I was to teach a class in cooking. I had a sack full of papers, food stuffs, etc. I went to the office to see if I could make some schedule changes at the last minute but no dice. Sherrie said the recipe sounded good. She’d like a taste.

Example: A needle was stuck in my left arm and my chest was being cut open – it didn’t hurt. There was a lot of activity. They said I had gone. I was trying desperately to let them know I was still there. Then I was in a bag and sliding off a table. The bag was tied above my head. Then from the confined darkness I was free. There was a brilliant light all around. I could still see the sack with a body still in it far behind me. I was incredibly happy and full of energy. Trish L.

Example: In the dream I entered a cave and I saw a dragon resting inside, it woke up, saw me and we stared at one another for a moment and then it moved and I saw a sack of diamonds and diamonds overflowing/ coming out from the cave wall, it looks like the dragon was guarding it.

Idioms: as dumb as a sack of hammers; sack out; potato sack; a sad sack; got the sack; give him the sack; an empty sack can’t stand upright; Let’s hit the sack. fart sack; made the sack

Useful questions and hints:

What type of sack was it and what was it used for?

Is this about the materials I carry around with me that I feel I have a need for?

Does this possibly indicate fear of unemployment (being homeless)?

Does it feel like a safe and peaceful place – the womb?

Am I thinking about or frightened of death?

Are you unconsciously carrying something alive in your sack?

See Trap Trapped TrappingSimple TruthsKarmaMartial Art of the Mind

Sacrifice

The surrendering or giving up of some part of yourself; or sacrificing the wishes of others for your own purposes. It can sometimes show some sort of decision, or point of change, where a sacrifice is made in order to grow. It can therefore represent being able to let go of something. The sacrifice, shown in some dreams as a human sacrifice, may be painful. See: Bull.

May refer directly to feeling someone is or will make you a scapegoat; sometimes connected with decision making – we cannot have all things at once, so we are willing to sacrifice one thing for another. It occurs in some dreams that where a change is occurring in one’s personality – parts of our nature we once identified with – can now be allowed to die to the process of growth.

Also sacrifice often depicts a strange fact of human psychology. Some aspects of oneself grow in strength and maturity by letting them ‘die’. While we maintain a behaviour pattern or belief, it stays in its habitual form. When we let go of it, a new approach can emerge.

The beautiful and self-sacrificing side of love – it often leads to a form of death, but also of rebirth, and thus a meeting with the universal life of which you are a part, and a connection with it through self sacrifice or surrender.

Such death is basically a point of transformation and sacrifice, what you are willing to sacrifice may suggest what you give the highest value to in your life, and what you worship; perhaps what you are sacrificing.  To know who you are, or what the underlying reality is, you have to be willing to be sacrificed in this way.

Perhaps, just as we recap our ancestor’s physical stages of development, in the maturing process of our psyche, we have to recap these psychic processes also. The coming of a Messiah gradually broke into the age of lust and slavery. Certainly the question of what is one’s fundamental nature might not be answered until one was willing to be sacrificed as a saviour.

 Example: I am going through masses of evolutionary feelings. The struggle to develop self-consciousness, and how the Messiah was first of all a fantasy, then an embodiment. Then how other people lived certain aspects of it, and were taken to be the Messiah, the Krishna, whatever. They did bring into the body another type of awareness, that mankind had been struggling toward for so long. This is where the mystery of the birth of Christ comes from. Why there is no real historical person. Why there is so much myth and legends surrounding such events. It is the embodiment of something mankind needed so much, to help them out of their crisis, for such men and women lived showing no fear of death and loved beyond the sexual impulse – they gave themselves.

Useful questions and hints:

Do I feel that I have surrendered or given up a part of myself for something or someone?

Does it imply sacrificing the wishes of others for my own purposes?

Is this a ritual sacrifice where an animal is involved? (If so, look up the animal in question and come up with a definition of how this relates to your current life. Go back into the dream if needed to get more information)

See Meetings with Christ – Servant – Life’s Basic Functions – 

Saddle

A way to have an easier and more comfortable way to deal with your instincts. A horse within us for instance is a dynamic power and a means of locomotion; it carries one away like a surge or instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures which lack higher consciousness. But humans also are prone to panic attacks and are often subject to massive fears and anxieties – just like all other mammals. The great difference is that when the threat had gone the horse calms down, but the human can play it over again and again causing havoc within them.

Saddling a horse is a major step in helping the horse to become ‘domesticated’ – and in a dream this represent taking on social responsibility.

How you deal with getting in the saddle and dealing with the horse shows how well you can handle your instinctive side of you nature, because in fact, “You ride an ancient beast.” The ancient beast is your body, and your conscious self is the modern and recent rider of it. See Horse Horses

If thrown from saddle: Out of control of your ability to deal with your

natural urges.

Riding well without a saddle: Feeling in complete harmony with your natural urges and sexual feelings, as in dream example.

Example: I was allowed the use of a huge dark brown horse. I climbed on its bare back. I had asked for it not to be saddled. But it didn’t have a bridle either. This made me apprehensive as I felt I would not be able to direct the horse. The horse galloped along. I found that I felt good on its back, and if I leaned in the direction I wanted to go, the horse would turn. As I rode I felt now in wonderful harmony and rhythm with the horse. So, much so I almost had an orgasm.

Example: Coming in from the desert. The man I am with – the teacher – tells me it is time I have my own horse and gives me a horse/pony – not tall, maybe 14/15 hands high called Ginger. I am returning to the stables and lead Ginger back. I have a saddle and bridle too. At one point I have the saddle on Ginger’s rump and she tries to go off in another direction. I tell her that we aren’t going there.

Example: I had a dream where I took a pony to a terraced house. I entered and discovered two police officers living there who I knew. I had to get out as they would be angry with me. I had written something in chalk on their steps. A female officer saw me and I galloped off bareback up the road. The pony had no shoes either.

Your dream shows you learning to direct your natural energy – the pony, with no saddle or shoes, meaning not tamed – but there’s a bit of a struggle with conforming – suggesting that you are still learning to be an adult not conforming but not being a spoilt child either. You’re doing okay though. So, feel good on the pony, but don’t run away from the police. Balance the two.

Example: I was in a field, a low hilltop, and the field was ploughed. My friend John was with me. There was a young but large, slightly long haired horse with us. It was the size of the medium sized cart horses of my childhood. I had been helping or encouraging John to ride the horse, but he found this difficult and didn’t manage it for long. So, I got on the horse and started riding it to show John how it was done. John became very excited about this. I had the sense that he really wanted to know or see that it was possible. Or maybe the excitement was that I could demonstrate that it could be done.

As we were crossing the brow of a hill the horse broke into an exuberant gallop. He ran as horses run sometimes as they gallop in high spirits – not in any particular direction. At first I felt concerned about this. Firstly, in case I was unseated – but that was okay and there was no sense of falling off so I began to relax.

John was a person the dreamer often helped dealing with problems, so John not doing so well on the horse shows the dreamer has to be aware and deal with the situation. He feels concern when the horse lets its full energy express but he soon can relax as he feels he doesn’t have to be in control because the horse and the rider become one. See Control Controlled Controlling

Idioms: saddled with; saddle up; tall in his saddle; burr under your saddle; like a saddle on a sow; back in the saddle; saddled with.

Useful questions and hints:

Am I being ‘saddled’ or imposed upon in some way, or imposing on someone else?

How does the dream suggest I am dealing with my natural urges?

What am I feeling in the dream?

 

Sadism Sadist

This might connect with childhood hurts you are not fully facing, and so living out on others, ore feel are lived out on yourself, or a sexual problem leading to hurtfulness instead of love.

Safari

Coming face to face with your instincts, unsocialised or undomesticated urges. What happens on the safari will probably illustrate how well you relate to your own inner animal. See: Animals in your Brain; Animals

In a sense any dream containing wild or undomesticated animals is a safari dream. The third example shows how we have fear of the ‘wild’ sides of our nature, and how we deal with fear changes as we meet it.

Also a number of the dreams in my database area about clothing, which suggests the image one is portraying. Probably an outdoor sporty image, ready for anything type.

 Example: I was expecting Ben, but it is Michael, decked out in new clothes, safari style. The colours are all greens: leather coat, khaki shirt, dark pants. He is jaunty, strutting. He walks around the table to give me a closer look at his duds.

Example: At one point I am surprised to see that the safari suit that I am wearing is different from the one I thought it was – it is kind of reddish brown with furry or hairy material. I didn’t even know I had one like this.

Example: Now I am in a place like a safari park, but perhaps it is actually in a country natural to the wild animals. It is very dim and misty, and I, along with other people are in a fenced area in which is living accommodation for us to holiday in. The animals, I feel nervously, are ‘out there’ in the mist somewhere and might appear suddenly, so I need to keep alert in case of danger. I walk along a boundary fence, which is on my left. A wild looking animal/man appears and threatens me, he is holding a large knife. I have a large wooden spear in my hands and harry him with it. I feel more than equal to him. As I poke at him the knife now suddenly appears to be plastic and his appearance becomes more refined. Although he still has a slightly dwarfed body, or a hunched back, he has an intelligent and cultured face. I feel we can be friends. I then walk further along in the direction I was going and enter what appears to be a massive cave. I have the information from somewhere that ‘they’ have hollowed out this cave from the solid rock, and I am impressed by the results. The cave is about thirty feet high, and sixty long, in the shape of an inverted U. It is also wide. A lot of people are inside, playing or relaxing. Tom

An interesting dream because it shows how if we are not cowed by fear of the instinctive sides of our nature we can find a different relationship with them. Tom does not try to kill the animal/man – which is an excellent description of most humans – but is ready to defend himself, the threat turns out to be harmless and it also transforms the animal/man to a more intelligent and cultured person. Having a personality, a self, is a very new thing, but has a huge background of instinctive behaviour, which often we do not deal with well, feeling fear or repressing it. Tom’s dream goes on to show the impressive work of this side of our nature.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What image do I have of myself in regard to a safari?

Am I frightened of even terrified of wild creatures?

Have I ever felt close to a wild animal?

What do I when faced by my own wild reactions?

See ProgrammedSelf ObservationAutonomous ComplexTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Saffron Robe

Wisdom, renunciation. Letting go of personal desire or ego.

Sailing

How are you at handling unforeseen things in your life or difficult feeling? The images in sailing lend themselves to depict human endeavours to work with the tides and influences of life.

Dealing well with wind and waves: Suggests being able to meet internal and external pressures, emotions and drives, and using them to advantage.

Being overwhelmed or sinking: Finding emotional, sexual drives and anxieties too much to cope with. See: boat and ship.

Example: I am always joining a ship. Sometimes I manage to board the ship only to reach my cabin to find I’ve all my uniform dirty, or I have forgotten to pack tropical gear, or my gear is dirty. I am trying to get to the laundry to have it washed ready for sailing.

Not being ready for his big inner adventure. See The Inner World

 Example: I was sitting in a boat. It was a small sailing boat, on the sea. In one hand I was holding an ash tray with a joint, in the other hand was a glass of wine. I realised I couldn’t steer the boat while I was holding both. Bitz.

This dream clearly shows how the dreamer’s habits of drinking and smoking leave him unable to steer the ‘boat’ of his life properly.

Idioms: Plain sailing; sail against the wind; sail close to the wind; sail into something; sail under false colours; set sail; trim one’s sails; take the wind out of someone sails.

 

Useful questions and hints:

Have you developed adaptability meeting life’s changes?

Are you ready to direct your life and guide it well?

Am I strong enough to face the ocean?

See Our Reaction to meeting the Huge that we AreNothing Can Hurt You in Your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Sailor

One’s ability to meet the storms and calms of life. Your means or strategies of coping with emotions. Desire to change, to move, to see more of life. Ability to cope with life.

Sailors are often indicators of adventure or a lover – perhaps a sexual adventure or a desire to roam the world.

We often do things in our dreams that have no place there. For example, we may dream of falling into the sea and be terrified we will drown. That is ridiculous because we can easily breathe under water in a dream, or fly, or die and be re-born. The sea we fear drowning in, the sky we fear falling from, the monsters we run from, are our own emotions. We drown in sorrow, we fall in our own estimation, and we may run from responsibility or decisions. Learning to breathe under water, to fly, to confront monsters in our dreams is a way of learning how to handle our own feelings – just like a sailor learns to handle the sea. It is a life skill. But sailors may, in times of war, face battle conditions, so are trained to face the major conflicts of one’s life.

All of us need to be sailors of our own emotions. Just as it is a good policy to learn to swim and drive a car – so it is good to learn how to deal with emotions such as anger, sexual hunger. Cars and water we may only face occasionally – our emotions and fears we meet twenty-four hours a day for a lifetime.

Idiom: swear like a sailor; all the nice girls love a sailor; sailors have a girl in every port

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have a desire for adventure, to see more of life…the desire to change?

If I am, or have been a sailor, do memories or experience still influence me?

What is happening to me in the dream?

What feelings or emotions did I experience?

See Martial Art of the MindTechniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Saint

See: Guru.

Salad

Sometimes this is a direct reference to your body’s need for such foods. It might also suggest the lack of meaty – sexual – experience, or you are taking in feelings and influences that are alive and create personal growth. Like plants in a dream, the salad can indicate the living growing things in you, or if you are dieting it might have a message connected with food choices. If you eat salad regularly then it is about your life choices – your way of life.  See: Food

Some people see salad as rabbit’s food, so if you have that association it is saying something about losing out on something you feel you need.

Or if there are any thoughts or aim to eat salad to slim, then the dream is probably commenting on your aim of slimming.

Example: ‘I was looking everywhere for some green stuff to eat. I saw a field of cabbages, but, as they were not mine, could not eat the leaves.’ A couple of days before, the dreamer had prepared a salad for dinner, as it was winter, and the family were getting few ‘living’ foods. So we see that the conscious concern over ‘living’ foods has been used as a symbol in the dream. Thus the search for green leaves represents a search for something of her own that is living. The woman had been wondering what her own personal capabilities in life were. As the dream shows, she will not be satisfied or feel happy by simply taking or copying what others have done, or eating/using the rewards of their labours.

Example: A diet dream occurred to a man. In the dream he was climbing a staircase, but on every step were salads and dairy produce. This is implying that every step of his self-improvement or climb in life, depended on the right type of food.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any hint about dieting or slimming in the dream?

Does the dream suggest you need a simple, but nourishing experiences?

What feeling did you experience in the dream?

See Emotions and MoodTechniques for Exploring your DreamsThe Real Reason Wheat is Toxic (it’s not the gluten)

Salesman Saleswoman

Someone seeking to influence you; a person offering you an opportunity; one’s business sense. Or that you are confronted by choices, perhaps because you are looking for something or ‘shopping for ideas’.  

Being pressured to buy unsuitable clothing from a persistent salesman is often a warning against accepting other people’s words or influence.

Another possibility is that the salesperson represents your drive to earn a living in a way that is about consumerism rather than you own living drives.

In a woman’s dream: Perhaps a hint of things you want – a lover, a new romance – that you are not admitting to yourself; salesman may be the man in your life trying to get what he wants at your expense.

Example: The salesman pulls out a big box of garlic oil and starts telling me all of the benefits of garlic oil. He also has a big brochure which shows all his stores in California – 10-12 of them. “All good foods for life,” he says.

Example: I have moved into a new house. We had gone to bed early and the doorbell  rang. When I answered it a salesman was there. I felt he was one of the pushy people who have nothing I want. All they want to do is sell something they have which will earn them a crust. The man was into the house. I got hold of his hair and dragged him out of the house – his body literally prone and dragging on the floor – put him out and shut the door.

Example: When Frank came out of the shop I saw the tremendous tension, uncertainty and pain he had. He was holding a little parcel that he couldn’t post because he hadn’t wrapped it properly. So I went into the shop to get Frank a label for the parcel. A salesman was in there, rather fat. I could see his overweight was the expression of a terrible powerful fawning attitude he had. I looked at Frank and hugged him and got very close.

 

Saliva Spit Spittle

Love or hate. It carries your inner feelings or spirit with it. The feelings connected with the saliva suggest what ‘energy’ it carries with it.

Your essence or spirit; the emotional or feeling energy of your being. Ancient people said the saliva carried mana that might be translated as life energy. The saliva, if it is from someone else, may suggest feelings of repulsion unless we love that person.

Spitting: Projecting one’s emotional energy. The mood or attitude with which one does this gives the clue to what you are ‘putting out’ to others or the world, or ‘spitting up’ out of your own feelings, sometimes links with bitterness or anger.

Spitting out lots of teeth: Something you want to ‘spit out’ in the sense of admitting, saying, or expressing something emotionally.

Example: ‘For some considerable time now I have been troubled by a nightmarish dream which is so realistic sometimes I think I am going to die. In my dream I have swallowed something which is literally choking me or is going to poison me. I wake up and rush down the stairs to the kitchen spitting and choking, holding my throat and making all sorts of disturbing noises that frighten my wife. I have had this dream as many as five or six times a night. My doctor says it could be to do with the last war. I was a child then and my dad had to constantly wake me up to take us down to the shelter, sometimes as many as four times a night, and we were bombed out twice. I cannot recall having any fears about this at the time.’ Mr. K. T

Mr. K. was obviously trying to spit out difficult feelings from his childhood. See Life’s Little Secrets – Children’s Traumatic Fears

 Example: It started with me meeting a man (or rather a boy of about 17 – I’m 25) that I don’t recognize, but in the dream we knew each other. We were sitting on a couch at a café and for some reason I tried to kiss him, but instead of kissing me back, he spat me in the face. I ran out of the café to take a bus home. At the bus stop, there was a trash bin with a dead fox and a dead crow in it.

So I feel you offered love, and that is a very powerful thing – but you didn’t get the response you expected. Then you ran away. The young man represents, I guess, your feelings about wanting a man in your life, and then the rejection. Have you felt rejection in the past? The spitting comes from being confronted by something so painful that you feel that life without love is like a living death. But you could change what are habits of reaction by using Secrets of Power Dreaming 

Saliva: Most mammals lick their young at birth as in the photo. Not only does the touch soothe the baby it also comforts it for it is not alone to face the ‘World’.

A common belief is that saliva contained in the mouth has natural disinfectants, which leads people to believe it is beneficial to “lick their wounds”. Researchers at the University of Florida at Gainesville have discovered a protein called nerve growth factor (NGF) in the saliva of mice. Wounds doused with NGF healed twice as fast as untreated and unlicked wounds; therefore, saliva can help to heal wounds in some species. NGF has not been found in human saliva; however, researchers find human saliva contains some antibacterial agents.

As well as being growth factors, IGF-I and TGF-α induce antimicrobial peptides.[30] Saliva also contains an analgesic, opiorphin. Licking will also tend to debride the wound and remove gross contamination from the affected area. In a recent study, scientists have confirmed through several experiments that the protein responsible for healing properties in human saliva is, in fact, histatin. Scientists are now looking for ways to make use of this information in ways that can lead to chronic wounds, burns, and injuries being healed by saliva.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream suggest giving of your strength or healing?

If I am spitting, what expression am I spitting out…anger, bitterness, disgust?

Am I really just clearing mucous?

Saloon

See: Bar-room.

Salt

Value, goodness, luck, taste, adding spice to life. Something that transforms your experience. Salt also preserves. When Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt, it symbolised the desire to stop spiritual or mental progress. Salt here symbolises materialism, stagnation, lack of growth or change, preservation. Salt may also suggest friendship, good or bad luck.

The subtle qualities you bring to your activities that transform them from empty trivialities into meaning or savour; zest; may sometimes refer to the body’s reaction to salt. So the salt can suggest the subtle qualities you bring to your activities that transform them from empty trivialities into meaning or give them zest.

In past eras salt was thought to provide a barrier which evil entities could not cross.

 Example: In the dream, I ran upstairs and looked out the window and realized that there was an entire circle of black barking dogs surrounding the house. I told the wife we needed to get salt and circle the house. (I have no idea in real life what this means). We took all this salt and put it all around the house and it seemed the dogs couldn’t cross the salt.

It may also point to your body’s reaction to salt. This because salt is at the root of a lot of health problems, especially heart problems, high blood pressure and migraines. See Migraine – Self Help  

Salt has been used for centuries as a preservative and also a healer. Also a 19th-century treatment for the respiratory tract was the inhalation of salt. Galleries for spa guests were built above steaming salt pans. Besides the use of sulphur from a spring in the salt mountain and mud, mostly Bad Ischl salt was used as remedy. Also it can mean stopping the action of something as happened when Lot’s wife was turned into a column of salt.

The sea is the mother of life on our planet. We also have the ancient sea inside us as the water within us, which has the same saline level as salt from when life left the ocean. In dreams I see salt being a link with the ancient source of Life within us – for we are the very tip of the reaching branches of life – so tender.

Example: I am sitting in a car on the seat next to the driver. My window is open. I see people standing on the street and I take from somewhere outside of the car a handful of coarse sea salt or salt from a mine. I do not want the people on the street to see that I carefully manage to put my hand in my trousers, in order to not spill any of the salt, and I put it on my vulva. I know the salt is meant to heal and to bring the area back to life again. The area starts to tingle, especially my clitoris, the same feeling when a body part has fallen asleep and starts to wake up again after that.

Idioms: Above/below the salt – in or out of honour; salt a mine; salt something away; with a pinch of salt; worth one’s salt; salt into a wound; salt of the earth; a grain of salt; go pound salt

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this indicate ‘adding spice to life’?

Is this about preserving something so that no change occurs?

Does this show good or bad luck (throwing salt over one’s shoulder for instance)?

Am I purifying or cleansing something in the dream?

Sand Sandstorm

Lack of security; passage of time; lack of emotion or nourishment; abrasiveness or irritations. If you are walking or driving on sand it can suggest resistance to, or difficulty in progressing. See: desert.

Sand is often a home or living environment for many creatures like turtles and crocodiles that lay their eggs in warm sand, or crabs and other sea shore creatures. Sandy beaches are also a place that millions of humans make enormous effort to spent time on. Depending on your dream, they could suggest a pleasant or unpleasant environment.

The holy men of the desert see sand as everything that is everywhere, and use it as a blessing when giving it to someone. When in a glass, such a gift of sand, if water is poured on it and drunk, it can be healing.

Sand is of course used as a building material and it might appear in a dream suggesting you are making changes and creating something new. Also used in some spiritual practices for healing purposes, or in Zen as an expression of something the rational mind fails to see.

Quicksand may suggest losing secure footing and sinking into one’s mess of emotions. It can also represent personal situations in one’s business or life that one is not in control of. It can also refer to the fact that your personality, your business or plans are not build upon a solid foundation – the house built upon snad. See Martial Art of the Mind

Sometimes a beach can represent an intangible experience, such as this man describes:

I felt the beach to be a meeting place for water, earth, air and sun – earth, air, fire and water. But the beach is not any one of them. It changes with the seasons and with the action of storms, of erosion and temperature. It isn’t the air, or the sea or the sand. It changes yet stays the same – the beach. Suddenly I felt this in myself, saying, “I am not anything. I change yet am unchanged. I am all things but nothing.” This gave me a very powerful sense of my own eternal spirit underlying all the changes of my body and personality. Robert.

 Example: I drove a motorcycle through some impossible urban obstacles, like badly parked cars, and tight walls. Then I was sitting at home and scratched my head, felt pieces of sand stuck in my skull. I started removing them only to find more and more of them on my skull. I throw a lot of them in to a trash bin and the bin filled up all the way to the top. I even found some pieces of debris that I managed to remove.

You have become, or are becoming, aware of all the debris of past experiences and ideas that you are casting away. What a wonderful relief when it is finished.

 Sand-bar: Attitudes you use to avoid being swept along by emotions. Or if in boat, then a suggestion of dangers or a chance to make a change, possibly from drifting in life.  

Sand dunes: An area that may be near to the sea – a huge area of life and growth – but is itself not given to great growth. So it might indicate a life condition in which you are  not changing and growing.

Sand storm: From the dream point of view, you are facing one of natures tremendous energy releases – your own nature in fact. Storms are caused by cosmic events – the action of the sun, the earths cycles influencing the wind. So something important, a force of Life itself is acting on your inner life. You may feel it is something to be avoided, but if you meet it without fighting it, it is your own enormous energy enlarging you. See Tsunami – Wind – whirlwind twister or vortex

Idioms: Built on sand; sands of time are running out; bury one’s head in the sand.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Was there any reference to shifting sands or you could sink in?

Did you feel any emotions in the dream?

Did you feel sand as in irritant or mess?

Does this illustrate time and the wearing away of things?

Do I feel like I am going through a ‘dry spot’ in life, where there isn’t much growth?

See Sea – TimeLife within Change and ConstancyBeing the Person or Thing

 

Sandals

Lack of formality or a relaxed way of dealing with life. It could suggest inappropriate attitudes in some dreams where they are not suitable for what you are walking over.

With the right shoes you can walk in places you could only manage with great difficulty barefoot, so they can show you the character traits, life skills and strategies you have developed to deal with rough life situations.

In particular, sandals suggest lack of formality or a relaxed way of dealing with life, or even a holiday mood. It could suggest inappropriate attitudes in some dreams where they are not suitable for what you are walking over or the social situation.

 Example: I dreamt I was looking at black rubber sandals in a trash can. Discarded. Someone is explaining that walking, running on my own is better – no need for those flimsy shoes/sandals, suggesting a way of life that needs changing.

The dreamer saw his dream as meaning, shoes = position in life; life situation; the condition of one’s direction.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were sandals used for or as in the dream?

Do they express comfort or informal living to me?

Am I wearing them in appropriate situations?

See ShoesClothes ItemsBeing the Person or ThingTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Santa Muerte

A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees.

She is a living presence in every life, and reminds us that as we go about our life, so full of the thoughts of physical life its pleasures and pains, we are in fact dual beings.

In every moment of our life we face the possibility of death. In fact we only live because we are constantly dying. Our body is all the time dying as thousands of cells die, and in doing so the new and living body can continue. If we allow ourselves to realise that it illustrates the meaning of the phoenix – it is consumed by the flames, and yet it arose anew. We have the fire of life within us, we eat and feed the fire that consumes us and gives birth to us continuously. It is the warmth of our body, the warmth, even passion, of our emotions and that is life – continuous through death.

Example: This was not a dream, but a direct perception during sleep. I saw that a large part of my being was dying, and another part coming to life. Andy

In sleep we die to our awareness of our body and us as a person. This is often called the little death, but in fact it is exactly like death in many ways. Some saints or holy women or men claim to remain aware in this ‘little death’ and tell of its transformation. They describe it as a true duality of our life. The one we usually think it is us is life in the body, but that is only one part of our duality. The other part is the life eternal, a life without boundaries.

See Muerte – Levels of Awareness

Sapphire

See Sapphire under Jewels

Satan

The power of material values in life. The things in life we cannot control, such as anger, sex desires, ambitions, fear, worries, etc. Those things that lead us contrary to the innate nature.

Steiner has depicted these forces as dual, calling them Lucifer and Ahriman. Lucifer is the power of egoistic desires, pride, looking after self first. My work, my religion, my beliefs, are better than yours! All these selfish traits lead to inner conflict, conflict in the world, and are the work of Lucifer.

Ahriman is described as the power of ignorance, of reason without feeling values, of dry intellectualism, the emphasis of materialism and a science that leads to lack of aim, lack of contact with all life; an education that is full of facts, but without any wisdom or insight, that does not develop the power of intuition. See: Devil; Obsession; Demon.

Satanism

I believe the findings of Stanislav Grof are extremely relevant to dreams containing Satanism. He found that satanistic themes occurred regularly in the experience of childbirth where the baby was the victim of enormous struggle. What is described below is the experiences of adults reliving their birth experiences. During this the foetus is involved in an enormous struggle for survival, with mechanical crushing pres­sures and frequently a high degree of suffocation. At the end of this great pain and struggle the mother and foetus the child can come into contact with various kinds of biological material, such as blood, mucus, urine, and faeces. Grof defines three levels of this, but I refer to what he has termed BPM III. (Birth Perinatal Matrix III)

“The underlying theme of the experi­ences related to BPM III is the encounter with death. The most important characteristic of this pattern is the atmo­sphere of a titanic struggle, frequently attaining catastrophic proportions. The intensity of painful tension reaches a degree that appears to be far beyond what any human can bear. The individ­ual experiences sequences of immense condensation of energy and its explosive release and describes feelings of powerful currents of energy streaming through his whole body. The visions typically accompanying these experiences involve scenes of natural disasters and the unleashing of elemental forces, such as exploding volcanoes, devastating earthquakes, raging hurri­canes, cyclones and tornadoes, electric storms, gigantic comets and meteors, expanding nova’s, and various cosmic cataclysms.”

“BPM III seems to belong to the final stage of the death – rebirth struggle and often immediately pre­cedes the experience of birth or rebirth. its essential characteris­tic is an intimate encounter with various kinds of biological material, identified as mucus, sweat, products of putrefaction, menstrual blood, urine, and faeces. In addition to visual and tactile elements, this experience also involves rather realistic olfactory and gustatory sensations. Subjects may have very authentic feelings of eating faeces, drinking blood or urine, or sucking on putrefying wounds.”

“Sexual experiences in these sessions occasionally have a rather unusual flavour; they can involve sadistic or per­verse elements or take the form of satanic, oceanic, or tantric sex. In the termination period of sessions with good resolution, the orgiastic ability of an individual is usually greatly increased, in both male and female subjects. Sexual intercourse on the Session day can become the most powerful experience of this sort in the subject’s life.

For the understanding of phenomena occurring as part of the Satanic Mass and the Black Sabbath rituals. In this con­text, sex, usually in the form of group orgies, is combined with extreme sadomasochistic elements including animal or human sacrifice, ritual defloration, and psychological or physical tor­ture. Frequently there is an emphasis on biological material, such as blood, menstrual discharge, miscarried foetuses, and intestines.

The setting is usually morbid and macabre, and the general atmosphere is that of blasphemy, horror, and death. A peculiar mixture of sex, death, and scatology appears to be quite com­mon, as exemplified by instances of sexual intercourse per­formed among the entrails of a disembowelled animal or in the cemetery in an open grave.

The combination of perverted sex, sadomasochism, Scatology, and an emphasis on death, with ele­ments of blasphemy, inverted religious symbolism, and a quasi – religious atmosphere, is characteristic of BPM III. Subjects tuned in to this matrix frequently report experiences of partici­pating in Walpurgis Night, in a Black Mass, or in satanic sexual practices. This usually results in insights into the psychology of the Inquisitors and witch – hunters. These experiences seem to suggest a far – reaching similarity between the state of mind of the actual practitioners of the black art and their fanatic persecutors. The behaviour of both these groups betrays the influence of the third perinatal matrix.” Quoted from Realms of the Human Unconscious

 

Satellite

Communication with others and with your sense of wholeness. Link between physical and your extended nature. Sometimes a feeling of being isolated or disconnected, as in a relationship where you are treated like a satellite – all your activities having to centre around something or someone.

Communication between the more global or cosmic awareness of the unconscious, and our everyday waking self.

A satellite person: Often we make a satellite character of the person we “love”. In other words, we try to make them swing around us in the way that suits our emotional and physical needs. Notice how many people have breakdowns, depression, or even commit suicide when their partner leaves them, goes with another person or dies. It can depict feelings you have about being a satellite person. That is, someone whose life revolves around another person and their orbit.

Being attacked from satellite or UFO: Thinking and feeling has been split from realistic evaluation, perhaps because internal pain is scrambling communications. See UFO; Reaction to the unconscious; Alien

If in satellite: Might suggest loss of a down to earth attitude; global view.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was your relationship with the satellite?

Was it influencing you or were you interacting with it?

Have you a satellite dish at home?

Sausage

Penis or male sexuality; down to earth experience. Something forbidden for some people if it contains pork.

 Example: I laugh at the way the unconscious presents imagery. It is so wonderfully versatile, sensitive, artistic, crude – a master of imagery. The laughter is because the fantasy now presents me with the view of a hot dog/sausage being fried slowly in a pan on a stall. As I watch I feel/realise that this is the heating up of the male sexual feeling, getting one excited, the preparation for sex seen from a different perspective.

Example: In another she found herself speaking in a broad country dialect, although her normal accent was impeccable; and in another she discovered that the dinner she was about to serve consisted of sausages and baked beans. She felt insecure about because of her working class background, and resented her husband’s unthinking strain imposed on her. From Dream Power

Saving

This often indicates your sense of security, or the parts of your feelings or character that you hold in store or to not express. As such it can illustrate your potential.

There are many ways we save – money – food – water – energy/electricity – lives.

Having savings: Having a safety net in difficult times. Being wise in worldly ways. See

Not having savings: Like as squirrel who doesn’t save nuts during the autumn harvest season, it could face disaster.

 Example: One day on exploring a dream I realised that all my life I had worked for money, and in all those years I was no better off financially. In fact, I was always in the red. With the realisation came the insight that I could get money to work for me. I started by my wife and I saving as much as possible. I saw people in super markets piling bottles of alcohol and other unnecessary expenses – one we couldn’t afford. So gradually we saved a £1000 – enough to enter an investment fund. Gradually I learned how to make money work for me. I learned gradually to keep my expectations simple, and not invest in chancy things. Today I am earning enough to live on. I made money work for me. See Funding

Example: I was saving up a great deal of anger to let loose against – for her getting me in another such situation again – since she was the one who had parked the car there this time and I simply had been there by accident. I was also angry because she had left the car open with a suitcase half full of junk in the back seat and the keys in the ignition. When I had left the cop, he was looking through the suitcase in the back seat.

Example: I stop at a gas station where an admiral is giving a speech to car load of Air Force people for saving our lives. He comments that he still believes in the draft. This officer apparently had been on the plane with us.

Idioms: saving for a rainy day; a stitch in time saves nine; save a bundle; save face; save your bacon; save your skin/neck

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening in the dream about save or saving?

Can you learn anything from the dream?

What are your feel about saving?

See PovertyMoneyBeing the Person or ThingMeeting yourself

Saw

Energy to reshape old attitudes; wordplay on SEE; sex as the relationship meets hesitations; masturbation; criticism, cynicism, a questioning state of mind. Enquiry. Cutting remarks or experiences. See masturbation.

Saxophone

Self expression, spontaneity.

Scabbard

The body, the sheath of soul. If empty it could suggest either death or an empty threat.

Scald

Mostly about pain, or a deep hurt, possibly caused by emotions, or a hurtful display of emotions. It can also indicate telling off, or be told off, so criticism.

 The agony of birth begins a bank account of pain which grows until death. This account is limited to no one kind of currency but includes a wide range of all denominations extending from the aches, burns, and stings of the body to the humiliations, guilts, shames, terrors, and doubts of the psyche. The knowledge—indeed the scalding memory and horror of those pains—remains in the psyche demanding relief. It is hard for consciousness to recall them; ordinarily it absolutely refuses. But in sessions they can come back unbidden in full and excruciating intensity.

Deep within the subconscious, at the boundaries of identity, lies an ambiguous hinterland where the polarity of subject and object becomes flexible and miscible. There the rudimentary identity, in an effort to rid itself of pain, seeks to reverse the polarity of damage and project it out onto “other.” By a trick of symbolic manipulation, it strives to become the hurter instead of the hurt, the destroyer instead of the destroyed.  The primitive identity assumes that in giving pain to another, it has given its pain away. In reality it has only shifted the destructive consciousness from the self and projected it into the mental limbo of psychic not-self within the brain. Actually, the consciousness of pain has been temporarily repressed, nothing more.

Scales

Dreaming of scales may indicate a search for or giving of justice. Also suggests personal conscience or trying to make a decision – weighing the information, so fair play and trying to find a balance.

If your birth sign is Libra – the Scales, it is a “Cardinal” “Air” sign. It denotes the kind of mental activity that ‘‘judges; weighs – up’’; “balances”; “harmonises”; “adjusts”; “pacifies,” etc. Its judgements are not the quick, intuitional decisions of “Aries; they are arrived at usually after certain vacillation, consideration and balancing up of ‘‘pros and cons’’; but when arrived at they are just and fair.

Scaling a wall or mountain indicates achievement if successful, or effort without satisfaction if it doesn’t succeed. Getting higher can show you trying to escape from something, or getting a higher or better view of where you are in life, and maybe where you are, or want to, go/going.

Scales on fish may represent the shining thoughts and feelings that make up the innermost self.

Example: I see a path close to the mountains and I take it. It was sloppy and I figured out I can move faster if I skate (ski) it with my legs. I start to scale the mountains by skiing just with my legs. The path is winding and beautiful, I decide that I can enjoy the moment a bit but I was determined to find my way to my car.

 

Example: The scales are also such a deep symbol that was imprinted on us early in our climb into self-consciousness. But we projected it into the heavens as an astrological sign. We do not see it in our everyday lives much now, but only a few years ago it was everywhere seen representing fair dealings, justice, pay back, the measure of your soul – remember Shakespeare and the pound of flesh.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are the scales weighing something – if so what is it indicating?

Do the scales in any way indicate judgement – if so what is it?

What balance are you trying to find in yourself?

See Archetype of the ParadigmBeing the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesIdentity and dreams

Scar

Influences still remaining from past hurt and being visible in the way you live or relate. Past experiences that have left a mark. See Example under white.

Sometimes the scars are left by the culture we live in and the splits it leaves between our life, economics, sex, religion and science. They are all at odds with each other and cause conflicts within us. Josef Breuer stated that forgotten traumas, painful incidents that had left a psychological scar, were responsible for what was at that time called hysteria. It was, Breuer wrote, the undischarged emotional energy associated with these forgotten traumas that were the root cause of hysteria. Using hypnotic techniques, Breuer helped some patients to re-enact, and thus recall, the original traumatic incident. In doing so the emotional charge was released. The release and remembering or integrating, was called catharsis or abreaction. If there is still a scar in adulthood from lack of bonding and warm love it leads to great vulnerability in relationship, and an urge to never quite make a full connection with anybody unless dealt with.

 Example: I am standing in my wife’s garden. A ferret (one we had set free after trouble over them with neighbours – the ferrets belonged to my son) came down the garden to me. It was plump and healthy. I picked it up to look at it, and saw an enormous scar running the full length of its left side. I realised that although it had survived, and was well, it had been an incredible struggle, and was scarred for life. Then I realised that my son had hid the other ferrets somewhere. Patrick.

Patrick’s son had kept a female ferret as a pet and mated it so it had pups. The ferret, Blanche, was a very playful and loving animal, though prone to get excited and aggressive if food was around. One day Blanche and her babies escaped from their cage and attacked the neighbour’s chickens so Patrick hid them in his large building. They once more escaped from their enclosure and got under the floorboards of the multi-storey house. All but one of them were retrieved. But that one lived under the floorboards for six months, managing to survive somehow with water and food without being fed by Patrick. Patrick tried to humanly catch it in a cage, but although it entered the cage until it triggered the trap, it fought so enormously to get out it managed to escape from the metal cage.

 Patrick had to eventually poison it as it was beginning to gnaw electric cables. The ferret therefore became for Patrick a symbol of survival against enormous odds, so represented the great injuries he had sustained in his childhood and his survival of them. But also it showed his loving relationship and care for the natural and instinctive level existing in him during babyhood. It shows how, as an adult, he had listened to and cared for that instinctive life in him through working with his dreams. The hiding of the other ferrets expressed how Patrick hid this sensitive caring side of himself from others because he had been hurt enough in childhood, and was now suspicious of how others would deal with that side of himself.

 Example: I was looking at my right forearm which was bare. It was very brown from the sun, and at the top of the forearm near the elbow was a white slash. This surprised me and I ran my finger across it, and it felt something like a scar because the skin was slightly raised. The main thing about the slash was its intense white. It was so white it is difficult to know whether it was shining like light, or was simply incredibly white. Miche

In this dream Miche felt the whiteness was a very noticeable part of him, representing hurts (the scar) that had been transformed by hard work and skills (the right arm) and were now apparent to other people.  Useful Questions and Hints: Were scars disfiguring you or a dreamt of subject? Where did the scars appear on the body? Have you felt scared by events or experiences in your life? See Body – Parts ofTraumaBeing the Person or Thing Life’s Little Secrets .

Scarab

Eternity, continuity of life, the soul, the transmuting influence. See: Alchemist.

Scarecrow

Having no life, no spirit, empty of feelings, of worth. An illusion,

Scenes

See Settings In Dreams

Scent

See: Odour.

School

Your attempts or desire to learn, or what you learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc. The school can represent habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts you with many new feelings, choices and drives, and that was a part of your ‘schooling’.

‘I am back at school on the first day of the new school year. At this point it can vary slightly, but I always feel out of place, usually because I am older than the other girls now or – most common – because my uniform is incorrect and it is time for assembly – I went to a very strict convent school. There is always some feeling of panic and quite often loneliness.’ P. H.

P. H. is still uncomfortable about who she is as a person. The influence of the school years still nags at her that she ought to be other than she is. Not having a nature that easily conformed, she was led to feel isolated and an alien.

There can also be ‘higher learning’ and this is not about maths and language, but about life skills, about love and how you connect with your own wholeness and potential, and the universe in which you are intricately embedded.

In a few dreams school refers to feelings of rejection or aloneness due to the stress faced by many children on leaving their mother for the first time to attend school.

Authority: School and teachers were authorities outside of your family. How you dealt with probably colours your whole adult life.

Classroom: Study, relationship with authority, or whatever sense of yourself was engendered by school. Maybe you need to ask yourself what you actually learned at school. Also the life lessons you are learning at present.

Graduating: The tests you have met in life and relationships and the entrance into greater skill or maturing this has produced. It might suggest the sense you have achieved adulthood, or the skill leading to adult independence. It probably also associates with your feelings of personal of value.

Gymnasium: Taking risks in learning something new, or practising new skills, perhaps needing daring. It could also apply to physical health.

Library: Your knowledge and learning ability, or stored information such as memories. It can show you touching the vast reservoir of unconscious information and insights you hold

Places in school: Particular abilities you have, lessons you learned, or associations with that room.

School clothes: Social attitudes or moral rules learned at school. Perhaps pressure to conform.

School friend: Your attitudes developed in school, as you are ‘meeting’ them in the present. The positive helpful and supportive things you got from you school years or learn by being with your friend.

Can sometimes refer to feelings of rejection or aloneness due to the stress faced by many children on leaving their mother for the first time to attend school. See the third example.

Example: ‘I am back at school on the first day of the new school year. At this point it can vary slightly, but I always feel out of place, usually because I am older than the other girls now or – most common – because my uniform is incorrect and it is time for assembly – I went to a very strict convent school. There is always some feeling of panic and quite often loneliness.’ P. H.

P. H. is still uncomfortable about who she is as a person. The influence of the school years still nags at her that she ought to be other than she is. Not having a nature that easily conformed, she was led to feel isolated and an alien.

Example: ‘In the bathroom area, a school class was being held, so I had to wait for my bath, steam would be bad for the books. I didn’t have any soap with me but I was going to wash my hair and could use the shampoo.’ Leonie K.

Leonie is getting rid of attitudes or a self image developed at school, shown as shampooing her hair. The new attitudes of letting off steam would not have been acceptable at school. Idioms: Of the old school; tell tales out of school; old school tie; well schooled. See: Schoolteacher and Headmaster under Roles.

Example: Working on a dream with P. The dream included reference to a school. Children were on their way to school and waving good-bye to their mothers. I was surprised at the intensity of emotion P. displayed when she looked at the saying good-bye, and then suddenly realised that this was the child’s first taste of leaving home, saying good-bye to mother.

School Uniform: This usually expresses your feelings about the time you were at school, orwhat you feel about being at school, or being the age to be in a school uniform.

So the uniform also holds in it the possibility of the dependence, the desire to ‘get out of a uniform existence’, the desire to excel or escape, you experience or may have experienced at school.

The uniform may simply also link with learning something – what did you actually learn at school – what life lessons, perhaps learned by the experience rather than the lessons?

Shelf: Possibly your memories, of something that is a part of your everyday awareness; something that is accessible in terms of your using it or remembering what it represents. See: ledge.

 

Idioms: Of the old school; tell tales out of school; old school tie; well schooled. See: Schoolteacher and Headmaster.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

 

 

What did you feel about the uniform either in the dream or in real life?

 

What is happening in the rest of the dream as a comment on the uniform?

 

What was your experience of school like and what did you get from it?

 

Is it a school I went to?

 

If so what are my feelings about it?

 

What was happening at the school?

 

Were there special relationships at school?

 

Am I feeling the desire to learn, or am I involved in learning at the moment?

 

If this is about life skills, if so what have I learned?

 

Are there particular themes here – competitiveness, bullying, authority, punishment?

 

See LearnLearning the brake, gears and acceleratorIdentity and dreamsTechniques for Exploring your DreamsCharacters and People in Dreams –  Acting on your dream

 

 

Schoolteacher

All too often, we teach and are taught how to avoid anything which is ugly, painful, distasteful, or upsetting to us. One of the most important things we need to learn is that our problems actually serve as beacons of light or as magnifying glasses, emphasising or pointing out our most crippling fears, our most restrictive attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions which are holding up our progress-things we really must face up to and overcome if we are to grow. We run away from fear – as we should perhaps in waking life, but our inner life we need to face fear. See Masters of Nightmares

We need to understand that our problems represent the lesson we need to learn. We are all in the process of becoming wiser, better, and more God-like. The difficulties we face are like the gateway through which we must pass in order to proceed. Our problems are actually our teachers.

 Example: The meeting with the first woman in the dream refers to my teaching work with other people. It shows indecision over how I should approach this. To contact me through my mother means I will learn their needs through my emotions, or heart.

Having asked how, in fact, I ought to approach my outer teaching, it was said that there is not, in myself, enough to fulfill their needs. I have to offer teachings on mankind’s wholeness. This should be done by consciously opening to Life and Love, and teaching out of the influence this throws into my life. This is really about inter-personal relations with others rather than group work – i.e. the help given to individuals from inner guidance.

 Example: I had no other role model at the time, so I did a terrible thing to myself. Also I lost all respect for my elders as in none of them could I see that gentleness of love. My schoolteachers were thrashing children with rods. The world was killing each other in tens of thousands. My mother had psychologically castrated me out of her fears for me, and my father hardly ever even spoke to me. So I divorced the world, and of course lost that wonderful quality of compassion for the human struggle.

Example: I just retired from my job at an elementary school, so there were many female teachers. My dream was with a female teacher that I hardly know. She is a married mother of two, and quite a bit younger. During the dream she is seated on the ground in a beautiful sweater and matching skirt. I start telling her how much I adore her (a thought which has never entered my conscious mind). As we are both seated on the ground, I lean forward to kiss her. She responds. The kiss was perfect and I could actually feel the contact. I then awakened, and felt quite disappointed that the experience was a dream.

Example: As a teacher I had never realised before what an amazing education a child has, before ever it goes to school. Language itself is like a massive encyclopaedia of information. Then, the attitudes or feeling tone with which language and its concepts are passed to us, adds further volumes.

Here I had the feeling of my being stretching back endlessly through my fathers. This passed and I said, spontaneously, “Through the inheritance of our culture I have a soul. Without the self giving of men and women throughout the ages I would have no soul – i.e. identity – no personal awareness of my own. Because of language, and the accumulation of knowledge, I have a soul. This is mankind’s gift to me. Without it I would be like an animal.” See Programmed

By this I understood that I would have no self-awareness, and I saw more clearly than ever before, that this vital part of our being is literally a gift from the self giving, suffering, generous, adventure and love of all creative mankind.

“This is why people take an interest in schooling, in culture. Unconsciously they know what a wonderful thing we have received. Yet I have never wanted to give.” Here I began to groan with the pain of seeing, experiencing the wonder of what is given us, of what we can give to the future, to our own times. I cried out in tears at the simple beauty of giving of self, of trying, even if not very well, to better educate, help them to see opportunities, give them experience, so their own soul may be even more richly endowed than our own.”

I groaned and wept at the vision of what had been given, of what I could give. How I too could add my bit to this gift of a soul to children of all time.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I recognised the part education plays in our life?

Have I learned something, not to get a higher wage, but to become more human?

Did I go down the school/college path, or did I go my own individual way?

What life lessons have I learnt?

Did I learn on the rough path or an easy journey through Lifes education?

Who were the major teachers I learnt from?

See Life’s Little Secrets Opening to LifeDiving into the Depths of MindThere is a Huge Change Happening

Scientist

Your analytical mind, an attempt to weigh and measure life, to discover its usefulness and how to apply it. May also symbolise an intellectual unfeeling attitude.

Creative rational mind; the drive or ability to analyse or intellectual curiosity. In some dreamers the scientist is the fear of rational critical people – or looking at oneself analytically; attempted insight into the unconscious through rational investigation.

The scientist represents a learned person, a discoverer, inventor, and developer of new ideas, experimentation and invention. In some people’s mind, the scientist also represents eccentricity and absentmindedness.

The scientist of your dream can indicate the power to bring about change or results – as when working with chemicals or great universal forces a scientist brings results.

Depending on the theme of the dream, a scientist might also indicate a great questioner, a quester for the truth. The scientist may mull the facts over, he may worry, but in principle what he has to do is wait to see what the results are.

Scientists do have personal ambitions, and like most human beings, scientists can be racist and hypocritical and can make bad moral choices in complex situations.

 Example: Joyce Armstrong came in looking a bit dishevelled and said she had discovered what God was, and said God was a tiny piece of metal in the womb that developed into a baby. There was a lot of coming and going in the bedroom after this. Then I got up and went into the garden. There was a white haired venerable man there who was a psychic researcher or psychic scientist. I told him what Joyce said, and he was going to look into it.

Example: As I arrived, I saw some very strange globes or ovoids, about eight to ten feet across, spreading across the water in formation. A scientist, with a very complicated large instrument was trying to analyse what these were. They were colourless, perhaps like an air bubble, but opaque and perhaps more solid, but fluid in movement. There were perhaps six or eight of these on the water. The question, not spoken, but felt, was, were they from outer space?

Something was released, but was the means to opening, for another power, or flow, from beyond myself, to come into me from the spheres. This flowed in, and I then slept in a deep peace that bathed all my body. There was a flowing feeling which received another power. The pleasure is the means for this other level of experience to flow in.

 

Scissors

Cutting remarks; cynicism; sharp tongue; anger; fear of or feelings about castration – female castration expresses in cutting off breasts – the cutting off of developing sexual characteristics in body and mind; sometimes refers to separation or independence – as in cutting umbilical cord. We can cut off or repress any aspect of our feelings or mind, so the scissors can depict this.  See: Castration.

Scissors used in hair cutting could suggest changes in you appearing by cutting out some thinking, or over thinking some things. See Hair

Cutting cord: Death; cutting something or someone out of one’s life; cutting off or cutting out feelings. It could also relate to the umbilical cord. Sometimes are shown in regard to separation or independence – as in cutting umbilical cord, or cutting someone out of your life. For some people the separation can indicate a death.  See Umbilical Cord

 Example: A girl suffering from anorexia told me a dream in which she was cutting off her own breasts with scissors. It takes little imagination to see the dream as portraying the development of her sexual traits – her breasts – and depicts her trying to rid herself of them. Perhaps she ‘cuts them off’ by not eating, and thus not giving her body and psyche enough energy and nourishment to mature. In the past, it would have been recommended that she give offerings to a goddess, thus aligning her with the unconscious archetype or power to become a woman. Such methods were the form of psychotherapy used by ancient cultures.

Example: I recently took three antidepressant pills over 6 days. During this time, I had dreams that my brain was being snipped with scissors. I also developed a large pimple between my eyes – the region of the third eye or crown chakra. And…my friend in Singapore developed a searing headache between her eyes (again the crown chakra) just after I took the third pill. When she called me to tell me about it, her headache automatically went away. All of this suggests to me that antidepressants cut off our third eye connection to our higher self or whatever spiritual connection exists.  Jan

Example: I had a dream that I was carrying a foetus inside me. My uterus was see-through, so I could see the foetus’ every movement which made me feel sick to my stomach. I loved the baby but it was a burden to me. The next thing I remember from the dream is that I was holding the baby, which was somehow still a foetus inside a bag of fluid. I cared for it, but suddenly realized that the bag was punctured and the baby was suffocating from the lack of fluid. When the fluid was completely drained from the bag, the bag got so tight that it was about to suffocate the baby. So I took scissors and cut it off, knowing the baby would die no matter what I did.

The dream tells me a story that the dreamer has been carrying a conflict inside of her. It is difficult to have conceived of this and yet it is creative act and yet a burden. Then she is ‘holding the baby’ and she realised that what she has taken so long on giving life to is suffocating. What it means is that she has taken a lot of time and bad feelings to bring this out of her to her awareness, and it is a conflict between love and being burdened. Is it about a risk she has taken with love?

 Example: The woman then went into a kind of transfiguration trance and seemed to become in turn, a native Indian, a midlands woman and an Aztec idol, all combined. I shook the short, stumpy hand of the green and yellow idol and the voice then told me that I should get my hair cut, not a lot, but trimmed just a little to tidy it up.  Then my husband apeared and got some scissors and in two or three snips had done the job, he did it very well and it seemed to suit me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it you desire to cut out of your life?

Are you cutting away or releasing what is unnecessary in your life?

Do you feel cut off from others, or from yourself?

Have you something or someone that is influencing you and you wish to cut off from?

See Secrets of Power DreamingMeaning of Your DreamIdentity and dreams

Scorch

Anger, over-heated remarks or attitudes which may cause mental injury.

Scorpion

Like any of the stinging insects, the scorpion can indicate your fear of being hurt, or vulnerability to hurts and slights. Its shape and down curled sting also gives it the sense of inturned negative emotions – the way we hurt ourselves with fears negative judgements, or angers turned in upon ourselves. In this sense it is like the snake. But it might be that you know the scorpion is an amazing mother, and so use it in your dreams to represent the ferocious and protective mother, carrying her children with her.

The sign may produce great saints or great sinners, but never weak characters. It gives a very strong Will. It “dominates” others so naturally and spontaneously that it is often scarcely conscious of the power it exercises. When not working consciously for good, it can be very cruel and malicious. If it “stings” it stings to kill. So it becomes in its lower working the symbol of “Death,” but, in its higher working, of “Resurrection” to a higher life. In its highest meaning it has been figured as an “Eagle” or Phoenix rising heavenwards, with its gaze fixed on the Divine Sun. In its lower meaning it is the “Sting of Death.” In the “Children of Israel” it is Dan (the Judge). Dan is “an adder in the path, he biteth the horse’s heel,” etc. (Sagittarius the centaur archer follows Scorpio.) It is a combination of power and passion for good or for evil.

 Example: A female participant with severe, chronic sinusitis reported a very lengthy dream. One part of this dream consisted of her being bitten by a scorpion, at which time she heard a loud voice saying, “That’s why you have sinusitis.” In her analysis of this segment of the dream, she immediately stated that the scorpion stood for her husband, who is a Scorpio. She admitted to a difficult relationship with him, but indicated that progress had been made within the previous few months.   

Example: In the male incest dreams I have worked with, an insect (often described as a mother insect) such as a black widow or a scorpion fills the dreamer with disgust and perhaps a bit of fear. Then the dreamer’s mother appears and the dreamer is sexually aroused by her, but again feels disgusted at both his mother and himself. Quoted from Sexual Dreams by Dr Gayle Delaney

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with the scorpion and how is it portrayed in the dream?

Does this indicate bitterness, jealousy or guilt (stinging emotions)?

Have you turned your negative feelings inward by not expressing them?

Do you have any of the scorpions strengthsor faults?

See Working with associationsMeaning of Your DreamSecrets of Power Dreaming

 

Scots

Careful, thoughtful, economical, but attempting to be just.

Scrape

To scrape something often shows the friction between two parts of your nature, or between you and someone else. So mainly this is friction of some sort, but can also be about trying to clean something, to scrape away or change the way it was – the way you were. Occasionally it deals with feelings about separating things.

It can sometimes relate to work, when we scrape earth away as an archaeologist or scraping earth back into a pit.

Idioms: scrape the bottom of the barrel; scrape by; scrape me off the ceiling; scrape them together; scrape them off

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I scraping away (discarding) fears or old parts of myself?

Is this about friction within myself, or possibly with someone else?

Am I carefully uncovering something in me?

See AchaeologyMines MiningAccident Accidental Accidentally

Screw Screwed Screwing

Male sexuality; intercourse; security or mending something. It is often used in the sense of something being ‘screwed up’.

Screwing on can mean you are trying to stop a leak, prevent things from spoiling or fixing something. The screw advances as it turns.

Screwy can refer to crazy thoughts or being slightly mad.

Example: I had a sense that my mother wanted always to be in control. She couldn’t dare to let me be a man. What with being an infant mother to myself, then bringing myself up from six, followed by being the mother to my children, my male life has been truly screwed up. ‘I feel sad about me. In fact, I feel sad about all of us because of the injustice of life and the casualties we become. It’s called human life.

Example: A small leather strap is being screwed into my right side. It is decided not to install one on my left side. I look back in a while and the screw has come out. I take the strap off. Sam

The dreamer was working on a project and one worker was screwing things up. This constricted-strapped-the action and the monetary returns. Remember-right side is the action side. If he did not get his feelings (left side) screwed up, the project would undo itself! Sam hung in there and kept cool emotionally. The situation worked itself out.

 Example: We both briefly enter the open doorway of the porch together, then return to the yard. It’s then that I notice her thick lips with bright red lipstick. She says to me, “I have screwed everyone-” and I insert disbelievingly, “in the city?” She answers, “Yes, in the city. I have screwed one day a week every week.” My feeling is, “How could anyone go to bed with her since she’s so weird?”

The woman dreamer says, “I’d been putting off dealing with this question of femininity and escaping the responsibility of a marriage-type commitment; this was easy for me to do because of my youthful appearance. I could continue to avoid facing the responsibility of dealing with this new area of growth and remain comfortable and safe in my present casual friendships. But it was time now to grow up and accept the challenge of learning what it means to be a woman.

 Example: I was dreaming about my dog Tramp, and realised there is a “Tramp” in me that wouldn’t mind just having a non commitment passionate fuck. It seems to me that I have feelings of love for certain women, and I don’t feel that about this particular woman, and I don’t want to have to act it out. But I can feel in my body that I do need a really good screw.

Screw: Can refer to the propulsion of a boat. A power to move in water. Getting near it can suggest danger.

Idioms: Got a screw loose or missing; put the screw on someone; have a screw, or screw you; get screwed; screw up; screw me over; screwy

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a play on words for sex, as in ‘screw around’?

Does this imply something going wrong as in ‘screwing up’?

What feelings were felt or implied in the dream?

What do I think of with the word screw?

See Emotions and MoodGetting at your Dreams MeaningEnergy Sex and DreamsAvoid Being Victims

Screwdriver

It can represent the energy you put into fixing, joining or releasing things in yourself. But a large screwdriver can represent many things, for it can be a lever shifting stuck things, or can pierce things or even be used like a knife in injuring.

But in today’s talk it can be saying you are messing things up, “screwing around,” fooling around with sex without any care, or just having sex – not making love – just sex.

 Example: I was going to the back of my dream car and saw a box of tools. I noticed a very large and powerful screwdriver, the strongest looking thing I had ever seen. Also saw a very big and businesslike shoulder drill. Again the biggest I have ever seen. As I looked I realised I had not known I had these tools.

Example: So we each grab a screwdriver as we are waiting for the dog to attack us I stand in front of my wife and just as the dog jumps up I stab it multiple times in the neck and skull. I look to my wife to see if she’s okay then I look towards the dog but the dog turned into my three-year-old son who starts talking and calling for his mama and dad (which are me and my wife) his grandma and grandpa. I look at my hands which are covered with blood and the screwdriver.

The possible meaning is that because he may have felt threatened by his own aggressive feelings, he tries to kill it in himself, not realising that killing the natural is an attack on any emergence of the natural urges in his own inner child and perhaps on any child he relates to.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was the screwdriver used for in the dream?

Where you attacked or attacking with the screwdriver?

Did you have any sexual fantasies in this dream?

See ToolsCreating a New YouSelf ObservationGetting at your Dreams Meaning

Scroll Scrolling

As can be seen from the examples, mention of a scroll in a dream suggest very important events in the inner life of the dreamer.

Dreaming of scrolls can indicate you have uncovered in yourself wisdom arising from your ancestral memories, or form your contact with the depths of your own consciousness. It might also ling with abilities unfolding in you like intuition, seeing more in life than what your senses usually show you, or knowledge that springs up without thinking. There may also be a link with quantum memory, what in past ages was called akashic records.

The scrolling example also highlights an important and amazing transformation.

 Example: I receive some news. I am in a room with many other people.  The local priest is present and hands me one of two scrolls.  When he hands one to me, I am a little bewildered, but open it just enough to see in old style calligraphy writing “The Last Will and Testament” these words are in red ink and the rest of the document is in black.  I do not read any more and fold up as I am surrounded by several other people.  I call the priests name, and as I do, he says, “do not read it yet” and I say “I didn’t, I know, the time is not right”.

Example: Me and on old friend of mine were standing in front of one in particular.  An old store that looked somewhat run down and withered.  It had a large display window in front showing strange random items used for rituals like scrolls and manuscripts.  We stepped inside and walked slowly toward the counter.  Inside of the shop were old book cases filled with books of all kinds and colors.  All of them from the look were hardback books.  On a table to the right of the counter were stacks of old papers and research tools like magnifying glasses.  We spoke to the clerk but I can’t remember what was said nor what the clerk looked like.  Only that he was old and wore dark clothing and we left.  When we got back outside I looked into the sky.  A large white shooting star shot across the sky and I felt a smile on my face.

But what did come alive and impress you was something alive and active in the universe you were created by. I think it points to a message of great importance for you.

 Example: The evening before she had the dream her boy friend had rung her up. C. was struggling to end the relationship. She said to him – Look, as far as I am concerned you are dead! That night she dreamt – She saw a scroll pinned up on the wall. The writing said ‘Adrian – her boyfriend – is dead.’ She felt shocked and could not believe it. She went off to look for him and found in a white plastic body bag. She could see his outline. He was gasping for breath, suffocating. She felt sad.

Example: Soon after the dream shifted to a computer screen and I was checking my emails. I was scrolling down the in box and then clicked on a message thinking ‘why didn’t I check this before?’ the message appeared with a picture of a huge bird and it looked like a Eagle (but the colour was white with a bluish/black outline) with its wings fully spread and moving as if the Eagle was flying; and there was a message underneath in tiny English letters which I read something similar to ‘ your life is going to transform’- I can’t remember the exact words but it was something similar to this and then I woke up.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the dream indicate any important ideas or realizations?

Where any new things shown to you?

What was the message of the dream?

See Meaning of Your DreamThe Inner WorldUsing Your IntuitionBeing the Person or ThingLife’s Little Secrets

Scrub

Unlike bathing or showering which are quite relaxing, scrubbing uses a lot of energy. It therefore shows that you are energetically cleansing something, maybe something in you that has got grimed in and so needs scrubbing off.

Scrub can also refer to low bushes, so suggests barriers that are usually easy to get through.

 Example: But mostly trying to figure out these dreams just makes me feel queasy and revolted. I’d really like to just scrub them from my memory entirely.

Example: I clear shelves and desks, removing utensils and garbage from them. I scrub the shelves. Others question why I’m putting so much effort into scrubbing these filthy shelves. I say that anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I working hard to clean up parts of my personality, or some other situation?

What is it that is being scrubbed?

Can I identify with what is being done in the dream?

See Life’s Little SecretsGetting at your Dreams MeaningThe Two Powers

Scurf

Ideas, opinions, thoughts.

Sea Lion

See Seal.

Sea Ocean

Life began in the sea, at the depths. Our blood is salt in the same degree as the ancient sea, and thus we have an inner sea. In your dreams it represents the universal and fundamental processes of life in you.

Awareness of these processes are not easily accessible to your conscious mind, but are nevertheless constantly influencing you and what you do. When you do at times have some consciousness of this level of yourself, it is often experienced as a huge ocean of mind, the collective unconscious as Jung called it. It feels like nature’s memory, where all experience is stored. So in your dreams about the sea, you may be accessing some aspect of this immensity, stretching from today to the primeval depths of your existence.

Most of the activities that underlie our physical and mental life are beyond our awareness. For an immensely important period of development your being existed in a pre-conscious, pre-verbal state as it grew from the single cells of sperm and ovum to the foetus and new born child. But even after birth there was a timeless period before speech and self-awareness were achieved. Therefore a great deal of your experience and drives lie outside of, or underneath, the clear conceptualisations gained with speech, and your sense of self. Occasionally something – an ache in the chest, a strange emotion that unsettles you – may emerge into consciousness, then disappear. See Wild Side

The sea, with its surface and hidden depths, lends itself to depicting this human experience of known and unknown regarding yourself. The enormity of the sea is also a visible image of the enormity of your own inner world – much of it unknown and lying in pre-birth or pre-speech – and also the relationship you have with the processes underlying your existence, that you exist by yet know so little about. The sea holds vast treasures, curiosities, and your history. Not simply because life emerged from the sea, or your blood is as salt as the ancient sea, but because so many ships and shorelines are now beneath the waves. Sometimes these can be recovered, and this too is an image reflecting your relationship with your own deeps.

Therefore the sea may depict a strange environment in which you might have no skill in surviving; something new or strange that confronts you; the boundary between unconscious and conscious; the processes and the origins of your life; the wisdom, still unverbalised because locked in process rather than insight, of your existence; source of the huge life drives, such as that urging you toward independence, mating and parenthood; a symbol of infinite energy, potential or consciousness, in which human existence is only a tiny part; The waves of experience we face in life, some acceptable, some threatening.

Although some writers say the sea may represent one’s mother, and the situation one meets in becoming independent of her, it is probably better to think of the sea representing the state of being and awareness we emerged from in our mother’s womb. That is, a non striving, non demanding existence in which our needs were usually met without a personal struggle or without any defined sense of self. Therefore a sinking into the sea could be seen as a sinking back into this loss of personality or personal striving and independence. A struggle to survive could be partly a difficulty with existing by one’s personal effort and work – the difficulty of ‘keeping one’s head above water’ in life and being independent. See Individuation

Going under the sea: Remember we were conceived and grew in the waters of our mother’s womb, and amount of salt in our blood is the same as that in the ancient sea at the time life began as single celled creatures. So, it suggests bringing internal contents to consciousness; remembering the womb experience; letting our ego surrender a little; looking at death.

Also it shows that we, our conscious self, has entered more deeply into the enormous depths of our consciousness; we have literally dipped below the level of our conscious self. See My Body is a Moving Sea

If there is a sense of hugeness or depth: Going beyond the boundaries of experience usually set up by our conscious self or ego. See Our Reaction to meeting the Huge that we Are

Learning to swim: Learning to survive in a new environment, such as happens when we emerge from childhood into adult sexual drives, or the school or work environment. At such times anxiety or uncertainty may threaten to engulf us just as it does when we learn to swim. Dealing with life needs us to be able to meet such feelings without turning back. See: swimming.

 Rescued from the sea: See: air sea rescue.

Sea shore: This is similar to beach if you are on the shoreline, the border between everyday life and your unconscious sources of motivation energy and life. But if you are looking at the beach from a distance, it could suggest a different way of life, somewhere you haven’t reached yet, or are leaving behind. So it could depict change or somewhere you are trying to get to or reach.

 Example: I dreamt I am standing on a steep hillside that slopes into the sea. I look across the sea, and the air is so clear I can see the far coast twenty miles away with amazing clarity. In fact, it is so clear it seems to me I can see every detail of a rocky cove across the water. The clarity amazes me and it seems the cove is only a few hundred yards away. It stands out with all its many colours. I find it so impressive I want to run back to get my camera. I hesitate from doing this though because I wonder if the scene will disappear.

I explored this dream many times but I could not get a clear insight into what the beach arose from in my experience. Then, with the help of a friend, I reached it. When I came to exploring the beach again, at first it seemed as subtle and unreachable as ever. Then I began to define what I was as the beach – a meeting place for water, earth, air and sun – earth, air, fire and water. But the beach is not any one of them. It changes with the seasons and with the action of storms, of erosion and temperature. It isn’t the air, or the sea or the earth. It changes yet stays the same – the beach. Suddenly I felt this in myself, saying, “I am not anything. I change yet am unchanged. I am all things but nothing.” This gave me a very powerful sense of my own eternal spirit underlying all the changes of my body and personality. Robert.

The shore/beach can therefore also depict the spirit that underlies all things. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the spirit is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of life.

Tide: Rising and falling of feelings such as love, pleasure or sexuality; may refer to ageing when going out; tide in our affairs. See: beach; fish; water.

Tidal wave: Any release of emotional or sexual energy. The reason this image is used is that when we feel enormous release of emotions such as might happen when we fall in love, have a baby, or are publicly condemned, our ego often feels carried along by the experience rather than in control.

But huge waves cause many people enormous fear or terror. Often this is because of a past experience such as attack or rape. But dreams are not simply replays of the awful emotions, but are ways you can meet and transform them into healing. See Tsunami; Life’s Little Secrets; Secrets of Power Dreaming; Summing Up

We may have learned how to ride such waves as surfers do. This requires confidence, daring and balance. If we can do it we can open ourselves to much greater range of feeling or change than if we felt threatened. Even happiness may be repressed due to feeling threatened. Anxiety or depression is one of these enormous waves that may threaten to engulf us, and so is one of the human conditions the tidal wave represents. Yet if we face it and meet it can be an enormously transformative influence. See Yoga in Dreaming.

 As a tsunami it is saying that some tremendous change has happened deep in you and in the world. Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes on the sea bed, or massive earh changes. So many people are dreaming about them at the moment because of the enormous change going on around us and within us. So learn to face them without fear and be ready to meet change in your life and in your family.

 Example: I could see in the distance a Tsunami coming towards us. I found Collette to tell her, and we went to see if we could find a way out for everyone. At the back of the building there was an open area that had an opening with big rocks like a gully, Collette and I agreed it was a way out. Collette went to get the others but as she did my arm went over the boundary and my hand felt water and I knew it was too late. I went to tell Collette. I felt fear and acceptance that there was nothing I could do.

Working on this dream with Tony who invited me to be the Tsunami, which I did.

As the Tsunami I felt expansions in myself wider higher boundless, full of charged energy. Staying with what I was sensing I felt my attention was drawn to something pushing from behind me. I followed that sensation of what was pushing me and it went down my body and continued to go down deep into the earth like a root. As this continued the image came to mind of being in an umbilical cord. I was it and in it and I felt sick between my throat and belly.

Staying with what was happening I felt a black tar like substance, it felt like it lined part if the inside of the cord and it was thick and dense. I felt it was something I had been dealing with all my life and it felt like it came from my mother, but as I became aware of that thought I knew that it went a long way back, ancestral or beyond. I felt emotional, staying with the image the dense heavy blackness, something started to move in my belly, a bubble type ball of energy came out from the blackness into my hands and it felt like I was like a baby inside.

Holding the energy bringing it out up my body, then it was taken back in through my mouth, like eating my own tail, a complete circle moving slowing down my body transforming the blackness as it went.

I became the Tsunami again and it I saw that it was like an LSD trip, levels of attachments of what you identify with; like being in a room but you are not a room. Having things in the room, but they are not you having emotional attachment to them, but you are not those emotions and it washed away what we/I am attached to, letting go of stories of my self, because I am not the story, but have lived through it. I am the energy of the Tsunami, the energy of everything. As I made my way home I felt very much in the moment, with waves of people of all colours, cultures, shapes and sizes. On the bus the conversations, behaviours I noticed, I could see myself in it all buildings cars traffic lights all connected.

Waves: Impulses, feelings and emotions, such as sexuality, anxiety, anger. Waves can also indicate an impulse such as life in one that has its beginnings from a mysterious source.

 Example: ‘My husband, and I were standing looking at the sea’s surface. It was just falling night. I saw a mass of dark shapes, thought it would be a school of fish. Then we were looking at water birds, maybe ducks, again dark shapes as the light had almost gone. Then there was a hole in the sea, like a belly button, I was wondering what it was, how was it being made, was there something under the water? Something very big was coming up to the surface very close to me. It shot me to wake.’ Ginny Q.

Ginny and her husband had been exploring the content of their dreams. The image of the sea shows Ginny sensing there are enormous depths to her own being, and something big – a previously unconscious complex of insights and feelings – is becoming conscious.

 Example: ‘A small speed boat was at sea. But the sea dissolved anybody who fell in. One man fell in but held himself together as a blob of water and jumped back to the speedboat. I remember the words ‘The sea is a great solvent’.’ Tim P. 

Tim is aware of his unconscious sense of being a part of the huge ocean of life or energy. In it one might lose sense of identity. In the end, identity is ‘held together’ by one’s own belief in oneself.

 Example: ‘I am either standing at the edge of the sea or near, when suddenly enormous tidal waves appear in the distance and are coming closer. I know they will engulf me, I turn and run away. Sometimes they do overtake me, other times I wake up.’ Mrs A. V.

We can run from pleasure and wider insight, just as much as from pain or fear.

On the first night I slept with my present wife when she fell asleep I noticed she struggled with her breathing. While she was still asleep I spoke to her suggesting she would relax and allow her breathing to be easy. Within moments she responded. This encouraged me and I suggested her whole body would relax, and the barriers within her dissolve, allowing healing and well-being to be experienced. Within ten minutes she suddenly awoke and told me a dream.

She was at the rear of a house sunbathing with her family, feeling very relaxed and happy. As she sank into the enjoyment waves, like a tidal waves began to roll up her body. The pleasure was so intense she couldn’t take any more and woke up.

Idioms: All at sea; plenty more fish in the sea; lost at sea; stranger things happen at sea; between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does the sea represent the great collective unconscious and all the information we have at hand for the asking?

Is this about potential for creativity?

The emotions felt in in dreams are the real stuff underlying the images, what do they portray?

See Quick way to understand dreamsLife’s Little SecretsStreet WisdomPeople’s Experience of LifeStream

 

Seal Sealed

A seal is a trust, a security or promise, a sign of integrity, which we can abuse or use as a power. It depicts the emergence into your conscious life of your deepest instincts and life energies – in Eastern terminology the kundalini, for our centers of perception may be sealed, so not usable..

For seal, as in a stamp or design – it suggests authority or permission. It can also represent a person or their influence, power, or lack of it.

Example: In a very real sense a nightmare is a symbolic presentation of an original situation full of important information. But it has got hermetically sealed within layers of resistances or defences – basically fear, avoidance of pain, and feelings of threat.

Sealed in that sense means something difficult to alter or deal with. For instance, something that has sealed a relationship, like giving a ring.

Lips can be sealed, by not speaking about a secret.

See: seal under fish and sea creatures.

 

Seam

Connections with others, showing the strength or weakness of what holds you together. The strength of beliefs or convictions, and so the weak point of attitudes or philosophy.

If you are sowing or in some creating a seam, it suggests you are bringing two or more things or people together inempt to make it permanent. Or if you are making a seam to mend something, it shows work you are doing to heal an injured part of your life.

In geological terms, it indicates that you have found a rich area of your inner digging/searching or archaeological searching. See Archaeologist Archaeology

 Example: James Mason and I are in the back seat of a car. He kisses me and pinches my left nipple. I’m sexually excited. I say, “But people can see.” An older woman is standing outside the car. He insists. I put on a pretty, brief pleated skirt with see-through lace seams and a turquoise velour top. He leans back in the car and says in a whisper in my ear, “Take off your panties.” I feel sexually excited. I do so. I get out of the car, noticing I can see flashes of my legs through the lace. He is possessive and demanding and I love it.

Example: Of course, eventually it is all going to fall apart. We try to maintain the validity of that false self with all sorts of methods, everything from alcohol, antidepressants, hard drugs to calming meditation. Our medical fraternity are overwhelmed by people whose lives are falling apart – perhaps even their bodies. In fact, they are being asked to patch up something that really do need to come apart at the seams. What we actually need is some sort of wise support as we gradually dismantled this pseudopod, this false self. R.D. Laing had the right idea is suggesting that we need to help people, to give them an environment in which this can take place. Our real self is very often still at the emotional level of babyhood in its development, and for many people that is a terrifying prospect, to regress to that sort of vulnerability. As it says in the new Testament, “Except you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” See Beware of Love

Idioms: coming apart at the seams.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the seam one you have created?

Does it appear strong or coming apart?

What sort of seam is it?

See The Slow BreathThe Inner WorldTechniques for Exploring your Dreams

Seance

Considering that dreams can create, even while awake, visions and powerful experiences, as shown by drugs such LSD, psilocybin, also meditation techniques, a séance can create situations which promote altered states of consciousness. These states can frequently allow people to access levels of mind that are usually unconscious, allowing the person to reach creative solutions and contact the dead. See ASC

An example is given by Dr Grof as he was treating a young man using LSD as therapeutic tool to deal with depression.

 Example: “In one particularly unnerving session a young man suffering from depression found himself in what seemed to be another dimension. It had an eerie luminescence, and although he could not see anyone he sensed that it was crowded with discarnate beings. Suddenly he sensed a presence very close to him, and to his surprise it began to communicate with him telepathically. It asked him to please contact a couple who lived in the Moravian city of Kromeriz and let them know that their son Ladislav was well taken care of and doing all right. It then gave him the couple’s name, street address, and telephone number.

The information meant nothing to either Grof or the young man and seemed totally unrelated to the young man’s problems and treatment. Still, Grof could not put it out of his mind. “After some hesitation and with mixed feelings, I finally decided to do what certainly would have made me the target of my colleagues’ jokes, had they found out,” says Grof. “I went to the telephone, dialled the number in Kromeriz, and asked if I could speak with Ladislav. To my astonishment, the woman on the other side of the line started to cry. When she calmed down, she told me with a broken voice: ‘Our son is not with us any more; he passed away, we lost him three weeks ago.’”

Of course, it doesn’t mean that any person who claims they can go into trance can actually enter waking lucid dreaming. Many people claim to and can earn money by looking or acting as if they can contact the dead. See The Waking Lucid Dream Edgar Cayce

But dreaming of being at or running a séance usually indicates or suggests a desire or ability to contact the dead. It can indicate intuitive knowledge, repressed desires, or unconscious wishes. It might also link with parts of yourself that are dead or you killed in some way. But also links with the unknown, the irrational, the dead. See Dreaming of DeathNear Death ExperiencesRudolph Steiner’s Philosophy of Life and DeathThe Archetype of DeathJourneying Beyond Dreams and Death

Search Searched Searching

Usually indicates an attempt to find something or someone. Maybe you are looking for a past way of life – like wanting to have childhood with its lack of responsibilities. Or perhaps you search for a lover, even from the past.

Some searching is about your attempts to find an answer to a pressing problem, a search for your identity or meaning in a particular setting.

It may of course be that you feel you have lost something – youth, sexual appeal, creativity, or motivation. 

Example: She says, ‘I am walking with another girl (Who seems to be a shadowy replica of myself) outside the studio. Some young men who also work at the studio are following behind us, calling out to us and joking. I say to the girl, “If they ask us to have a drink with them when we pass this public house we will accept, but if they don’t, we’ll just keep walking.”

The young men, however, do not ask us to join them. The girl turns back, but I keep on walking. I go down a subway station at Chancery Lane (near where I work) with the intention of going to Oxford Street. (Oxford Street symbolises Life to me.) I board a tube train. It is quite crowded with young girls, who look rather like myself. Suddenly, a charming, softly spoken woman of about mid-thirty (my age in fact) appears and tells us that we are all required to take part in a film. In fact, we have no choice, as our carriage is being driven off to a huge building. We are all ushered into a large room. There is a rather unpleasant man who seems to be the director. In the middle of the room is an enormous iron wheel, and on the end of each spoke is an iron chair, into which, one by one the “victims” from the train are being clamped by iron bands around the arms and throat. I get a distinct feeling of fear and distrust in spite of the charming woman’s efforts to reassure me. She says, “You will be released when the film is shot.” I do not believe her, and look around for some means of escape.

Meanwhile, my turn to be clamped into the chair is coming very close. The other girls seem to give no feeling of fear, they are submitting to the ordeal like sheep going to the slaughter. I am still aware that in the background the sadistic man is gloating about the whole thing. I make a frantic dash to the doorway. Outside there are tunnels leading in every direction. I run down one only to find the end is blocked by an iron gate, through which, grinning at me maliciously, is a ticket collector. I turn and run down another tunnel and suddenly find myself running along the top of the train in which I had arrived. It is stationary. I peer down when I see a group of young people walking along a street which is parallel to the train. They are dressed in “trendy” clothes, but their eyes are devoid of any expression and their gestures are mechanical. They are walking straight into a cul-de-sac. I decide not to join them; and turn to look the other way. A group of young children and some adults are playing in the street, yet everything is silent and dim. A man is leering at them. The buildings all around are high, dark and poor looking. I manage to bypass them all and find myself looking at a beach scene. Groups of people are sunbathing and playing on the beach. Yet again I am struck by the lifeless and mechanical actions and their expressionless eyes, as if they are living yet dead. I suddenly get a glimpse of the sea beyond them. It is beautiful, alive, moving, a translucent emerald green. The sun is sparkling on it. It is the only alive thing I have seen on my travels. I long to get to it. I will get to it, and drown myself in its purity and beauty. I start to make my way towards it when sand dunes build up before me, making the journey difficult. The sand slips under my feet, but I struggle on. Suddenly, out of the crowd, a matronly woman comes after me, trying to drag me back, saying, “You shall not escape.” I feel anything is better than living like the “puppet-like” people on the beach, and I make a frantic effort to escape her clutches and break away and enter the sea, quite happy to know I will die there.’

The dream beautifully illustrates a person searching for meaning and a life that is an expression of her own real self, not simply living out of social rituals and programming. The sea in dreams often represents the core of life within you. See Corelooking

 Idioms: Searched high and low; a searching look; search me.

Searchlight

Concentration; insight. Trying to understand or realise something by using meditation and concentration. The search for something. Trying to understand and make conscious. Focusing attention on what is revealed in your recent life.

A spot of concentrated awareness on certain memories or experiences. The darkness around the spot of light is the massive amount of our experience or potential still remaining dark/unconscious.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did the searchlight reveal?

Do you have felt responses to what is highlighted?

What is still hidden in the darkness?

See Torch Being the Person or ThingSumming UpQuestions

Seasons

Most of us have been raised to see the seasons as an external event. Even the Christians who continue the ancient rituals have the same feeling. Yet we know very well, if only unconsciously, that we are a product of nature, the Earth and its seasons. We are all influenced by the cycles of growth and death, and yet we usually fail to sense the seasons as an almighty influence within us.

Also, we are unconscious of being a part of nature in the sense of knowing as our own experience the enormous influence the seasons have on our inner life, and the power we could get from acknowledging them.

All of these inner influences are depicted graphically in the Christian Festivals. Usually we see them as about historical dramas regarding Jesus, but thy are in fact an amazing dramatic presentation of the influence of the Earth upon us all. They represent the times or periods of one’s life.

The seasons of each year have a marked inner effect upon us, and they also repeat to us over and over the periods and phases of our life. In spring, every growing thing forms new and energetic growth – as in our own childhood, unless it is blighted in some way.

The summer period of human growth is typified as the fertile and flowering period, which carries on to the forming of seeds and offspring. In a sense, we become a garden in which plants flower and form seeds.

Autumn is a period of almost quiet rest after the amazing power of Spring and Summer. It is a time of harvest and also a turning point, as many plants trees get ready for winter, and so a great change occurs.

Winter, a seeming death of so much, but under the surface enormous preparation is happening. The old life, the past has been taken in as leaves and foliage, and has become fertiliser for the new year’s growth, the new life following from the past – the many pasts, for seeds or the survivors of the winter have in fact carried the experience from the beginning of life. And that experience is held in readiness for another season and its experiences.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What season appeared in your dream, and what feelings were involved?

Was it a difficult, cold, stormy, or happy season?

Was there a lesson to learn about your life from the season dreamt of?

See: Spring; Summer; Autumn; WinterThe Inner World

Seat

See: Chair.

Seaweed

Developments, ideas or concepts that have formed in the unconscious, and have come to mind ready made. An intuitive answer to a problem. Inner tangle of feelings. It can also suggest being able to move with the tide of events and feelings, or being entangled in something arising from within. Can also be food. A tremendous fertiliser for growing things

Something unseen and hidden touching your foot – so a shock or fear.

Example: While looking at the seaweed on the beach this morning, I remembered a dream. All the seaweed I had put on the compost had rotted and had been put in the ground. Now there was a marvellous crop of tomatoes. The plants were really weighed down with fruit, that was nearly ripe enough to pick. I told a man who was with me he could start picking as soon as the tomatoes were ripe.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What way where you relating to the seaweed in the dream?

Were you observing its movement, gathering it or entangled in it?

Were you swimming in it?

See Settings in Dreams What is the main action in the dream?Water Wonderland

Secret

Something known inwardly, but not yet recognised outwardly. You may know at heart that someone does not care for you, but because you so badly want them to, you may refuse to recognise this.

Secret Service CIA MI6 RAW ASIS BND GRU DGSE MSS MOSSAD ISI

Every one of us is a secret agent on a wonderful, dangerous and adventurous mission. The mission is your life. It is the exploration and uncovering of a miracle – for you are a miracle. Are you not LIFE and a direct expression of the miracle we are all trying to understand and live? Are you not alive, an expression of a fiery trail that started billions of years ago and you are the latest player in the old, old story of life trying to unfold and live more of its miraculous existence?

As a secret agent you will face murder, parenthood, birth, death, survival and trying to find the secret of the CODE of life – and you will meet all of the massive forces that are against you in your mission.

A difficult and often dangerous task, and your opponents will face you with the most subtle and powerful tools, they will open in you psychological warfare that is so difficult for most agents to recognise that you will make all manner of excuses rather than recognise. The signs of this will be you will blame your failing on someone else, you will use justification as a way of escaping responsibility for your mission, you might use drugs or alcohol as an escape method to escape the things that confront you from within you.

So be prepared and live up to what you were recruited to be – a secret agent on the side of LIFE.

See Archetype of the Search for Self – Individuation

Secretary

The other woman and also the practical business side of self-supporting creative action. The secretary has the cliché image of the ‘other woman’ – or perhaps in today’s world, the ‘other man’. There might even be a play on power between a secretary love and boss – is the power in the authority or the sexual drive?

The secretary also indicates the background of activity upon which creative work can take place. She or he depicts the orthodox aspects of you that lend a hand in the development of the creative or transformative aspects of you.

For many people this is an indication of work and feelings about it. In some dreams the secretary can indicate a loving and caring influence, someone who has useful information and abilities. Also a secretary can act as a filter or block against contact or communication with the Boss – the Core.

 Example: I was interviewed for a job as a secretary for this college professor who has a terrible reputation as a womanizer who “feeds” on the young college girls. I am a sophisticated, together woman in white high heels and a business suit. I am also beautiful and tailored. BS

Example: The male sex drive is such a mechanism. Looking for a younger woman is partly mechanical. Do we have to mechanically go along with it? Yet it moves so many people. There is the big director trying to be so important, and in comes the secretary and he can’t help looking at her legs and breasts. The thrill in the belly, the hunger deep down to touch that soft warm young body.

 

Sedative

Sleeping pills may represent attempts to cover up worries, fears, anxieties, painful emotions and thoughts. An attempt to push them into the unconscious. Something, an influence, that is putting you to sleep.

Seduction Seductress Seduce

Experts say that even if no one intends to behave in a seductive fashion, there is a possibility of sexual attraction between teenagers and their stepparents or step-siblings. Such feelings can be very threatening, especially to youngsters, and parents should be aware of this hazard. Such attractions may call for counselling.

“The succubus, a female demon who seduced male dreamers. References to seductive demons, such as Lilith, had appeared in the Talmud but had not previously appeared in Christian writings. The Commentary – by Macrobius – became an extremely influential book and thirty-seven printed editions appeared before 1700. It was the most important and well-known dream book in medieval Europe. Its inclusion of the fear-inspiring sexual demons was to play a role in supporting the paranoia about evil spirits that developed during the later centuries.”  Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert van de Castle.

Genesis in the Bible is a text depicting how humans evolved to self-awareness, leaving behind their ‘garden of Eden’ which was their instinctive existence, along with the animals, before self-awareness. The present story of Adam and Eve sinning is a complete mistranslation. See The Secret Bible – The Kabbalah

Because many men find breasts and bare thighs a sexual turn on, any wearing of short skirts or low cut dresses can be seen as a form of seduction in dreams and life.

Folklore said that Succubi took the form of beautiful women and seduced men, whereas incubi took the form of handsome men and seduced women. Although sterile themselves, incubi could supposedly impregnate women with seed taken by succubi from men-a belief that was sometimes used to explain pregnancies resulting from secret affairs. This type of explanation not only absolved women from charges of licentiousness, but, because the sperm was taken from men, it also saved the child from being slain as an offspring of a demon.

Carl Jung found that men and women may dream of being seduced by an intriguing man/woman and the dreamer – who are actually dealing with her/his repressed or ignored male/female side of themselves – has to decide whether he or she is being overcome, swallowed and possessed by these unintegrated aspects of themselves or can she or he find a way of integrating these missing aspects.

But stated seduction can be used as an excuse, as in the following example.

Example:  Amazingly, it was at that time that my father, who I had never confronted with any of this, told my sister that he was sorry for some things of a sexual nature that he had done to me as a child. It seems the universe rose to meet me.  When she told me this, my heart sank, but also my spirit was relieved, for at least I was now certain that what I thought had happened had indeed taken place, and I could begin in earnest to process all this without as much disbelief and doubt.  He has since recanted, saying that he didn’t mean what he had said and that it was me, who as a 3-year-old had somehow seduced him. And not surprisingly, my family chooses to believe him.  My mother supports him too.

Example: all my sexual dreams that culminate in orgasm are lucid. The orgasms are quick, intense, full-body sensations and very pleasurable. The “Kundalini” – life energy – begins to rise and I just go with the flow, sometimes with a partner whom I conjure up, sometimes with nobody. Sometimes I look around in the dream for some unsuspecting male whom I approach and seduce. Quoted from Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney

Example: Quite a few of the undergraduate men dreamt of gladly being seduced by older sexy women. In fact, the fellow who dreamt of the bank team also dreamt of being seduced to the point of orgasm by his French teacher. One fellow dreamt of “being the willing subject of fellatio to the point of orgasm by a suitably beautiful older woman. The older women in these men’s dreams are not coercive, or even pushy. They are seductive, they may take the initiative, and they are skilled and very erotically motivated. Quoted from Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney

See Sex – Sex and Dreams – Sex and Identity – Sex while asleep – Interview With A Sex Worker – Sexercises – Energy, Sex and Dreams – Love Sex and Desire– Tiredness after Sex – Relationship & Sex

Seed

In dreams seeds often represent your sperm or ovum; one’s children or feelings about one’s children; hopes for children; the collected influence and experience of the past; a new idea arising out of past experience; a suggestion; a possibility or potential; something that can emerge in your life. 

A single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

 

As adults we believe we are complete and whole. But what I sense is that we are only a phase, and out of us can emerge another being, carrying forward into a different sort of existence, all that can arise  from you. A seed is a return to the source of life and it/our beginnings under the sun. Consciousness on our planet started in the slime of creation, the slime we return to, to procreate. And from that slime which is a vehicle for our seed to exist in, our awareness goes through the whole process of evolution as we develop in mother;s womb, the dividing of cells, the forming of structure and organs, the creation of a creature with gills, and on to a human type form ready to breathe air, carrying your seed onwards.

As an egg and sperm we are tiny single celled creatures. The next two stages of development as the cells increase in size and number resembles the activities found in many simple living things such as plants. The twenty day old embryo develops four brachial grooves, which in the embryo of a fish grow into gills. At this point the formative forces which produce a fish are active, as were the formative forces of a plant at an earlier stage. These are then supplanted by forces which bring about features of the potential mammalian upright animal we could be. See Programmed 

Imagine if a sperm or ovum thought it was a finished form. Of course it would in one sense be correct. It might be a healthy and well formed sperm or ovum. As such it is complete, whole. But put together the sperm and ovum, and suddenly they die to what they were. Their previous form perishes. Out of all they were emerges another form entirely, the foetus. Now supposing the foetus believes it is a complete and finished form. The same applies. It is only a stage, and perishes to emerge as something quite different, a separated, breathing and eating being. That is ourselves.

As one textbook states, “A human is not constructed like a modern office building, as cheaply and efficiently as possible. . . but rather like an ancient historic edifice to which wings and sections were added at different times and which was not modernised until it was almost completed.” See Levels of the Brain

Example: A seed is a potential. In the case of the seed, the potential holds certain inherited factors. As I have said, it is the reappearance of a previous seed, with padded experience. The potential alone however, cannot express, it needs a limiting (not too limiting, in fact, but nurturing) condition to direct its potential. Also, and unless it brings something different into the nurturing, limiting condition, it becomes one with that condition. I think it is obvious what this means in human terms. When the seed is planted, it brings with it first of all the huge dark potential, and also inherited factors. The inherited factors consist of the physical body of the seed, which is what the dark potential has realised of itself in its contact with matter, and the possibility of change built upon what has already been realised.

“There’s no way of knowing. Perhaps an ancient oak tree – Yet barely to my waist. Shaped and stunted by harsh onshore winds, by the salt and the rock. It is clinging and growing to the very shape of the wind, and stunted,as you or I might be, by circumstances of our birth, or events – by the enormous onshore winds that shaped this oak tree. Yet it is still a magnificent oak tree. Just as you or I, at our core, are magnificent human beings.”

As the plant grows from the seed, it emerges out of what already exists. It cannot, as human consciousness tries to do, emerge out of what does not exist in itself or in its surroundings. The differentiated elements of itself are fused into a new entity by the power of growth. This power of growth, or as we have called it, potential, must exist, as the plant proves its presence. As has already been said, it matters little whether this is a cosmic or chemical principle. It is present.

Example: For some time, I was still, as in the womb. I was a sphere around the spark of life, my sexual feeling. All my experience at this time seemed to be internal. It was as if I had passed through all my pains, right back to the very spark or germ of my being. This I offered to the unseen, to the Invisible Life within me, from whence the spark had arisen. I acknowledged its source. From there on I was a seed, a small grain of wheat, and my penis was a germ. As I relinquished myself to the Invisible Intangible Life, the germ began to spread its roots through the rest of my being, which was like a food store. As the wheat germ now grew with life in it, my arms and legs became roots spreading out over the Earth. My body uncurled and I jerked slowly open into the spread-eagle position, my penis being the growing stem.

Example: I began to feel afraid, for having fallen deep into myself, I felt that if I dropped any further back I would cease to exist. Then I knew the fear was unnecessary as every time we go to sleep we drop back into the condition where we lose any sense of personal existence, yet we emerge none the worse the next day. So, I let myself drop.

Suddenly I was aware that something held me. It was the process that had grown me from seed in the first place. My ego had not created me or grown me. But now this deep part of me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me. This felt like a holy gift, that the mystery of life would live in me.

See Seed Meditation 

Seeing Saw Sight

Looking at something implies our attitudes or response to what is seen. Being looked at by someone else in the dream suggests seeing oneself from a viewpoint which is not our norm. By actually attempting to stand in the role of the other person, as described in Being the Person or Thing, we can become conscious of this different viewpoint. By standing in our own role in the dream, and actually taking time to consider what it is we are ‘seeing’, and the impressions involved, we can ‘see’ or become aware of what the dream is getting us to look at regarding ourselves. Also see Characters and People in Dreams  

In a word count from a sample of a 1000 dreams, the words SEE, SAW, LOOK, LOOKING, occurred 1077 times. This is the highest occurrence of any words in the sample.

Next were Feel, Feelings, Felt, with a score of 855, and HOUSE, HOUSES, with 412. Whereas Fall  Falling Fell, which is usually said to be the main theme of dreaming, scored only 83

This suggests that dreams are almost entirely about giving attention to, being aware of, being confronted by, considering or realising, some aspect of the enormously wide range of experience which human consciousness meets. Therefore, whatever appears in the dream shows we are giving some thought to, feeling or confronting, what is depicted.

During each day we meet, in sensory impressions, in memory, in emotion, in thought, a huge variety of things. It is therefore of great interest what comparatively few subjects our spontaneous dream response chooses to give attention to out of all the range. It seems likely these chosen areas are important to us. The view a person has in their dream, the environment they see, reflects how they see life and themselves at the time of the dream. It shows the narrowness or wideness of their ‘vision’.

Looking up: Looking up suggest directing your attention above your normal view, or taking in things that were above your normal living experience.

Looking down: Shows you looking at what is below you, so could suggest having an excellent overview, looking down on eople from a superior attitude, or looking back from having climbed to a higher place.

Looking around: Maybe you are taking stock of where you stand or what you have achieved. Or are you looking for or searching for something or someone? Or do you not know where you are?

Looking sideways: Often suggests trying to see what is happening without your glance being noticed. The example suggested below shows Debbie viewing a huge landscape and sea, The size and space of it shows the depth and breadth of her mind.

Example: ‘I was leaning over the settee with my hands cupped under my chin looking out of the window. The view was spectacular, in that it was as if the house was situated on top of a cliff overlooking a huge bay, shaped like a horseshoe, with the house in the middle. From the sea suddenly, coming into the bay I could see three enormous whales making their way toward me. As I was staring in amazement they began to transform themselves and come up out of the water as three giant Viking like figures. They were so huge, that the water came up only to their knees and everything was moving so slowly, as they waded towards me. It was the most awe inspiring thing I had ever seen in my life.’ Sue B.

The bay, the beautiful sea, the sperm? whales / men, show Sue touching the most primordial yet inspiring aspects of her own womanhood and urge to love.

Idioms: From the look of things; look after; look askance at; look at; look before you leap; look blue; look down on; look for; look forward to; look into; look out; look over something; look small; look the other way; look up to; look for a fight; not like the look of; as far as I can see; as I see it; do you see what I mean; I’ll see about that; I see; see over something – overseer; see eye to eye; see life; see red; see which way the wind blows; Catch sight of; get out of my sight; in sight of; lose sight of; out of sight out of mind; second sight; at first sight. This is one of the major aspects of dreaming. Unless we are born blind, virtually every dream shows us looking at, seeing or viewing the events, objects, environment and people of the dream.

See: searching

Seeing under the Surface

The following information is to take you deeply into the dream you are exploring, They are for those who really want to make progress in their life and in their inner world or dreams

Acting on your Dreams – Extracting more from your dream by letting your body and feelings express it can provide a remarkable release of insight. There are several ways of doing this.

Do see the instructions on: Acting on Your Dreams

The Peer Dream Group – This method is the most powerful and deepest method. It includes some of the other techniques mentioned.

The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream, and when treated as such, and supported in their investigation of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.

To use it see: The Peer Dream Group

Link to the next section of Introduction

 

Self I Myself

The way we appear, or do not appear in a dream, represents our relationship to, opinions of, and hopes for self.

The image we have of our self in our dreams shows the struggle we have with who we think we are. It is the way we gain identity. In this struggle. this adventure – very like the Odyssey – we meet all manner of creatures, people, demons, temptations. We travel into dark places, climbs to the heights of wondrous experience, discover magical powers. One of the functions of dreams can therefore be thought to be that of aiding the survival of our identity in facing the multitude of influences in life – and even in death.

Dreams show us that our personality is a small thing that only includes a small part of what we are. In Jung’s portrayal of the self, our ego is only a small part of us, the complete sphere depicts our Whole.

Some dreams are about showing us who we are. Such dreams may at times seem puzzling because they lead us into into uncertainties and a sort of void. To understand this better see The Archetype of the  Self:  Void  – Archetype of the Void – Dream Example 3 – 

Selkie

A Selkie is the magic humans can do when they let the spirit of the ocean, it vastness, its storms, it hidden depths, and the childlike wonder of it fully enter one’s own soul. Then one is human and also a creature of the sea – and then you can sing the song of the sea – and that is MAGIC. See Water Wonderland

Selkie

Sell Selling Sold

This sometimes links with a difficult parting or loss, as for instance selling a house. In this case it might point to change, or feelings about change. It can also reflect business or financial concerns, positive or negative. Selling or buying may also refer to your contact with the world in general, the hustle and bustle, the commerce of life, the commercial instincts, and the unsympathetic mob.

Some dreams about selling or buying are about your work, and can be intuitions about the market or opportunities. Selling and buying is, after all, about exchange, and that is a fundamental aspect of all life forms, so your inner self is very involved with the opportunities you might meet and how you deal with them.

In recent times, although the age old techniques are still used to induce or push people to become shopaholics, an enormous amount of research has been undertaken to define exactly how human beings, and of course animals, can be changed or manipulated. After all, such information is incredibly important to religious and political organisations, and to businesses who wish to induce people to buy or use their products. This has given rise to such varied approaches as physical and mental intimidation, brain surgery, brainwashing, electric shock therapy, drug use, subtle advertising and propaganda, the use of suggested fear in order to sell or induce.

Being sold to: Deciding what you want and what you will ‘pay’ for it in your life. If you make a living from buying and selling, then the dream would perhaps relate to your work and opportunity.

Buying: This often indicates some level of choices being made, decisions faced, and there may also be elements of how much or little you are being influenced by internal desires or external sales pressure. One dreamer says when she feels so good at work she immediately goes out to buy a new house. This suggests confidence and social power are involved in purchases. But sometimes we make purchases when things go wrong, as a means of counteracting the down feelings. In some dreams the question of your financial status arises, so purchasing may be dealing with how you are feeling about your money situation.

Buying a bargain: Feelings of capability.

Purchased from: Success or failure to succeed, depending on whether the sale is mad. May also indicate change, as when one sells a car or house. See: sell; shopping.

You the seller: If you dream you are the seller, you need to consider what it is you are offering, and what does its value is to you. Are there issues of buying and selling, or how to make a living in life, or desires for profit in some area of your life.

Selling yourself: It can show in the way you use someone else’s need for or dependence on you – whether you are male or female – to manipulate, extract money from, or abuse them. It is actively involved when you sell yourself out.

Selling yourself out also means going along with the materialistic view so predominant in our times. Life only leads to death, so what the hell does it matter what I do, who I hurt or maim, so long as my own interests are served – type of attitude. What will it cost me to stand up for what I believe in or love?

 Useful questions and hints:

Are you buying or selling?

If selling what is it you hope to get a reward from and what associations do you have with it?

If buying what is it you want, and what does that suggest about you?

What are you doing at the auction?

Semen

Essence of masculinity; the sense of one’s personal identity, but also the potential one has as an individual. Thus the withholding of sperm in the dream might be the non-giving of self, warmth, emotion, bonding.

During ‘wet dreams’, often experienced by adolescent males, there is involuntary emission of semen. But women and girls also produce an emission when aroused but without the vital seeds.

This indicates not only the power of co-operation in pregnancy, but also all the immense influence and background that lies behind a human birth. It can be the germ of an idea, or the wonderful potential behind life. It is sometimes used in dreams to suggest energy. It can also be an image of the duality of life and the need to combine in a symbiotic relationship to unfold innate qualities. Thousands of generations of experience lie latent in the sperm and ovum. It is also eternal in that although the body carrying it dies, the sperm, if it passes on in reproduction, carries on living. It therefore has an unbroken life back to the beginning of life on our planet – and maybe beyond.

It can therefore represent your whole long history, all your forebears in the male line, all your potential for the future. See Ancestors

But it can also figure in dreams connected with intuitions about pregnancy, desire to be pregnant, or fear of it.

In another sense the sperm is the carrier or messenger of love that ignites the process of life as it gives itself entirely to the ovum – like cupid’s arrow penetrating the heart. As such it is the waters of life flowing out from a man to those he loves. If it does not flow with love, it is in some way a gift of sickness.

Example: I laugh. By now we’ve agreed he and I are sleeping together alone, but just as plutonic friends. We cuddle and giggle like teens. I feel something wet on my nightgown and realize it is semen emission, either leakage or he had an orgasm. We both start giggling uncontrollably like teens in a library. It’s so ironic that we’ve agreed to be friends, and sleep together and then he has an emission.

Example: My lover had masturbated while sleeping in our bed and as I saw that he had done it quite openly, I felt hurt and frustrated. He was marvelling at all the semen that was all over his side of the bed. I felt that I didn’t mind if he didn’t want to have intercourse with me because it did make him feel very drained the next day, but if he were masturbating it was the same end result surely, so why not with me? Was there another reason that he wouldn’t tell me. I jumped out of bed and went into the kitchen, trying to be ill in the sink so he would come and comfort me, but I could see I was playing a game, so went back to bed and started to hit him on the chest with my closed fists, telling him how I felt.

Example: One female patient could never understand her curious urge to be filled with semen until through this fantasy she discovered that she was led not by sexual desire but by oral greed, and the liquid she required was not semen but milk.

See: Seed.

Sensitivity Distance

Septic

Infected by an opinion or fear.

Serpent

See Snake.

Serpent of Mexico

Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent of Mesoamerica, if dreamt of represents a mighty force in each of us. Having feathers shows it links the highest with the lowest – earth and the sky.

Because it is a primal part of human life we find it shown in cultures all throughout history – except our own Western thought which has not yet reached this realisation. To describe it simply, the snake is the process of life that lies behind the growth of the body and the evolution or transformation of our human personality. The snake is the source of invention, of religious insights and a wider awareness. In a sense we can say humans sometimes have access to the mother church/temple. This is the source of all human realisations about their place in the creative order, all religious feeling. For humans have a built in sense of religion, their sense of relationship with creation and what creates it. However, it needs a certain form of awareness to be able to sense it. But as it is received by humans from different cultural and environmental situations, it is expressed according to the culture and needs. That is why we have such different religions – yet they have much similarity.

Although Christianity has defined Christ as a historical event, yet other periods of time have seen it as a function of the natural order. So, although Christian missionaries, Franciscans such as Toribio de Benavente “Motolinia” saw elements of Christianity in the pre-Columbian religions and therefore believed that Mesoamerica had been evangelized before, possibly by St. Thomas whom legend had it had “gone to preach beyond the Ganges”. Their attempts to show Christian influence never gained ground, and it seems clear that the influence of a wonderful healer and teacher was, and is, a part of the human unconscious.

But Christianity was simply a new expression of an ancient theme. The older roots of this are from 3500 years ago and was named Mithraism. Mithra was born in a cave, on the 25th December. He was born of a Virgin. He travelled far and wide as a teacher and illuminator of men. His great festivals were the winter solstice and the Spring equinox (Christmas and Easter). He had twelve companions or disciples (the twelve months). He was buried in a tomb, from which however he rose again; and his resurrection was celebrated yearly with great rejoicings. He was called Savior and Mediator, and sometimes figured as a Lamb; and sacramental feasts in remembrance of him were held by his followers.

Also Osiris was born on the 361st day of the year, say the 27th December. He too, like Mithra and Dionysus, was a great traveller. As King of Egypt he taught men civil arts, and “tamed them by music and gentleness, not by force of arms”; he was the discoverer of corn and wine. But he was betrayed by Typhon, the power of darkness, and slain and dismembered. “This happened,”says Plutarch, “on the 17th of the month Athyr, when the sun enters into the Scorpion” (the sign of the Zodiac which indicates the oncoming of Winter). His body was placed in a box, but afterwards, on the 19th, came again to life, and, as in the cults of Mithra, Dionysus, Adonis and others, so in the cult of Osiris, an image placed in a coffin was brought out before the worshippers and saluted with glad cries of “Osiris is risen.” “His sufferings, his death and his resurrection were enacted year by year in a great mystery-play at Abydos.” Quotes from Pagan and Christain Creeds by Edward Carpenter

 

Servant Maid or Cleaning Lady

Social roles – top dog under dog feelings; feeling you are treated like a servant, or treating someone else as; class distinctions.

The cleaning lady is an aspect of you that is sociable and works in the background making inner changes in your body, but needs payment or encouragement to carry on the work. It is, in most of us, an activity that goes on working unconsciously for most of the time.

It depends on whether you are the servant or the one served. If served it can indicate the parts of your personality that respond to the decisions and requests you make of your body and mind. What is your relationship with them? Being a servant in your dream can either mean you are giving yourself willingly to someone or some activity or goal, or that you feel unworthy of any other role or reward. A question worth asking is what or who is being served?

To dream of a servant is be reminded to be of service – as in “He who would be greatest or master must be servant to all”. Other possibilities are those qualities in self that are fully under control and able to be purposefully directed. (Cayce).

Example: To touch such love is painful and I was weeping as if in agony. What is it to wash somebody’s feet? I don’t understand. I am listening but I don’t understand. I feel it but I cannot grasp clearly what is meant.

Then I was told that the person who washes somebody’s feet is the servant. You have to realise, first of all, that you are a servant. You are nothing more. You are not proud; you are not above somebody else. You are a simple servant of Life. And yet you are Life – that grand mystery of Life. Like the grass, Life can be trodden under foot. You have to realise that before you can really touch anybody with that great love.

Example: When we reject our station in life and strive, to the detriment of others around us, we forget the noblest fact of our being. It is that we are born the sons and daughters of Life. We are, without any earning, the children of Life. This makes each of us Princes and Princesses – no, more than that, the very embodiment of the Highest.

Forgetting this we rush hither and hither, attempting to gain the riches and position we already have as our birth right. In believing ourselves underlings we become them, and so find ourselves the servants or slaves of powers and desires, of ideas and urges, of fears and materials we are born to command. But if we once realise who we are, and that we can never gain a higher privilege or a more powerful position, we become free. Being all of us Stars, we can play the large parts and the humble parts with greatness and for commitment, without longing for other roles. At last we can bring all we are to being parents, or husband, or wife. We can clean toilets with the artistry of a cellist, or govern men with the innocence of a child; or even tramp the roads with the great soul of a true vagabond, who could as easily be a king.

Example: My wife spoke to Jim, who had just entered, in a tone of voice that “spoke volumes” to me. It said – I am the lady of this house – she spoke to him like one dismisses a servant. In it were generations of upper-class people who had servants. I ridiculed her about this by mimicking her voice in front of Jim. I seemed to see deep into her and saw generations of shit pushed down by her family. Nothing must show.

Settings In Dreams

The environment in which the action of the dream takes place signifies the background of experience or circumstances that support the situation dealt with in the foreground.

A helpful way of defining this is to give it a name, such a name such as one does with dream people. You do this by trying to sense what your main feelings are about regarding the place, or what happened to you there, and how that left you feeling. You might have felt a lot of conflict in a certain town or while living in a particular road. So you could call that ‘My conflicts’. Or a place may be linked with a loving relationship, so could be called ‘My ability to Love’.

Example: I was near a lake in the countryside. Everything was frozen. I saw some horse droppings still steaming and this seemed to be the only living thing around. Kevin K.

Kevin’s comments on this are that the frozen lake and countryside express his feelings about the world around him. He sees it as cold and uninviting. It is frozen and there is no life in it for him. That is, he cannot find anything in life to excite him or have meaning. The horse dung he realised is the resources he can use to change his life. The dung can be manure or food for growth, or fuel to burn for energy and heat. This made him feel as if there is a way to transform his old unsatisfying patterns of ‘frozen’ emotions into something growing and satisfying.

So Kevin’s dream setting illustrates his view of the world – that it is a cold uninviting place. So it is the feeling state he lives within most of the time.

Example: ‘I was in a crowd around a church.’ Efrosyni G.

If we looked at the rest of Efrosyni’s dream we might lose the impact of this very first ‘scene setting’ statement. If we look up crowd, we find under, Talking to, leading, or part of crowd at a central event: ‘An impulse or idea that unifies many parts of ones own nature.’ So here is something which Efrosyni is deeply interested in. Many of her feelings are involved in it. Looking up church we find, ‘Religious feeling or beliefs, including moral code, or our feelings about organised religion.’ So it is against Efrosyni’s religious beliefs the rest of the dream drama unfolds.

Example: ‘I was in a house with old clothes and was washing up.’ Mrs P.R.

The entry on house says it is P’s everyday feeling state, her general image of herself. The old clothes are a sense of being old or unattractive. Washing up suggests she feels there are things to clear up concerning what is happening in her life. But it also suggests she sees herself as unexciting. Having clarified that – she feels old and uninteresting, and this needs to be cleaned up or dealt with – the very next part of the dream explodes into view with meaning. ‘My daughter’s husband to be came in. I admired the way he dressed and he turned his back on me.’ At the end of her dream P feels ‘lost and rejected.’ By clarifying the opening scene, it seems likely P looks at her daughter in her new romance – P being 50, a divorcee, and at the tail end of a ‘whirlwind romance’ – and feels jealous. Maybe she even hopes to attract her daughter’s man away from her, but he indicates there is no hope. Basically, after her romance, P feels unwanted and rejected. The helpfulness of the dream however, is that the first scene shows P. the sort of feelings about herself she is living in daily – feelings of being old and uninteresting. Shifting those feelings can change the way others react to her. See: The series of dreams used to explain active imagination.


Seven

The symbol of seven is the Triangle above the square. It relates to the cyclic expressions of time in the cosmos and in man’s life. It is an outer expression of an inner spiritual principle. Thus at seven a child loses its milk teeth, at fourteen develops sexuality, at twenty-one enlarges the faculties unfolded in the teens, at twenty-eight stabilises them etc.

There are said to be seven centres within our body, which are powerful functions that are also sense organs. As such they act on our body and personality. They are expressions of different levels of consciousness, and different forces or principles, such as growth, reproduction, and sensation. Thus it represents the influence upon the physical, of the invisible rhythms within us, the cosmic keyboard of harmonic vibrations or energies.

The zodiacal sign is Libra the manager. It rules the kidneys, and the seventh house rules marriage. Seven is the number of initiation, and there are seven colours in the spectrum, seven notes in music. See: Dimensions of Human Experience – Energy Sex and Dreams – Kundalini – Numbers.

Sew Sewing

Creating a new attitude; changing old habits; healing a hurt, or tear in a relationship if mending.

Because most of us have been torn at some time in life, and because many people experience great innrt conflicts, a tearing insude creating division, we might well sew togther what has been rent asunder.

Apart from mending, sewing is also about attachment, joining one thing to another, so can portray what is happening in parting or coming together, or trying to connect.

Sewing can also be creative, and so can show you creating something or perhaps having creative insights or ideas.

See: Darn.

Sewage

See: Cesspool.

Sewer

The most direct associations are to do with feelings of repulsion or disgust. The sewer is also an indication of what you have let go of as worn out, without life, or not needed in your living process of mind and body. It might also be associated with decay, disease or death. However, in modern mythology – films – the sewers are often shown as hidden ways to enter places or to escape, so might be used to suggest such in your dream. They are also frequently shown as a place where we meet the strange or alien within us – our unconscious.

In some powerful dreams the sewers are expressions of the wonder and strangeness of the subterranean world that is your unconscious. In this sense, the internal unconscious sewers were built by humans thousands of years ago. They are the level of awareness that at one time was mankind’s waking awareness. But as with the surface of the earth, further levels of growth covered and buried the old. Because these sewers are our psychological and spiritual history, you may find in them much that explains humanity’s, or your own, present condition. Some of what you find will be things you yourself left there in the far past. Exposing them and bringing what they reveal to awareness is a task many people are engaged in today. Some dreamer’s believe that the reason this level of the unconscious is shown as sewers, is because in the past humans acted as the means for tremendous cosmic forces to flow down into the earth. This faculty was desecrated and now what is represented as the sewers acts in man as the means by which, through which, destructive thoughts, energies, are released, lest they destroy humanity.

The strength you will find in exploring the sewers is that of being able to face the worst in human beings, and also to see within it what was once holy and divine. See Toilet.

But if you are new to entering the sewer, your unconscious, you will need to know that the first level you meet is the traumas, thoughts, impulses, all the stuff you have avoided experiencing consciously. Not being used to meeting the raw you it migiht make you back off. That is a mistake. See Masters of Nightmares

 

 

Sex

Sexual dreams usually express hidden desires; the way we would like to express sexually, or problems in this area. Although sex is symbolised in many dreams, where it appears directly it shows that the dreamer is able to more easily accept their sexual urges and hurts. What is then important is to attempt an understanding of what setting or drama the sexual element occur in. Our psychological and sexual nature, like our physical, never stand still in development unless a pain or problem freeze them at a particular level of maturity. Therefore, our sexual dreams, even if our sex life is satisfactory, show us what growth, what new challenge, is being met.

Whenever a healthy man dreams, he experiences an erection, no matter what the subject of the dream. Women also experience such stimulus while dreaming.

While dreaming you can safely allow any form of sexual pleasure you desire. Don’t let the useful morals of waking life intrude into your dreams. If your sexual dreams are frustrating, or do not lead to deep pleasure, drop the fears and limiting attitudes that are blocking the full flow of your excitement and pleasure.

Your longing for sexual partners that isn’t openly expressed, will attempt to become real in your dreams. It doesn’t mean that you are dissatisfied with your present partner if you have sex with other people in your dreams. All of us have such secret longings, and it is healthy for them to be allowed as we sleep. What it usually suggests is that you are exploring other experiences or dimensions of sex that you can then bring into your waking relationship.

Sometimes sexual pleasure is depicted in dreams as a tidal wave, or a snake, or something you may be resisting. This is because full sexual bliss floods the whole body, releasing tensions, bringing peace and a healing action physically and psychologically. To achieve this, learn to let go of rigid self control and be ready to feel your emotions.

Enjoying sexual pleasure with an animal, such as being kissed or licked by a cat, is the way dreams describe your own sexual urges at their most uncomplicated and basic level. It doesn’t mean you are weird. In such dreams you are dropping the complicated social rules that usually direct how you express yourself.

The energy behind the sexual drive is enormously important. It can flow in many different ways. It not only expresses as genital sex, but also in caring for others. If it is blocked illness can result. Your dreams show in detail just how you are dealing with this most important area of your life, and what is standing in the way of satisfaction and health. Do not accept the ready made formulas of popular sexual norms. Your dreams will show your own intimate and unique needs. Remember your dreams and be enriched by them.

Having sex with friends sister or brother is a normal way of exploring what it would be like to have sex with them. But it doesn’t mean you should act on it. In dreams you are free of all the difficulties attached to having sex physically, so it is harmless in dreams, but can cause many difficulties physically and socially.

Example: Laughing and happy, the flow of pleasure to E, leading to a kiss. The deep internal pleasure of kissing gradually widened until it led to genital feeling. I realised so many things as this lovely gentle growth of feeling and flowing occurred. I realised that I and most teenagers have too much technical sex instruction, so it is portrayed as an erect penis entering the vagina. But I was seeing it wasn’t like that at all. First of all came the gradual relationship with E. As that deepened it led to touching, being happy together and kissing. The kiss, oral pleasure, was our first area of loving with our mother. From that original centre of pleasure, it grows into anal and genital pleasure. This was what was happening. Then gently the body began to move. But there was still no erection. The movement was the forerunner of the inner pleasurable urge to thrust and penetrate. So there was a slow and internal growth through escalating feelings, and not an outwardly ordained set of movements that led to “sex”!

Shade Shadow

Feelings of being in the shade, or obscured by somebody else. It may be wife, husband, or parents who make us feel inferior, and in their shadow. Usually something is standing in our way, in the sense of not enabling us to see the light, or gain understanding. A shadow is also a symbol for the unconscious activities that sometimes control actions. So a shadow can depict inner feelings seldom expressed. A shadow can also be a sign of coming events, the shadows cast from the future. This is because we often see someone’s shadow before we see them.

Idioms: Afraid of one’s shadow; shades of; shadow of one’s former self; worn to a shadow. See Archetype of the Shadow – Shadowy Figure

Shaking

Shaking someone suggest a mild sort of aggression; or could be that you want to wake them or to shake some sense into them. See vibrate

Shaman

See: medicine man shamanGuru.

Shampoo

This symbolises the effort to forget, or get over something or someone. To be rid of longings, ideas or emotions. To cleanse sexual feelings. See: Hair.

Shapes and Symbols

These are a visual presentation of our own internal or psychological structure. Because the mind and emotions in some ways appear so abstract, it is difficult to have a clear image of our differences compared with other people; or to see changes which occur through maturing. Shapes, symbols and patterns give us a clear image of our inner world. See example in spiral below; Inner World.

Centre or middle: Emphasises the importance of the thing, person or animal in that position. It can indicate conflict where the middle is between opposites or obstruction when something might be in the middle of the road, corridor, etc. Or it could be feelings of being involved, when in the middle of a crowd for instance.

When something is in the middle of a circle or square can represent contact or awareness of you core self or Spirit.

If it is a centre such as a garden or educational center: Use things like Easy Dream Undestanding to define the dream and its meaning.

If you are in the middle of something such as an exam or love making: Use things like Easy Dream Understanding and Talking As

Idioms: Middle of the road; piggy in the middle; centre of attention.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the middle or centre mean to you?

What is this the center of? Use Talking As to define.

Does this represent the unchanging core of myself, beyond thoughts and feelings?

Am I tapping into the unseen power behind my life?

See Acting on your dream and Easy Dream Understanding

Circle or round: Yourself; personal identity; wholeness; it suggests a good harmony between all the aspects of your being – thus a feeling of pleasure, centeredness and openness, physical, mental and spiritual; may be used to depict the Self; eternity; female sexuality; ‘the same dull round’ of routine suggested by Blake, in which one might be trapped if there is no alternative; if the circle is irregular, suggests imbalance or lack of harmony. See: ring.

The crescent is also a sign connectedwith Islam.

Crescent: Femininity; the vagina; the process of feminine creativity.

The significance of the changing pattern of dreaming during the menstrual cycle has not been appreciated by either women or men. Just as the moon goes through phases when it appears to be full and bright but gradually diminishes to a narrow crescent shape only to return again to its state of illuminated wholeness, so too does a woman manifest a waxing and waning of various personality traits during her lunar-cycle dreams. The crescent shape in dreams sometimes depicts a woman’s sexuality and openness to mating; receptiveness.

Jo Jean Boushahla in the book Dream Dictionary says ‘A new moon or a crescent moon show a time of feeling at one with our internal spiritual self. It is a time for deep inner reflection’.

Crescent moon: The beginning or ending of something to do with ones feelings or inner life.

Example: One morning I was allowed to go with my mother to the baker’s shop and there I received a crescent roll from the baker’s wife. I did not eat the roll but carried it proudly in my hand. Only my mother and the baker’s wife were present, so I was the only man.”  Such crescents are popularly called “moon-teeth,” and this symbolic allusion to the moon underlines the dominating power of the feminine-a power to which the little boy may have felt exposed and which, as the “only man,” he was proud of being able to confront. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.

Idioms: Go round in circles; come full circle; vicious circle; circle of influence/friends.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What were my feelings in the dream with the crescent?

What associations do I have with a crescent shape?

As I think about the dreamt of crescent what images or thoughts occur?

Cross: Difficulties or tribulations we carry, perhaps unnecessarily; human life and its whole spectrum of experience, physical, sexual, mental emotional, cosmic – painful and delightful; wrongness as with tick being correct, cross being wrong or forbidden; completion as when crossed off list; the body, upon which consciousness is nailed or fixed during life.

If cross upright as + : Being upright; correct; self assertion; balanced.

If cross as X : The four extremities; reaching out; crossing out. Like the square, it can also represent wholeness, solidity, especially if the arms are equal length. See: crossing.

Diamond: Choices or direction, like the compass needle.

Line: Distance; movement; movement in space or time; a dividing force, or a division such as a boundary. This is expressed in the phrases ‘At this point I draw the line’ – ‘This is the bottom line’. If there is a suggestion of this in the dream, someone drawing a line for instance, then it suggests their decisiveness, or their boundary. Tangled line: Changes and decisions in life; indecision or confusion. Zigzag line: Movement; change; the basic pleasure or achievement of leaving ones mark.

Mandala: This is any circle or square within which shapes, objects or other symbols appear. The mandala can be a square garden with round pond in it – square with circle in, etc. It depicts what we have done with our life, what qualities or balance we have achieved through our own effort or self responsibility. It shows whether we have dared meet the darkness and light in our nature and bring balance; whether we have found the courage to have our boundaries of thought and viewpoint split asunder by a greater vision or despair, and what we have done with the pieces of wonder and pain we have found. If The mandala often appears as a form of compensation also. In this sense it is a spontaneous attempt at bring order and integration at times when our mental and emotional life may be very shattered and disconnected. See: compensation theory; spiral below; mandala; yoga and dreams.

Oblong: An area of our experience – might be sex, mind, etc.; boundaries of our awareness or what we dare let ourselves experience; physical reality; oneself contained within the boundaries of our experience and social and personal constraints.

Octagon: Because 8 is deeply symbolical the octagon is found in baptisteries as a symbol representing eternal life and also renewal. It can also indicate the interplay between earth and heaven. It also represents the future state we can move to or grow into. So it is like an ascending spiral which returns to the same position but in a higher form – like an ascending an actave.

The eighth step on the stairway Mohammed took ascending to heaven was a sea of angels.

Patterns Concepts or realisations, are made up of inter-blending pieces of information and experience; the order or chaos of our inner world of thoughts and feelings; the patterns we live by, such as habits, and beliefs; insight into the cycles or patterns underlying human and animal life; the actual patterns of ones pulse and breathing – these may be represented by patterns of dots for the pulse, or wavy or short lines may represent breathing.

Round: See: circle round above.

Shapeshifter: The shape shifter is the part of you that has lived through every experience from conception through to where you are at the moment. It doesn’t have a face or even a recognisable shape because it can be any age and in fact anything. What part it plays in your dream is that it says, “Do not get lost in being just one shape, just one age, just being the body, because I am a shape shifter.” See ShapeShifter

Sphere or ball: Wholeness; your whole being – body, soul and spirit; eternity; female sexuality an ‘all round’ view or a rounded character.

Ball: Interaction between two people, sexual and otherwise – the ‘ball’ is in your court – in that throwing the ball may show someone trying to get ones attention and response.

Ball games or being thrown a ball: Challenges, prowess, competition in the game of life; having and letting go; sex play; masturbation; a man’s ‘balls’; wholeness.

Idioms: Have a ball; ball at ones feet; ones eye on the ball; start the ball rolling; new ball game; play ball with someone; he has/hasn’t the balls. See: the self under archetypes; games.

Spiral: Things we repeat over and over like habits; movement towards greater awareness or insight.

Example: ‘We walk around, go upstairs, and I notice a staircase leading to a room or rooms. The stairs are painted in the green too, and they go up square, about eight steps in a flight, but round and round – spiral. I am scared by them, don’t want to go up, but am curious. We move in and nobody but myself has really taken any notice of the stairs. Nobody has been up. Half way up I can see there is a glass roof, the wooden frames painted green. I am terrified but have to go on. Then I wake. Next dream I got up there. It smelt very musty. Lots of draw sheets covering things. I bent to lift a sheet. It was raining. I could hear it thrashing on the glass. Then I woke.’ Ann H.

In this example we have the spiral and the square combined in the stairs. In this way the dream manages to combine many different ideas such as climbing to the unknown, spiralling or circling something, and the squareness or down to earth nature of what is being discovered. There are things we have learned, yet not realised consciously. Like a jigsaw puzzle, we have all the pieces, and we sense the connection, but we have never formed it into a conscious thought or verbal idea. It therefore remains as a feeling sense or hunch, but not a rational idea. Ann is spiralling toward, or circling around such a realisation. She is frightened because it may be difficult – one may realise that all the years of marriage, for example, point to having been used as a door-mat.

Square: Down to earth; reality; the physical experience; stability; the materialising of an idea, feeling or plan.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s diagram of the man in the circle within the square represents a complete balance of the various aspects of human nature – as he may have achieved himself. See: mandala above; mandala.

A circle within a square can indicate the human instinctive search to find balance or harmony between our physical experience and our spiritual nature.

Star: Aspiration; the spiritual aspect of self. Six pointed: Personal harmony between physical, mental and spiritual. Five pointed star: Ones body, oneself and ones sensed kinship with all life. 

Triangle: Oneself being capable of ‘standing’; the three major aspects of human nature – body, personal experience, and impersonal consciousness; similar to the number three – See: Three.

The triangle with point upwards: Depicts the physical aspects of human nature moving toward the personal or conscious.

Triangle with point downwards: The areas of consciousness moving toward physical expression.

Triangles linked in Star of David: Complete balance in human nature.

Sometimes: The points of the triangle are used to represent three stages of human development of awareness. The first is undifferentiated or preconscious stage. Two the sense of individuality, feeling ‘otherness’ in regard to the world. Three is the relationship of the self to the ‘other’ in people and the world.

Shapeshifter or Shape Shifter

The shape shifter is the part of you that has lived through every experience from conception through to where you are at the moment. It doesn’t have a face or even a recognisable shape because it can be any age and in fact anything. What part it plays in your dream is that it says, “Do not get lost in being just one shape, just one age, just being the body, because I am a shape shifter.”

A man who was practising relaxation said that one day while practising he lost all his body awareness, and seemed to fall into a huge space where his ego felt as if it melted into a vast ocean of consciousness. He realised afterwards that he had fallen asleep while maintaining awareness, rather like a deep-sea diver breaking through the surface of the sea and diving into the depths.

Science still cannot define what consciousness is, or what mind is. But such experiences as those mentioned suggest that in some way, when we move beyond the boundaries of our senses, our mind leaps beyond time and space. It is at its core it is a shape shifter, male, female, animal, and in all probability whatever else we can make of it. It is as mysterious and wonderful as life itself. Huge Change HappeningDimensions of Human Experience

You are a shapeshifter in dreams, and can be any of the characters in your dream. That is how you get their power and wisdom. The femaleness or maleness we usually feel ourselves to be must not be confused with personality. The conscious personality is a very flexible and shape shifting thing. It can be male, female, animals or any thing, a tree or just Life itself – for here in shapeshifting we can get to know our whole range of experience..

But maturing into a real shape-shifter is not done by acting it out by trying to be the opposite sex. Integrating our opposite does not mean dressing up in male or female clothes, or even having an operation. That is further developing an unbalanced self. Integration means having both the female and the male self equally developed. That is wholeness. So, being firmly male, female or homosexul are all unbalanced. It takes courage and hard work to achieve being the being without form. See Life’s Little SecretsDimensions of Human ExperienceArchetype of the Shapeshifter

Example: My dream starts with myself and couple of other people next to a fire. I notice a rat beside the fire; it tries to scurry off into the darkness. Next moment I am an owl swooping down upon the rat, I catch it in both my claws, swooping back up in the air. At this point I notice the entire dream is in an old building almost like a barn, with thick wooden rafters. I circle the fire just below the rafters; I notice one of the people beside the fire is my brother. I also come to the realisation that I am the owl, which I am very proud of. It is like I am a shape shifter and have been trying to transform into owl form for a long time. I also want to show my brother I have caught the rat, so I land and start to change into human form. I try to show my brother the rat but I cannot look at him. I try to a couple times to look at him but just can’t. I haven’t fully changed yet either, as there are still a few feathers on me. This is when I wake up face down into the pillow. I feel positive about this dream.

Example: I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs.

When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and jumped into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs and demon face. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Shark

A trickster, swindler, or desire to swindle. A threat from within, such as a desire to hit or hurt someone that will or may destroy us, our self respect. Fear of death; fear of the collective unconscious, or loss of self in the impersonal Whole or All; the power of the unconscious – so also its protectiveness; someone who is a ‘shark’ or unscrupulous.

Sharp

See: Razor.

Shave Shaving

It might mean becoming faceless. But for men it is often a task performed to help them feel respectable, so it might have those feelings involved

Many males feel inadequate in today’s world, and so have a trouble feeling proud of their masculinity – many men shave all their hair of trying to make themselves more like a female.

Shaving vagina: Women often shave their pubic area for similar reason as the male, also there is a great taboo in the West to showing any pubic hair or under arm hair, so it might involve feelings about being coarse.

 Example: My wife, a younger woman and I were outdoors in a field. The woman was of slight but athletic build with reddish hair. All three of us became close physically and started to get involved sexually. The woman put my hand on her vagina. It was shaved and I could feel the crack. This so annoyed my wife she walked away, fuming.  The woman said to me that it was silly to be so indirect as my wife. The right way to be was open and direct as she was. I said all I could observe was that she had deeply hurt my wife, and I didn’t see where ‘honest’ came into it.

Example: In my dream I told my daughter, who has a hairdresser, to perm my hair.  When I saw the finished result I told her to shave it all off.  We laughed about the dream.  10 days later when cleaning, I fell over the Bannister’s and hurt my head.  I was taken to hospital and the first thing they did was to shave my head.

See: Hair.

Sheep

Conformity; feeling or being ‘one of the herd’; blind following of a leader or others; the aspects of oneself that are the same as other human beings; sheep may depict the way me might be led into situations, sometimes awful, by conforming to prevailing attitudes and social pressures; a passive female; vulnerability; sexual feelings about females.

Black sheep: Someone, or you, that has not lived up to expectations, or do not fit into the usual standards of the group attitude. An outsider, or one judged to be. It used to be said about the son or daughter of a church minister who did not live up to the moral standards expected by the father.

Caring for sheep: Being a leading figure, or helping people to grow, perhaps spiritually.

Herd of sheep, or sheep in rural setting: Innocence; natural feelings and peace; quietness of mind; the custom of following a leader instinct in us.

Lost sheep: The lost sheep is a very old and wonderful symbol as told in the parable of the one sheep that had wandered away from safety. It is about either caring for someone or something that has lost its way in life, or is about you,

Sheep being attacked by dog or wolf etc: This might reflect feelings of difficulty in dealing with other people’s aggression or the world in general. It could also be about trying to develop an approach to the play of forces around and with in you – active/passive; passive/aggressive.

EXAMPLE: “I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD.” Brian C.

In the example Brian is not only aware of the sheep, but also THE Shepherd. The sheep is his experience of being one of the crowd and the Shepherd is his sense of his own unique potential or love transforming his ordinariness. But remember that the shepherd cares for the sheep to provide food for him and others. He is carer and killer. See: shepherd.

EXAMPLE: A young female sheep wanted to make love with me. We were rubbing our heads together vigorously – like a dog does when playing. Someone, a woman, was going to cleanse its vagina, perhaps by injecting disinfectant. It seemed we would have sex. Arthur C.

IDIOMS: Make sheep’s eye at someone; follow like a sheep; being sheepish.

Useful questions and hints:

What is my dream sheep doing that I can identify in my waking life?

Do I have a tendency to be a follower or a leader, and what is shown in the dream about this?

Am I in some sort of caring or leading situation in the dream, and is this a reflection of my life?

Am I active or passive in life and sex?

Shell Shell Fish Shells

Sometimes represents self or inner self. Or the shell we crawl into for protection against the world. See: Oyster; Clam.

There are tides and cycles in our lives, tides that are not a destructive force acting upon us. They are the energies of spring, bringing the possibility of new growth. The only destruction is of shells we have formed from last season’s growth that are now too small and must be left behind. And if you identify with the shell of the past, if you believe it is your home and your security in a changing world, then you have misunderstood who you are. For you are not the shell of your body, or even the decorations of the mind and its beliefs. You are the formless spirit of life that gave that shell its shape and beauty. Only in that spirit of life is there any security. And that spirit is like the wind, you can feel it and it moves you, yet you can never hold it in your hand and posses it.

I guess you know that Life began in the seas and at first was single celled creatures, but after immense passage of time and tremendous Earth changes became many celled creatures. The conch shell in Eastern cultures represents life as it has come out of life-giving waters. So it is an expression of Life itself, shaped with immense art and beauty, and as a shell is the imprint or beauty of a life that has left it ‘shell’ behind and travelled through many lives leaving its shells behind. So it may be a wonderful picture of the many lives that you, still living in a shell, has left as imprints on Life’s memory.

Example: I suppose you are familiar with the Camino de Santiago and the scallop shell:

Shell as in armament: A possibly explosive situation; stored anger or violence that can be launched into an attack.

Shepherd

Being in contact with instinctive or feeling reactions in you – the sheep; the Self. A carer and support – especially for those less capable than the shepherd/oneself. Also the ability to care for or lead a group. See: farmer; Archetype of the Christ.

There are several possibilities here depending on the character of your dream. It is also linked with the age old image of the Good Shepherd, the guide and shepherd of human souls, caring and watching over their wanderings. It can therefore indicate unconditional love transcending human life. It can also be a very down to earth image of looking after your basic needs.

It can therefore indicate unconditional love transcending human life. But remember that the shepherd cares for the sheep to provide food for him and others. He is carer and killer.

 Example: I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD.

Example: The shepherd has a staff. He takes the staff and reaches out beyond the periphery of the cave to the pew in the church where I am kneeling and crooks the staff around my neck, pulling me inside the cave. At first I am frightened and pull away from him. I tug at the staff but it is no use and I am drawn inside the cave. Once there I am a different person… everything inside me seems to be connected and I feel very sure of my actions. I reach down into the cradle of straw and cuddle the Baby in my arms. His Mother smiles her approval but as she does so her smile changes into that of the Hermit and then into the cherubic face of the small Baby God … they are all one… I am deeply moved and wake up crying.

Shield

Desire for protection, or to protect.

Shine

See: Glow.

Ship

This often represents your feelings about your journey through life and what you meet. It can also show what is happening in a relation-ship. In some dreams it may show hopes of change, new things. See: Boat.

Shipwreck is personal breakdown, being unable to cope with life.

Shirt Blouse

Feelings and emotions to do with your public image. See: Clothes.

There are many different types of blouse or shirt. Some are connected with work, with leisure, with being attractive, or with practical use, such as a T-shirt or work shirt. So it is helpful to define what you feel the shirt or blouse links with, then consider what it says about that facet of your life. Also it might be the shirt or blouse in the dream is inappropriate for the situation or setting. In which case see Inappropriate clothes.

If you dream of a discarded shirt or blouse see Discarded clothes.

Idioms: Stuffed shirt; shirt sleeves – informal; get your shirt in a knot; give you the shirt off his back; lose your shirt; stuffed shirt.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why is the shirt or blouse a special feature in my dream, and what does this tell me?

What does the shirt or blouse add to or take away from what I feel in the dream?

Does the style or age of the shirt or blouse tell me something about its meaning?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Shit Shitting

See: Toilet Excrement – Compost.

Shiver Shivering

Fear or conflict; excitement such as held back sexual passion; getting near to release of unconscious material.

If it  is in a dream, it is probably the onset of release of emotions, or LifeStream. See People’s Experience of LifeStream

Idioms: Give one the shivers; send shivers up one’s spine.

 

Shoes

Shoes in general suggest the situation you are in or a position in life. They can also indicate your character or chosen way of life through what type of shoe – a plain shoe, a fancy  expensive shoe, an impractical and painful shoe.

With the right shoes we can walk in places we could only manage with great difficulty barefoot, so they can show you the character traits, life skills and strategies you have developed to deal with rough life situations.

Example: I put on boots to go outside on the raft. There’s something out there. It’s a pet, but scary too. I realize (again), that I must wear foot coverings because of possible poison things I could step on, but they’ve been stolen along with my can opener and other survival, important items. I go out pretending my bare feet are covered. I look out over the water. It’s cold, deep, and dangerous. B.S.

In some dreams shoes point out what direction you are taking in your attitudes – i.e. formal dancing shoes in a discotheque would suggest outmoded approach, so the shoes can show a way of life.

Some shoes are worn by particular social groups, for instance D.M’s are a cult shoe, and so – for instance – can stand for young women who do not want to conform with previous female stereotypes.

Barefooted: Going through a rough patch in life if walking is difficult, or feeling unprepared to meet your present life situation. Letting go of the everyday duties and responsibilities, or feeling in contact with nature and your life situation if enjoying it. Feeling embarrassed about not being ‘properly’ dressed, or that you are not conforming.

You might also have taken shoes off to walk quietly so as not to be noticed. If this is so it suggests you are trying to fade into the background in some way.

Boots: If male boots, usually about ability to meet difficult life situations, but practical and maybe not fashionable. Also strength and being down to earth practical.

If female boots they often connect with feelings about looking good, attractive or sexy.

Sport boots as with football boots, indicate the skill to be part of a team or handle ‘the ball’ – the challenges of life – well. One can also be ‘given the boot’.

Boots can also be used as a weapon to kick with, so at times can be used in a dream to show fear of violence or desire to hurt.

Clogs: Something slowing you down or making you clumsy. Perhaps is a wordplay on being clogged physically or mentally.

High heels: Feeling less secure in your footing in life. Feeling in an uncomfortable life situation. Feeling, or wanting to feel sexually attractive.

Gym shoes/boots: Ability to be sure footed in what you are undertaking. Feeling comfortable in yourself. If they are being worn in a formal situation it suggests you might be taking a too nonconformist approach to something.

In female dream: In many women’s dreams shoes are shown as a fashion accessory – matching other clothes. So this links with an awareness or sensitivity about how you appear.

Jogging shoes: See: Gym shoes.

Large shoes: Taking an attitude or role you are not quite big enough a person to fill – or having an attitude you can grow into – depending on feelings in dream.

Losing shoes: Not being clear about the right attitude or approach to your situation, or situation shown in dream. It can also suggest losing, or losing sight of the skills or strength to manage what you face. For instance you might to feel at ease or confident meeting someone if you didn’t have any shoes on, and this type of dream points to exactly that type of feeling.

Example: I am not wearing anything on my feet. This really troubles me, as I see myself searching endlessly for my shoes. For example I am at school, although nobody is looking at me, I feel inwardly embarrassed without my shoes.  Debra

Low heels: Comfortable way of life or attitudes. Practical approach to a situation

New shoes: A new start, new direction or a new attitude or way of dealing with what you are meeting in life.

Odd shoes: Two different not compatible ways of dealing with a situation. Being ill equipped to do what you are confronting, or feeling clumsy or in conflict about something. Perhaps making use of old ways of dealing with life that do not ‘fit’ the present needs or the person you are now.

Old shoes: This is either about an outworn way of life, or one that is known, comfortable and really fits you – depending on the dream.

Reversed shoes – the right shoe in my left foot and the left shoe in my right foot: Feeling confused, almost a reveresal to childhood, so still learninng the bestway to present yourself. An uncomfortalbe  situation.

Sandals: Lack of formality or a relaxed way of dealing with life. It could suggest inappropriate attitudes in some dreams where they are not suitable for what you are walking over.

Shoes from different roles i.e. nurses shoes: May indicate our need for the qualities of that role.

Shoes not fitting: Trying to live with the wrong attitude or approach. An ill fitting situation in life or in a relationship. Something not right.

Shoes without anyone wearing them: This can suggest the presence of an unseen, lost or dead person. It can also indicate a way of life you have left behind – the person you were.

Slippers: Depends on how they appear – in a hospital scene, a home scene, as an expression of being helpless – Consider the feelings in the surrounding dream scenes to understand their meaning. Sometimes points to attitudes that are not functional or appropriate in the given life situation.

Sole of shoe: one’s inner feelings, or the way you meet the rough parts of life experience.

Someone else’s shoes: Trying out a different way of life, copying someone else’s style, or perhaps you feel impoverished in your own life style or direction.

Taking off or discarding shoes: Leaving the past or an old way of life behind; dropping a long established role; being open to change; relaxing as you emerge from a situation or attitude, as when you might kick off your shoes at a party or in a relationship. See: nude.

Tight shoes: An uncomfortable or painful life situation, or one that you do not have a large enough understanding of or attitudes to deal with.

Work shoes: Denotes something you are working at or giving effort to. This is usually to do with changes you are making, either in yourself or outer life.  This only seldom relates to the actual work you do. The work shoes, the meaning depends on what work the shoes are for.

Idioms: Be in someone else’s shoes; don’t criticise your brother until you walk a mile in his moccasins; if the shoe fits, wear it; fill his shoes; the shoe is on the other foot; shoes like boats;.

Useful questions:

What type of shoes are they – babies shoes, working shoes, dancing shoes – define them and this leads to what they are suggesting?

What is the quality of the shoes, and what does this suggest about the way I am dealing with life?

Do the shoes depict a particular role, such as business or soldier?

If these are old shoes, what phase of your life might they link with, or what do they show they have been through?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Shooting Shot

A hurt received, or given. Fears or worries about death. The destruction of a part of yourself by another which is demanding energies in an aggressive way.

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there without the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us.

But whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.

Being shot: A traumatic injury to feelings, often out of parental or other close relationship. It need not be something dramatic like being assaulted, but can be a quiet injury like not bonding emotionally with parents, or feeling as if you have been a target for other peoples ridicule. Occasionally a bullet wound suggests some sort of illness in the part of the body indicated. It can often depict critical remarks that are deeply wounding. So the criticism is felt as an attack.

But being shot can also indicate penetration, the breaking through your barriers of old patterns of thinking and feeling, to allow something more into your life. It may be painful but growing or being enlarged is often like that.

Someone or something else shot: Still usually refers to dreamer.

Dreamer shooting someone or something: Anger; fear or defence against meeting feelings or insights; being very critical; aggressive sexuality; exploring feelings about death.

Idioms: Get shot of; shot across the bows; shot in the arm; all shot to pieces; shot in the dark.

See Attack Attacked AttackerActive Passive

Shop Shopping

Often represents the possibilities in life, the decisions you can make, the variety of attitudes or activities you can choose from, or something you are searching for.

It can also involve decision making and wondering what you can afford.

Example: “The shop is the special place. When you were a child the shop was full of wonders. When you bring people to love, you bring them to special wonders in themselves. Love can expressed through the most ungracious activities. Everything in life can be a means of expressing it”.

Idioms: Shop around; set up shop; shut up shop; talk shop; closed shop.

See: charity shop; shopkeeper under roles.

 

Shopkeeper

May relate to work if dreamer works in shop or store; relates to how one supplies one’s needs – or who supplies one’s needs – therefore might show feelings about parents. It might throw light on how you gain your needs from other people or decisions about what you want from life or others.

The owner of a shop is a trader, and probably represent your interest in buying and selling. As such it may indicate skills in handling people, knowing their needs and interests, dealing with money, skill in displaying goods, having a wide experience of people, a sense of new trade opportunities, and often a pride in their speciality.

Shorts

This is often associated with relaxed, casual attitudes or being in a warm sunny environment outdoors, or with showing ones attractive legs – or revealing ones unattractive legs.

In some dreams it relates to athletic activity, and so might suggest something to do with competition, health, or exercise.

Frequently shorts link with sexual feelings in some dreams. These may be easy or difficult feelings. The short might play the role of what we reveal or express to others.

Example: I’m in my room, making out with my ex-boyfriend, who is now my best friend. He is pressing me against the wall, kissing me. All I’m wearing is a pair of shorts and a bikini top. He also gives me a hickey on my collarbone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the environment I am wearing the shorts in and what does that suggest?

How am I feeling about the shorts, and does this give me a clue to what they express about myself?

How do I feel about my legs showing?

Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Shoulder

Strength; ability to support self or others. To let someone cry on our shoulder is to support or help them to unburden themselves through the strength of sympathy and the ability to help. Shoulder to the wheel also represents putting influence, strength or weight into something. Ability to take the burdens of life.

Shoulders

These often link to themes of strength or contact with another person in the dream. They express the ability to bear or to carry whatever life brings. Again and again the words ‘head on my shoulder’ or ‘arms around their shoulders’ appear in people’s dreams, suggesting warmth, friendship, but perhaps not full intimacy.

Another frequent theme is the person touching you – or you touching someone – on the shoulder. What is depicted here is someone trying to get your attention or make contact in a gentle and acceptable way.

The size of the shoulder features sometimes, and depicts the sense of strength you have about yourself or the character of the person in the dream. So large shoulders show a lot of strength to hold, carry or support someone, or to accomplish something. Small shoulders suggest the opposite.

Idioms: cold shoulder; have broad shoulders; shoulder to the wheel; shoulder to cry on; rub shoulders with; chip on the shoulder; lay the blame on your shoulders; straight from the shoulder; head and shoulders above; look over your shoulder; shoulder to shoulder.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream suggesting contact or support – and how does that connect with my life at present?

Is something happening to link with carrying someone or something, and am I managing it?

Is something or someone trying to get my attention – if so can I link this with my waking life?

It might help to read Acting on your dream and Characters and People in Dreams

Shovel Spade

Digging in to your unconscious; the techniques you are using to uncover your past experience or what is unconscious and therefore buried.

Shower

A way of changing or shifting ones feelings; cleansing irritations or emotions that cloud ones inner life. See: bath.

Showroom

This suggests feelings either of looking for something, working at something or showing an aspect of yourself as in the example.

A showroom might also show how you show yourself to other people, what impression you are giving or want to give.

Example: I work in a store/sales showroom with Harry Anderson – it’s a big place, I guess it’s full of furniture, big things, high ceilings. It’s early, just about time for customers, and I need to change clothes just as people are starting to come in. I take off what I’ve got on and people look at me funny – including Harry, and I’m rather concerned about that. Harry and I are good friends, maybe even lovers or close to it. I really care what he thinks, and he really cares about me. There may be something wrong here. Maybe they’re uncomfortable with me being nude, but it’s really not so unusual. I’m somewhat self-conscious, but I won’t be out here long – I’m gonna go back in the office/private area and get some clean clothes. I get a T-shirt, but it’s got something on it so I pull it off and get another one. I need to go back out for something and wonder if I should go now with just the T-shirt on, or put some pants on first. I’m thinking the customers might be uncomfortable if I didn’t. Alta

Shrink

Losing power and impressiveness, changing relationship with things. Possibly shows a return to childhood feelings or perspective.

If other things shrink: They are becoming less threatening or interesting, or play less important part in ones life; are seen as connected with the unconscious, aspects of which are often seen as of ‘little’ significance, yet are full of the sort of power which motivates or undermines our resolves.

Sick Vomiting

Discharge of feelings and ideas that your system finds irritating or poisonous to well-being.

The feeling of having thought, felt, or expressed things that do not agree with your real feelings. Discharge of disturbing but usually unconscious feelings.

We each have an important physiological and psychological function called homeostasis or self-regulation. It is the most important process of the body and mind’s natural function and is used to balance, maintain and heal us and expresses as sneezing, vomiting, crying or laughing. If the self-regulatory processes of your being ceased its action you would be dead in a very short time. Even a brisk walk causes such enormous changes in the body it would kill you without the action of self-regulation. The production of lactic acid, unchecked, would destroy the system. Also, the drop in blood sugar, unless balanced by the release of glucose from the storage in tissues and liver, would result in your collapse.

Often, in dreams, nightmares and dreaming of vomiting it shows signs of a last ditch attempt to bring up and discharge disturbing emotions or trauma. Vomiting takes place because we have an inbuilt defence system that does its best when our body is attacked or injured to deal with, repair or balance to deal with what caused the injury. The process is called homeostasis- meaning any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. Or, if we put something harmful in us the process sicks it out again.

But textbooks seldom mention that the process is also active psychologically and is often called self-regulation. Jung, Hadfield, and people like Caldwell and Wilhelm Reich, have often writing about self-regulation active in the mind and emotions.  Hadfield in his book writes, “Dreams are compensatory or ‘self-regulatory’. Hadfield says of this, “There is in the psyche an automatic movement toward readjustment, towards an equilibrium, toward a restoration of the balance of our personality. This automatic adaptation of the organism is one of the main functions of the dream as indeed it is of bodily functions and of the personality as a whole. This idea need not cause us much concern for this automatic self-regulating process is a well-known phenomenon in Physics and Physiology. The function of compensation which Jung has emphasised appears to be one of the means by which this automatic adaptation takes place, for the expression of repressed tendencies has the effect of getting rid of conflict in the personality. For the time being, it is true, the release may make the conflict more acute as the repressed emotions emerge, and we have violent dreams from which we wake with a start. But by this means, the balance of our personality is restored.”  See Self-regulation – Psychological Vomiting

If sick in the sense of illness. See: Illness

 

Side

Something on the side is something that is not real pleasure, or real work, not your greatest aim or goal. It is not directly confronting you, but may be a support in some way. A side issue.

Sidewalk

See: Pavement.

Sight

See: Eyes.

Sign Signed Signature

Your agreement. The mark you leave in the world, or what you will to happen. The influence you put into operation, perhaps out of sight of yourself.

Silence

Uneasiness; unspoken feelings; expectancy; being unable to voice your feelings; condoning; absence of life – death; the silence – non existence or void – out of which personal life emerges. An opening to intuition.

Silver

Old precious or sad memories or intuitions. Things from the past that can be precious or tarnished.

Silver cord: A great deal has been written about a silver cord that is supposed to link the physical body with an astral or spirit form. As in the manner of all dream imagery, this is a symbol representing the connection or harmony of the two, and should not be taken to be a literally real thing. It has arisen out of the view that we have a distinctly separate physical and astral body, a view that arose out of our materialistic view of life. Recent investigations of this show that we create, when we are in this image mode of our inner experience, what is called a residual image of who we are. This means we create out of our beliefs, an image representing ourself. This has no validity outside of our own beliefs, self image and concepts. See: out of body experiences. See: Moon.

Sing

Sense of harmony with others or self. An expression of some inner harmony.

Sink Sinking

The feeling of losing your control of circumstances or a relationship. Loss of confidence or feeling overwhelmed by emotions.

Sinking can also mean the sense of not developing or of succeeding at anything.

Sinking into darkness or water also has a similar sense – being overwhelmed by despair. But they are simply emotions and can only claim you if you believe they are true – but you are the surviving member of ancient line of people who survived hunger, death, defeat, loneliness and all the troubles that humans are heir to – yet you survived , so live with hope. See Emotions and Mood and Emotions and Mood in Dreams

Sister

Relationships and feelings concerning a sister. She may represent qualities in yourself, but which ones depends upon how you feel about her, what age she is in relationship to yourself, and whether you are her brother or sister.

So she may depict your feeling self, or the lesser expressed part of self; rivalry; feelings of kinship.

In brother’s dream – younger sister: Vulnerable emotions; rival for love of parents. Older sister: Capable feeling self.

In sister’s dream – younger sister: One’s experiences at that age; vulnerable feelings; rival for parents love. Older sister: Capable feeling self; feelings of persecution.

Six

The symbol of this is the double triangle, or circle divided in six. It represents symmetry, unity of spirit and body, the visible and invisible. It is the harmonious relationship between man and God, spirit and body, the eternal and the transitory. Its sign is Virgo which expresses as craftsman or critic. It is a sign of service and rules the intestines. The sixth house rules health.

It can sometimes indicate the sixth sense, intuition and the psychic, as the following dream indicates.

Example: I had a dream that I was walking along with my sister in almost a zoo / animal sanctuary and we suddenly were under threat (by what, I am not sure). Feeling threatened my sister and I tried to help the animals around us get to safety and I ended up with 6 grey baby owls. They were all different sizes but small and needy. We took them to a house I presume I was staying in and set up a room for them but the moment I sat down and set them down… they came cuddling back up to me. So I carried them around until my dream changed to some social setting at a party.

The owls are often representing intuition and ability to see things others cannot see – so intuition and being psychic.

Also six can be word play for sex, a subtle way to remind us of sexual issue without being obvious.

Idioms: Sixes and sevens; six of the best; hit for six.

 

Skate Skating

Sense of balance and proportion in life. Skill in keeping balanced in a difficult circumstance. See: Ice.

Skeleton

Death, fear of, desire for. Hidden fears. The past. Secret annoyance.

This is often evoking feelings about death, but it can be about your own ability or basic strength – your bones. If it is about death it is a way that helps us find a fuller relationship with this fact of life. Look around, death is everywhere – people, dead leaves, withered flowers, and dead wood, even suns die – and at the same time life is everywhere as well in growing things, living people, animals and plants. The two are inseparable, and constantly revolving around each other. Death follows life and life follows death. Where do you fit into that?

Sometimes it indicates feelings or talents you have ‘killed off’ or allowed to die, or secrets you have tried to bury – skeleton in the cupboard. Or we often carry fears of illness or negative feelings about death within us, and these are active forces of the mind and emotions that undermine our health and a dream might present them as a skeleton or charnel pit.

Look around, death is everywhere – people, dead leaves, withered flowers, and dead wood, even suns die – and at the same time life is everywhere as well in growing things, living people, animals and plants. The two are inseparable, and constantly revolving around each other. Death follows life and life follows death. Where do you fit into that?

No plant or tree grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old, and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom in you. To explore it see Opening to Life

A seed is a return to the source of life and it/our beginnings under the sun. Consciousness on our planet started in the slime of creation, the slime we return to, to procreate. And from that slime which is a vehicle for our seed to exist in, our awareness goes through the whole process of evolution, the dividing of cells, the forming of structure and organs, the creation of a creature with gills, and on to a human type form ready to breathe air, carrying our seed onwards. See Wild Side

None of us was made from scratch. Every human being develops from the fusion of two cells, an egg and a sperm, that are the descendants of other cells. The lineage of cells that joins one generation to the next — called the germline — is, in a sense, immortal for we still have all that past in us, but our personality is formed from memories in our brain, which is new, to remember the whole you you need to dive into the unconscious. See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

Skin

This is often shown in dreams as the quality you display to others, or your awareness of someone else’s quality. This means things such as skin colour, condition of skin, whether rough or smooth, young, old, thick, thin, spots or scars, healthy or injured.

It is also your contact with the world. Through it you feel warmth or cold, wet or dry, and all the subtle interaction with other people and your environment. So to understand the dream consider what impression you have of the skin, then ask yourself how this connects with your self image, or your sense of your own quality. See Your Amazing Circle

The skin may also relate to what tactics we use to deal with others; our strength or vulnerability in feeling the impact of other people, their remarks and actions. It is our protection against the huge forces we deal with every day; for our skin deals with and destroys thousands of bacteria every day. You also may be sensitive to remarks which is known as being ‘thin skinned’, or if you are not  influenced that is called ‘having a thick skin’.

Skin is a window on your emotions also – so any disturbance can show in your dreams as spots, boils, pus or maggots erupting or other things. So what emotions – strong ones have you felt recently? It could make you feel uncertain of what people think of you, especially if you have met a new girl/boy friend.

Example: All I remember is seeing red bubbles appearing all over my skin and being scared and then one huge one bursting on my chest. R.

When it was pointed out about skin as a window on his emotions, R. replied – Well I have met a lot of new people recently and am often insecure about what I think they really think about me; also I have met a girl here but it is still early days. I have also been worried about work and think the change in location has taken me longer to adjust to than I thought it would.

A skin can also be a disguise, a cover, underneath which another you, or another person exists. In these cases the skin might suggest something you have taken on that is not really expressing your real feelings or potential. So the dream might show you pulling the skin off or even tearing it off. See Potential

Animal skin: The spontaneous level of yourself such as instincts, flight and fight, and so your animal wisdom and survival drives. If the animal is being skinned, See: skinned animal.

Rough skin: A surface impression. If this is a dream about yourself, it suggest either that you have been through difficult times and so are well worn with a rough exterior, or you feel that is how others see you.

Burnt skin: A hurt you have suffered in relationship with the outside world or people.

Maggots breaking through the skin: It shows a possibly unhealthy condition occurring in that body area. But remember dreams use the body to often represent something other than the organ or arm – see Body

Seeing through the skin: An insight into what is going on under the surface of your mind or body.

Shed skin: Like a snake, changing your old way of life, or shedding old protective attitudes. This might refer to outgrowing a stage of your life, like a spider or snake shedding its skin because it has outgrown the last one.. So a move from youth to adulthood might be shown as this in a dream. This usually leaves you feeling vulnerable for a while as you adjust to the change.

Spots, blemishes, moles: Feelings about personal failings or some sense of not being as good or acceptable as other people. Maybe a feeling that other people see you as unattractive or can see failings in you. Often links with shyness or difficulties about facing or being in the company of people. See Victim – Avoiding Being My Own 

Occasionally it could indicate that you have inner disturbances that need to be dealt with. See: Acting on your dream.

Something or Stuff on the skin: If this is a liquid or substance it could mean you have been in contact with something. As the skin absorbs all that is on it, there might be a suggestion you are taking something in that is either harmful or healing.

If it is a thing or a creature on your skin this shows you sensing an influence. What it is depends on the dream. See  Animals

Things escaping from under the skin: This usually refers to powerful emotions that you have contained for some time and an event or circumstances are now allowing to surface. This means you will be aware of them in some measure in waking.

Depending upon what it is that is escaping, it can also refer to a physical condition. For instance the following dream refers to a virus the dreamer has.

I have had the same dream as I fall asleep for several years. I have it nearly every night just once, sometimes, rarely, twice as I fall asleep. I dream that I find a dried piece of skin or scab somewhere on my body, usually my foot or my hand, though it has varied over the years. I begin to pick at the skin/scab and scratch it until it comes off. When it comes off it unleashes a flood of seed spiders that engulf me. Another variation is I find some odd black hairs growing out of my body and when I examine them more closely they are regular sized spiders crawling out of me and they begin to engulf me.

Idioms: beauty is only skin deep; by the skin of your teeth; get under my skin; jump out of your skin; more than one way to skin a cat; no skin off my nose; skin alive; thick skin;.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the skin shown as protective – if so what against, and how well is it working?

Does my dream show the skin as an expression of who I am or the person is – if so what is the impression it is giving?

What qualities or racial type does the skin show – and what do I associate with that?

Try Being the Person or Thing and Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Skirt

Very often refers to sexual feelings, sexual desire, or what of those feelings you are covering up. How you express your sexuality or femininity socially. See: Clothes

More particularly sexual than dress. Colours and length say a lot about what is being done with sexuality in a social sense.

The skirt is also to do with your social presentation, as is dress, and shows how you deal with your female qualities. Is the dress one that emphasises your female characteristics, or hides them? Is it black or colourful, one to avoid notice or to attract attention? See: dress.

In male dreams the skirt is frequently about the availability or otherwise of the woman sexually.

Example: I was in a building with a number of people. Winnie, a woman I worked with many years ago was there, sitting cross legged on the floor. I went to her and kissed her. She responded and I put my hand down on her thigh under her skirt, and gently moved it under her knickers to touch her vagina. It was moist and wet with excitement and I pushed my fingers into the slippery crevice. As I did so my feelings rose in a beautiful soft and satisfying orgasm. I thought I had ejaculated, but had not.

Then I was in a street and met a dark haired young woman. We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere. Damon.

For a child, mother’s skirt or dress is about the only thing you can hold onto if you feel insecure or need to ‘hold on’ to your mother. It might therefore represent the feelings of insecurity or need for love in some dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does this skirt express in the way of other people’s response – is it serious, long, short, forbidding, attractive, colourful, etc?

What do I feel about this skirt, and where do those feelings appear in my waking life?

If there is any sexual feelings in this dream, what attitude do they express?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Skull

This often represents the life of a person now dead, perhaps from the long past. It is also a common symbol of human death, mortality and frailty.

It can also depict the old views of life we have gained form our ancestors. See The Conjuring Trick

A lit up or displayed skull: An easy acquaintance with death, or the easy memory of the person whose skull it is

Digging up skull: Possibly you are meeting feelings of death or discovering past ancestral memories; or even finding memory of part of you murdered. To- find out you could use Being the Person or Thing

.

Skunk

A skunk is fine unless you get in its way or anger it. So it can represent a ‘skunk’ around in your life. Someone or something that you feel or think could be a real stinker. But sometimes the skunk is simply there to remind you to be at peace with your neighbours or friends.

Sky

This represent your mind and the unexpected things that can come from it. It also implies moods by its brightness or dull quality. Things in the sky that are threatening or strange depict the things on your mind that distress you or stimulate anxiety.

The sky is also huge and can show what an immense potential you have.

In some dreams things come from the sky, or there are beings in the sky who influence us or offer something. This may depict the subtle influences that play in our life. For instance our ancestors influence us unconsciously through the genes they passed on to us, but also in other ways such as behaviour passed down through the generations, and also in actual physical surroundings. After all, in general our ancestors, whether personal or national, build the framework and superstructure of the world we live in today. See: Ancestors.

Slave

Not being able to get what you want in life. Chained to duty or resigned to doing what others require you to do. Could suggest a strong feelings of resignation – resignation that it was of no use wanting something in life – you couldn’t get what you wanted, to be capable of insight. So perhaps you now simply worked mechanically, efficiently to get fed and sheltered.

It could also point to being all the time under another’s rule or command, having no say in what you want and also any power of making decisions.

Slave masters or driver are the habits or pressures you might put upon yourself to drive you on. They are the sort of urges that say, “Get up and do this or you will not eat or survive.” See: slave under archetypes.

Sled Sledge

Letting go of control, pleasurable risk, exhilaration, childhood pleasure, or even going downhill.

Sleep

Sleep is best described as a return to the most basic level of awareness. As such it can be seen as the creative fount of all evolution, the source of all the fantastic changes and amazing variety of living creatures. We often feel we are unconscious in sleep, and without any awareness of having identity or personality. That is only partly true because some people have managed to carry awareness into the depths of sleep. See You Are a Dual Being – Deep in Sleep – Criticism –  Answers To

If you can understand that we always get back to our core self in sleep, and that dreams are a half way house between our core self and our personal self, we can see that dreams are a communication between the two. Also, seeing that our core self is fundamental to our existence, it suggests that while we sleep we experience death – the loss of personal awareness – and so the experience of death or near death experiences are a form of dreaming, still clinging onto the image usually of the old body we call ‘me’.

To dream of being asleep, is to be unaware of something. It is literally saying there is something you are asleep to, something you are not aware of.

Sleep is one of the most mysterious of human experiences. It is the polar opposite to waking awareness, with its focused sense of personal existence and external sensory impressions. From this point of view, there are several levels of conscious life. The first is waking awareness; the second is dreaming sleep – immersion in symbolic representation and the acceptance of these as real; the third is lucidity within a dream – the awareness of dream imagery as symbols and recognition of the symbols being personal creations and not external reality; the fourth is dreamless sleep, or awareness beyond ego, symbols, thoughts or emotion.

American sleep research laboratories in recent years have pointed out that the invention of the electric light bulb has disoriented normal sleep patterns. Millions of people suffer sleep disorders or sleep starvation. According to the National Commission On Sleep Disorders Research, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was the result of the third mate falling asleep while piloting the ship. Similarly, the melt down at the Three Mile Island atomic power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 almost led to a massive nuclear explosion, and was due to a technician being asleep and failing to hear an alarm.

40 million Americans are estimated to be chronically ill with sleep disorders. Few people recognise their condition and its cause however. Signs of it are chronic tiredness needing constant stimulants to keep going during the day; constant falling asleep during work, talks, driving, inability to wake easily in the morning. As sleep plays an equally important part in healthy long life as nutrition and exercise, it is important to assure its quality. If our pattern and quality of sleep is disturbed, we may fail to notice the influence of such drinks as coffee, chocolate and alcohol, all of which disturb sleep.

The Daily Express reported that “a nap can be spoiled by a nightcap” and that “a wee dram before bedtime…causes insomnia and robs a night’s rest of its restorative powers”. This research evaluated the impact of drinking before going to bed on heart rate and sleep. The study involved 10 university students, who were given low levels, high levels or no alcohol to drink before bed. Drinking higher doses of alcohol was found to reduce the amount of REM sleep, and resulted in a shallower sleep during the latter half of the night. It also appeared to adversely affect the part of the brain that usually controls the body during sleep. From this, the researchers concluded that the alcohol had disturbed the restorative effects of sleep.

So of course does tea or coffee, or any form of caffeine such as chocolate. People often complain of inability to sleep and yet drink many cups of tea or coffee during the day, or eve drink cocoa (cocoa is high in caffeine) type drinks as a night time sleep inducer. My findings are yet drinking several sups of tea, and particularly coffee, lessens the depth of sleep or causes massive insomnia. Taking sleeping pills to enable one to become unconscious increases the dangers.

One of the major sleep disorders is called sleep apnea. This condition causes the sufferer to stop breathing for periods of ten seconds to a minute or more. The person is therefore aroused to waking state, or near it, over and over during the night. This may underlie the recurrent nightmare some people have of feeling suffocated. This condition, if suspected, needs a doctor’s help.

Insomnia is the largest sleep disorder, and of course it covers all causes. Psychologist Peter Hauri director of the Mayo Clinic’s insomnia program and co-author, with Shirley Linde, of No More Sleepless Nights (John Wiley and Sons) says about 60% of all cases of chronic insomnia stem from mental or physical ailments. These include depression, sleep apnea and periodic limb movements (which usually involve leg jerks, repeated every few seconds for hours on end). Sleepers may awaken numerous times, but so briefly, awakenings go unremembered in the morning.

Example: Since I’ve learnt to die, living has become a different experience. I realised this while I was listening to a friend tell me how difficult it was for him to sleep. Gradually we uncovered that he has difficulty falling in love too, and also in trusting his own spontaneous feelings. In fact any area of experience which calls upon him to let go of his own self-control, his feelings or his certainty, was seen to cause him difficulties. I recognised the common factor as `death’. Lots of us, for example, call sleep “the little death”. Maybe this is because we cannot fall into sleep unless we let go of what we are thinking, of what we will, and even of the way we experience our `self’ during waking. See Opening to Life

To help oneself get a better quality of sleep if you suffer insomnia, use the following suggestions.

Keep a 24 hour record showing good and bad nights of sleep. Closely observe connections between events and sleep. Hauri says one woman suspected her insomnia was triggered by phone calls in the evening, her supervisor’s foul moods and ‘times I felt like speaking up but didn’t.’ Her log showed, however, that she slept badly only after phone calls from her fault-finding mother. No other daytime events, no matter how irritating, wrecked her nights. Develop your own insights or theories about what is causing you to sleep badly from the observations you make. Check how much coffee you drink during the day.

Hauri says chronic insomniacs sabotage their own sleep by constant fretting. The more they worry, the more they toss and turn. The worse they sleep, the more they tend to worry. Some people say their minds start to race as soon as they turn off the lights. ‘It’s not that you worry too much,’ Hauri tells them, ‘but that you do it at the wrong time.’ He suggests scheduling 30 minutes earlier in the day as worry time. Sit in a quiet place. Write each worry on a separate 3 x 5 in. card. Sort the cards into categories. Take each in turn and think about it until you decide what to do. Write that plan of action down.

A period of vigorous exercise or soaking in a hot bath also helps. Both raise core body temperature. Recent research shows that cooling down afterward helps induce and deepen sleep. The timing is important. Exercise three to six hour before bedtime. Take your bath two to three hours before; keep adding hot water as necessary to keep your temperature up.

Reserve bed just for sleep. Do not watch TV, eat or drink in bed. These hinder the habit of associating bed with sleep.

Sex is okay in bed if it leaves you feeling relaxed.

Don’t drink any caffeine or alcohol after 2pm.

Avoid napping during the day. Save sleep for bed unless you find it improves your night-time sleep.

Go to bed and get up at the same time each day. The body is like an animal that loves regular activities. Something I found helped to go to sleep was a breath exercise –

If you are involved in highly demanding creative work, sailing a boat single-handed across the Atlantic, or fighting a forest fire, break your sleep in to short chunks. Even fifteen minutes at a time can keep you going. Do not attempt complete sleep avoidance, tests have shown the drive for sleep becomes compulsive and dangerous.

See: sleep – need for; science and sleep and dreams; Breath Control the 1-4-2 Method

 

Sleep – Dangers of

When Dreams Don’t Work the Way They Should. Well it happened that way for Kenneth James Park.

“Oh my God. I think I just killed two people,” Kenneth James Parks told  Toronto police officers. He had stumbled into their station, with blood  dripping from multiple deep wounds in his hands, just before 5 a.m. on May 24,  Police found his mother-in-law stabbed to death, and his father-in-law  bleeding profusely, alive but unconscious, in their home a block away.

Parks’ hands were so severely cut that police had to stop taking his statement  and drive him to a hospital when his confused state cleared enough for him to  begin to feel the pain. The surgeon who repaired the wounds called them  “defensive.” Police deduced that Parks had grappled with his mother-in-law for  control of the kitchen knife he had used to kill her.

At his trial, Parks claimed that he had gone to sleep in his own home, 14  miles away and awakened only after the murder. He had no memory of driving to  his in-laws home or of the event itself. One of two sleep specialists who interviewed Parks and helped prepare his defence concluded that he had been sleepwalking and in a confused state at the time. They thought it was the  only reasonable diagnosis. There was no explanation. The jury judged him not guilty by reason of sleepwalking and acquitted him.

Parks’ case is an extreme example of what happens when the dream system fails.

The line between sleeping and waking blurs. The sleeper is propelled from bed  – pulled, it seems, by some strong sense of being threatened. He is partly  awake, partly asleep. He often acts violently and without conscious thought.

Our appreciation for how dreams serves to maintain emotional equilibrium in our  lives come in part from seeing what happens when dreams don’t work the way  they should.  See Reptilian Brain

Dreams are very literal. They portray in a seemingly real life event what we may be doing in a mental or emotional way. If someone is tortured by having their body injured we can all see it and respond. But if someone is tortured emotionally or mentally the wounds might not show. In our dreams however the abstract is made real. When we are wounded we dream of having a knife thrust in us. When we are sickened by what someone said or did to us we dream of vomiting. When we kill our love or creativity we dream of murder. The following dream is typical:

I dreamt my wife – a dream wife – had left me. In the middle of the night she came back to the house. I was so angry I murdered her. Because the children were with her and witnessed the murder I killed them also and buried them under the floor of the house – Ben.

Sean had this dream – and others like it – when his wife, Jennie, began the menopause. Jennie had withdrawn from any sexual or emotional contact with Sean to such an extent he felt he was living in the house with a lodger rather than his wife. But Sean had not admitted to himself the extent of his feelings. This is why the bodies were buried – out of awareness. The children represented all the areas of growth and diversity that had been present in the relationship that Sean had killed. He had in fact decided not to reach out to his wife while she consistently remained withdrawn from him. So Sean had not killed his wife or children, but murdered his own feelings for Jennie.

The murder is not just of love and contact, it can also be the murdering of yourself that includes killing sexual feelings, killing self-respect or murdering your creativity. In many cases it may not be that you kill yourself, but that something in you is killed by your relationship with a parent or loved one.

sleep disorders See: science and sleep and dreams; : sleep; sleep apnea; sleep dangers; movements during sleep; sleep – need for; rocking during sleep.

Smell

This is rather like colours, depicting special feelings or moods. But smells often link more fully with memories of some past event, or a person. They can also suggest the goodness or badness of something or situation. So this point to how you are reacting to something or someone. See: Odour.

Smoke

Smoke in a dream may suggest an intuition of danger, or intuitions about something – something in the wind. It can also suggest passions that are ready to burst into flame.

Smoking

Often this relates to attitudes or habits, or the drug itself, that you use to deal with anxiety. It can indicate that something other than your conscious decision is controlling you.

Some smoking dreams connect with hidden sexual desires, with a comforting friend or a change in mood, such as might occur when we meet a friend. In some cultures and situations it would show connection with others and a special time of togetherness, such as the smoked pipe in the Native American ritual, or when smoking a joint in company. When there are two or three people smoking it could also suggest a clique atmosphere, a togetherness that excludes others on in which, perhaps because you are allaying anxiety by smoking, you feel included.

Defining smoking dreams, Christopher Evans, in his book Landscapes of the Night, says typical dreams are of puffing away in a crowded place such as a party, showing how linked smoking is with anxiety about dealing with being sociable. If they give up smoking, the programming is so deeply etched that they frequently dream of smoking, perhaps without meaning to, but this gradually lessens as time goes by.

Snack Snack Bar

Urges wanting satisfaction. A hunger for something. It might also link with sociability or need for contact if you use the snack bar for meeting people or escaping from somewhere else..

Snail Slug

If touched a snail withdraws quickly into its shell, and sometimes represents great sensitivity that makes us withdraw from life. So it can suggest such a vulnerability , or that you are hiding in a protective shell of feelings. withdrawal from reality, or from social or sensual contacts; or a ‘defence mechanism’.

The term ‘snails pace’ may also be used in dreams because of our associations as we watch it move. So it may suggests your slow moving progress.

Vulnerability – its shell depicting defence against being hurt. For some people the snail would indicate feelings of repulsion. Probably repulsion regarding ‘squirmy’ feelings regarding your body or sexuality.

The snail is sometimes seen in dreams connected with babies. This is because in the womb they are so vulnerable and without a  protective ‘shell’. Also maybe because of the feelings of squishyness associated with birth.

Example: I dreamed that the baby I was carrying had come out of me (minus the blood) but in the shape of a slug (snail) and it was alive and moving. All of a sudden it started changing into a very small thin snake like form. It was so wild. And when I went to inspect it closer it wrapped itself around my neck to strangle me. Then I woke up in another dream right after in my bed and realized I had fallen asleep with my necklace wrapped around my neck. I was dreaming within another dream.

You interpretations about the snail and snake are right on because my husband and I are going through a miscarriage and I dont think I have come to terms with it yet. I just feel numb and detached. Thank you for your thoughts/means, now I can really work on these issues.

 

 

Snake

Snakes in dreams often represent the energy keeping us alive at a basic level. But we can express this energy in many ways such as kindness, love, anger, killing things, creativity and so on. See Levels of the Brain and Dreams – Snake Dreams

Example: Dreamt that a snake – a huge python – had raised me. I had the sense that it had cradled me in its coils when I was a baby, and that it had taught me without words how to survive. This was a sort of jungle/life wisdom.

It is usually depicting the fight or flight instinct. It is also an image connected with the force, purpose or energy behind that power of growth and unfolding. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us, particularly the primal urge to survive. It leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully. The ancient civilisation of the South Americas, saw the snake as a messenger of the gods. And it can be if we relate to it well, because it represents the force of Life in us – surely worth listening to!

The snake can bite you, and its venom may flow throughout your being and kill you. Most of us are very frightened of this. The reason being that the venom will certainly cause death- it does this by the power of growth, which will be the death of your old self as you outgrow it. It replaces the old personal interests and fears with a self that is part of the one great life. So the fear of the snake is not because its venom is deadly, but because it transforms. It turns you into a being who is part of the whole. It robs one of the artificial walls placed between self and the collective pool of life consciousness.

Moses saw the energy of this inner snake in the form of the burning bush. During the exodus the Israelite’s lost faith and were smitten by fiery serpents, so God told Moses, “Make thee a serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it on a pole, and it came to pass, that if a fiery serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” An apt description of the healing qualities of the awakened snake energy. Some of the Israelite’s even began to worship this symbol, and the practice of worshipping the brazen serpent on the pole as a god was either passed on, or was revived later. Bronze and stone serpent artifacts have been found in excavations in Canaan, Gezer and other parts of Israel!

That energy, like electricity in a house, can be heat, power, sound or vision, and lies behind all our functions. So in some dreams the snake represents our sexuality; in others the rising of that energy up our body to express as digestion – the intestinal snake – or as the creative or poisonous energy of our emotions and thoughts, even disease. In the throat it becomes the destructive or constructive speech and language – expressed or repressed feelings and speech. In the head it becomes thinking, perception and higher cognition.

The ancient civilisation of the South Americas, saw the snake as a messenger of the gods. And it can be if we relate to it well, because it represents the force of Life in us – is surely worth listening to!

The snake can represent many different things, but usually the energy that expresses as our life processes. If we think of a person’s life from conception to death, we see a flowing moving event, similar in many ways to the speeded-up films of a seed growing into a plant, flowering and dying. The snake depicts the force, purpose or energy behind that movement. It is the force of life, the latent energy or potential within us – that leads us both to growth and death, along with the passionate emotions and urges that drive us so powerfully

In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy you; the awful things we do to ourselves, to Life in us. We tend to depict this facet of the snake as biting or attacking us, even though we have ourselves given rise to such poisonous emotions as hate and guilt. Because our thinking and emotions are an expression of our life energy, you are capable of directing the creative force of life toward self destruction. As an example of this, a dreamer exploring her snake dream saw that it represented her flight or fight instincts. This linked with her aggressive and protective feelings in connection with the way men had acted with her. The problem was that the snake was in a poisonous, strangling and killing mode. This, she realised, showed how she had withheld, strangled, her anger about what had happened, and that anger was turned inward, poisoning or strangling her flow of full life.

The opposite is also true. The power of life and death can be directed creatively. Then the snake is seen in its healing role in dreams, and in ancient times was shown in the form of the staff with two snakes coiling up it – caduceus – still used today as a symbol of the medical profession. See: Energy Sex and Dreams

Example: Dreamt I was on the side of a very steep hill. So steep I could only just hold on. It was very rounded and grassy. I was near the top clinging to the grass. There seemed to be many snakes, lizards  about. Occasionally one would leap at me and bounce of my coat. I took care to keep my hands covered. There was a woman, who seemed to be something like a secretary, who was advising me. I was then in a wood. There seemed to be a lot of apprehension and fear. Some robbers had stolen my pony. The fear went when I realised that there was no need to walk through a swampy area of the wood. Only the robbers, or rough types knew the way through. I turned to the right out of the wood.

In exploring his dream this is what he received – The dream shows you bringing your love to the crown. The dream was the way of sorting out your problems over sinking or rising. You can reach the highest either way. Sinking is the way of letting go. This was represented by the swamp. The way of bringing love to the crown is the way of rising. The hill represents your present situation. The clinging means you try too hard. There is no need to bring so much effort. The snakes represents your lower powers trying to break into consciousness. These must be directed to the crown. These are the forces which help you break through. They stimulate you to rise. The woman is love giving you advice. Love will direct your efforts. The part where you walk through the wood means you look for life through delving within. The swamp is swamping my consciousness. Your consciousness must live, not drown, in the deep waters of life. This can be achieved only by bringing unification to those urges seen as the brigands. These and the snakes are much the same. Your soul must live without division. When the soul brings union within itself, so it achieved union in the whole. This way is a way of love.

It doesn’t matter that your dream snake bites you – after all it is an aspect of you, and the only poison you will meet is the poisonous emotions you have been injecting into yourself – and they need to be felt to clear them out. See Our Reptilian Brain

The snake can shed its skin, and so symbolises self transcendence, rebirth.

The alchemists put a gold crown on its head, symbolising expanded or spiritual consciousness arising from the same energy as sexuality. Often a diadem, gem, or light is at its brow symbolising the possibility of expanded consciousness, or awareness of the eternal nature, and life in eternity. Christ is sometimes depicted as a crucified serpent, suggesting the mystery of Life nailed to physical awareness of the senses. See: Reptile.

Example: I just woke up from a bad dream. I saw that I was in a car without a driver and I was sitting on a snake which I could not see but only slightly feel under me. I was afraid that the snake might bite me because of the bumps during the car drive. And then it does bite me. It was painless but I felt blood oozing out of my tummy. Then suddenly I saw a stranger in the driver’s seat who was a lady whom I don’t know. And I am just praying her to drive me to the hospital and she refuses to drive. I was spooked big time and I am on the internet now. Came across your website. I hope I can find an answer. Please help me.

The snake is your dream snake and should not be confuse with an actual snake. It is your basic energy, like electricity in your house, and as such can be expressed in any number of ways. This links with the car, another form of energy, expressed as a way of getting where you want. But the snake energy you are sitting on, not knowing how to direct it, yet you can feel it wriggling at the base of your trunk. You are scared of what this energy will express as if you allow it, but sitting on it is not good, because your thoughts and feelings, your imagination are the way we direct this energy. And what did you do, you felt fear it would bite you, and that is where you directed it. Fortunately you were not scared enough to direct it to inject you with the poison of your own fear. But it did cause an energy leak that you realised you needed help with.

Example: A dream told me by a woman I met in Mexico. She said that she dreamt a large snake was crawling up the bed and then bit her on her left breast. She said she then tried to suck out the poison.In the destructive aspect the snake represents the poisonous thoughts and emotions that can destroy us. We tend to depict this snake biting or attacking us, even though we have ourselves given rise to such poisonous emotions as hate and guilt. Because our life energy flows into thinking and emotions, we are in this way directing the creative force of life. Directing it negatively has the power to bring illness and death, for we are dealing with the power of life and death itself.

I asked her to explore the dream by imaging herself as the snake, feeling it biting her. The result was that a story unfolded. She had felt, rightly or wrongly, that her husband had been unfaithful, and she had felt bitter and revengeful. But instead of expressing those feelings they had turned inwards and poisoned her, leaving her depressed. So the snake was an image of her poison biting her and poisoning her life. So do not be afraid of a snake biting you. It is not dangerous. The dangerous part is avoiding the bite, because the poison stays in you unmet.

The opposite is also true. The power of life and death can be directed creatively. Then the snake is seen in its healing role in dreams, and in ancient times was shown in the form of the staff with two snakes coiling up it – caduceus – still used today as a symbol of the medical profession.

Example: ‘A small snake about a foot long had dropped down my shirt neck. I could feel it on the left side of my neck. Fearing it was poisonous and might bite me I moved very slowly. At one point I put my head on the ground, hoping the snake would wish to crawl away. It did not. Then I was near an elephant I loved, and hoped it would remove the snake. It did not. Even as I slept I felt the snake was an expression of the attitude of not sharing myself with anybody except family.’ David T.

For months prior to the above dream David had experienced a great deal of neck pain. After discussing the dream with his wife, and realising much of his thinking and feeling was in-turned, the pain disappeared. So the snake was both ‘poisoner’ and ‘healer’ representing the power of David’s negative and introverted emotions and thoughts on his body. This may be why snakes are used as a symbol of the medical profession.

Example: ‘I was in a huge cathedral, the mother church. I wanted to go to the toilet/gents. As I held my penis to urinate it became a snake and reached down to the urinal to drink. It was thirsty. I struggled with it, pulling it away from the unclean liquid. Still holding it I walked to a basin and gave it pure water to drink.’ Bill A.

Here the connection between snake and sexuality is obvious. But the snake is not just Bill’s penis. It is the direction his sexual urges take him that he is struggling with. Out of his sense of love and connection with Life – the cathedral – he wants to lift his drive toward something that will not leave him with a sense of uncleanness. In this sense a snake might be something one wrestled with, depicting the wrestle one has with inner drives and hungers, especially sexuality or anger. The Mother Church was a form of initiation into a much wider view of spiritual beliefs. It came about because his sexual drive was directed more upwards rather than out of his genitals.

Example: “Tony taught me a process in which a dream could be interpreted and understood by assuming that everything, people and objects alike, in a dream represented aspects of the Self. Sitting cross-legged on the squishy, old-fashioned sofa in the living room of my sadhu’s cave opposite Tony, I’d close my eyes and mentally return to a dream I had the previous night.

So if I dreamt about a tree, I would ‘become’ the tree, assume its personality and respond from its viewpoint. He’d ask ‘So what kind of tree are you? Are you big or small, old or young? What do you look like? Where are you growing? Why are you in Tiziana’s dream?’  This sounded like a silly exercise at first, but I was soon enough convinced of its validity.

Other dreams taught me about my psychological and emotional processes, such as in one dream, in which I was in a dark forest with a female friend. We hid behind a felled tree. From our path towards the left, we saw a big black snake approaching. It was absolutely enormous and had no head. We were exhilarated and scared. Next, a badger walked past. Then, to our wonder, a gang of wolves came by. In my consequent interpretation I saw that the headless snake stood for `my sexuality and my often ‘headless’, raw desires. The badger signified my illusions that needed to be ‘killed’ and transformed by the pack of wolves, who represented my growth and evolution. Although painful, my intuition – symbolized by the female friend – knew that I had to go through the fear and ‘be killed’ in order to grow.

Overall, together with the practice of LifeStream the dream work helped me to retrieve and untangle many clues and memories that were buried deep in my unconscious.” See Life’s Little Secrets

The Africans believed the dream of a snake round the leg signified slavery, while the dream of a dragon round the body is a symbol of bondage in Artemidorus.

A crowned or light encircled snake: When our blind impulses our instinctive or unconscious urges and functions are in some measure integrated with our conscious will and insight, this is seen as the crowned snake or even winged snake. It shows real self awareness and maturity.

Unfortunately, as Jung points out in Man and His Symbols, people in modern society, whether black, yellow, brown or white, have lost their sense of nature and the cosmos as being anything other than processes without consciousness or living feeling. Jung says, ‘No river contains a spirit, no tree is the life principle of a man, no snake the embodiment of wisdom…No voice now speaks to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear.’

Black King Cobra: The king title shows the important role the snake will have in the life of the dreamer. That it is black indicates that it is only just becoming a part of their conscious life.

In coils of snake: Feeling bound in the blind impulses or habitual drives and feeling responses. Instincts and habits can be redirected, as illustrated by Hercules labours.

Sitting on snake: Mastery of the instinctive nature and transformation and the making conscious of the wisdom and power resident in the unconscious.

Snake biting you: Unconscious worries about our health, frustrated sexual impulse, our emotions turned against ourselves as when internalised aggression poisons us causing very real illness, so may be shown as the biting snake. It may also suggest an influence in ones life – the venom – that takes away ones identity and perhaps opens one to a life beyond self, the spirit.

Example: I realised as I explored my dream of being bitten by the snake I had thought about this a lot already and that losing ones identity meant in this case not being tied to ones family so rigidly, no longer relating to people as if from a single fixed gender, also there is the possibility of getting insight into the person you are meeting more fully, because the artificial barriers of gender, family ties, nationality and creed have been dropped. These barriers prevent us from actually knowing each other very fully in everyday life, and are operative in most of us without our realising it.

As I think about this I wonder whether this is part of the way we create identity. It appears to be made from many sources. For instance the family physical – DNA – inheritance plays a very great part, as does the information of behaviour repertoire handed to us when young. The cultural patterning given with language shapes our mind, and the chemical importance is also being seen lately. All of these produce the person we call I. Yet the ‘I’ is capable of being radically shifted, simply by taking a drug or medicine. This often reshapes the way we see ourselves, so an evolution in the process of identity building has occurred. Identity in the end is not a set of beliefs or behaviours. The I is not limited to these. See Programmed

So as I faced this part of the session I wondered what I would be saying goodbye to if I allowed myself to be bitten by the serpent and its poison transform me. I felt that although I would lose my old connection with my family I would bring them a lot more than in the past because my being would itself be much larger and connected. I saw this as if I were living in a courtyard, and that courtyard was my family life, my work life, and was made up of my sympathetic connections with my children and the powerful bonds that led me to favour them over others. If these bonds dissolved they would no longer be favoured above others out of the same powerful ties. The ties would dissolve, but of course they would still be people I had a lot of connections with because of friendship and common goals, etc. So I would relate to them out of something other than family feelings. We would be drawn together or pushed apart out of the same influences that attracted or repulsed in general.

I felt then that I did want to be bitten by the snake. I trusted the larger life. I want my life to have connections with it and my actions to flow out of these wider connections.

At one point it was like being shown something. On my computer I have a small program to do my accounts on. I take a lot of time putting information into this program to keep my accounts straight. It was as if the wider life said to me, “You don’t need to all the time look after your own affairs in this individual way. There is a wider life in which the ‘accounts’ program is built-in. Every action you do, every interaction is recorded automatically, and so you no longer need a personal piece of software”.

Snake biting others: Biting remarks; a poisonous tongue; emotional energy turned against oneself or someone else.

Snake coiling up tree, pole, cross: The blind instinctive forces of life emerging into conscious experience – in other words the essence of human experience with its involvement in pain, pleasure, time and eternity; the process of personal growth or evolution; healing because personal growth often moves us beyond old attitudes or situations that led to inner tension or even sickness.

Snake coiled around you crushing you: The way you are caught up and constricted in your own or other peoples emotions. Being crushed by emotions, fears; struggling with powerful emotions and urges.

Snake Colours – Green: Our internal life process directed – perhaps through satisfied feelings, love and creativity – into a healing process or one that leads to our personal growth and positive change. White: Eternal aspect of our life process, or becoming conscious of it. Blue: Religious feelings or coldness in relations.

Snake in connection with any hole: Sexual relatedness.

Snake in the grass: Sense or intuition of talk behind your back; danger; sneakiness.

Example: I dreamt I was outdoors walking through open ground, maybe at times gardens. I was with others – not sure who, and we frequently came across large snakes which we reacted to as if they were venomous. Then I came across a lot of them and they swarmed onto me. I froze, terrified that if I made a move I would be fatally bitten. But they just swarmed over my body and got under my clothes without harming me. Gradually I relaxed and slowly began to move about with the snakes still on me. They started to feel like a built in defense system which would attack anyone who was aggressive to me. At one point several large and aggressive dogs walked past me. They turned as if thinking about attacking, then appeared to sense the snakes and ran off cowed. As time passed the snakes felt like part of my body.

Snake with tail in its mouth: Sense of the circle of life – birth, growth, reproduction, ageing, death, rebirth; the eternal.

Useful questions and hints:

What is happening with my dream snake, and what is the significance to me personally?

What does this indicate about the way I am direction my life energy?

Is this depicting my life energy expressing some positive potential or healing

Snare

Seemingly appealing idea or plan that is basically wrong. A situation you can get trapped in. See Trap

Sneeze

Spontaneous cleansing of self, caused by the inner self rather than conscious intention. For further information see Yawn

Snow

Usually frozen feelings or emotions. Sometimes purity, dormancy, the stilling of the outer life as in winter, when the seeds and roots rest in the earth, or unconscious, till the new spring. Ideas, morals, or intellect that have frozen your feelings.

Being in a winter or cold emotional climate can restrict your emotional growth or expression.

Soap

Cleansing. An attempt to come clean, to be rid of guilt or conscience or something that makes you feel grubby. See: Washing.

Sock

These are often used in dreams to represent the personal quality, cleanness or untidiness of the person. They therefore depict some sort of judgement about what sort of person you are, or how you see someone.

Socks sometimes are shown as protective in some dreams, perhaps stopping creatures from getting on your skin, or stopping shoes rubbing, so depicting the way you deal with irritating events. In some such dreams they represent defensive attitudes or thoughts with which you repress or avoid ‘squirmy’ feelings about things like blood and inside your body. Socks can also be associated with warmth or protection from a difficult situation.

Socks can deal with issues about coldness or heat, and so represent having ‘cold feet’ about a relationship or situation, or getting ‘hot’.

Putting socks on might suggest getting ready to go somewhere, making a change or trying something on.

Socks also can represent particular roles, such as a footballers socks, or special quality socks for business or social ritual. The strange idioms surrounding socks also show other associations, like ‘pull your socks up’ – knocked my socks off (suggesting a powerful experience); rock socks; sock it to me.

Looking at someone’s socks is usually about the judgement or impression of them we have from what they are wearing – or it may link with a memory of someone we know who had similar socks.

Useful questions:

What surrounds the socks in the dream’s action – relationship, appearance, going out?

Do the socks connect with protection or warmth in any way – if so how?

What do these socks ‘say’ about appearance, role or status, and how does that apply to  me?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Soft Toy

As a child our toys can be extremely important. A soft toy might be the only non-threatening relationship we have, and so depict security, love, and the ability to control instead of be controlled. It could therefore represent the ability to create, with the aid of an external object, an internal source of love and assurance. As an adult it might suggest a desire for a non-threatening emotional or sexual relationship. It can also be a means of venting anger or pain. See: Doll; Toy.

Soil

See the entry Earth

 

Solar Plexus

Sensitivity to hurt or pleasure. See: Abdomen.

Solder Soldered Soldering

Friendship, unity, strong bonds.

Soldier

The fighter in you, so your fighting abilities. Also your readiness to fight because you are battle-ready, trained to defend, fight, shoot, harm, kill, whatever is in your way to defend yourself or your goals.

This usually suggest some sort of conflict. You may be meeting with urges within yourself, or decisions. There can be a drive due to personal growth, to face old hurts, but you are shying away from pain, and thus the conflict.

The soldier in a dream is one of the great symbols of life and our personal struggle to survive. From the very beginning we are one of millions of sperm and only one survives. Even then we have to face the difficulties of being born and surviving the challenges of life. It is a great battle we face, to maintain life, to grow and express our potential, to have a mate and help form offspring, and to pass on to our offspring what we have that has enabled is to survive. It takes the ability to fight, the ability to persist, to learn the lessons of our life, and hopefully leave a mark. Here is an experience that give some idea.

As I looked at these massive formations I understood that they had been carved or created through events in the passage of time. Each mosaic, each part of the overall mosaic, had been formed by enormous creative acts, or by long-standing actions. So these latter were like ideograms or archetypes. So, for instance, mother creatures have cared for, fought for, died for their young. This pattern of behaviour has been so enormously potent and perhaps we can use the word successful, that it has created, shaped aspects of eternity. It has left its pattern, its artwork, on time itself. Thus eternity honours that pattern by giving it a place in the very structure of itself. No one being created such a mosaic in the formations. Such a mosaic was large and had in it the essence of all the lives that formed it.

Deserting: This suggests that you have not faced a conflict or problem in your life.

If in opposition with the soldier: Things you feel in conflict with; your internal conflicts and involvement with the ‘wars’ or trauma you have experienced in the past.

If you are a soldier or are united with soldiers: Your willingness or ability to face internal conflicts and hurts; daring to confront the difficulties of life. But of course many of your dreams will be about what you are facing as a soldier, or what you anticipate facing, and as there are so many possibilities I suggest you try Easy Dream Interpretation

In a woman’s dream: Inner conflicts; feeling threatened regarding relationship with a male.

Military service: Feeling bound by social or personal disciplines or restrictions; learning strengths and self discipline to meet internal conflicts.

Example: I am in a huge black cave and the German soldier comes up to me and grabs my butt to feel if he wants to rape me or not. My butt is flabby and I hope that means he will not be interested in me. He walks away, still thinking about it. I am starving and ask a woman how to get food. She says we all have to find our own. Another woman offers me a plastic container with lasagne in it. I eat one bite and then the soldier is back wanting to rape me. I feel resigned and angry and hungry and tired.

Example: I asked the man to allow me to exit out of the revolving door to Euston Road. I did this and found a battle going on, bullets flying, and people dead in the street. I lay beside a dead body pretending to be dead in case I got shot. A soldier, possibly American, came up to me as I lay face down. He told me I had an alien clinging to my back. I thought of this something like a limpet clinging to my back where the back pain is, with roots into my body. This was a creature from space. He put a knife under its shell and removed it from my body.

The soldier is an example of a part of you not afraid of conflict or death. He is the higher part of you, like Krishna who says not to avoid or be afraid of conflict or death.


Solicitor

Someone you believe you can trust to help you face or deal with issues of social law, injustice or property disputes.  See: Lawyer.

But if you get ‘wrong’un’ it may be like this – money, ‘that great solicitor that has often succeeded in persuading people to sell their very souls’.

Son

Feelings or worries concerning a son. Growing part of self. Hopes or worries about the future. Your extroverted self; desires connected with self expression; parental responsibility.

Dreaming son is dead: A mother often kills off her son in her dreams as she sees him make moves toward independence. This can happen from first day of school on. Becoming independent from  mother often feels like a tearing away after years of constant caring. It is a huge change, and feels like the son has died to her.

But the death of a son also signifies feelings of great loss, or the end of something, perhaps a relationship, or something that meant a great deal to you.

Mothers dream: Your ambitions; potential; hopes. It can also represent your marriage. The child is the fruit of the relationship, so can represent the state of the relationship.

Father’s dream: Yourself at that age; what qualities you see in your son; your own possibilities; envy of youth and opportunities; rivalry. As above, can represent your marriage-relationship.

Someone else’s son: Feelings about your own son; feelings about younger men.

Song Singing

Songs are a very important part of many peoples life and creativity. Huge and enthusiastic crowds gather to hear women and men sing the song of their lives.

These songs are the crying out of people’s pain, their love or struggles with what they call love, the cry of wonder, excitement of invention, and of course humour. When a person sings, in life or in a dream, they are sending out their feelings, which can be received by those who listen. It might be emotions, pleasure, pain, realisation or even laughter.

In dreams we cry out and sing these songs, and in doing so we are baring our souls and sharing our agony, our divinity, our wonder at life. To sing your song often means that you are giving voice to your very essence, so should be taken seriously. To be unable to sing your song means you are being held back and cannot release and so complete yourself – so you cannot live fully.

I have sung my life. I have had children, loved and been loved, struggled and gone down under the struggle, and found my way to stand again. And I’m still singing. The great songs are not those that are simply flowered with fragrant perfume and bright colours. The great songs are those that have valleys and mountain tops, darkness and light, tragedy and the wonder of sacred moments. Such songs carry the passions of a real life.

Now the song rises up in me that my life sings – I love you. I cry out now with much laughter and joy. I love you Life. I love you with all your shadows and sunshine. I love you with the pain and the beauty. My darling I love you with all my being. I sing the song of love to Life.

Example: And I listened, and the hundred songs of birds came to me in that empty silent brick house of a church. A tractor added its chorus to the song. Cars hummed a background. Somewhere a man hammered, a cock crowed and a dog barked. There was the rhythm of footsteps as people walked by, and the whole grand medley was the hymn of life. Leaving the building I added the quiet sound of my own walking and breathing to the grand song. Now I would sing on.

The Song

Did you hear it?

What, the song thrush here,
And in the tree the blue tit?

Yes, but did you hear the dog bark?

I heard a dog howling
Last night in the dark.

Was it joined with sounds of cricket on the green?

Only now you mention it,
The crack of ball on bat,
I hear but haven’t seen.

Was there a piano accompanying all those too?

I didn’t catch the music’s voice,
Not as well as you.

You didn’t hear the harmony,
The voices all as one,
The orchestra of all those sounds
With single voice of none?
I heard it here this afternoon,
One voice sang through them all,
Collecting all the sounds of life,
Into one vibrant call.

 

Soul Mate

I receive so many emails saying people thought they were soul mates and are terrible disappointed.

The only soul mates that I can experience that are truly what they presented themselves as are our own other half. This is the male half of you that has been pushed down if you have a female body. If you find it and release it there is a wonderful spiritual marriage. The same applies of course to men who have kept their female side locked up and denied.

The spiritual marriage takes place in a very intense experience, and can be like meeting a spiritual being.

We give ourselves all these names – like God – Christ – Allah – Buddha – Soul Mate. We find that wonder in ourselves and then project it externally. We cannot believe that what we see as God, or Allah and a great  love is a glimpse of our own potential, is a vision of what we are. So we project it outwards and kneel before it.

I am all that I project.

 Example: As I accept that it feels as if something lights up at the top of my head. I have the distinct intuition that there are functions at the top of the brain that mostly as humans we do not use, we have not brought to life. We are not using them, or we are barely using them. And when I accepted that I am IT, that I have been projecting that wonder outside of me, it felt that something lit up in the top of my head. There was an image of a brilliant fire bursting to life. I experienced a feeling of splendour. I saw that the sexual impulse if it is allowed to grow and unfold is leading to that life of splendour. It is leading to that incredible union between a man and a woman.

Here I could not carry on talking for a while because the sense of wonder was so strong. But in that experience of splendour I saw that the man and woman in their love find themselves in each other. They are seeking themselves in the other. Just as we project God, Christ, angels, so we project on to our partner that wondrous lover that in fact is the union and wholeness of our own being. All we are seeking in the end is the Self. We are moving towards the realisation of splendour that lies at the core of our own being and of course the core of our partner – the splendour that is Life itself.

There is also a wonderful meeting when we meet someone who we have known and loved in a past life. But that need not be between a man and woman. It can be a mother or father and child, a sister or brother, or a stranger we are immediately attracted to.

A soul mate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves. Edgar Cayce

Sound Sounds Noise

Sound in dreams are similar in impact to sounds we hear in waking. They carry information to you very directly. So you feel fear or pleasure depending on the sound. Therefore the important thing its to define what feeling reaction you have to the sound, and what information you gather from it. Take this as the thing to consider in understanding your dream. Ask yourself, is the sound a warning? Does it carry information? Is it producing pleasure?

Often, in opening to life and allowing it to express through us – as happens in using LifeStream – it expresses as various sounds. Sometimes this is a way that Life exercises us and leads us to be more mobile in vocal expression. But sometimes it is a way of healing old difficulties from childhood, where certain sounds or words were difficult. See People’s Experience of LifeStream

Sounds are sometimes a power in dreams. They reach out and cause something to happen at a distance. This suggests a use of positive will, a confident expression of yourself in a way that you expect a result to follow.

Example: The old Jewish scholar now led me to a side entrance to the right of the building front. A big door opened as he approached, as if done by a magic eye. Suddenly he nimbly ran in and did something so that two huge granite doors at least a foot thick began to close me in. The Jew watched with pleasure at my plight.

My indecision stopped me acting decisively. I could easily have run back. Instead I hesitated and saw the doors close on me. I could see the Jew hoped I was to be imprisoned for good, buried alive between these huge granite slabs. But somehow I released the vibration – sound – a hymn that flows through my body at night. In a way that I cannot properly describe, it made the doors powerless to trap me. Also it penetrated to the very core of the building. In the dream that seemed very significant, but I do not know in waking why.

Example: One man in class during the vowel sounds (chanting) said, “As you began the sounds I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.” Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness for that part of his body, and the “dark shape” was probably a representation or embodiment of his fear. The fact that the sounds seemed to call it out of him would suggest that sound would actually be able to call these dark shapes out of us by his using such sounds

See Using the Voice

Soup

This might be sustenance, sustaining or strengthening emotions. But it depends what is happening to the soup. If spilt it can suggests making a mess of things, or feeling insecure about a social event. Offering soup depicts a giving of yourself, of your care and affection. The soup in a saucepan might be showing how you have gathered many things together to nourish yourself or someone else. See: Food.

South

The genital area of self; warmth, lightness, feelings. In the southern hemisphere: Coldness, darkness; death. In some countries, as in South America, southern USA, the south may symbolise different attitudes, as to the coloured population, or different ways of life.

The four major directions such as North, East, South and West also have unconscious significance, but this must depend upon whether you grew up in the northern or southern hemisphere. What is said is for the northern hemisphere, reverse it for the southern hemisphere. There are polarities in your nature. Two obvious ones are your physical body, that gives the appearance of solidity and is obvious to others, and your thoughts, that are not visible or apparent to others; also sleep and waking.

Growth in the South it is the time of Summer – unless you live in the southern hemispehere. From  the bloom we transform into the fruit of the labors.  It is the time of mid-day, the hottest part of the day, the part when the sun is overhead and no shadows are cast.. Maturing and growing into an adult to be that who was are. It is the time to accept the change and learn, to understand.

Red is for fire, passion, time of fertility. The South is the place of passion in all things, sex, fertility, mating – the fires that burn within. The direction of fire, like the phoenix  we can rise from the flames, we take and rise again from childhood into being an adult in the direction of the South.

Space

When we dream of space we dream of opportunity, the opportunity to explore, to build in the space, to explore our imagination in creativity. There is so much opportunity in a large space some people might even be frightened of it.  It brings with it the feelings that here, in a large space, one can go beyond the present view of the world one has created. The realisation ones personal experience is not all there is. Perhaps this is why some churches are so huge and encompasses so many differences in size and surrounding – a real feast for ones mind and emotions. I remember once walking into a church in Paris and feeling that it must have been built for giants; the supporting columns were so immensely tall.

But there are spaces and spaces. Some are very small, even impoverished and some give flight to ones fancy. Dreams do all this through their wonderful imaginative use of settings and people. Here is a dream showing the poverty of mind of the dreamer and his eventually transcending it.

 “I dreamt I was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his faeces and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean it and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped by his friends, but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself. As I watched though, he came to the point of accepting responsibility for his own condition. He came out, and we then happily asked if we could put his clothes in the washing machine. He started a new life.

When the dreamer explored his dream he saw an attitude he had in which he loved to have problems or ‘shit’. He saw that again and again, when talking to people he would describe this shaky condition he was in, the problems he faced, the difficulties he had. For instance, he might say, “It’s OK for someone like you, you’re not so anxious. You didn’t have such a bad start. You have more money. You have more luck on your side, etc, etc.” He just revelled in the shit he was talking.

I saw how he used this defence because he was anxious life or people would ask something of him. If he had a nice problem, he could run back and hide in it. It helped him escape the necessity of saying, “What you are asking makes me feel anxious. I’m afraid I might fail. Don’t ask me for love or help, it frightens me.”

Here is another dream, showing how ever confinement in a small prison cell can be overcome.

 “I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.”

Something I realised deeply some years ago was that our homes, the space we live in, deeply influence our moods. I first realised this when witnessing an animal psychologist produce a change in a hamster who bit his keepers, to one easy with them and no viciousness. All he needed to produce this change was a house suited to its needs. In fact it needed a larger space with different ‘rooms’.

For instance it has also been revealed that the brains of mice can be profoundly affected by the kind of cages in which they’re kept, raising questions about some of the most fundamental experiments in biological science. This links in so deeply with dreams, and begins to show how our houses and of course our social environment deeply influences us. In fact it has been shown that the brain structure of children brought up in deprivation is changed for the worse.

Amazing how a space can be so suffused with dark feelings, and yet there is another side to that – you can feel wonder, excitement and longing too. Here is another dream illustrating it.

In the dream I am standing by a door pausing before I walk through it into a room. The room had about it the feeling of the room in the first house I owned. In it we had a room used for nothing else but meditation and study of ‘the inner life’. We called it the sanctum. So I am outside the sanctum. I know that I am going in to meet, or give myself or surrender to God. So as I pause before entering I let the sweet feeling of this surrender fill me. It feels like an opening to a wider life of experience. Suddenly the door opens and an intense wind enveloped me. It gripped me as with an invisible power and pulled me into the room. It felt to me as if the power I was surrendering to – God – wanted me as badly as I wanted to be filled, and had reached out and pulled me into itself. As this happened I cried out in surprise and with some shock, waking myself as I felt gripped by this great power.

Of course the great power was everything that one ever wanted – love, sex, being wanted, being treasured and held in a wondrous power and a relinquishment of all cares. It was an all at once feeling. The dreamer later commented on his dream:

So we use or see our space through the limitations or freedom of our mind and attitudes. A beautiful home can be a place of torture if it is as restrictive as a prison – or a damp cave can be a refuge if it has warmth and love in it.

Space in a building: Your potential or what has not been used up in activity yet. It therefore connects with opportunity, and possibly a sense of independence and freedom.

Awareness of space: Awareness of experience going beyond the present view of the world one has created. The realisation ones personal experience is not all there is.

Travelling through space: You are exploring what it is to be found in the depths of your mind – the unconscious. See Going Beyond

Cosmic space: Beyond thinking or limited concepts and ego boundaries; beyond what is established already; being out of touch with reality.

Someone or yourself in space: Depending on dream, it may suggest feeling out of touch with other people; introverted because of feeling ill at ease with yourself or daily physical life and sexual feelings. It can be awareness of spiritual life beyond the boundaries of the physical senses; expanded awareness.

Example: She began spilling tears which became a steady stream running down her cheeks. And she began to talk of the overwhelming love she was feeling, as she was sobbing. The people with her listened as she described the wonder of being in the presence of a warm Light where she felt so loved, so clean, so treasured. I remember the awe that all of us had in the room. She said I am in space and am filled with love.

Space station: Going into space in dreams shows a huge change in how you see the world, so the space station is the first step toward the changes in your perception. See Altered states of consciousness

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it the astronaut or I am doing in this dream, and how might that relate to my waking activities?

Am I learning anything from the astronaut?

If I stand in the role of the astronaut what is my view of life and the world.

See Being the Person or Thing – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex

 

Spaceship

Your means of exploring reaches of inner experience beyond the limited awareness given by the senses. Therefore might mean exploring ones inner resources through intuition, or opening new aspects of mental function or experience, such as happens in altered states of consciousness, or unusual mental functioning. See: Rocket.

Example: I dreamt one night that I was in a spaceship and I could more purses with my mind. It was so easy to move them as I had been practising.

When I woke up I decided to integrate the spaceship. In stepping into the image and being  the spaceship I took off and soared through space. I felt immensely free and uninhibited. I felt I had no body to confine me, and there was only infinite time.

See altered states of consciousness; ufo

Spacesuit

There are many possible associations with this. One is that you are entering a new and possibly dangerous situation or environment, and you need to protect yourself by being aware of what you face. So the suit depicts the attitudes or awareness you deal with the new environment. The new experiences you are moving to might be highly exciting, and maybe to do with ‘inner space’ – the exploration of the huge space within you.

The suit might also in some cases represent great limitations, being encased in attitudes, fears, protective defence mechanisms, that you are enormously restricted.

But the suit links with space and new dimensions of experience, and this suggests either enormous freedom, the release from limiting ideas, ‘gravity’, restrictive situations, or being disconnected from everyday life – spaced out.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Where am I going or what doing in connection with this space suit?

If I am seeing this separate from myself what do I feel or think, and does that connect with anything I think of feel while awake?

Is there any threat or difficulty in the dream, and if so of what nature, and what offers similar threats in waking life?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Spark

What sparks you off – what is the spark that makes you interested in life and being creative – where has the spark gone.

Speak Speaking Spoke

This depicts some form of communication, often between your unconscious view of life and your waking self, or between an aspect of yourself that does not dominate your behaviour, and your mainstream self.

Difficulty in speaking: This can mean that you have something you want to express, but it is still largely unconscious, or is held back through uncertainty. You therefore need to imagine yourself speaking it clearly, allowing it to come out, perhaps first in private.

Spear

This has many meanings depending upon how it is used in the dream. It can depict male sexuality, but usually in the form of confidence or self affirmation. Such power can of course wound, oneself or others, but it can also protect and penetrate what is guarded or hidden. The spear therefore can represent a penetrating intellect or inquisitiveness. In some cultures the spear represented manhood in the sense of the skill to be independent and provide for or protect others – to be a warrior.

Spectacles

Glasses represent attempts to understand things; the attitudes which colour your view of life; the ability to see or understand. Therefore broken or lost glasses might show you not understanding a situation that confronts you.

Spectrum

Something showing many possibilities. The range of your own personal experience, view or emotions. See: Colour.

Speech

To make a long speech suggests a desire to express yourself, to make yourself understood, to see your inner feelings at work in the world, to be acknowledged.

Speed

Progress, or lack of it. A state of tension, patience, desire to get somewhere. Also the intensity, or lack of it, of your feelings or the experience. Perhaps, if the speed is terrible, it shows difficulty in meeting demands.

Spell

Having a spell put on you, or casting a spell, can indicate an event that has caused a powerful association between an event, a situation or a person, and strong emotions, either positive or negative. For instance a spell could be that you go to hospital, are anaesthetized, and so in a suggestible state, are held by a nurse, but ‘attacked’ by the surgeon. This might link physical contact with a woman with terror of attack.

Sperm

This indicates not only the power of cooperation in pregnancy, but also all the immense influence and background that lies behind a human birth. Thousands of generations of experience lie latent in the sperm and ovum. It is also eternal in that although the body carrying it dies, the sperm, if it passes on in reproduction, carries on living. It therefore has an unbroken life back to the beginning of life. It can therefore represent your whole long history, all your forebears in the male line, all your potential for the future. See: SemenGerm; Seed.

Sphere

See: Circle.

Sphinx

The riddle of your existence. Why are we here? Where are we going? The process of individualisation or development of consciousness. It shows humanness emerging from the instinctive drives, so is therefore the human struggle to become. Can also stand for the whole being.

Spice

Sex; pleasure; variety or change.

Spider

Often the dependent emotions and conflicts one feels ‘caught in’ connected with mother or family; any emotions you don’t want to ‘handle’, such as those surrounding a spouse leaving; wanting to ensnare, or feeling trapped by someone. Sometimes symbolises a mother’s power, as in the way we are caught in the web of her desires and emotions. So inability to become independent of the mother.

But it can also be feeling caught and wrapped up to be eaten later sort of feeling, so being ‘handled’ by someone; or having all the time to watch for subtle signals in order to survive. See big spider dream

The spider can also be used as a symbol of sexual orgasm, but only if we are terrified, disgusted or guilty about such feelings.

The spider can also depict any emotions you don’t want to ‘handle’, such as those surrounding a spouse leaving; wanting to ensnare, or feeling trapped by someone; the basic survival instincts in us such as a spider might have – can I eat, or will I be eaten in this meeting/relationship? This level of our sensory and feeling perception is important. Like a spider it keeps one of your feet/fingers on the web or influences that connect you with other people and the world. Like the spider, if you are wise, you thereby know something of what is coming your way – do you advance or run? See: Web.

I realise there is something I am looking for, and I don’t find it in my wife, or at least I don’t sense it in her. It is a frightening thing and partly exciting. This leads me on to fantasising a struggle with a young woman. It is about wanting to have sex, but seems to be some sort of power struggle. The image was of a smart very confident and aggressive young woman. She was attractive and attracted, but her approach was one of attack, so to have a relationship I needed to fight her. What I appear to be meeting is that I have the sex drive, but what I am facing is a monster. In fact I have the image of a huge spider that comes out from hiding and drags me helpless into its lair, its many eyes shining. I’m afraid. It’s not that my sex drive abates, but within this fantasy you have to time it just right. One must wait for the ‘beast’ to become passive then dash in and plunge into the wonderful hairy cavity. Otherwise the ‘beast’ will rip you apart. It is exactly like the horror films one sees of the monster that drags men or women back to its lair. It is actually all about my fear of women based on past pain. I want sex, but to get it I have to confront memories of being torn apart emotionally by a woman.

Here is fascinating dream about spiders, and its exploration:

I found your email on the internet for dream interpretation. If this is not correct, I am sorry to be bothering you.

I have had the same dream as I fall asleep for several years. I have it nearly every night just once, sometimes, rarely, twice as I fall asleep.

I dream that I find a dried piece of skin or scab somewhere on my body, usually my foot or my hand, tho it has varied over the years. I begin to pick at the skin/scab and scratch it until it comes off. When it comes off it unleashes a flood of seed spiders that engulf me. Another variation is I find some odd black hairs growing out of my body and when I examine them more closely they are regular sized spiders crawling out of me and they begin to engulf me.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Again, if this is not correct, I am very sorry for the disruption of your time. Best C

Here is a interpretation:

Dear C –   What I see with your dream of spiders is that there is a possibility of an underlying fear, so that when you begin to sink just below waking, just under the surface of your mind, this feelings of being overwhelmed arises. If it were a big thing that emerged it would be easier to deal with. But thousands of little things are difficult to handle because you kill some but there are so many left to get at you. A big thing you could hit with a cricket bat or kill it in some way, but the small things are more difficult. They are a sort of ultimate enemy. You need to find an image that enables you to deal with those feelings. An image that might be helpful is that of jumping into a very hot shower, one you can just about cope with. The water is pouring down and is going to burn up the little bugs. Another image might be that you walk quickly through flames that you are big enough to pass through with perhaps only your hairs being burnt, but the little spiders are going to get burnt up.

Were you at some time frightened of sickness? A sickness that could engulf you and you would be powerless against? If not that, then perhaps an image of something, or an idea of something that has stayed with you just under the surface of your mind. Tony

Dear Tony: Thank you….THANK YOU for getting back to me with the dream information. I am fairly well educated about things but could not come up with anything for myself. I think I may have been too close to it.

You mentioned several things that seem to “hit the nail on the head” and I will explore those. The most important thing you mentioned was that of being “powerless against” illness. I do have a life long disease that is manageable but could be fatal. I think this is where I am going to start as that is what seemed to really set off bells.

I really do thank you for this. It has not been interfered with my sleep and the dream only occurs as I fall asleep….once asleep, I am fine.

I thank you so much and I am sure that my partner thanks you as well……

Thank you…thank you….thank you…. With gratitude, C

So having seen spiders in a dream occasionally indicate an illness, if you are in any doubts it is wise to have a health check.

Covered on spiders: If they are large it might mean you feel someone will smother. Or that you have no way of escaping from someone or something.

 

Spine Back Tree of Life

The Spine represents the whole spectrum of life, like a tree, the Tree of Life. It covers every aspect of our life from movement, sexuality, digestion, emotions, speech, thinking and touching the invisible. See

A tree – the tree of Life – is an expression of the power of growth, but like all trees it starts from a seed. A seed is a wonder of potential. In a tiny form, given the right environment it can grow into a huge tree, a dog, a flea, an elephant or a human form. The seed holds in it a directing force that leads to it becoming a plant, an animal or a human body. Its potential is unlimited, but the directing force of the seed and the past it inherits conditions what the seed expresses. But it is open ended and this is visible in the what occurs in evolutionary change.

The first phase is to reproduce (reproduction) its form and functions in an infant form. This unfoldment takes it through its whole evolutionary past – first cellular  division by mitosis to produce a multicellular organism. The result of this process is an embryo. The backbone also appears as one of the earliest structures laid out in all vertebrate embryos.

We grow from a seed in your mother’s womb, and as it did so it took you through the whole process of evolution, through the vegetative phase as cell division, then into the reptilian phase  where you had gills like a fish, and up to the mammalian. But we are leading up to the stages of the Tree of Life in the Spine.

At the base of it all is the urge to reproduce, but unfortunately people take that to simply mean sex. But we are actually seeking the reproduction of our whole potential; namely a healthy physical body – the ability to relate in a caring loving manner to each other, which starts with the relationship between father and mother and child. But from that it expands to a relationship with the culture and society of the time, with the great learning we have been left, and then a relationship with Life/God itself. I use the word IT because you cannot call the amazing emergence of our universe and ourselves and He – for it is all inclusive and is still a mystery we are still exploring. See Opening to Life

Example: I don’t know quite how to make that clear, because the basis of being was, I felt, eternally unknowable, yet eternally experienced. One could go mad trying to know what it was; yet at the same time one always was it, and thus experienced it. All form, all relationships, animal variety, sexual variety, longing, waiting, caring for offspring, was an expression and exploration, a bubbling up, tumbling, playing, at buzzing – the AUM. Everything wanted to zzzzzzzz –  vibrate. The sexual longing I felt was this fundamental buzz as expressed by me. It was like a slight out of phase current, feedback, or disharmony in basic being, like in an amplifier causing a hum. I don’t have the necessary concepts to explain in any other turns what I experienced. But I did feel that basic being, not a basic being, had learned to do this, and liked it so much it continued. I felt that this basic situation had once been a totality, but had learned to separate itself into polarities. These polarities created a sort of tension that was released when the polarities came together, as in sexual relationship. The universe so liked this it does it over and over again.

I read once that linseed oil molecules actually learned. They respond to light quicker at a second and third exposure, or something of that nature. Perhaps that is purely chemical/biological – isn’t the brain – and what is the learning process? Anyway, the universe liked buzzing/sexuality after it discovered how to do it, and thus living creatures, form, sex, etc, arose out of its continuance. This buzzing penetrates all matter like an all-pervading hum, buzz or AUM. I was feeling it now in my being. I could see how all creatures, all tumbling, sweating, loving, laughing, born and dying humanity are an expression of this fundamental zzzzzz. I had a vision of life always reaching ever onwards through change from the tiny molecule to the wonder of awareness. It was an amazing cavalcade of creativity going beyond anything I had ever witnessed. I saw how all conscious life was unknowingly living out this great buzz, like the iron filings moving into position, or sand dancing in the vibration of music. Yet each man or woman usually fails to acknowledge deeply how they are a fragment tossed up on the great buzz. Whether they like it or not they zzzzz, or are involving buzzing/vibrating for we are all unique for Life is ever creative as with fingerprints and snowflakes. They rationalise it, claim it as there own personally, deny it, channel it, forbid it, symbolise it religiously, fear it, murder it, chase it, or attempt to forget it – but it is all buzz, the AUM. What seems to the individuality as choice are usually magic lantern shows, shadows.

Then I came to the highest level – the highest I knew of anyway. I demonstrated this by starting to sound the AUM chant. I held the sound on and on, and gradually my ego melted into being all things. But I knew this as the Great Emptiness.

Our whole being reaches on to the action of digestion – food, ideas experience and life itself as a huge digestive process. Onwards to the heart, forever expanding and contracting. ever taking in lood and expelling. It is the seat of knowing through feeling, caring, loving. It is often a place where we bury our love, or go through agonies because we cannot tolerate a burning heart, an open heart.

The the throat – another world of experience, another part our wholeness to claim. Often our expression may come from below rather from the head. When we reach this door and open it we may feel we are being inspired to express deep things spontaneously. We can speak from our head, but it opens the possibility of speaking form the deeps of our body, with it huge history and know its wonder. See Using the Voice

The brow-forehead is a centre for thought, intuition and great insight.and brings a new form of seeing into people’s hidden life and workings. But when our accepting our wholeness has worked its way up through the body to the top of the head, we go through a transformation in which we are no longer lost in ones personality with its fear of death and its self centred interests. We face death and see through it into a vision of beauty. We experience enlightenment. We know the fullness and the Great Emptiness.

Example: I had a vision of looking at a green wall and seeing a huge moving mandala. At the centre of it was emptiness. Out of this nothingness poured forms of living creatures, trees, animals, humans,all moving and dancing out from the centre in time with each other – though making different movements. These emerging, dancing forms went out to a periphery – the edge of the circle – then they danced back to the centre and merged back into the nothingness.

See Energy Sex and Dreams; Kundalini

Mostly the back indicates your strength, particularly moral fibre; physical confidence; decisiveness, ability to stand in face of opposition; power to endure without being overcome. A problem with the back might suggest inability to deal with everyday life.

Behind: Repressed urges, one’s past and memories, or what is ‘behind’ one in the sense of having left it behind, like a relationship. It might therefore refer to something in the past, but may be influencing you again. The position can also depict your inner feelings, something that is inferior, or something we have pushed out of sight.

Being pushed back: Feeling restrained or restricted; feeling others are, or a situation is, holding you back.

Carrying something on your back: The influences and burdens you carry from your past. This can be useful or difficult depending upon what you carry. This also suggests your karma, or the results you face in the present of all past events and actions – cause and effect.

Returning or going back: Being influenced by, or re-establishing something from ones past, or meeting similar life situation as met in the past.

 Sitting on the back of an animal: Being supported by your inner and instinctive strength, wisdom and animal self. See: animals.

Somebody on one’s back: Feeling dominated by someone else; feeling the ‘weight’ of one’s parent’s, or someone else’s wants and decisions instead of your own. Carrying an influence from the past.

 Useful questions:

Is this indicating strength? If so what strength does it help me become aware of?

Is this an injury or weakness – if so what vulnerability or weakness does it help me become aware of?

What does the theme of the dream tell me about myself?

 

Spiral

Things we repeat over and over like habits; movement towards greater awareness or insight.

Example: ‘We walk around, go upstairs, and I notice a staircase leading to a room or rooms. The stairs are painted in the green too, and they go up square, about eight steps in a flight, but round and round – spiral. I am scared by them, don’t want to go up, but am curious. We move in and nobody but myself has really taken any notice of the stairs. Nobody has been up. Half way up I can see there is a glass roof, the wooden frames painted green. I am terrified but have to go on. Then I wake. Next dream I got up there. It smelt very musty. Lots of draw sheets covering things. I bent to lift a sheet. It was raining. I could hear it thrashing on the glass. Then I woke.’ Ann H.

In this example we have the spiral and the square combined in the stairs. In this way the dream manages to combine many different ideas such as climbing to the unknown, spiralling or circling something, and the squareness or down to earth nature of what is being discovered. There are things we have learned, yet not realised consciously. Like a jigsaw puzzle, we have all the pieces, and we sense the connection, but we have never formed it into a conscious thought or verbal idea. It therefore remains as a feeling sense or hunch, but not a rational idea. Ann is spiralling toward, or circling around such a realisation. She is frightened because it may be difficult – one may realise that all the years of marriage, for example, point to having been used as a door-mat.

A spiral is often used to indicate the core self and our journey toward realising it – i.e. realising who and what we fundamentally are. It depends though whether you are ascending or descending, and with what feelings. Up suggests growth and expansion. Down means developing a more down to earth attitude or awareness. Out of control shows feelings of disorientation and a need to take care. See: maze.

The spiral staircase hints at a view of life you have, that you are in a process of continual growth, the spiral staircase of Life. So perhaps the change is part of your growth. The sign on the house is usually a way of telling you something – probably that the house/you that you live in at the moment is not a good place to be. It is probably referring to your attitudes to your life.

In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however, whereas the ancient belies saw it as a continuing cycle.

The form of the spiral, a lunar symbol of the Mother Goddess and of the eternal cycle of renewal.

But spirals represent both the masculine and feminine waxing and waning cyclical powers of the cosmos: fertilisation, birth, growth, decline, death, birth. Spirals take many shapes, and can indicate a winding up or a winding down.

A spiral also is a centre of life, and a vortex of energy. In a dream spirals may represent a need for change, a growth process that is taking place, or the withering away of something no longer needed.

Spirals have numerous associations. Mazes, labyrinths and lightning, navels, s-link chains, fire and the caduceus are forms of spirals, whirlpools. All life that grows in coils, s-shapes and spirals represent the symbolism of the spiral, such as seashells, tree cones, serpents, trailing and twining plants, snails, ferns, and octopi. Animals with horns can be interpreted in terms of the spiral, as well as any animal which curls (coils) itself up.

Spirit

When we see the moon and it is not full, we can see the edge where there is very marked light on one side and darkness on the other. Human life is very much like that. There is a sharp and dividing line between waking and sleeping, between having self-awareness and being as we call it unconscious. Mostly, what we call the spiritual path is about crossing that line, going over that border, moving beyond that frontier in one way or another. When we do that we become a whole human being. There is consciousness all the way through.

I define the spirit as pertaining to what doesn’t change, what does not shift in human nature, what remains as the foundations of existence. It has everything to do with something that stands beyond life-and-death. And that is why I link it to crossing of that border, that frontier between waking and sleeping. It is about exploring the dark side of the moon.

But often the spiritual is described as if it is something far off, ephemeral, very divine or difficult to attain. What I have come to over the years is these ideas give a wrong impression of it. My simple explanation is that your spirit is you when you remember yourself fully.

Example: ‘I was sitting opposite someone during an enlightenment intensive workshop. We had been posing the question for days – “Who are you?” Suddenly I realised that it was a silly question, because I was the answer. All thought stopped and I existed as the answer. My being had always been this. In this state there was an awareness of being connected with everything around me, in the beginning of creation. This was the first day.

While in the state of simple existence I was able to observe many things I am usually not aware of. For instance while I simply existed, my usual pattern of behaviour and thought went through contortions to be the centre of awareness again. I could see them almost like habits, systems, that have life, like a body does, and they were dying and twitching in their death throes. Also I saw that I knew that all thought is like a mimic, so all our thinking is like photocopies, without any real life. Also as I saw this I had an image of a monkey that was actually me normal thinking self running alongside my every motion and trying to mimic it. It was almost as if as I as a person walked along, another mechanical person ran alongside trying to keep up and mimicking everything I did in an attempt to be alive and real. Yet thought can never be life.’

Another person says, ‘Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.’

Slightly different but still the same enlightenment. ‘Everything seemed to slip away and I felt as if I melted back into the primal being of the universe. It didn’t seem as if my ego was gone, just melted into everything else. It was blissful.’

What I mean by this is mostly we do not know who we are because we suffer a form of amnesia. It is a memory loss that in our culture is assumed to be normal. We fail to remember our childhood, our infancy, our birth and conception, yet these are all available to us. Although that is an amazing possibility, it is not uncommon for people to experience it. In certain circumstances we can be aware of the deepest levels of our body, its functions, organs and tiny . The Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, in his book Realms of the Human Unconscious, gives details of people experiencing vivid and specific awareness of what he calls Organ, Tissue, and Cellular Consciousness.

But here is a quote from Stanislav Grof’s book:

“Another interesting aspect of these experiences that I found quite unusual was the fact that subjects, when discussing them (their experience of memory in the womb), seemed to avail themselves of specific knowledge of embryology and the physiology of pregnancy that was far superior to their previous education in these areas. They have often accurately described certain characteristics of the heart sounds of the mother and child; the nature of various acoustic phenomena in the peritoneal cavity; specific details of positions, physical features, and behaviour of the foetus; relevant facts about placentary circulation; and even details about exchanges between the maternal and foetal blood in the placentary villi….

When we do take our memory back to include all these and go beyond that to our life in eternity, we remember who we are. Then we know what spirit is – ones Self.

In attempting to find what the human spirit is by looking at dreams, the simplest definition is that when a dream enables us to go beyond the limitations of our personal memories, our learning, our body and our sense of what life is, it opens our spiritual life to us. The most profound of these experiences usually involve a sense of existing throughout all time – that at ones core exists a level of being that has always been, and is beyond the changes of life and death. Certainly one of the sources of the spiritual is that we have a sense of something, or an experience, that shows us a very different view of our life and the objective world than we usually arrive at through our sense impressions or our inherited cultural views. Common experiences of the spiritual are as follows:-

Spirit Spirits

To see a spirit, a disembodied personality, in a dream may symbolise thoughts or feelings on death, but very often it shows a past memory or experience that still haunts you, perhaps because it has never been fully felt. This full experience of it is a sort of exorcism, banishing the ghost.

The spirit in your dream may be a contact with the dead, or those about to be born. In some cases, the spirit comes to the parents and asks them to form a body for it as it wishes to incarnate, and they could provide a suitable body and family environment.

Splinter

Ideas or opinions that are irritating to your feelings.

Sponge

Your ability or need to absorb something, which is probably shown in the dream. But absorption, like eating, does not mean you have digested what you absorbed. See digest

You can be absorbed in something like and idea, a person or a project, which suggests you are fascinated and concentrated on the subject.

Something needs to be or is being absorbed. “Sponge” (one who takes advantage of others, a parasite); “throw in the sponge. ”

Soaking up everything; learning indiscriminately

Sponging off other people Feeling others are sponging off you.

 Example: I was selling a sponge mop to a woman. Now this I imagine is an outgrowth of my Fuller Brush work, but this is definitely not a Fuller mop. I do remember at any rate pointing out the sponge and the quality of its cellulose fibers and all, and how the regular attachment worked and also a hardwood handle that screwed into the mop head. Now this is one feature we do not have on a Fuller mop. She wasn’t saying much, but she acted pleased at the mop. 

Example: Carole, a friend from high school days, tells me to look at him. She says he thinks he is smart sponging off everyone. I try to quiet her. It is now like this is my house and I have decided to let the party continue.

Example: Parenting is an amazing spiritual path, one that encourages you to learn and explore because you want to be at your best because you are this most important person in the lives of these tender young ones. They are these incredible little sponges that absorb so much from everything and everyone in their world. We have far to go in realizing how important the early years are, and how they influence the entire life of every person. You can try to walk away from it, but it is with you nonetheless.

Example:  I had a dream about an elderly neighbour lady (who is also my friend). I was visiting with her and cleaning the kitchen when I looked up and she was taking a sponge bath and ask me to wash her private area. Naturally I refused. Her eyes got big and shiny and she acted as though I had insulted her. I ran for the back door and she was screaming for me to get back and do what she asked. I said no way. She said, “You better not tell anyone about this.” I have never had a dream such as this. What could it mean?

Spoon Spooning

Could indicate stirring things up or simply mixing things. Also taking small helpings or spooning it out. Spoons are often used for, tasting food to see if it is too hot or tasty. If you are spoon feeding others it might be telling you that you are acting like parent with a child – or are you doing it to yourself? What are you eating with the spoon, or are swallowing ideas fed to you by someone else. Maybe taking medicine.

Spooning: Many dreams are about spooning, cuddling someone from the rear – either women and men or women with a woman. It show gentle pleasure usually of a non genital type – but not always.

Spots

See: Acne.

Spring

Spring New growth, and what was latent is emerging, what was dead coming to life again. Spring may indicate that the seeds of what you have already sown through your actions are now springing into life or manifestation. It can also suggest a new start in business or relationship, or it can indicate childhood or youth.

Spring reminds us that we share this season of rebirth/reincarnation with nature itself. We too go through our own Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter as we reach maturity, old age and death, and then spring again. For each Spring is different and yet lives again in different forms.

“In Spring we see the plants spring up out of the earth, and that which we see there as germinating, budding life, calls forth our joy and delight. We become aware that the whole of our existence is bound up with the plant world, for without it we could not exist. We feel how that which springs up out of the earth at the approach of Summer is related to our own life. We feel in the Autumn how that which in a certain sense belongs to us, again decays.” Quoted from Rudolph Steiner’s Lectures on Life.

Free flowing feeling and rejuvenating energy. It often refers to your source of life and consciousness – the life that enlivens you that arises from unknown depths. This is especially so if the spring is in a cave or underground. It then suggests you are becoming more aware of your connection with universal life as in the following dream. See:  Water; River

I and a number of other people were in a chapel or church. There was a holy spring arising in a basin such as are found containing holy water outside Catholic churches. I drank some of this water, only a small medicine glassful. It was powerfully healing. Most of the people there drank some water, seeking to be healed. A man came and told me not to be too frugal with the water, as, although there was only a basin full, you could never empty it. The spring was perpetually replenishing it. I believe I filled containers to give to other people who could not get to the spring. I then partially awoke from this dream, and was aware of a vibratory force acting on my body. My feet were actually trembling, not through tension, but through the passage of this force.

 

Spring of Water

Free flowing feeling and rejuvenating energy. It often refers to your source of life and consciousness – the life that enlivens you that arises from unknown depths. This is especially so if the spring is in a cave or underground. It then suggests you are becoming more aware of your connection with universal life as in the following dream. See:  Water

I and a number of other people were in a chapel or church. There was a holy spring arising in a basin such as are found containing holy water outside Catholic churches. I drank some of this water, only a small medicine glassful. It was powerfully healing. Most of the people there drank some water, seeking to be healed. A man came and told me not to be too frugal with the water, as, although there was only a basin full, you could never empty it. The spring was perpetually replenishing it. I believe I filled containers to give to other people who could not get to the spring. I then partially awoke from this dream, and was aware of a vibratory force acting on my body. My feet were actually trembling, not through tension, but through the passage of this force.

Spy Spying

Suspicion; underhandedness; secrecy; something you could be in trouble about if you were found out.

I could also suggest someone or a trait in you that wants to find out things that other people do not want you to find out. A way of acting normal while living a life of deception, or of trying to find vital information. Look at the context to see what else is suggested. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/context/

Square

See: Cube; Four; Shapes.

Squint Squinting

Difficulty in understanding. See: Eye.

Squirrel

This could refer to the ability or desire to hibernate, to pull back from outward activity. Also the squirrel is industrious in the summer collecting/saving food for the winter. So it can depict the habit or need to save. It is also a very nimble creature, and so could refer to the ability to move around in life with great ease. But in the USA some squirrels have rabies and so can be a source of disease, so might suggest, if the squirrel bites you, that something has got into you that is detrimental.

Useful questions are:

Am I wanting to draw back from worldly activity for a season?

Is my dream squirrel displaying ability to move through difficult surroundings, and does that relate to me at the moment?

Does the dream suggest I should be thrifty for a coming period of less income and opportunity?

Stab Stabbed Stabbing

Either refers to aggressive activities, hurtful words, feeling hurt, or aggressive sexuality.

If we are stabbing someone, especially if it is a parent or someone we have linked with emotionally or sexually, there may sometimes exist behind the action the need to sever or kill any dependence upon or bonding with, that person. Any anger being felt in this case is about the depth of our need or dependence, and the pain at having to sever the connection. Such severance and angry killing of our feelings for someone else, usually gives rise to guilt. See: weapons.

Stable

The natural urges you have,  so the urges or gut feelings you have that may express as instincts. But this is the home of your instinctive self, so also their shelter and safety. It often also symbolises the birthplace of Christ – i.e. where we meet the influence arising from our innate link with all life, our core self and source of love. See Instincts – Archetype of Christmas – Core Self

Stag

Male aspect of the personality.

Masculinity; male sexual drive; in a female dream it might depict her response to male sexuality; the joy of life; courage; the life energy; virility; healing energy.

EXAMPLE: The three of us were on our way to a lively night out and I suggested a short cut through Richmond Park. Suddenly this old man stepped out and advised us not to do so as stags were rutting. I thanked him and replied they would be too busy to care about us. As we walked through, trying to ignore the fact the stags seemed to be stuck together, we felt relieved. Suddenly an enormously big stag with tremendous horns and a leering and vicious expression came swaying toward us after breaking free of a female deer. Jasmine C.

EXAMPLE: The following comes from the notes of a man exploring a dream about a bull: As the bull, when I put my nose into the grass the earth tells me what has lived and died in this field. I hear the earth tell me things. I hear this voice in me calling out ‘ME! ME! ME!’ There is that one voice calling out from deep in me saying everything. It is the bull calling a mate. It is the stag saying – I AM – I will fight – I will kill – I will care – I live – I die – I lust – I want. It is saying I am alive. I’ve got something – LOOK . I have this precious gift of the seeds of life. I am Life. I am the baby crying for the mother. I am the death cry. It is sex which turns this energy on. It is the female which calls it. When I see the cow wonderful things happen. In the erection the blood pressure alters, the guts change. But I believe that can be redirected. It can create a new life at another level. It can leave its old path of reproduction of the body, and create a new life in the eternal – waking up in eternity. The bull or stag must come of its own accord – but the direction must be indicated for it.

Useful questions are:

Is my dream in any way referring to sex, and if so what is it commenting about my own sexual feelings and activities?

Am I in any way feeling that joy and lust for life the proud stage displays?

Is my dream stag healthy or injured, and how does that relate to my life energy?

What is my dream stag displaying in its actions?

Stage

This can refer to your life in general; your stage of development; the inner self and what drama is being enacted therein; a desire to be in the limelight; or the centre of present interest or activity. Conscious activities. The play of your own dramatic passions and drives within yourself. The theme being dramatised is often important to understand, as it reflects concerns in your own life that are of concern to you. See: Actor.

Stagnant

Blocked emotions or energies. See: River.

Stain

Perhaps a mark on your character that you feel difficult to remove. Also marks left in some way that tell others about you.

Example: I am to teach and I am wearing this big khaki outfit with a big shirt that goes over my belt. (I am very fat here.) And there is a huge wet pee stain that I just discover by looking into the mirror before I go in to teach. Others can see it fairly easily.
Example: Will he smell the fact that I’m on my period? Will I stain the sheets? What if I want to masturbate?”
Example: I had to get up and wash my penis. It felt dirty with the stain of an awful thing. I had to wash it off. I got up and did this. Gradually the reason for all this clarified. It was that I was experiencing the awfulness of sex without love, the dirtiness of using somebody else’s body.

As can be seen from the examples, one can use stains in very different ways. They can be used on paper money to detect a thief, or even in ones body to see its workings or disease.

Stairs Staircase

As a baby, stairs presented a huge challenge. To deal with them we had to develop several major abilities, such as steady balance, confidence, control of fear of falling, strength of purpose. Therefore, stairs represent many feelings in connection with achievement, failure, climbing and falling. When these feelings also connect with work, relationship, social standing or sex, then we use stairs as a symbol of what we are feeling.

Taking steps toward something; going up or down in life in your own estimation; moving from one environment to another, so a shift in some way; gaining a new skill, or facing a challenge – stairs are difficult and dangerous when we are children, and so probably remain as a symbol of challenge, danger and achievement in adulthood. Many dreams of climbing stairs include feelings of high anxiety. This is either to do with avoiding a danger at the foot of the stairs, or arriving at something threatening or dangerous at the top. But the difficult feelings might not be due to danger, but to finding or realising things that radically change the way you see yourself or the world. The following example illustrates this.

Example: We move into a house and nobody but myself has really taken any notice of the stairs. Nobody has been up. In one dream I try to go up but the children are scared for me. They plead, “don’t go up Mum, just forget them.” Then I wake. In the next dream I wait till they are asleep. Half way up I can see there is a glass roof, the wooden frames painted green. I am terrified but have to go on. Then I wake. Next dream I got up there. It smells very musty. Lots of draw sheets
covering things. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

Going down stairs: This is a controlled fall. The ease or difficulty with which you manage the descent, shows how well you manage the fear of falling, or the measure of your confidence.

If you are going down into a basement or cellar it can mean that in the cellar or basement one is near to the earth, the primordial forces of nature, what moves beneath ones ‘street level’ personality. So if you feel anxious as you go down it suggests you have not explored this level of your mind yet. This is because many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

Going down may mean you are going down in life, but sometimes it links with loss of good feelings, of health or even like the following dream.

Example: “I dreamed that I was awakened by the sound of a horse’s hooves in the street. I saw a white horse, with no rider, stopping at midnight in front of our house. I knew it came for my younger sister. I went to the door and opened it to call her, when suddenly I saw her coming down the stairs, all dressed in white. She did not say a word to me, but walked with stately steps down the stairs, through the hall, and out of the door. She mounted the horse and rode away. I woke up crying.” The woman’s sister died a month later.

Going up stairs: Again, this is about a change of situation or environment, but going up frequently depicts greater excitement, awareness or discovery of new experience.

Going up shows you leaving the everyday, ground level or ordinary world of experience.

So it can be an escape from involvement with others or events, or also an ascent into greater vulnerability.

The example below shows how going upstairs can be an opening or widening of awareness to include areas of experience usually avoided. In fact Mrs. H. takes her awareness down to more everyday levels to escape meeting the light. This shows how we not only avoid unpleasantness, but also something wonderful or out of the ordinary.

Running up: Escaping from urges arising from lower down in the body – so a movement of attention towards the abstract or mental away from fears arising from unconscious or sexuality; lack of confidence, a fear of failing or not being capable is also a common feeling in connection with stairs; if running up with pleasure, then it suggests exuberance producing a change in your feelings and situation.

Walking down: Going down stairs, apart from a descent from a higher place, a more inclusive view, is also a controlled fall. This might suggest being in control of a changing situation.

Skimming down: This is a dream often experienced by children. It is almost like flying down the stairs, the feet just touching the edge of the stairs every so often, creating an exhilarating sense of pleasure. The reason for the dream is most likely that going down stairs as a young child is a difficult and dangerous skill. Most of us have fallen at some point. As we gain greater physical control and can run down stairs, a sense of greater achievement arises. Not only stairs, but other areas of our environment that were dangerous, are now a source of pleasure. The dream translates this feeling into the image of skimming the stairs.

Example: I would stand at the top of the stairs and instead of walking down the stairs I used to fly. This dream lasted for a number of years and as I got older I sometimes dreamed that boys or men were chasing me. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.

Here the stairs represent confidence in dealing with difficulties. But when she got to puberty she faced a new difficulty, her desire for a partner and her sexual feelings, flying away into the air often shows how we can escape difficult feelings by living in a fantasy, reading a book or watching a film as an escape.

Example: ‘I was in a building with a group of people. I was being chased and suddenly fly up in the air to escape my pursuers.’ Michael O.

Spiral staircase: The spiral staircase usually indicates – if going up – your personal evolution and positive change, and the change is one involving greater insight or wider view of yourself and life. It also involves the continuous repeating of experience, going around daily activities, facing the same again and again, but each cycle brings positive change.

The spiral staircase hints at a view of life you have, that you are in a process of continual growth, the spiral staircase of Life. So perhaps the change is part of your growth. The feeling of the house is usually a way of telling you something – probably that the house/you that you live in at the moment is not a good place to be – or the reverse. It is probably referring to your attitudes in life.

In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection, whereas the ancients saw it as a continuing cycle.

Example: ‘I go up the first flight of stairs, then the next, and there is my ex husband’s Nan who is dead and whom I have never met. I don’t see her face but I know it’s her. She is a blinding white light and I run down the stairs.’ Mrs. H.

See What Happens When I Die?

Stallion

See: Horse.

Stammer

Internal struggle or conflict of some sort. Perhaps a sub vocalisation is going on at the same time. See: Speak.

Star

A hope, a wish, an ambition. An intuition or subtle sense of the cosmos and your relationship with it. Subtle influences that shape and direct you.

Stars

Intuitions about the cosmos; the perhaps almost unnoticeable promptings or motivations which occur through life leading us in a particular direction – destiny; hopes or wishes. In some dreams a star or stars, represent what is eternal or unchanging in your nature; your most central being or spirit; also the subtle influences that shape and direct you. See: star under shapes and symbols.

None of us exist without the influence of stars. Our Sun is a star and without its influence we would not have appeared. And that is a massive influence.

Looking at the stars in dreams shows you seeing beyond the everyday life and seeing the grand and underlying cosmic forces which are part of your being.

A shooting star coming down to Earth – is a magnificent sign. I think it points to a message of great importance for you – a message of the wonder of your own birth and all it will lead to. It represents an impulse coming to your awareness, that arises from the hugeness you have within you.

Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it can feel like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

Starvation

Hungering for something such as love, self expression, recognition, self realisation. See: Fasting.

State-interstate-state of mind

Example: I’ve had a recurring theme in my dreams involving highways for some time now. Sometimes I’m walking on twisted, closed down structures and ramps in the city, or on a path alongside a Midwest interstate. Recently, I’ve been walking alongside quieter state highways.

Example: I usually seem to have a positive feeling. I don’t mind walking, and I enjoy seeing the different perspectives and challenges of walking a road that most all people drive. If anything, I don’t appreciate being seen walking by the other drivers.
It’s usually daytime or evening in these dreams. I was wondering if there is any particular significance in having this variety of dream recur so many times.

Station

See: Railway.

Statue

Unfeeling, like a stone. Unresponsiveness.

Steal Stealing Stolen

Feeling that something is taken from you, or you are taking something, without agreement. Feelings of being unloved might enter into this, as you will feel you are stealing what is not willingly given.

Steam

Emotions expressed under pressure, as words spoken in anger; or things done after a shock or fright.

Steel

See: Iron.

Steps

Usually the different steps taken in any undertaking. The first step towards marriage is courtship, the next engagement, and so on. See: Walking.

Steps in Problem Solving

Sterilise

May express a fear of illness, of germs. Or an attempt to cleanse self. See: Bathing.

Stew

We may be in a stew, or in a muddle or confusion. A stew can also represent different parts of self being unified into a homogenous whole, a sustaining power instead of a confusing one. See: Soup; Food.

STIFF

Formality, rigidity, extreme morality.

Sting

Hurt by what has been said or done by someone. To be stung to action, means pain has stimulated you to do something about it.

Stink

A fuss or argument. Unpleasant emotions.

Stockings

The situation in which the stockings are worn or seen gives the indication to their meaning – also what your feelings and associations are with stockings.  Do they appear in connection with sexual feelings, with desire to look attractive, with a need to have the right clothes for a situation? How does that apply to you at the moment? Most dreams seem to be about attractiveness though.

Stockings also protect or change the appearance of your legs, so might point to something that is supporting your confidence or helping you to feel more presentable.

Stockings can be used for many other things – a mask, a club when filled with sand, a belt, and so on. There might be a hint here that your femininity or feminine attraction is being used in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is being done, felt or expressed in connection with the stockings?

What colour are they, and what does that suggest to me?

How do I respond to seeing or wearing them?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Stomach

Acceptance. It symbolises your ability to deal with events, situations, ideas and people.

See Body/Stomach

Stone Stones

To be unfeeling, heart like a stone, frigid instead of loving. To throw stones is to give nothing but hate and coldness, to be unsympathetic or aggressive. See Rock

Hardness, loss of feeling or unfeeling. A stone can also indicate something eternal, or long lasting. It can be an influence from the long past entering your life.

Digging up or finding ancient stone:

White stone: After all this upon a day I heard my noble Master say,

How that manie men patient and wise,

Found our White Stone with Exercise;

After that thei were trewlie tought,

With great labour that Stone they Caught;

But few (said he) or scarcely one,

In fifteene Kingdoms had our Red Stone.

 

Red Stone: The bringing of the vision into the life of the world, that is the true lap is philosophae.’

 

Idioms: Cast the first stone; leave no stone unturned; stone dead; stone deaf; blood out of a stone; stony broke; heart of stone; stoned. See: rock.

Stool

Similar to chair but less secure. A feeling of resting. See Chair

Store

See: Shop.

Storeroom

This often appears in dreams and can indicate useful things that you may have forgotten or have let become lost by non use. Sometime also it shows a past life in which talents or useful skills are there waiting to be claimed or resurrected in to your present self.


Example: I ask the manager of the x-ray department – in my dream she has the role of managing a kind of boarding school – if I am allowed to visit my mother in the evening. I have finished all the work I am supposed to do over there. It has to do with storing all the things that are used in the boarding school, from food to cleaning materials and everything in between. 

I observe a male colleague from the x-ray department, who works in the storeroom as well. 

Stork

The soul; symbol of birth or babyhood, and perhaps parenthood; the beauty of the wider awareness of the unconscious.

Storm

Violent emotions, fears and thoughts. Anger, terror, or release of pent up feelings in a dramatic manner.

But storms are caused by cosmic events – the action of the sun, the earths cycles influencing the wind. So something important, a force of Life itself is acting on your inner life. You may feel it is something to be avoided, but if you meet it without fighting it, it is your own enormous energy enlarging you. See Tsunami – Wind – whirlwind twister or vortex

Stove

See: Oven.

Straight Jacket

This has many possible associations – being out of control; being socially threatening; crazy and frightening behaviour, or feeling completely restricted and unable to express your feelings and motivations. This might include a sense of inadequacy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a self imposed restriction or imposed by other people – and remember that other people in dreams are usually aspects of myself? So if it is imposed by someone else, what attitude, belief system or moral code do they represent that is the source of the restriction.

Why is the jacket being used, and can I see a connection with that?

If this is on someone else, am I applying it and why?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Stranger

May be referring to an unrecognised part of yourself, your behaviour or character, or something you fail to see or recognise as you. In a way this might even be a new growing part of you you haven’t met before. So if it is an ‘alien’ stranger it is something so new it is out of your present world view.

The stranger could also involve feelings of not belonging, of not connecting, not feeling you have a home or know where home is.

Stranger can mean we do not recognise who someone is in relationship to us, what they feel for us or we them. The stranger is also the person you have rejected – the you that is rejected.

Stranger at the door could mean a new and unexpected meeting or an opportunity.

A ragged or dirty stranger may not be about something awful appearing in your life, as sometimes the dirt hides value. But you can find out by using Being the Person or Thing

Useful Questions:

What sort of person is this – threatening, loving, interesting – see of you can define it, and ask yourself what of those is at your door of opportunity?

What is your response to the stranger, and what does this suggest?

What is the stranger doing, or what is the actions in the dream, and how does this reflect your daily life?

Strangle

Life or energy is being cut off by an attitude, fear or repression. Emotions can be held back in the neck, so it might be feelings about someone living or dead that you are holding back.

Straw

If it is straw used in farming, it might suggest clearing up a mess left by animals, or a cleaning and giving a better environment. If you have been around horses or farms when young it might represent the fun side of you, or the courting and loving in the straw/hay feelings.

It might also link with your feelings about farming or keeping livestock.

A drinking straw: Most likely the fun and pleasure you got from learning to drink through a straw. Or the experiment and tricks you learned with the bendy straw. So experiment and learning and fun.

Straw hat: A natural form of protection.

Straw roof: A basic protection from difficult feelings and change.

 Example: I am in the front garden of my parental home, where 4 cages with rabbits are standing on the grass. They all look well, the cages being filled with fresh straw. I put some sort of a herb in one of the cages and the rabbit starts eating it right away. I realise that some of them do not like to eat the fresh food and therefore it was still there.

Example:  I had always looked to my dreams as a guide and for such a clear one not to happen really shook me up.  I felt quite lonely and abandoned, for the only thing I had that seemed to link me to a greater consciousness, to God really, seemed to be built on straw.

Example: He follows me out of the restroom. He likes me and wants to get together. I carry straw flowers and a strawberry. I throw away the strawberry. He is very happy and says, “Oh look. She threw away his strawberry and kept my straw flowers.” Somehow that means I favor him.

Idioms: clutching at straws; the last straw; straw that broke the camel’s back

Stream

See: River.

Street

See: Road.

Stretch Stretching

It suggest going beyond your normal limits, or extending what you are capable of. Maybe you see it as improving your health or performance.

 

 

String

Attempts to make something secure; mending a situation or relationship; trying to hold something together – a business, a marriage; connection with others. See string in mouth under mouth.

Sometimes it indicates binding, restriction as if one is tied up with it.

Idioms: Have someone on a piece of string; hold the purse strings; string along; string someone along; strung up; no strings attached; pull strings; apron strings.

Stroller

Relating to babyhood, being dependent, or even pregnancy. It could also suggest having responsibility if you are pushing it.

Struggle

For some people just to exist is a struggle. But there are so many struggles the dream might be pointing to. Struggling to earn enough; struggling for recognition; struggling to find and earn love; struggling against depression and despair; struggling against illness; struggling to find your way through the maze of life events; struggling to contain your anger about what happens around you or in front of you; struggling against the madness of some human actions; struggling to continue after the loss of a child or loved one; struggling to breathe; struggling to learn something – struggling.

What is your struggle?

You can find your way through such struggles.

See Recovery from a Life of Pain

Submarine

In some dreams may take the place of the symbol of the whale, so represent powerful feelings and urges emerging from the unconscious. But the submarine is also a way to explore your own inner content and wisdom.

This is your ability to meet the depths of feelings and experiences in your unconscious, as well as functioning okay in the everyday world. Any sort of boat also has the possible suggestion of relationship, especially if there is some expression of this in the dream. Therefore the feelings expressed in the dream may refer to unconscious feeling in a relationship. If the submarine is threatening, then it could be fears of internal emotions or urges. If the submarine is surfacing the emotions may be breaking through into your everyday life. See: Ship; Whale.

Subway

See: Underground.

Suck

May refer to infantile feelings, as in sucking at the breast. Or may symbolise being a sucker or fool.

 

Suffocate Suffocated Suffocating

This often reflects the way you relate to your environment, either in a relationship or work or family. It depicts feeling you have no personal space or opportunity to express. It can also show great anxiety.

Some types of sleep problem, such as apnoea, may also cause this type of dream.

Sugar

Enjoyable things in life, or pleasant things in self or others. Desire to cover up unpleasant things in your experience, or in others.

As sugar and salt are basic desires, dating from prehistoric times when such foods were very necessary, we tend to overload with them. Both are quite poisonous taken in the quantities we do in refined and factory made foods.

Suicide

Remembering that most people in dreams depict an aspect of oneself, this may be illustrating that we lack pleasure in life or have little to live for in the way of satisfaction; suicide may also be a sign of interiorised anger, where instead of admitting our anger, we destroy parts of our own feelings; may depict business or relationship suicide.

If it is someone we know: Often shows us hoping person will get out of our life; intuition.

Example: In a dream my wife, Brenda, saw a baby that she knew belong to a friend, and a voice from behind her told her the child was ill. Its illness, she was given to understand, was serious, and would need to be treated with a drug taken every day of the child’s life. The reason for this illness and the drug use, she was told, was because in a past life the being now born as the baby had committed suicide using a drug.

I sent an account of the dream to the parents of the baby. About a week later we had a letter from them saying that the letter and dream had crystallised their already existing anxiety about the baby. It had not been feeding well and was fretful. On taking it to the doctor nothing definite could be found but special tests were made in hospital. From these it was discovered the baby was dying. It lacked an enzyme that was needed to digest calcium. To compensate it was given a drug, which it has had to take every day of its life to make up for the lacking enzyme.

Example: I am standing in the toilet peeing into the water. This creates lots of bubbles. As I look at these bubbles I notice each one has an eye looking at me. Fascinated I bend lower to look back at these eyes. When I do so I see they are not ‘eyes’ but ‘I’s’. Each is a tiny reflection of myself looking back at me. Amused I ponder this multitude of me. Each tiny being, with its own individual sense of self, its own eyes and legs and fingers, feels it is separate from its fellows – and it is. But what they don’t realise is that their awareness, their consciousness is a reflection of me. I am their god. Out of me all have their being. Then suddenly I realise I am myself a bubble. I too have a sense of being independent, with my own eyes, fingers and legs. Yet in reality I am only a reflection of one great life – One Self Existent Awareness in all its diversity and multifarious forms. I felt afraid. I realised that any attempt at killing myself is foolish because as part of the great consciousness I cannot die, I would only be hurting myself.”

Einstein said that “Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper”.

See Masters of Nightmares – Suicide2

Suit

This often has something to do with a level of formality or to express something through the colour or style of the suit. So it is important to define whether it is a business suit, a stage outfit, a wedding outfit, a wet suit, or a jump suit, and what colour it is. For instance there can be bunny suits, bathing suit, pyjama suit, an expensive or ragged suit. Each of which more or less tell their own story, the general meaning of which applies to how you are presenting yourself, seeing yourself, or your opinion of someone else. In other words the suit depicts your feelings of confidence or  lack of it, and what stance you are taking in life at the time. Therefore the different suits can refer to the different roles one takes in life, and maybe also the different skills or attitudes they require or express through. See: Clothes.

Many dreams emphasise the colour of the suit, and this is important, so consider what you feel about the colour, or look it up under colours. Also the suit or suited person can depict authority, such as a doctor or lawyer, orderliness or a businesslike way of living or doing things. It can also suggest conformity.

A waterproof suit is showing how you are seeking or need protection against the attitudes or feelings you are confronting. Is there stormy weather about in a relationship or work?

In terms of wordplay it can be a way of saying a situation or relationship does, or does not, suit you.

Army, Air Force, Navy suit: This may connect with memories you have, either of being  in one of these services, or of someone you know in the uniform. If not, then it suggests the qualities or stereotype ideas and feelings connected with them.

Bathing suit: See: swimsuit below.

Business suit: Attitudes to do with work or being practical and outgoing and often in a woman’s dream feelings of being sophisticated. Sometimes this suggests authority or power, go-getting and taskmaster. A dreamer exploring the figure of a business suited woman, said of her, “ She’s super-aggressive, independent, self-confident, and has lots of status and power. I could use some of that but don’t have much.”

So the business suit often refers to feelings of success, or doing well in life.

Example: I interviewed for a job as a secretary for this college professor who has a terrible reputation as a womanizer who “feeds” on the young college girls. I am a sophisticated, together woman in white high heels and a business suit. I am also beautiful and tailored. BS

Jump suit: Easy and ready for anything attitude.

Nurse: Feelings about a helping, healing or supportive role.

Police: Attitudes to do with living by the rules and being an authority figure.

swimsuit or bikini: Depending on the feelings in the dream it could mean you feel revealed to others in a way that might not be what you would want to appear, or that you are relaxed and open about who you are and feel you are an attractive person. Sometimes this links with how attractive or otherwise you are with a partner.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the suit, and what role or attitudes does it suggest?

What am I doing in the dream in relationship with the suit, what feelings arise in the dream,

And what does this point to in my life?

Am I easy or not in regard to the suit – either way why do I feel like that?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Suitcase

See: Luggage.

Summer

Maturing process, warmth of emotions. energy expressed outwardly, an outgoing personality. The height of your success or mid-life.

Sun

Symbol of life, energy and spirit. Represents the whole of your being, or source of life and consciousness. To sunbathe means to expose yourself to life-giving energies from within. To drop away morals, opinions, attitudes, as represented by clothes, and allow your energies natural expression. All energy and health, happiness and success.

Or you can have sunburn, or sunstroke, symbolising an exposure to your inner energies before knowing how to cope with them.

Sunday

Relaxation, rest, religious observance.

Supermarket

The pleasure or displeasure of shopping or looking for goods. It also involves in choosing or choices. So as with shopping it indicates what you desire; something you are looking for or want – love, fame, sex; the many possibilities open to you, or the good things in your life or in yourself. Or it could be a place of work or business so whatever you feel about your work or work place. See Move Toward Pleasure and Easy Dream Interpretation

It could also be the place that provides food for the mind, for the heart, for the spirit.

Running a supermarket: Could suggest that you have the ability to act as a carer and supporter for peoples basic needs. It also involves providing for people’s needs.

Example: I am sitting at a table with a man and a woman who have just got a letter from someone asking for a Hiawatha doll. I ask if they want it in the beatific pose or one of suffering. They laugh. I tell them that they can probably find it in Walmart. The woman groans. ‘You don’t like Walmart?” I say. “Well, they have the best selection, but there are other stores too.” I feel like a veteran of this sort of thing – people writing to me from abroad, wanting me to buy them something and sending it to them.

Idioms: Shop around; set up shop; shut up shop; talk shop; closed shop.

Support Supporter

Someone who either supports you emotionally, financially, as a member of a group or club, or even in your life direction or beliefs. A person or a group – a part of your inner life – who give practical help in an emergency, or stand by you when others criticise or attack you. An aspect of you that gives support for a new project or idea, or who works within you.

Dreaming of a baby or child may suggest a need for love, support and care, and it may even represent actual memories of your own baby/child/hood. The baby or child also depict newness, new opportunity, a fresh approach, all which need your support.

Example: The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches. John P.

See Amulet; Ancestors; Helper; Backer Backing; Base

Surf Surfing

Waves of feeling, inspiration, experience. Meeting challenges in the swift changes in your life. Sex and its pleasures or difficulties.

Surgery

A surgery: Ones health, emotional or physical.

Having surgery: Feeling ‘got at’ by someone; having someone ‘get under ones skin’; difficult but healing changes in yourself; feelings about surgery if imminent.

Surrender

To hand over your will. To become open to influence.

Swallow Swallowed Swallowing

This suggests you are either taking something in, or if you are swallowing without putting something in your mouth, then you are holding something back, pushing down feelings or a healing process.

What you swallow can also indicate what you take into you in terms of food, ideas and criticisms, feelings and suggestion you might have ‘swallowed’. When you swallow something it affects you negatively or positively.

This might be about holding back emotions, swallowing words or anger, or taking in something. This will depend on what you are swallowing and what you feel about that. In general we swallow things to absorb them for various reasons. Swallowing food has a different urge behind it than swallowing alcohol or medicine.

Idioms: Swallow your pride; he/she swallowed it; a difficult pill to swallow; hard to swallow.

Swamp

See: Bog, Marsh.

Swan

Grace; beauty; dignity. In mythology often represents the psyche or soul and its connection with a spiritual world; the side of human nature usually hidden because unconscious, often referred to as the spiritual – meaning the consciousness of connection with all life.

In folklore and mythology people turn into a swan, or God takes the form of a swan. The swan represents the soul, or sometimes the spirit. It may represent the parts of your inner life that are not understood, or are hurt by your environment or others; the loving parts of the self that are killed or unloved, and turn into a swan leaving us with a sense of terrible loss.

The swan has a long neck so they can put it under water and feed. In other words they are used to operating in the usually unconscious inner world. Seeing into the inner world is becoming more intuitive and able to discover a huge world within you.  See Inner World

The swan in your dream may be linked with an ending of something due to the association with ‘the swan song’ – a final act. It can also suggest amorousness, or the ideal of love in sexuality, and as such may represent virginity or a blend of male and female.

Example: “I was in an all-green world—the sky, the water, and the pool, from whose depths grew tall weeds. Suddenly, the pool was a raging ocean, and I watched with horror as an ugly, green monster rose from the murky depths and devoured a lovely white swan.”

The change from the pool to the angry waters of the ocean with the monster symbolized her growing agitated subconscious state. The weeds in the pool also emphasized the dangers, because weeds growing up from the bottom may trap a person. he green monster represented jealousy and envy of those who had greater material abundance.

Sweep Sweeping Swept

Clearing away outmoded attitudes, anxieties or emotions; getting feelings about someone out of ones life.

Sweets

Childhood pleasures, rewards or punishments. So sweets may relate to something you want desperately or hunger for in a childlike way. They often hold a lot of memories of the past.

There might also be negative associations with sweets. See: Sugar

Swimming

Usually this shows your degree of confidence in dealing with the sort of impacts, anxieties or emotions which cause some people to ‘go under’, either in relationships or something like running a family or business. It indicates how you meet the many influences, urges and thoughts that buffet you and in which you live.

Example: ‘I looked at a large pool where a river surfaced. A woman swam in it and was going to enter tunnels leading away from it. As I watched I saw some huge crocodiles swim toward her. With great speed and confidence she swam away, obviously being able to match the threat.’ Laurie V.

Laurie explored the dream and found the swimming expressed his growing confidence in meeting feelings which in past years had led to depression.

Swimming can also be about expressive motivation, trusting yourself in life, and being confident sexually. There is an element of personal survival in swimming, and the dream might well emphasise this sometimes.

A parent dreaming about its child swimming might very well be considering whether they will ‘sink or swim’ in their dealings with life, and many women dream of swimming or being in the water during menstruation. See: Diving; Pool; Sea; Swimming pool; Water.

Idioms: In the swim; swim against the tide; sink or swim.

Useful questions:

Where am I swimming and what is the general feeling involved…am I swimming easily or with difficulty?

Is this about self confidence and trust that I can handle what I meet in life?

Do I feel fear and apprehension about my emotions, not trusting my ability to keep afloat?

Was this a healing dream, as in immersing myself in water as a cleansing influence?


Hanging about not getting in: Hesitation about a change, getting involved or something new in life.

Learning to swim: Learning to survive in a new environment, such as happens when we emerge from childhood into adult sexual drives, or the school or work environment.

Swimming against the current or tide: Meeting opposition, either from within or others. Perhaps you are moving against general opinions, or have feeling difficulties creating indecision or feelings of pressure.

Swimming underwater: Taking awareness into what was unconscious, so looking within and seeing what goes on under the surface in relationships, the body, etc. If easy it suggests ease meeting the varied aspects of your being.

Swimming with other people: Sharing common feelings, goals, etc., or your connections with others.

Diving in: Taking the plunge in a new activity, relationship or way of life.

Swimming Pool

The way we share experience with other people or are involved with other people. It therefore often refers to relationships with others, especially the aspect of relationship where feelings or influence permeates us from others. For instance we might be part of a social group that starts using drugs and be influenced to join in drug usage. The swimming pool may also represent the magical inner world of our own mind, fantasy and imagination, especially in relationship with other people.

Rosemary Ellen Guiley, in her excellent book The Encyclopaedia of Dreams describes a swimming pool as, “A symbol of a restricted unconscious. Swimming pools are artificial constructions, which gives them associations with collectivity. They have boundaries and known depths, and offer relatively safe encounters with water. Symbolically, such safe encounters are with only a restricted part of the unconscious, unlike the unbounded depths of the ocean or the great depths of a lake. A swimming pool at a home takes on a more personal significance than a swimming pool in a public facility such as a gym or school, the latter of which operates under collective rules.

Being under water in the pool: Something that is ‘submerged’ such as feelings about a past relationship that still exist but are not ‘on the surface’ of one’s mind. Or perhaps an aspect of one’s personality that has not yet been recognised consciously. Also it suggests seeing what is going on unconsciously or under the surface in a group. See: pool; swimming; water. 

Indoor swimming pool: Being indoors it suggests a more private or personal experience of your inner world.  So you are experiencing the magical inner world of your own mind, fantasy and imagination. See  The Inner World

The swimming pool indoors often may refer to conception.

Example: The dream examples involve objects being placed in box-like containers. My wife, Susanna, had a conception dream of being in a department store looking for a baby thermometer and discovering a round indoor swimming pool in which a woman and a dolphin were playing. After watching them for a while, Susanna decided to enter the pool and join in their playful antics. Since I was sixty-three when she experienced this dream, we weren’t sure that the obvious pregnancy-related symbols really indicated that her body had taken the plunge into maternity, but subsequent testing validated the accuracy of her dream. Shortly after my sixty-fourth birthday, Susanna and I celebrated the arrival of our beautiful, healthy, nine-pound daughter, Parker Mary.

Idioms: In the swim.

Swimsuit Bikini

Depending on the feelings in the dream it could mean you feel revealed to others in a way that might not be what you would want to appear, or that you are relaxed and open about who you are and feel you are an attractive person. Sometimes this links with how attractive or otherwise you are with a partner.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the suit, and what role or attitudes does it suggest?

What am I doing in the dream in relationship with the suit, what feelings arise in the dream,

And what does this point to in my life?

Am I easy or not in regard to the suit – wither way why do I feel like that?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Swing SeeSaw

Rocking is a way to calm oneself used by children and traumatised people. It probably has this same significance in dreams. May also have sexual significance.

Also the movement of the swing or seesaw expresses the shift or swing between opposites – opposites of emotion, of thought or viewpoint. This swing is particularly evident in childhood, during which a child does not control its reactions and so expresses its whole range of feelings. So the swing may be between murderous anger and loving action – depression and elation – heaven and hell.

Sword

Many meanings. May be your discrimination and search for truth; protective instincts or strength of character, with which you can also help and protect others. Also, like any weapon, may depict aggressiveness, or male sexuality.

Because it often has a cross as a handle, has mixed meanings. Erection; conflict or a fight; doing battle with someone; anger; social power; justice; spiritual strength and victory. See: cross under shapes and symbols.

Heirloom: A heritage of attitudes from ones family; will power or discrimination; strength to defend oneself and ones rights. Consider background of dream for meaning.

Sword coming point first out of mouth: Angry words; argument or vicious verbal attack.

Sword hanging by a thread: threats hanging over one.

When sheathed: Power or anger under control, perhaps even forgiveness; strength held in reserve; the soul or self in the body.

Idioms: Cross swords with someone; double edged sword; sword of Damocles. 

Synesius

Synesius recognised the extraordinary ability of the dreaming mind to engage in actions on multiple levels: “In dreams one conquers, walks, or flies simultaneously, and the imagination has room for it all; but how shall mere speech find room for it?” He repeatedly recognised the infinite flexibility of the imagination in dreams: “Nothing is so characteristic of dreams as to steal space and to create time. Then the sleeper converses with sheep and fancies their bleating to be speech, and he understands their talk.  .  I even think that myths take their authority from dreams, as those in which peacock, fox, and sea hold converse.” He recognised that dreams are not “heedless of the animal in us” and said that we could have “a steady and much more distinct view of things below” in the dreaming state than when “mingled with the inferior elements” or emotions in our waking life.

With regard to divination through dreams, Synesius enthusiastically urges that:  men should not despise it, but rather cultivate it, seeing that it fulfils a service to life. . .

This art of divination I resolve to possess for myself and to bequeath to my children. In order to enter upon this no man need pack up for a long journey or voyage beyond the frontiers. … It is enough to wash one’s hands, to keep a holy silence, and to sleep.

Of divination by dreams, each one of us is perforce his own instrument, so much so that it is not possible to desert our oracle there even if we so desired. . . . She repudiates neither race, nor age, nor condition, nor calling. She is present to every one, everywhere, this zealous prophetess, this wise counsellor   . to announce to us good tidings; in such wise as to prolong our pleasure by seeking joy beforehand; to inform against the worst so as to guard against and to repel it beforehand.

Dreams can also provide helpful assistance with intellectual tasks and problem solving. No other thing is so well calculated to join in man’s pursuit of wisdom; and of many of those things which present difficulties to us awake, some of these it makes completely clear while we are asleep, and others it helps us to explain. . . . At one moment one seems like a man asking questions, and at another the same man discovering and in process of thought. It has frequently helped me to write books.

Synesius warns against resorting to dream books for help in understanding the dreams of a given individual, because each person has such a diversity of “imaginative spirit.” One would not, he says, expect the same image from a plane mirror, a concave mirror, and a distorted one. To help a person discover the relation between waking life events and subsequent dream imagery, he encouraged that a dream journal be kept.

It would be a wise proceeding even to publish our waking and sleeping visions and their attendant circumstances. . . . We shall therefore see fit to add to what are called “day books” what we have termed “night books,” so as to have records to remind us of the character of each of the two lives concerned.

Synesius advanced many more astute suggestions and observations about dreams. He was a fervent proponent of the many practical applications to be derived from cultivating dreams, as well as of the uplifting joy that can be experienced from the sense of communion with a higher spiritual source.

Synesius was a torchbearer, but there seemed to be no one willing to carry his torch in the western Christian church in the subsequent centuries. In fact, his views on dreams were completely omitted from the thirty-eight thick volumes contained in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. In the early part of the fourteenth century Nicephorus Gregoras, of Constantinople, had been very impressed by Synesius’s “most remarkable work on Dreams,” and had worked diligently to elucidate it by means of a lengthy commentary. An acceptable English translation of Synesius’s work was not, however, available until 1930.  Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. de Castle Phd.

Syringe

Most often a phallic symbol. But may represent energy, emotions, ideas, injected into you, such as schooling, that may be foreign to your real nature, or of only temporary effect. See: Injection.

Letter T

T-Shirt

This usually shows a casual and relaxed attitude or feelings. It can occasionally suggest the desire to show of your male or female sexual characteristics – pecs/breasts.

As with most clothes, the colour is important and comments strongly on the meaning of the T-shirt. See: Colours.

Example:  I was recently asked by a man who had given no thought to dreams how on earth you could extract any meaning from them. He was wearing a fairly old T-shirt, so I said, “OK, let’s imagine you dreamt of your T-shirt, what would you make of that?”

After a while he said, “I don’t know that I would make anything of it.”

My response was to say, “Right, but now tell me where you bought the T-shirt, and what memories it has for you.” Whereupon he told me very full memories of being in the USA, and that the shirt was part of those memories, but he wasn’t prepared to say what the memories were as they were so personal. I felt he had had an affair while there and didn’t want to talk about it. So, his T-shirt represented his hidden memories of his time in the USA – not a T-shirt at all.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. To understand it you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with everything, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with.

If it is a T-shirt you own, it probably has personal memories attached to it, so define what these are for its meaning.

Useful questions:

When did I last wear this T-shirt and what events or memories are connected with it?

Does the T-shirt have particular characteristics or style – if so, what are they and how does that relate to me?

Am I seeing a good or ugly side of my or someone’s body in this?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE

Thinking about people in general, or particularly the people I tried to communicate with through my web site, I want to say to them, “I am standing with you. I am a part of your dreams, your hopes, part of the things you long for. I am with you in that. I love that part of you. I love that dreaming, wonderful, imaginative, loving part of you. That’s what I hope this web site is about.

It’s about your life, your babies, the way you love – everything that is precious in human life. It is about life death and the hereafter. It is about how precious you and I are to life itself. With the eyes and ears, fingers and arms, the curiosity and creativity of life itself. We are what reaches out, longs for change and experiences the wonderful tragedy of today.

You and I are the experience of all what happens. We are the hope of struggle for something better, the dismay the sense of failure, and the wonder of learning how to move beyond our own limitations. We are the hearts that feel the pain of failure. The hands the arms that reach out for something else. Let us do that, however uncomfortable it may be. Let us reach out for all that we want, for what we can create. What we long for and move toward and what life brings about because we are life.

And when we reach out for the new, when we long for something better, when we live what we can of it, it becomes a huge power transforming the world. What we are reaching out for is usually a better life for ourselves and those around us and who we love.

People only trust each other when they themselves have a sense of dignity and the recognition of the need for each other and their part in the whole. It rests upon the realisation that as individuals we are not lost in the immensity of the world, our society, or of the universe. It is because we ourselves are unique, and have special features, perceptions, talents that no one else has in quite the same way.

What we have been left by our forebears gives us a very particular relationship with others and with the whole. Our forebears struggled to achieve, struggled to survive, in some way, however small, left a mark in the world. They have left us, apart from the immense structure of society, the technical information, the great wisdom, they have also left us a lot of shit. But that is part of our work today, to clear it, to use it as fertiliser. Even so there is a great deal of silver and gold for us to claim. Let us develop that.

Without fear, let us stand before life and say this is what I want. Let your life be a statement, an expression of what you feel passionate about. Recognise what it is that you’re ready to stand for. In doing so you will come to recognise your spirit, and perhaps the spirit of your family. For your family is part of the huge odyssey the human race has made from its beginnings. Feel pride in the fact that you’re ancestors survived a most incredible journey. No matter what you are left with, however impoverished you may feel, you are part of the human odyssey, and you too can take steps forward. For life is a huge theatre of possibilities.

If we too can survive our own personal odyssey, pick ourselves up in failure, faced the trials of existence and bring to them the spirit of life that has brought our forebears this far, then we bring a gift to the world and meaning to our own life. If we can in any small way reach out and touch another human being, give them love, a bit of compassion or support, then we have added a treasure to our own life and to theirs. And if we lift ourselves above that again, that is a beautiful thing. Then you become a seer, and elder of your family, of your tribe. Then I give you the splendid feathers for that honour.

Being an elder means that you have managed to find a stance in life in which your sympathies linked beyond your own kin, your interests spread beyond your own personal family and of race.

Let it be noted here, that this day, consciousness took flight.

See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/

Table

Your connection or relationship with others. Communal or family relationships. Everyday certainties that support your activities, such as confidence you will get paid at the end of the week; your attitude toward the inner and exterior community.

The table can also be a work area or an altar depicting self giving – if table is bare, perhaps not giving much of yourself. See Altar

Quality of table: The quality of your relationship with others.

Your place at table: How you see your status or the status of someone else.

Dressing table: Your attempts to change your image, or to create a good social image.

Tablet

See: Pill

Tadpole

Sperm, a baby, perhaps in the womb – i.e. pregnancy. Possible feelings arising from pre-natal life. See: Frog.

Tail

May have phallic meaning as the tail can be raised and lowered it can refer to sexual excitement. However, it could also link with some animals who signal their feelings and response to you with their tail. Dogs and cats for instance raise their tail when ready to greet you and move closer. But some animals such as the lion or bull raise their tail when ready to charge or fight.

The tail can also relate to what you are carrying with you from the past such as your instinctive urges or responses. To understand this you need to understand the animal we carry inside us as the different levels of brain we have, and also the ordinary flight and fight instinct. See Animal.

Idioms: With his tail between his legs; tail wagging the dog; on his tail; piece of tail; pony tail; heads or tails.

Tailor

The ability to alter attitudes or opinions. The power to alter your contact with others, or public image.

Your ability to shape a project or idea out of raw materials or basic concepts; an influence that can help you change your public image.

When you tailor something to the needs of others, you are adjusting what you do to best suit them rather than taking a general approach. The word tailor originally meant to cut, for example, a restaurant might tailor an order for a vegetarian by getting rid of the meat in a portion. A teacher might tailor a lesson plan to the demands of her students. You might cut your expectations to suit what you can afford.

Talisman

Some idea, belief or emotion that helps to ward off fear, or the dominating influence of others. It can also be a link or doorway to your own resources of courage, insight or strength. Occasionally it can represent a healing influence.

Talk Talked Talking

An attempt to be in contact with whatever you are talking to. A sense of communication; an attempt at expressing something important, or at justifying yourself.

Difficulty in speaking, or not speaking: Restrained anger or difficult feelings; anxiety or lack of confidence; absence of real contact or communication. See: Paralysed

Speaking and not being understood: Feeling of not being listened to; frustration.

No one talking to you: Feeling isolated or judged. See: Speech.

Talking in your sleep: Most of us do this at some time, and it is simple an expression of the dream activity breaking through into speech someone else can hear. But some dreamers carry on long conversations a partner sleeping with them can hear. This is probably a form of release of tension or feelings while in the dream state.

Tame

If something like a wild animal or person is tamed in a dream it means a changed relationship with the part of you symbolised. In the book The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery, he says that to tame is to establish ties.

Tangle

An inner confusion. Mixed up desires, ideas, anxieties. Perhaps even conflict.

Tank

Battle tank: Aggressiveness; defensiveness through the use of anger or aggression.

Water tank: Stored emotions, perhaps restrained emotions. It might also at times represent your bladder or that you are retaining too much water in your body. Also occasionally the womb, especially if something is swimming about in it.

Tap

To turn on the tap refers to tears, or the emotions that produce tears, but a tap may also refer to how you control your emotions, or what you can get from within yourself..

Tapestry

What you have woven with your actions in life; what you have created of your own inner life; perhaps an indication of your spiritual life. See: Carpet.

Tar

The unconscious. The inner self in its negative aspect. If we have a fear of heights yet have not the slightest idea why, the feelings of fear are emerging from the unconscious. Such fears could be represented by tar or soot sticking to the body, clothes or belongings. Tar on a road will also represent the unconscious, but in a slightly different way. To dig into it, is to attempt to get below the surface of self to find the hidden sources of behaviour and feelings.

Target

Ambitions, hopes, your aims, even your goal in personal growth. Sometimes the vagina.

Tarnish

See: Rust.

Taste

Usually refers to like and dislikes, conscious or unconscious standards; taste in friends and relationships, even work. Taste often depicts feeling reactions, as a feeling of bitterness or pleasure.

Tattoo

An experience that has left an indelible memory or mark. Being bitten by a dog may leave a permanent fear of dogs. Being hurt emotionally by someone may have a similar effect. A tattoo could also represent the effect on self of personal habits or efforts. It might occasionally refer to how you gain identity, or what group you identify with.

Tavern

See: Bar-room; PublicHouse.

Tax

Feeling ‘taxed’; what we owe to Life and society for our existence; how much of self we want to give. See: Bill.

Taxi

Desire for help; other people’s influence in your life; help you have to pay for. See: Car.

Tea

Often represents some stimulating idea, hope, person, or contact experienced. As with alcohol, it represents the change that can be made on behaviour by inner energies or spirit. Can also represent sociability, encouragement, sympathy, or relaxation. See: Coffee.

Teacher

How you relate to an authority figure; feelings developed in school and still active; something you are learning or want to learn. An important lesson you are meeting in life and need to learn. If it is a teacher you know, then it would depict what you feel about that teacher, what feelings they provoke.

Something to learn or teach. Sometimes this is higher learning in which you learn about life or your life. But frequently it is about things you experienced and therefore learned from teachers at school or college.

If you are the teacher it can show your relationship with other people in terms of what you have to offer them in terms of your life experience or knowledge.

Tear

An emotion, feeling, sympathy or unhappiness.

Tearing something: Attempting to, or unwittingly destroying feelings, a relationship, or something you have created. This might be purposefully or accidentally. Look to what it is you are tearing to understand what it is you are shown to be doing.

Tear-Gas-Bomb

An experience that causes unexpected but copious emotion.

Teddy Bear

Desire for comfort, sympathy and love, of a nature that cannot hurt or answer back. Childhood traits and emotions. See: Doll; Softtoys.

Baby or toy bear: Often represents a child or a young dreamer.

Example: ‘I was watching my teddy bear go to the toilet. It fell down and disappeared.’ Jackson S.

Jackson was very young and just learning to sit on the toilet by himself. His dream shows him meeting the fear of falling down it. He has seen things disappear for ever, and this disturbs him. He uses his bear as himself. This aspect of toilet can depict the magical, hidden, or unseen world into which we disappear in sleep – the unconscious.

Teenager

Also see Adolecence – also this wonderful video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-BO1rJXbQ

Dead teenager: Hurt feelings of love or wanting to be loved; damaged self esteem or feelings of value in the world. 

Female teenager in a female’s dream: Possibly feelings to do with the process of sexually maturing; competitive feelings in relationship to men; some aspect of your own feelings as a teenager.

Female teenager in dream of female teenager: If this is a known friend, it most likely represents the attitudes and qualities, or lack of them, seen in the friend. In which case the other aspects of the dream describe the part these qualities play in the dreamers life. If it is an imagined female, it usually depicts the dreamer, perhaps in a way she might not usually see herself. Possibly she is enacting the issues of most importance in the dreamers life.

Female teenager: The feeling or emotional side of dreamer rather than the thinking assertive; uncertainty or inexperience in relationships; powerful sexual/romantic attraction or feelings.

Holy youth: The eternal side of your nature, forever young. If a particular/known teenager: Define how you see the character of the teenager and take it to represent those characteristics. If dreamt by a child: Depicts their feelings or assessment of their own future, or ways of meeting future relationships.

If dreamt by adult: Whether the young person is your own child, someone you know, or a stranger, it is often an expression of yourself at that age. Therefore define, perhaps by writing down, what attitudes and feelings were predominant in your own teenage years. Common themes are uncertainty/shyness, inexperience, immaturity; high sexuality, idealism, ambitious hopes and plans for the future; depression; the confidence or strength of youth. You can decide which, if any, of these your dream deals with by defining what feelings are expressed in the dream. For help with this see processing dreams.

Male teenager in dream of male teenager: Possibly represents feelings of competition or aggression with other males, depending on dream content; the qualities depicted by the dream male, and their place in the dreamers life.

Male teenager: Sexual inexperience, social aggressiveness or uncertainty. Oneself at that age if the dreamer is a male. Aspects of relationship not lived out in dreamers teenage if the dreamer is a woman.

Teenager of opposite sex: Feelings of sexual attraction coloured by adolescent vulnerability, idealism or uncertainty; uncertainty or inexperience in relationship; or what you feel about that particular teenager.

Teeth Falling Out

Lots of people dream about their teeth falling out.  The dream might start with putting a finger to your teeth and finding one loose.  Then tooth after two falls out.  Or you might looking a mirror and see your teeth falling.  The horror in the dream centres around worries about how others are seeing you.  How you look without teeth.  Slight changes in how we look, such as wrinkles appearing, loss of hair, signs of ageing, can cause an emotional response strong enough to produce such a disturbing dream.

Falling dreams can also expressed feelings about loss, that somebody has gone from your life or you feel something is missing from your life.  It may also suggests lack of power, that you have lost your “bite”.

Because a missing tooth constaly reminds us of its absence, a lost tooth can be linked with the lose or death of someone you love. But for a fuller look at teeth see Teeth.

But here is another view of falling teeth.

The night before last I dreamt that several of my capped/crowned teeth had broken or fallen out.

The dreamer then explored his own associations as follows: “I have recently just been to the dentist, and not only is it time consuming, but also it is expensive. So my thoughts while semi conscious were something like – “Oh no, not another visit needed to the dentist!” But in writing this I have realised another association. During my last visit I sat near a very attractive young woman who was obviously restless and probably in pain. It took me ages to gain enough courage to speak to her. I asked her if she had been waiting long. We then got into easy and interesting conversation. I couldn’t help wish that I had a woman in my life like her. And afterwards thoughts about her have arisen fairly often.

Therefore I wonder if the dream is almost a statement saying, “Look, there is something urgent here that needs attention. Something is missing from you and it needs addressing.”

Teeth Tooth

There are a great many associations we might have with teeth, so the environment and surrounding events in the dream must be taken as pointers.

Teeth can represent your bite, effectiveness or power in life. They may represent biting remarks, hurtful words. They are your ability to ‘chew’ over things, meaning to consider and think about, almost to get a taste or try to experience what you are considering.

As examples we might think of teeth or lack of them as indicating age. You might associate teeth with acute pain, as with toothache or dentistry. Because we lose our teeth while young and grow new ones, we might also use teeth in a dream to show change from one period of life to another, suggested by such idioms as long in the tooth, milk teeth, etc. In some dreams we dream of a tooth problem indicating infection, even infection in an ear. See: Example under ache.

In general teeth in our dream can depict aggression or defensiveness, as when we bite someone. They can suggest the ability to ‘chew things over’. In some dreams they indicate our ‘bite’ on life, or the ability to get what we want. For instance if we see someone with few or no teeth, it often arouses a feeling that the person has lost their effectiveness in life, their social power – they have ‘lost it’. This may be exactly what we are portraying in losing our own teeth in a dream – the feeling, even temporary, of ‘losing it’. This may be felt as the sense of not being able to get what one deeply wants, and so is experienced as a sort of death, or a loss of self in some degree. But other meanings for tooth loss or falling out are given below.

Teeth can depict words we say or swallow – perhaps things we wish had not come out of our mouth. One of the biggest associations for many of us is how our teeth depict our social appearance – how others see us.

In some cultures the loss of a tooth often depicted the death of a family member. But when we lose a tooth we are very aware of the emptiness in our mouth – very aware of the loss. This is why a lost tooth can link with the loss of a family member. But it can equally apply to what we feel when a relationship ends or ‘goes bad’. The following example shows this. Also see: Example 2 below

Example: I dream the front left tooth on the top of my mouth had fallen out, root and all. I was appalled as I looked at it lying in my hand!! I immediately called my godmother, asking her to bring me a new tooth. While waiting for her, my tongue explored the hole that was left; it hurt, but was beginning to heal. When my godmother arrived, she had forgotten the new tooth, and suggested that we put the old one back in. I was reluctant, as putting the old tooth in would hurt more than letting the hole heal; however, she was very insistent. As we examined the old tooth, I noticed a black spot on the root, and when I poked the decaying spot, it crumbled inwards. Christine.

Christine’s description of the pain connected with the loss of the tooth, her reluctance to have the old one put back in, and the black spot on the tooth, can easily be seen as descriptions of a relationship that needed to be ended, but was nevertheless painful to lose.

Im Tofeeq, a Palestinian woman told me that among the Arabs it is believed that if you dream of losing teeth it means your brother or son is in trouble. She had a dream in which three of her teeth fell out. The next day she received a call from America to say her son had been shot in the head three times by a gunman. For Artemidorus losing a tooth meant to lose a member of one’s household. To Africans such a dream showed that the dreamer would lose a wife or child.

Such feelings about teeth are also reflected in a few dreams of modern Europeans, as in the following example.

Example: My dream of someone’s coming death was so simple, always the same. I would dream that I went to my dressing table and opening my mouth examined my teeth in the mirror. I always found a decayed tooth (I had very fine teeth at that time) which I picked out and laid on the table. If a river of blood flowed from the tooth I knew when I awoke that I would suffer agonies from the coming death; if it did not bleed, I knew the person about to die would be someone outside my immediate family, but always a relative. If the tooth was a front one the person concerned would be young, if a back tooth it would represent an old person.

My mother told me that a great grandmother of mine had the very same dreams with the same results, but I did not learn this till I was nineteen and my dream foretold the death of a younger sister, who was in perfect health at the time of the dream. I never knew after the dream who was to die as the dream always came well in advance of sickness. I used to think some malign spirit wanted to torment me and took this way to do so.’ Quoted from The Mystery of Dreams by William Oliver Stevens.

But here is another view of falling teeth.

The night before last I dreamt that several of my capped/crowned teeth had broken or fallen out. The dreamer then explored his own associations as follows: “I have recently just been to the dentist, and not only is it time consuming, but also it is expensive. So my thoughts while semi conscious were something like – “Oh no, not another visit needed to the dentist!” But in writing this I have realised another association. During my last visit I sat near a very attractive young woman who was obviously restless and probably in pain. It took me ages to gain enough courage to speak to her. I asked her if she had been waiting long. We then got into easy and interesting conversation. I couldn’t help wishing that I had a woman in my life like her. And afterwards thoughts about her have arisen fairly often.

Therefore I wonder if the dream is almost a statement saying, “Look, there is something urgent here that needs attention. Something is missing from you and it needs addressing – a relationship with an attractive woman.”

 

Often means a sense of loss, such as death of family member or loved one; the ageing process as it relates to maturity, so worries about getting older and one’s changing image. When our first teeth fall out at around seven, it is probably our initial experience of losing something from our body, something weird happening – we might even fear other bits of us could drop off or out.

 If single tooth: This may suggest loss, change, or death of someone.

There are a great many associations we might have with teeth, so the environment and surrounding events in the dream must be taken as pointers.

As examples we might think of teeth or lack of them as indicating age. You might associate teeth with acute pain, as with toothache or dentistry. Because you lose your teeth while young and grow new ones, you might also use teeth in a dream to show change from one period of life to another, suggested by such idioms as long in the tooth, milk teeth, etc. In some dreams we have a tooth problem indicating infection, even infection in an ear.

In general teeth in your dream can depict aggression or defensiveness, as when we bite someone. They can suggest the ability to ‘chew things over’. In some dreams they indicate your ‘bite’ on life, or the ability to get what you want. For instance if we see someone with few or no teeth, it often arouses a feeling that the person has lost their effectiveness in life, their social power – they have ‘lost it’. This may be exactly what you are portraying in losing your own teeth in a dream – the feeling, even temporary, of ‘losing it’. This may be felt as the sense of not being able to get what you deeply want. But other meanings for tooth loss or falling out are given below.

Teeth can depict words we say or swallow – perhaps things we wish had not come out of our mouth. One of the biggest associations for many of us is how our teeth depict our social appearance – how others see us.

In some cultures the loss of a tooth often depicted the death of a family member. But when we lose a tooth we are very aware of the emptiness in our mouth – very aware of the loss.

Idioms: a sweet tooth; a tooth for a tooth; armed to the teeth; by the skin of ones teeth; cut my teeth on; fight tooth and nail; get one’s teeth into; gnash one’s teeth; give my eye teeth; grit one’s teeth; long in the tooth; teething troubles; milk teeth; scarce as hen’s teeth; set my teeth on edge; show one’s teeth.

Useful questions:

If I am losing teeth, what am I losing or feeling loss about in waking?

Am I meeting anything to do with my social appearance or self image?

Does something need attending to in my life?

What is coming out of my mouth in conversations – or what am I swallowing and not expressing?

Baby tooth or teeth: It is a sign or development, a step toward becoming an adult. We are often not fully adult even though our age says otherwise. See Ages of Love.

It can also show the person moving through a big change toward a more mature way of dealing with life.

  Bad tooth: A painful or rotten part of your feelings, life or relationships; angry or regretful words. It might also of course suggest a problem with that tooth.

  Big or small teeth: Big teeth suggest strength, power, or ability to harm, depending on dream. Especially in animal dreams it tends to show fear of being hurt or of aggression. Small teeth show the opposite, except that in a few dreams the small teeth belong to a snake or are poisonous in some way, suggesting something or someone putting emotionally damaging feelings in you – perhaps through ‘biting’ remarks.

Canines: The canines are what are left of larger teeth our ancestors used to defend themselves or warn off attackers. So the canine would particularly indicate your ability to defend yourself, or be powerful in the world – particularly for men. Losing a canine or canines might indicate that at times you feel more vulnerable or less confident. This might be accompanied by greater feelings of vulnerability. There might be some painful experience underlying such feelings.

  Clenched teeth: This usually show an enormous amount of tension, but we also grit or grind our teeth when holding back great physical or emotional pain, anger or despair.

Dirty teeth: Similar to the poisonous teeth. The dirt suggest there is perhaps some sort of attitude that is obvious to others as you speak, and might also be influencing your body, or be injected by a bite.

Dracula type teeth: Similar to ‘dirty teeth’ or ‘big teeth’. But the Dracula type teeth indicate that you are being injected and thereby influenced by someone else’s subtle drive to control you or poison your feelings or mind. If you have the Dracula teeth, you need to ask yourself if you are trying to negatively influence someone else or using them like a parasite.

 Finding a tooth: It could mean finding a part of you that was lost or memories of yourself at the age when we lost our teeth. Maybe even memories of a dead friend.

Having teeth attended to: Something that needs attention in your life that you might be putting off or delaying. It might link with pain you feel about something, or even be about an actual infection or decay. There might be a link with either your social appearance, your ability to deal with life effectively, or maintaining appearances.

No teeth: If this is an animal dream, it indicates harmlessness. If it refers to yourself or a human, it might also suggest harmlessness, but with the sense of lacking power and your ability to defend yourself, to get what you want from the world in the sense of biting off food, and also of course your social appearance – how you feel others see you. If you imagine yourself with no teeth, what in fact do you feel?

Spitting out lots of teeth: Something you want to ‘spit out’ in the sense of admitting, saying, or expressing something emotionally. But also perhaps the same as teeth falling out.

Swallowing teeth: See: Woman swallowing teeth.

  Teeth falling out: If all your teeth are falling out it often links with feelings to do with ageing and loss of your good looks. Sometimes the feelings are acute enough to link with fear of death, even in young people. But this deals also with the feelings to do with loss of power, loss of ability to express. One dreamer says she dreams this when she feels she is not being understood, or being effective, or feels unable to communicate.

Ann Faraday, in her book Dream Power, says:

Example: At the time of my final marriage break-up, I had recurring dreams of losing teeth, appearing at a rich friend’s house wrapped only in an old blanket, and wandering grey streets full of old shambling figures. I used to awake in the mornings with a dull, heavy feeling of disintegration so that I could hardly get up. It was clear I felt old, unattractive and finished in spite of the fact that I was young and in excellent health.

Example: ‘I felt a tooth was loose and started pushing it with my tongue. Then I took hold of it between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. I felt okay about this, but then another tooth was loose, and another, and I pulled them out. Running to the bathroom I looked into the mirror, horrified and frightened. All my teeth were coming out. Not knowing how to deal with this I ran to my mother, showing her my mouth, empty now except for two teeth. My mother appeared not to see my lack of teeth, or notice my fear.’ Eve.

Eve was 18 at the time of the dream. She explored it and found a fear of ageing and death. But this can also depict apprehension about maturing and facing independence and responsibility.

  If crowns falling out or injured: This may relate to a sense of urgency that something has to be attended to.

Tooth being pulled out: Jung felt this dream represents giving birth if dreamt by a woman. In general it probably has associations with loss or painful loss, a difficult parting in a relationship, or loss of something that has been badly influencing your emotional and perhaps even physical health.

Toothless: Loss of effectiveness and or feelings about ageing.

Woman swallowing teeth: The throat and Eustachian tubes have a similar shape to the uterus and fallopian tubes, so can depict conception or fear of it. In ancient cultures, a tooth was extracted and swallowed as part of a death and rebirth symbol. This may have arisen from the observation of losing ones baby teeth and the growth of new teeth, suggesting the power of renewal. Swallowing teeth might also suggest ‘swallowing ones words’.

  False teeth: Loss of youth and its power and opportunities, as with the ageing process and loss of good looks. Perhaps it suggests lies told or false appearances. Assumed social power and appearance, or not keeping spoken promises.

Idioms: a sweet tooth; a tooth for a tooth; armed to the teeth; by the skin of ones teeth; cut my teeth on; fight tooth and nail; get one’s teeth into; gnash one’s teeth; give my eye teeth; grit one’s teeth; long in the tooth; teething troubles; milk teeth; scarce as hen’s teeth; set my teeth on edge; show one’s teeth.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am losing teeth, what am I losing or feeling loss about in waking?

Am I meeting anything to do with my social appearance or self image?

Does something need attending to in my life?

What is coming out of my mouth in conversations – or what am I swallowing and not expressing?

It might help if you Use the body to discover dream power or Characters and People in Dreams

Telepathy

May in a few cases be real telepathy during sleep. But could symbolise sympathy, agreement, understanding, or sudden insight into yourself or others.

Telephone Smartphone

Desire or attempt to communicate; attempt to make contact with an aspect of oneself or someone else. The telephone can also have the meaning of reaching to, or becoming aware of the huge potential of the mind, or of consciousness. This is because via the telephone new people, new aspects of life previously unknown, can be experienced.

Answering machine: This is already developing into a personal AI, which remembers all the calls you make and what are favourites. It can speak back to you, and so can represent more directly the voice of your unconscious; a voice that has more insights into you and your behaviour than you can ever believe.

It helps to think of the unconsciousness as an ever shifting, growing and dynamic source of personal awareness, because it transcends time and space, and is a huge potential, it can let information drip into the individual mind, as long as that mind can drop preconceptions. In a way the future, viewed from the individual mind, slowly educates the smaller individual mind.

There is also an action of the unconscious level of mind that scans our life experience, and in doing so syntheses what it finds and links it with a process we cannot understand with our conscious thinking. Our Conscious self acts as a feeder of information for a wider awareness, and yet we keep the sense of being an individual as well. It is a huge paradox that we cannot grasp with normal everyday awareness. What a wonder, and we are just in the verge of it. People never believed in anything that was within them that could reply to them and answer their questions, so never allowed it in themselves. But now the gate is open and wonders will appear. See Sorg – The God – Walks Among Us

Dreamer not answering phone: Avoiding contact or communication; someone is trying to ‘get through’ to you. 

No reply to dreamers call: Feeling someone is out of contact with you, not aware of your feelings; having a feeling of being alone in the world, or nobody being there for you.

Emergency call: Probably a crisis in your relationship or life; reaching out for help; moral dilemma.

Smartphone: Your camera on your smartphone in a dream represents the capturing of a memory that can be played back and shown to others. But a smartphone is more than that because it is something you carry with you as an aid to extend your own human abilities to contact people, to do things and can reach out all over the world.

In a sense, in dreams it means you have superhuman abilities, because we can easily communicate with others at immense distances – a thing that was thought to be only done by psychics. It means you are super-augmented, a Sorg – super augmented. There is a Sorg, and there are the super augmented – Saugmen and Saugwomen – people with special abilties within what Sorg is developing toward, which is greater augmentation of our human naked abilities; a thing that a smartphone does for us.

Then there are the general means of communication via TV, the internet, and the world of entertainment in general. The aim as far as my vision stretched, is a world-wide super-organism, integrated by media and communication highways, and directed by magnificently augmented human beings who will be a mixture of athletes, sexual wonders, entertainers, politicians and financiers – a new form of Olympics.

Telephone number: If it is of someone known, most likely an attempt to communicate with that person – see numbers. See: fax machine or fax.

 Example: I want to telephone somebody but find the dial on the telephone will not work or I cannot find the numbers on the dial. Even though I know where the nine hole is I cannot seem to dial nine nine nine.

Example: I am alone in a street somewhere in the city of London. I am standing looking at a nearby old fashioned phone box. It is a weekend when all is quiet. The door of the phone box is open and on the floor are a variety of bones. At first I think they are animal but quickly see they are human. Then a man enters the box to make a call. Suddenly three or four savage dogs attack, ripping him to pieces – Sam.

Sam had been placed in an orphanage as a young child. This had left a terrible impression on him. When he explored his dream he realised it was about the years he had lived in the City of London feeling deeply alone. The phone was his attempt to connect with someone. About this he says – Again another shock – there was nobody to connect with. Nobody was on the end of the line. I had never before really admitted to myself that I was alone, that I had been abandoned in the orphanage. I had always lived in the hope that someone actually wanted me. With the realisation that I was an orphan, another great wave of emotion tore through me. I could feel the attack of the dogs as the anxieties that have torn me apart for years, anxieties about relationship and whether I am loved.

Telescope

Trying to understand something more clearly, getting a more overall view of your life. It may also symbolise making something big out of a small experience, as a mountain out of a molehill.

Television TV & Monitor

If you dream of these things they often represent what you feel, understand or intuit about what is going on in other people’s lives or the world. Or it is about looking at the drama taking place in your own life that you may have overlooked. Watchin TV or a screen, it may be the strategy you use to blank out the world and relax by giving attention to something else.

In a sense watching TV is like travelling to the past – costume dramas – and to the future – science fiction. Can also be like travelling to strange places and meeting new experiences.

But it can symbolise something that most of us miss seeing or understanding – for a screen, TV or monitor, constantly changes what is shown. So it represent our own screen of consciousness, which receives everything but in itself is blank and featureless. Many people miss the meaning of this because they are so fascinated by the moving images and sounds that they forgot it is they who are receiving the mass of experience.

What is behind all the moving images and sounds? Well you can see if you can imagine yourself as a blank screen. Better still, imagine you are being pumped up like a balloon and then you burst. It happened to me when I was given an anal anaesthetic. I could be give one via a mask because my nose was being operated on. At that time as thing liquid was poured into me I felt I was a balloon being pumped up. and then I burst.  As I went under the anesthetic, it felt to me that I was dying and experiencing death, along with a state of consciousness in which I felt to be God. It hit me powerfully that from there on I started reading and being fascinated by books, first on science fiction, then on death, rebirth and God.

I realised now that I had left the world in which we are hypnotised by the moving theatre of our senses and had Gone Beyond into another level of our consciousness, the world of bodiless awareness.

We build our identity and our sense of self out of the many interactions with other people and the world. In a real sense we create each other by believing in our body and communicating with each other. With prolonged absence of other people and events, and especially if we lose our ‘noises’ and body awareness, we feel we – our sense of identity – is disappearing or dying. People immersed in a sensory deprivation tank begin to lose a clear sense of themselves, and can result in anxiety, hallucinations and even depression. Apparently this happens to many people who are kept in prison in isolation.

Long periods in solitary may cause psychosis. Other studies have shown subtle physical changes to the brain when mammals become isolated. Research from the University of Illinois, published late last year, showed that the enzymes needed to produce a stress-reducing brain hormone drops significantly when mice are isolated. This can lead to aggression as well as anxiety. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that long periods of solitary confinement causes problems such as psychosis in prisoners, and that unmarried people who live fairly socially isolated lives become more ill, die earlier, and have more mental illness. Conversely, there is evidence that older people can maintain the health of their brains for longer if they keep them stimulated by solving problems.

Nothing is said about the two who coped well. Here is an interesting description from a young serviceman. “I had an eye injury to my left eye and was rushed to hospital. The result was that the back of my eye had split and I had to remain with bandages over my eyes for six weeks. Straight away I was asked several times if I needed a radio to listen to. That seemed a ridiculous suggestion because I now had a long time living in all the wonders in my mind. I never got tired or bored with it. In fact when the nursing sister said in my hearing that I must now get up and walk around I played deaf the next day making out I hadn’t heard. The sister soon got me out of bed though. But it wasn’t a shock to be made to be active, I like that too”.

I see that evolutionary we are very new to self awareness and are very vulnerable for self awareness is obviously to much for many people – think of the thousands who are always on antidepressants ; also our personality is not usually built organically but is something artificial put upon us. To understand this see Programmed

I was struck by how creative we all are if given an environment in which we can allow our originality. One woman in the group, exhausted from the demands of her job, experienced deep relaxation out of which enthusiasm and pleasurable energy arose, leading her to dance and bathe in her own joy. A man explored his relationship with love, and saw that he needed to gather to himself the love he received from others to call out his own resources of affection. A woman who worked as a nurse met the painful emotions arising from observing the difficulties of a mentally difficult patient. Her creative movements led her to find a way of accepting the reality of life’s difficulties. The pain cleared and she felt was ready to give a more flowing response to others in difficulty.

Temperature

See: Cold; Heat.

Temptation

Conflict between different aspects of self – perhaps sexual urges and social fears, or personal boundaries.

Ten

Ten represents a new beginning on a higher level. A fresh start, almost as if from scratch, but all the past experience lies behind us. The seed, falling from the pod, and growing, carries with it the essence of the old plant. So it symbolises reincarnation, the starting again, under the influence of past experience and karma. The astrological sign is Capricorn, the priest or ambassador. It rules the knees and circulation, and the tenth house governs careers and notoriety. See: Numbers.

ten A new beginning; the male and female together – ten to one.

It can also mean matter in harmony – 4 + 6.

Representing the Creator and the creation, 3 + 7, the Trinity resting in the expressed universe.

For Pythagoras, 10 was the symbol of the universe and it also expressed the whole of human knowledge.

Sum of 5 + 5, the number 10 represents the two opposite current directions of the conscience: involution and evolution.

According to H.- P. Blavatsky, the 1 followed by 0 indicates the column and the circle, meaning the principle of the female and male, and this symbol would refer to the Androgyne nature and also to Jehovah, being at the same time male and female.

The zero in the form of circle is a symbol of unit, completing then the meaning of the number 1 to show that the number 10 contains all preceding numbers as a whole contains its parts.

Represent the first couple, the marriage: 1 = the man, 0 the egg fertilized by the 1. The ten gives the indication of a spiritual regression since the marriage is a consequence of the fall of the man.

The number ten is regarded as the most perfect of numbers, because it contains the Unit that did it all, and the zero, symbol of the matter and the Chaos, of which all came out; it then includes in its figure the created and the non-created, the beginning and the end, the power and the force, the life and the nothing.

It represents the straightness in the faith because it is the first number “in extension” (of two digits), just as hundred and thousand, explains Hugues of Saint-Victor.

According to Agrippa, “ten is called the number of all or universal, and the complete number marking the full course of life.” Also he attributes to it a sence of totality, the achievement, the return to the unit after the development of the cycle of the first nine numbers.

Represent the revelation and the Divine Law.

At the Mayas, it represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. The ten was regarded as being the number of the life and the death.

In China, the cross represents the number 10 – as the totality of the numbers.

Thanks to http://www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/

Tennis

See: Games.

Tent

Your relationship with natural forces in your life. A temporary state of being, attitude or experience. Or an attitude of changeability, lack of perseverance, not building a solid life.

Terror

Inability to face or cope with those emotions, fears, ideas or urges represented in the dream. It is important to find where you felt that sort of terror in the past. This releases its hold on you. This is not easy, because many memories have never been verbalised, or occurred either prior to learning speech, or when you were under anaesthetic. But they can be realised through steady dreamwork.

Example: I was working on Dream Dictation and came across this. I think it is importance in understanding how to deal with things that terrify us.

These really are the ideal conditions to provoke a dream to answer our question or problem. I have used this method myself with some success, one dream being a direct answer to a direct question. At the time of the dream I had been researching on the psychological effects of Yoga exercises or postures – particularly the slow breath. I practised the postures and tried as far as was possible to discover consciously what they did to the emotions, instincts and mind. I then asked myself, just before going to sleep, if there were inner effects I was unconscious of. If so, what were they? In this way I hoped to induce a helpful dream. In fact, I had several, but one in particular helped a great deal. In it I was on an underground train. Two black men were standing in the aisle. The train was nearing my station and I passed them to get to the door. One would not stand aside, even after I said ‘Excuse me’, so I had to push past him. This annoyed him so much that he rushed at me with hands extended to strangle me, but I caught his hands in mine, and gradually forced them down from my throat. As I did so, I thought: ‘This is what Yoga has done’ (i.e. given me the strength to stand against the black man).

The meaning of this dream is not readily understood until it is realised that these black men had appeared in other dreams. In one. They got my throat and began to strangle me, and I could do nothing, but awoke in terror. Here we see the unconscious or black parts of my nature which I associated with my instinctive drives and fears, throttling my conscious life. The second dream is therefore saying that Yoga was developing the strength to face and deal with one’s unconscious fears and repressed urges. There is still a conflict, but at least my conscious self can meet its fears on equal terms, which is a very great part of the battle. See The Slow Breath

Testicles Balls

This depicts the male capability to become aroused, or to have sexual drive. So loss of testicles, small testicles, would suggest anxiety about being capable sexually with a woman. They also represent virility in the sense of male confidence, strength and energy. See: penis.

But testicles can also denote vulnerability, as when one is kicked there. They can also occasionally depict a source of energy and power, the testicles being a source of energetic influence, the hormones they produce shapes the body, and they also act as a sense organ. See levels of awareness.

But many people do not know that the testicles can go back into the body when they get very cold, like swimming in cold water. Or in great heat they hang low trying to keep cool. This is because the Life Process sees the testicles as it great treasure and what to do to and how preserve them, for heat can kill the sperm they contain and so can great cold so taking them back in the body helps them live.

They are Life’s treasure because the sperm are seeds and like all seeds they contain millions and millions of  years of the essence of life experience. A single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does  so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I,  are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. That is why your seeds are so precious. To explore you ancient self see Opening to Life

A woman’s dream: Her feelings about sex with a male; feelings about wanting to conceive, or wanting the man deep in herself. Testicles in a woman’s dream might also indicate her relationship with this very genital level of sex. I would show what she is doing with her feelings and responses to a male or the male in herself.

If the woman dreams she has testicles, it suggests her becoming more aware of her own male aspect. See: archetype of the animus; vagina.

In a man’s dream: What he is doing with his sexual urge; his battery of energy and self worth or his sense of maleness.

The testicles in the male dream also suggest the life process existing in him beyond or underlying his personality. In other words his body has emerged from an incredibly long line of sex cells. In this sense his body is a budding out of sex cells that have always been alive, and so physically his body is infinitely old. But of course it will only continue its existence if it procreates.

The testicles also link the male with his genetic connection with ancestors. The Y chromosome in male DNA holds 23 million base pairs euchromatin. This Y chromosome in each male holds in it markers showing his ancestral history back to the beginning of human development – 300 million years in fact. Because the Y chromosome changes relatively slowly over time and is only passed along the direct male line, it may be used to trace paternal lineage. For instance because of this slow change when changes occur it leaves markers in the y-chromosome. These markers indicate the lineage of the male.

As an example of this, international geneticists have discovered that Genghis Khan was more than a great warrior, collected data has shown that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical. That translates to 0.5 percent of the male population in the world, or roughly 16 million descendants living today are descendents of Genghis Khan. See: Genghis Khan – A Prolific Lover.

Ghenghis Khan

Example: night I dreamt I was sitting up on a big machine or mechanism, partly outdoors. I think I had got to it by going to the top of a huge sprawling building. As I sat I saw an elderly man swim up from the depths of a pool 15 feet across. It seemed very deep. The man had working clothes on, but appeared completely at home in the water. For some reason I didn’t want him to see me. I believe I was anxious about whether I ought to be there. He didn’t see me and walked off. I felt he actually lived in the water and was going about some task. As he walked past another pool a lovingly and playfully skittered in the shallows.

Then I started the mechanism working. I thought it was a huge clock works, and it was very rusty. Huge cannonball – like spheres rolled down a chute as part of the function. At first the machine made a terrible noise, and again I felt anxiety about doing what I was doing. I thought the lawyers would wake or disturb the people in the building. But as the man on it seemed to itself adjust and began to run smoothly. I felt it was going to run better and better. PE

PE worked on  his dreams and said about it – “The building is my body and its many functions – I feel that strongly. The man is me – who loves dipping into that deep pool of consciousness, sharing in, working with, the process of life. I get so much joy, wisdom and satisfaction from that. The dream work I do is a part of that. The machine is a function of releasing, restoring and producing energy. It is the self-regulating energy function that has never really been working in me properly. The anxiety I feel is that which I feel about releasing sexual energy. I’m frightened it will upset or disturb the rest of the body. Those thoughts have been on my mind a lot yesterday and today. The misery I have felt through feeling collapsed after sex – the agony of feeling inadequate, the anxiety of repeating the situation over and over, gradually destroying the beauty of our marriage, is a source of great misery and anxiety. This dream suggests that through my own activity I have started this function working. The balls, my testicles, are to release and producing energy. It is a cycle of release, that leads to producing the next level of energy. I hardly dared hope there is truth in this. I will have to wait-and-see.”

It took time but PE found his energy increasing year by year.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a male dream – what is being suggested here by the testicles in my dream – is it to do with my sense of maleness or my ancestral connections?

In a female dream – are the testicles indicating me relationship with a man, or with my own internal male?

Am I experiencing the testes as a sense organ – if so what am I aware of or gaining insight into?

If I imagine myself with and then without the testes in the dream, what is the difference?

For help doing this see Stand in Role. Also see Easy Dream Interpretation

Thaw

To forgive, to melt hardness or coldness, to feel sympathy; to relax intellectual rigidity and so allow the inner life to flow, to express, to grow.

The Discovery of Dreams

In this section are given real practical methods of understanding your dreams. This is not like an intellectual interpretation of your dreams but a real meeting. It is the difference between reading a description of a person and actually meeting them in a deep relationship. These are given for use only if you wish to use them, otherwise there is the dictionary that is also very useful. To start with here are some things to remember about dreaming. They have been gathered from a long involvement with dreams. But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary.

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. It is as if all your deepest feelings, hopes, fear and wonder are projected outward onto a multidimensional screen. It is a world of virtual reality that you feel is real. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us.

But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiments of our fears; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

Our Core self is that amazing part of us existing beyond time and space, and was within us from the start of our universe.

Theatre

Observing the ‘play’ of ones own thoughts and feelings, hopes, fears and fantasies; acting something out and not being real.

On stage: Feeling in the public eye, or wanting to be noticed; going through a ‘stage’ of ones life. If particular emotions are being expressed on stage, it suggests these feelings are something you are dealing with in your public relations.

The stage: A situation you are meeting or in the midst of, perhaps demanding you play a particular role.

Looking at stage: What is claiming ones attention at present; looking within oneself; experimenting with or exploring an idea or situation such as a relationship; role or situation.

Idioms: Set the stage for; stage fright; stage-manage; act a part; act of God; act on; catch somebody in the act; get in on the act; get ones act together; act ones age; play the fool.

See: Stage.

Thermometer

Concern about health if medical thermometer. A gauge of your emotional warmth or coldness. See: Barometer; Heat; Cold.

Thermos Flask

Keeping alive some feeling, hope, or inspiration received. This can apply to warm or cold feelings.

Thief

The loss of things valued; the perhaps quiet or surreptitious taking of valuable time, energy, love, either by your own carelessness, or through relationship with others. Or perhaps you are taking these from someone else. It may also refer to feelings of resentment or anger.

Thin

Lacking physical power, material force, but may have more inner power.

Thirst

See: Drink.

Thirty Four

thirty four It is said to represent the realisation or enlightenment.

It also has a profound significance in the astronomical cycles of Mars and Jupiter. In numerology it breaks down to 7 (3+4 = 7).

Wikipedia says – 34 is the ninth distinct semiprime and has four divisors including unity and itself. Its neighbors, 33 and 35, also are distinct semiprimes, having four divisors each, and 34 is the smallest number to be surrounded by numbers with the same number of divisors as it has. It is also in the first cluster of three distinct semiprimes, being within 33, 34, 35; the next such cluster of semiprimes is 85, 86, 87.

The I Ching Hexagram for 34 says:

When many wide connections exist with great inner ability and power there arises extraordinary brilliance. This quality may awe those less gifted or having fewer connections. Its force shakes the world and brings changes.

Understanding its workings can lead to deep insight into the nature of things. Certainly persistence in this direction will bring great reward.

This is an indication of great influence wielded at the moment. It is a power arising from aligning yourself with real activities in the world and in people. In this sense you have developed connections and insights others have not. If this is used well, great success can follow. If it is used merely to manipulate and to enlarge oneself egotistically, the power will fade.

To a great extent this power is that of being able to get things going, to give something life that existed but was not expressing its potential. This allied with strength in getting things done externally form the brilliant possibility of this query.

Nevertheless, great power can often be expressed at the wrong time or place, or in an opposition that does not resolve. In such cases the power comes to nought. Therefore care must be taken to express the power through channels and in directions which will enable it to succeed.

Thorn

Painful experiences, which are difficult to pass through. See: Splinter.

Thoughts and Words

If you think about a friend, ask yourself, ‘Is this thought my friend?’ If you have feelings about the friend, ask yourself, “Are these feelings an actual representation of my friend?” No, they are not, but are simply your own thoughts and feelings. You cannot conjure your friend into existence by thinking about him or her. Thoughts and emotions are copies of things, just as a photo is a copy of something. They are never the people or things they attempt to copy. They are never reality.

So PLEASE remember this when you build your opinion of yourself with thoughts or emotions.

Words are what we usually build our thoughts with, but is the word BIRD ever a reality? Or your thoughts about failure, success or in fact anything, are they the REALITY of YOU.

At the other end of our waking awareness is an ocean of consciousness that does not have a focussed sense of self. This ocean of consciousness that is at the core of your being is what has been called many names. As you learn to enter more fully into your dreams you will gradually realise that your real self isn’t the body with a gender of male or female, but a shape shifter. You also will have learned how to dive under the surface of your conscious personality and realise that there is a huge and wonderful world often called the unconscious. It is actually awareness of Life, and in it you can become a bodiless consciousness, or be an animal, or know the wonder of animal consciousness.

But words are also wonderful, because they are ways we can communicate in a small way with another being in a body, another person. Such ability to think in and use words is incredibly important. The wider self in which our personality is enfolded in does not think in such local and body sense ways, so our personal learning is so important.

An example of this a dreamer wrote that she wants to change the way she reacts to scary things in her dreams. She had read on this site that nothing can hurt you in your dream – transforming one’s inner dream world. She felt that it is almost impossible to influence the unconscious so felt stuck.

The next communication she sent said that she was amazed because she had actually been unafraid in her dreams. The point I want to make is that having read that you need not be afraid in your dreams, the message was now a part of her unconscious.

We are not alone in the conscious world; we are always enfolded. But the tragedy is that what we believe in our conscious personality builds brick walls that we cannot get through – unless we have new information that challenges our present beliefs – you cannot be hurt in your dreams – unless you run in fear of the scary images your mind harbours.

Thread

A line of thought or action; delicate or fine connections or directions, that can be easily lost or broken unless great care is taken. Or can mean a fine or tiny idea, or energy, we may easily lose, as when life hangs by a thread.

It can sometimes indicate a thread that links many lives, and can be a positive or negative influence frim the past; a family influence inherited from our family, that may be in many lives. See Conjuring Trick

Three

It is symbolised by the triangle, and represents a unity of the positive and negative to create a new condition. Thus we see it as mother and father bringing forth child, which is a mixture of both but different from either. So it might represent family. Creativity out of opposites or opposition. It can also suggest non-sexual relationship when there are three people – three’s a crowd.

Its Zodiacal symbol is Gemini, the artist and inventor, the creator or created. It also rules close relationships and their results; and the arms and lungs.

It is a number representing the Holy Trinity, it is also the number of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity – the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, the number 3 being associated to the triangle by its geometrical form, the Holy Spirit is also linked to the triangle and with reason: the clairvoyant Ann-Catherine Emmerick perceived the Holy Spirit as the Eye of God in the center of a triangle.

Number of the mankind because this one is composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. According to the Book of rites (Li-ji) man, is an intermediary between the sky and the earth, also corresponds to the number three. A perfect number according to Chinese.

Also a favourable number associated to the childbirth and to the birth.  A sacred number of the woman in the Mayas.

Confronting three people, or out with two others: Facing collective will of others; non sexual friendship.

Idioms: Three’s a crowd.

See: Numbers.

Threshold

The beginning of a new experience, idea, of life, or deci­sion. It can be the point of balance between opposites or different situations or functions. To cross the threshold is to begin the new thing or make a change that also means commitment or difficulty in going back. Traditionally a wife is carried across the threshold to prevent her stumbling, turning back, or escaping.

There are so many thresholds though – that between waking and sleeping. So strong in some people they can’t remember dreams. There is the threshold of difference between the sexes; the threshold between childhood and teens; between life and death. So, you will need to look at the other features in your dream to decide what the threshold is.

The word Thresh means to separate the grain or seeds from (a cereal plant or the like) by some mechanical means, as by beating with a flail or by the action of a threshing machine. Also, to beat as if with a flail. So, a threshold can mean you pass through a vigorous experience that changes you or prepares you in some way, maybe by taking away things that you protected yourself with.

In the inner world there is also what has been called The Guardian of the Threshold. This is a concept which was originally defined in the Esoteric study of Freemasonry. It is that which has to be faced before any candidate can become an “Entered Apprentice” on the path of Initiation. The student can only manage this task to see the TRUTH of all his personalities under the supervision of a master Mason.

Through sincere attempts to advance on in their inner growth, the student evokes the Dweller. He or she is also unconsciously, or consciously, calling up the negative aspect of their karma from previous incarnations. To achieve our goal of adeptship we must first work out our bad karma. When this dark cloud, which stands between us and the Sun, is dispersed, we can bathe in the Divine Light. In facing our Dweller, we draw the poison element out of our past lives.

As this is gradually achieved, we are left with the positive experience of past incarnations. We have learnt to resist the destructive, and now we have achieved the creative. This will manifest in our life as the seeping through of past powers, abilities and knowledge. We often do not know just how much this is true until we come to some emergency or crisis in life. Then, to our great surprise, knowledge, power and ability flow through us to a degree we never realised we possessed. But we find ourselves not in a struggle against darkness, or the urge to merge with the light, but a state of balance between the two.

Example: Before I went to New Mexico I had a spontaneous realisation about Lurch in my House of the Ancestors dream. I realised that of course, Lurch in that comedy series is representing Frankenstein’s monster. And Frankenstein’s monster was a composite made up of many dead bodies, dead people. So of course, he is a wonderful depiction of the Dweller of the Threshold, the karma from past lives, the bits that need to be faced, healed, or met and integrated.

Throat

Self expression; vulnerability; the link between thoughts and feelings. It is also a very special part of the body, very vulnerable for several reason, so depicts that, but it is also the area connected with speech. Therefore it denotes expressing the previously ill defined or unformed parts of you; the revealing of secrets, and the ability to cry out with love, worship, or pain.

Pulling stuff out of the mouth, such as hair,  is a common dream, and most likely expresses the feeling of discomfort we feel if something foreign is in our mouth or throat. It shows the feeling of urgently trying to rid yourself of something that is unpleasant – perhaps feelings you have taken in, or things we have said or done that leave a nasty taste in ones mouth. Perhaps there is something you are not admitting to yourself. Or it can represent the lies and untrue stories we have been fed as a child.

Most of us have some areas of stiffness, blockage or pain in our mind and body. This is mentioned because there is an exercise, although completely physical, confronts many people with either the narrowness of some of their attitudes or the stiffness of their feelings. It also releases any difficulties of the nech or throat.

In this exercise we explore the use of sound. To make different sounds we need to move not only our throat, but also our trunk and even limbs in different ways.

Sounds also evoke feelings and move or exercise them. Just as many of us do not move our body outside of certain restricted and habitual gestures and actions, so also our range of sounds and feeling may be quite small. So for several minutes explore making sounds. Start by taking a full breath and letting it out noisily with an AHHHH sound. Do this until you feel it resonating in your body and change to a strong EEEEEEEEEEE sound. Then try MMMMMMMAAAAAA. If you are doing this exercise for the first time, that is sufficient for one session.

As your sound production improves though, and you begin to enjoy it, explore making all sorts of happy sounds; different sorts of laughter, proud, childish, funny, etc.; angry noises; animal and bird noises; sensual sounds; the sound of crying or sobbing; natural sounds such as wind, water, earthquakes; make the sounds of different languages and different situations such as a warriors chant, a mothers lullaby (without real words, just evocative sounds), a lover’s song, a hymn to Life, or even sounds about birth and death; and just plain nonsense noises. Don’t attempt to explore all these different types of sound at one session. Just choose one and explore it until you can feel yourself limbering up in it and getting past restricting feelings such as shyness or stupidness. Those are the walls of restriction.

If the sounds start to go in a particular direction or theme spontaneously, let it run. You have it!! If the sounds start to go in a particular direction or theme spontaneously, let it run. You have it!! It is about ‘letting go’ meaning letting things happen within you, not repressing every scary thing.

A friend told me he had a discomfort in his throat that had lasted for some weeks. He had been to the doctor, fearing cancer of his throat, but had been told there was no physical problem there. So, we decided to sit together and see if we could penetrate what the discomfort was about.

I suggested he feel the discomfort and then make any sound that expressed what he felt. He slowly began to cough and moan. Gradually he began to experience emotions that led him to shout and express anger. As the feelings and anger mounted he could see what it was he was holding in his throat. He told me that his father had worked all his life at a gasworks shovelling coal to produce gas. This exposed him to excessive coal dust, and eventually he died from the lung problem this produced. So, his anger was about how a man could be used in that way in an uncaring industry. But also, as his father was dying, the doctor asked him if he should give his father an injection that would lessen his pain and that would cause him to sleep till he died. He agreed to this, but his personal pain was that he had not told his father how much he loved him before he died, and all those feelings had been blocked in his throat. So, with much crying and many declarations of love, he felt the blockage clear.

Idioms: At each others throats; cut throat competition; cut ones own throat; lump in the throat; jump down someone’s throat; ram something down someone’s throat; stick in ones throat. See: Neck.

Thunder

Warning of stormy emotions, anger.

Ticket

To get the ticket is to get the idea, method, or capability. A ticket also represents the ability to pass through barriers or difficulties in life, as the price has been paid in life experience or self-giving. It can also mean a sense of validity and ease, or lack of it.

Tickle

Usually represents sexual stimulation.

Tide

Opportunity or power of events. The ebb and flow of enthusiasm, desires, cravings, ambition or energy. See: Moon, Sea.

Tie (clothes)

This is usually about a formal or more conservative or conformist attitude or feelings. The tie can also link with organisations or past ‘ties’ you had with university or the armed services, and what you carry from that or feel about it.

Sometimes the tie represent maleness or a the sexual drive/penis.

If a woman dreams of buying a man a tie it shows her entering a relationship with him – tying the knot so to speak.

Problems fixing a tie in a man’s dream might suggest lack of male ability or even impotence.

But the tie can suggest any of the ways we use it in speech as shown by the following:


Idiom: Tied to mother’s apron strings; tie up loose ends; tie one on; sacred ties; matrimonial ties; ties of friendship/honour/family; karmic tie; tying the threads together; the bonds that tie you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In which way is the tie presented in the dream – relationship, past connections, sexual – and what does that point to about myself?

Is this a tie I recognise, and if so what are my associations with it?

What do I feel about the tie?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Tie Tied Tying

Creating bonds, either in the form of unifying, binding or restricting. Trying to mend something or keep things together. See: String.

Tiger Tigress

Power, anger, sexual power, inner anxiety or terrifying urges. Fear of another person’s anger or forcefulness. Sometimes the power of a mother’s protectiveness. A woman’s anger or sexual craving.

Although similar in many ways to the lion, the tiger has a more feminine quality. It can therefore represent an angry woman; ones mother/a woman as a protector or destroyer; anger; spitefulness; the power and authority of ones animal strength; anxiety or fear, flight or fight. Often children have recurring dreams of being chased by a tiger (or lion), and this is about anger that they have been told is bad to express. So this is why they are running from it when they should have made it their friend. This is probably also why most people are still running or hiding from tigers in their dreams. Instead they should have been taught to direct their anger – a natural part of our defense system – effectively.

Do not to be afraid of the animals you meet in your dreams. They are only symbols of your own inner nature, your animal self. See Your Mammal Brain

The tiger represents your own power, the power that can protect your family and any children. Feel the power of that by imaging yourself as the tiger. Yes, actually imagine yourself in its body.

Also big cats, like domestic cats and dogs are very ‘mouthey’ – in other words they do everything with their mouth. They love with their mouth and love to hold you with their mouth. It is their way of giving a hug and wanting to be near. But of course tigers can bite for real too, but your dream tiger is a part of you. Even if it did bite you in your dream it is only like holographic image and can do you no harm. To be frightened of your dream tiger is to run away, avoid or deny your own wonderful natural strength and self protection. See Mouthey Animals

Example: Just last night I dreamt I was walking and a tiger came at me. I was scared, but I thought I would try to be strong and not show my fear. It did not work and the tiger ran at me. I climbed a tree and onto a roof of a tin shed. The tiger followed me up and I ran across a series of tin sheds. I finally realized I could not escape and I turned and faced the tiger. I screamed at the tiger and ran straight at it. The tiger got scared and turned and ran away, and then I woke up. These dreams have been on my mind, and I would love some insight into them. Thank you so much.

From that you can see that an image – in a dream – cannot hurt you, though it can cause you to feel fear. So chasing it was a way of changing your feeling, and that of course changes your dream. So, there is nothing in any dream that can hurt you, unless you run away from something. Running away is leaving yourself open to being a victim of whatever frightens you.

When we call someone a tiger we either mean they are fierce, capable of defending themselves, or very successful at what they do. But we also say a woman can protect her children or loved partner like a tiger. So it is also about strength and passion to protect and care. This aspect of the tiger depicts the primeval and passionate power of motherhood and the love and care of nature itself emanating from the unconscious. Tigers are individual creatures and are not, like lions, part of a group less it is a mother with her cubs.

Like any other animal, the tiger can also represent aspects of sexuality, depending upon how it is presented in the dream. As a symbol of sex it would most likely include elements of uncertainty – will I be attacked or overwhelmed – power and instinctive responses. It has to be remembered also that the tiger is a top of the food chain predator, and so can represent the predatory facets of human nature. See animal for an explanation of the role dream animals play in our life:

But it has to be remembered that every image in our dreams is an aspect of ourselves, and being an animal the tiger represents the wonderful strength we have as our heritage – if we claim it. Many people are frightened of their own strength and so run from their dream tiger, but as the following dream shows it can be your strength.

Example: An adult tiger was at my bed with one of my old high school buddy holding him on a leash. When I saw him I was furious what the fuck is such dangerous animal doing on my bed. Went to load my AK (the imaginary one, don’t actually own one), but when I pointed the gun at him he ignored me with calm and assertive look. I dropped the gun and in my admiration for him just felt his strong and firm energy. Since then I started to really think of Tigers as the ultimate alpha animal!!

Example: I was in a hallway behind a door, pulling it against me to shield myself against a tiger. The tiger was large with bloodstained paws. Some people stopped outside the door to look at the tiger. I told them to move along, as it had a very uncertain temper, and could easily attack. In fact it began to grow restless and growl. They went. I saw the deep colours of the tiger, and the blood. I was terrified that at any moment it would pull the door away from me. At that moment the tiger attacked me when I came from behind the door, and swallowed me. Now instead of feeling separate I was the tiger, and delighted in his movements and anger.

If you are born in the year of the Tiger in Chinese astrology, dreaming of a tiger might be a comment on your strength and weaknesses. It could be wise to consider your basic characteristics in the light of the dream. See Chinese Zodiac Tiger

The tiger can represent many things however, and below is another important aspect of a tiger.

Example: While in a basement a person approached me holding quite a large animal. As they handed it to me I saw it was a tiger cub, large and very well built, with a thick neck. I was surprised, but even more surprised and disturbed when a huge tigress came through a doorway above us at ground level and came down the stairs to us. I thought she was going to attack us, but she took the baby cub and placed it down. She then came with something in her mouth, probably money, and placed it near me. She gave off a powerful feeling of not wanting the cub, and with the money handing it over to me or us for our care. There was an atmosphere of irritability about her. Peter G.

In this example the tiger has an obvious connection with the mother. The dreamer had often been threatened by his mother that she was going to give him away, or put him in a home. So the dream probably dealt with his need to confront these feelings of abandonment which, like the tiger, were threatening. Interestingly, almost exactly five years later, in the same month, Peter dreamt the following.

I am in a house. There is a feeling I am sharing it with a number of people, as if there is a connection with a friend Mike. Suddenly I notice there is a tiger cub running around the room. It is a large room and empty except for myself and the cub. I realise this must mean there is a mother tiger about and worry that it will be angry or aggressive because of its cub. I go to walk through a doorway, but the mother tiger walks through. I stand still, not daring to move. But she brushes against me in a friendly way and strolls over to look at her cub. Peter G.

Interestingly the dreamer sees himself as a young tiger in his dreams.

Example: There is alarm that a wild tiger is about. I am concerned to find a place out of sight, behind a desk, in case the tiger sees me. It comes in, and, although there are many other people, it comes directly to me. As it comes towards me, I see it is small, and young, and un-coordinated in its random, flailing movements (rather like Tigger in Winnie-the-Pooh). Its body is like a pipe-cleaner twisted into a tiger shape. As it comes to me, I see it is full of energy but also shaking uncontrollably with fear, drenched in sweat. It is furiously wagging its tail, which may have a white bow tied to it (or is it the shape of the tail? – the latter I think), as if it is desperate to please. So from within my fear I say to it “Good tiger, there’s a good tiger,” to calm it down. I think, or say: “This tiger is terrified, because it is quite out of its element, in a classroom with humans.” I look up and see there is no one else in the room – just me and the tiger. JH.

JH says of his dream: “This seems to me to be a very revelatory dream. Clearly I am the tiger, and so I am frightened of my own fear in trying to hide from it. But the clarity of the dream is in the basic fear of existence the tiger exhibits.” Here the tiger is clearly about the fight and flight instinct in us all, and the struggle JH has in dealing with this in his life as a teacher.

Idioms: Fight like a tiger; paper tiger.

Useful questions:

Am I dealing with anxiety or anger in this dream?

What relationship do I have with the tiger, and what does this say about the way I deal with the ‘tiger’ aspects of my life such as fear, anger, aggression and dominant strength?

Does my dream tiger show any signs of motherhood in this dream, and if so how does that reflect on my mother or motherhood?

See Animal in my Dream

Tights Pantyhose

In most dreams they are shown as being on or off. When on they suggest a barrier between easy release of tension in going to the toilet, or experiencing sexual release. When off they suggest the opposite. They can also depict feelings of being more attractive, or attempts to cover up what is not attractive.

The word itself, or if the tights/pantyhose actually are tight, depicts how you restrain yourself, either sexually or in the your confidence.

As a cover for the legs and pelvis the colour plays a big part in meaning. The legs are our strength to stand up and act in life, so if they are dark or torn, it can suggest a problem with the confidence that can enable one to stand up straight and with confidence. If the darkness refers to the pelvis then it can connect with difficulties or blockages in expressing sexual feelings and love. See colours for the other possibilities.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the action of the dream telling me about the tights, and can I connect with that?

Are the tights show as some form of protection or restriction, and if so can I see how I am protecting or restricting myself?

Is there a suggestion here of sex, and what part are the tights playing in that?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Time

The passage of time in our life; our age; our sense of ease or pressure. There are certain times of day that we have deeply ingrained habitual responses to – such as morning coffee is for some people, lunchtime, time to go to work or end it. So time in a dream might refer to one of those things for you. See time of day

Idioms: It’s about time; all in good time; at one time; do time; for the time being; half the time; gain time; have no time for someone; lean times; time after time; time flies; behind the times; big time.

Time of Day

The passage of time in our life; our age; our sense of ease or pressure. There are certain times of day that we have deeply ingrained habitual responses to  – such as morning coffee is for some people, lunchtime, time to go to work or end it. So time in a dream might refer to one of those things for you.

Daylight hours: Our conscious waking life; our area of choice and ability to make decisions. Most dreams deal only with one day.

Where several days pass in the same dream, or even longer periods: The dream is expressing periods of change; different stages of growth in one’s life; or very different conditions through which one has lived or might live. To understand these try using Being the Person or Thing

Being late: Feeling we have left something too late or we have missed out on something; realising we have not acted quickly enough to avert a situation; avoidance of responsibility.

Afternoon and evening: The end of life; middle or old age; the more subtle feeling areas of experience or relationship, period of relaxation.

Hours of the day: May refer to age; period of life, twelve noon being mid life; something that happens at that time of the day; 11 may be eleventh hour. See: Numbers.

Midday or noon: Mid life; fully awake as opposed to the unconscious; activity or work projects.

Morning: Our youth or the first part of our life; energy; enthusiasm.

Night: Night can be so many things these have to be illustrated by examples. In the first example below the night depicts feelings of relaxation, pleasure, and sexual encounter. This aspect of night also suggests feeling the absence of the workaday world; time for reflection and being by oneself; intimacy with others; introspection.

Night in the second example shows a period of difficult change in the dreamer’s life. It represents a period of darkness or depression; loneliness; difficulties; sometimes negative feelings about old age and death.

In the third example Sam is experiencing areas of his unconscious or unknown self, thus the secrecy, as he probably has hidden something from himself. This aspect of night suggests turning our attention inwards to an extent where we discover insights, memories or mysteries which were previously unknown to us. These can be painful areas of our experience, or very positive and life enhancing realisations. It depicts the times in life when feelings arise from within when we are alone, or in a receptive mood – or go in search of who we are.

 Example: ‘Three of us were on our way to a lively night out and I suggested a short cut through RichmondPark.’ Jasmine C.

Example: ‘It was a very dark night with thunder and lightning, heavy rain and high winds. I am in a waiting room at Heathrow airport.’ Mrs W.

Example: ‘I was creeping through a field at night. In darkness I and others were trying to accomplish some secret act, rather as spies or underground agents might. I also remember another where I was near a house at night. There was some special reason for getting to the house. Again an ‘agent’ sort of feeling.’ Sam K.

Idioms: It’s about time; all in good time; at one time; do time; for the time being; half the time; gain time; have no time for someone; lean times; time after time; time flies; behind the times; big time. See: dark; light; sun.

 

Tin

Softness. Protection. If a can it can suggest storage of memories or nourishing feelings and experiences.

Tire

See: Tyre.

Toad

Feelings that might make us uncomfortable. Also the deeply biological processes of your body, of reproduction and transformation – the tadpole to toad process of conceptions and birth. See: Frog.

Toilet Bathroom

In the USA the toilet is often called the bathroom.

In general the toilet can link with problems or difficulties in you that need attention. This means it can also link with the ‘stink’ – the unacceptable parts of you, that you do not want others to know about or be exposed to. So any mess in the toilet can be saying that there are things about yourself that need attention and cleaning up.

The actual room: Privacy; your need for time where you are not always considering what others need or want of you, but can do what you want. The place you can let go of or get rid of things you wouldn’t usually expose publicly. This usually refers to things you feel or things you might be ashamed of, but can also be about sexual matters.

If it is a bathroom and toilet: Possibly includes the need for cleaning up ones sexual attitudes or general attitude to others and self.

Toilet bowl: The part of us which can deal with the body wastes, and the emotions you need to discharge; female sexual organ; ‘sexpot’.

Can’t find a toilet: This may be a way of waking you up, because if you dreamt of peeing you might wet the bed. So you keep looking until you wake up.

Filthy toilet: If the toilet is unusable because of its state, it can sometimes be a way that while asleep you desperately need to go to the toilet and yet do not want to wake up and actually go. This is a way we can manage to hold on, and is more likely a female dream – because while awake they will hold on rather than use a dirty toilet seat. The idea of going to the toilet is only unpleasant because in reality it is far nicer to stay in a comfortable warm bed. The dream maker creates the image of the dirty toilet as a reason to get up and actually go to the toilet rather than wet the bed..

Full toilet bowl: Suggests a pressing need to deal with old attitudes or emotions that you cannot easily allow release in your everyday relationships, or even alone. The reason being that you might feel others will be repulsed by or judgemental about that side of you. It is certainly about inner stuff that you are trying to pass out of your life but is hanging about.

Going to the toilet: Expressing yourself; releasing feelings, often creative; letting go of tightly held attitudes, the past, or sexuality; acceptance of ones own natural drives and needs.

What we put down the toilet: What we consider to be the least important or most unpleasant aspects of ourselves or our experience; what we want to get out of our life – my small son, who had depended for long years on a dummy, one day decided he no longer wanted to have that dependency, or be seen as needing it. He took the dummy out of his mouth, put it down the toilet and flushed it away.

 Example: ‘I am in a toilet and people can see me. Sometimes the walls fall down. Once I looked around and everyone was watching me.’ 

This relationship with the toilet usually shows that one needs more privacy and time to oneself.

 Example: ‘I go to the toilet and it is full up to the brim. It is disgusting, and I can’t go.

Alan shows great difficulty in meeting the very biological, blood and guts, and sexual side of himself. This may lead to living a very intellectual or sweetness and light sort of life. Occasionally suggests the body needs cleansing. Not being able to go the toilet: As with Alan above – a difficulty in expressing the more natural and down to earth aspects of self; holding back sexuality or emotions; being selfish and not sharing or ‘giving’ of oneself. Or it might be a reason to get up and actually go to the toilet rather than wet the bed.. 

 Example: ‘I was watching my teddy bear go to the toilet. It fell down and disappeared.’ Jackson S.

Jackson was very young and just learning to sit on the toilet by himself. His dream shows him meeting the fear of falling down it. He has seen things disappear for ever, and this disturbs him. He uses his bear as himself. This aspect of toilet can depict the magical, hidden, or unseen world into which we disappear in sleep – the unconscious.

See: Faeces, Cesspool, Urine.

Tomato

Passions, love, desire. Fruitfulness, ripeness.

Ver fruit

Tomb

Feelings or insights about death; fears we face when beginning the meeting with contents of our own unconscious; unconscious family influences; the denial or killing of our own needs and feelings, leaving us feeling dead or only half living our life; burial of our past, past love, past hopes and dreams, or feelings of guilt. ***Tomb as womb, and as a house of the ancestors.

If Bodies in tomb: Our own potential; aspects of self which ‘died’ in the past, or were buried, perhaps by the immediate needs of bringing up children, or some other aspect of outer life.

If trapped in tomb: Illustrates a withdrawn or autistic aspect of self – a part trapped by fears or pain; how we bury our living potential by withdrawing from difficulty, pain, or LIFE. See: grave; cemetery.

Tombstone: Memory of something that has died in you. A marker for a past hurt or trauma. A tombstone for love you killed out and the pain it caused.


Tomcat

Sexuality, aggressiveness and promiscuity. See: Cat.

Tongue

This obviously relates to speech, and the capable expression of what you feel. It enables you to articulate what is deep inside you, perhaps unknown even to yourself till it is spoken. So dreaming of the tongue being cut out shows real feelings of being mute and not able to express clearly.

Dreaming of any pain or injury to the tongue can either mean a problem with speech, or  that you are being hurtful in what you say. But the tongue also is involved in eating and caring – licking. It is an extension of the digestive organs, and its condition says a lot about your inner health.

An example is as follows. The woman was angry at her friend and was arguing:

She follows me around and won’t stop. After what seems like a long time, I start to do it too. Suddenly I see dazzling, sparkling blue and red colors like fireworks or prism colors on the end of my tongue. Ginny’s face goes out of focus. I am aware that I’m letting go and I’m in a different state of awareness. I talk rapidly, non-stop, and I’m vaguely aware that I might be saying hurtful things that could hurt other people’s feelings, but I know I must and it’s O.K. It spews out of me unchecked.

Sometimes the tongue refers to different languages we speak.

But the tongue and mouth are our first organs of gaining our needs and relating to the world and other people. The baby doesn’t just suck to gain milk, its tongue has wave like – peristaltic – movements that take the milk right down into the stomach. Kissing is therefore at least in part a return to this basic level of relationship and gaining needs, pleasure and contact with another being. If there are signs of this in the dream then it is reflecting ease or difficulty with that infant level of relatedness. The tongue can here be an expression of desire – of ‘I want’.

Because of the way the tongue and mouth are sometimes used in oral sex, the tongue can depict the penis, or at least, the drive to penetrate or to make contact through that sensitive organ. Another side to this is that we can express a lot of care and love through the tongue, as when a mother animal licks its child, so can express healing. So any problems relating to the tongue and sex need to be understood.

Example: We have a regular kiss, but realise we are there in the center, like in the center of a flower, which was a moist, tender, very sensitive to feeling something. We touched “cores.” I felt slightly repelled but allowed it to happen. Something in my mind was assuring me this is O.K. It’s always been forbidden but now it is O.K. and nice to do. It is important to do. She holds me in a caring way

Example: I am in a room with 3 other women. I’m tired. It’s late at night. I sit on a woman’s lap. We are wearing costumes of some kind. She has her arms around me and kisses me. She tries to “French kiss” me. At first, I don’t let her. Then I do. It’s not a French kiss, like with tongues. It’s like touching the core of something. The lips, a regular kiss, we are there in the center, like in the center of a flower, was a moist, tender, very sensitive to feeling something. We touched “cores.” I felt slightly repelled but allowed it to happen. Something in my mind was assuring me this is O.K. It’s always been forbidden but now it is O.K. and nice to do. It is important to do. She holds me in a caring way. Barb.

Mothers Tongue: Because we are a mammal and have arisen from a long line of mammals also because all mammals give caring love to their offspring with their tongues, as humans we too, if we are caring mothers, we have tongues that have enormous healing abilities. For our tongues and the saliva are excellent for healing cuts on our children and ourselves, for the tongue spreads saliva which is a natural antibiotic. Because of this the tongue and saliva serve as a natural means of cleaning the teeth.

Idioms: bite your tongue; cat got your tongue; find one’s tongue; forked tongue; hold your tongue; lose one’s tongue; on the tip of ones tongue; roll off the tongue; sharp tongue; silver tongued; slip of the tongue; tongue hanging out; tongue in cheek; thick tongue; tongue lashing; tongue tied.

Useful questions:

Do any of the idioms relate to my dream – if so what does it indicate?

is this a dream about hunger or thirst for something, if so what am I hungering or thirsting for?

Is there something I am trying to say or saying/singing really well – if so how does that relate to my waking life?

What am I do that is sexual with my tongue, and what comment is the dream making about it?

You can get into the real feelings of your dream by Being the Person or Thing; also try Talking As

Tools

Self expression, capabilities, practicality, skills. Your attitudes that enable you to make changes, and your skill to do so. But there are excellent tools you can use in unfolding your own latent potential. 

Practical abilities you have; suggestion of things we might need to do in our life – hammer out a situation with someone, cut away old attitudes, drill through resistances to discover our real feelings, etc.; male sexuality in different aspects.

A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania found that cats with damage to a particular part of their brains would live out in their dreams movement practicing what they lacked through the brain dmage. These cats would stalk, crouch and spring at imaginary prey. He concluded from this that one of the functions of dreaming is to practice life skills.

Thoughts and thinking are tools to be used in problem solving but are only part of the necessary toolkit. It is important to clearly understand what a thought is, and not confuse it with any sort of final truth. Any thought or image is only a mental photo of something or someone. It is never the person or thing and must not be seen as such. As with a photo, thought is also only a tiny fragmented copy of what we are considering. Nevertheless, we need to use thoughts in considering and clarifying what it is we seek an answer to especially in dream work.

Another tool that is very useful is shifting your mood in a dream or in everyday life. When you do this your whole surroundings change. Actors and actresses do this all the time, but maybe only on the surface not realising the enormity of it.

Example: When I arrived home, M. was out. Up rose the loneliness and pain. I stood looking out of the window in the end bedroom, not knowing what to do, where to go, how, what, when, where?

M arrived home. I could feel my pain cutting me off from any flow to her. She came into the room. I could see on her face the effect of weeks of living with my uncertainty, my misery and her own. Her whole body sagged as she saw me still in a desperate state of mind. I was already in the groove to spread yet more gloom. To make her feel as fearful of being in her own home as I had grown to be because of the misery it caused me. With an effort I acted out as much warmth of meeting as I could. I walked up to her smiling and kissed her and hugged her. I backed this up by the certainty that there was no way out. I saw her whole body and face change as she relaxed. I could see her drop the anxiety of being hit yet again by my remarks my feelings my condition. It worked. From that day on I have known more peace than I have in the last two years. I have to act out the good feelings, but it is working. If it goes on – it will be more peacefulness than ever before in my life. By acting I was learning to build new habits. I was learning how to build a new life. I realised from all this that there was no cure for the pain I had felt as it was habits I had inherited or developed, and the only way was to develop new habits. Hard but it has worked. See Habits and Eight Step Meth

Drill: Working through the emotions and fears which resist our insight; sex when there is little feeling contact or there are fears preventing intimacy.

Hammer: Aggression; desire to hammer home one’s point; energy to break through resistances or break old patterns of behaviour.

Saw: Energy to reshape old attitudes; wordplay on SEE: sex as the relationship meets hesitations; masturbation; criticism, cynicism, a questioning state of mind. Enquiry by looking at the problem. Cutting remarks or experiences.

Screwdriver: Using energy to make secure connections or to mend human situations of separateness.

Plane: Smoothing out the rough patches of your life by shaving away parts of what you feel. It may be at times uncomfortable

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Peer Dream Work

Toothbrush

This can mean you need dental care, or cleaning up your language, or even a change in type of toothbrush – try the electric ones.

Example:  My partner dreamt my toothbrush was very well worn and his was practically perfect as though never used.  He was curious what this could mean.  What came to me was I keep my words pure when I speak of others so my toothbrush does it’s job well of keeping my mouth clean of any dirt.  He on the other hand would rarely stop to think about the how his words might affect a person.. so could do with making his toothbrush work that bit harder! He wasn’t impressed with that!! TK

Torch Flashlight

Confidence in meeting the dark or unknown aspects of self. It also signifies finding your way when you cannot easily ‘see’ what direction to take or what lies ahead, so it may give you insights into how to proceed. See: Lantern; Light; Searchlight.

There are things existing in the dark cellar of our ‘unconscious’. When we turn our focussed self-awareness on them it is like walking down into that cellar with a torch.

A torch might also be a lighted burning torch, can be similar to above, but can be used to ‘put a torch to’ a house or faggots. See Burning Burnt

 Example: As I looked I saw eyes shining in the dark. It was very eerie. I asked my father to get a torch so I could look down the hole. He went but did not come back. I thought he was frightened.

In the world of dreams if you cannot see in the dark it is most likely because you feel some anxiety about not being able to see.

Example: ‘I am alone in the house. It begins to grow dark, so I switch the light on, but the light is very dim. So, I go to another room and try another light, but this light is even dimmer. I carry on like this all over the house until I am in virtual darkness and very frightened.’ J. W.

This applies to torches that do not work, for we are our own light if we do not fear what the dark hides.

 

Tornado

Threatening influences pushing you toward things you might be afraid of. Pressure in some form. Tremendous mental or emotional energy release, feeling or fear as if it might overwhelm you. See: wind; Air.

A tornado in real life also causes sudden and often catastrophic changes, so can indicate a sense or intuition that you are moving toward life changing and perhaps sudden events that will bring great change, change that threatens you; not because it is dangerous, but because you are anxious about your own tremendous energy and emotions. See Tsunami – Storm – Energy Sex and Dreams

Powerful influences such as public opinion, changes in the environment, thoughts and conflicts, and occasionally perhaps emotions and urges, against which we feel powerless, and which may become obsessive. But also like air, the mental emotional atmosphere you live in. See Masters of Nightmares

Example: I live in a high-rise apartment overlooking the ocean. My whole apartment consists of one room which is a bedroom with windows surrounding the entire room. As I look out to the large surge of water coming, I can’t help but notice how beautiful the sun set is. The sky was covered in vivid pink, orange, and yellows. I see a dark gray cloud coming down the street that has the most amount of people on it.  As it comes closer, I can now see that it is a large tornado moving down the street sweeping up people as it goes. I leave the skyscraper and get back into Shannon’s car and we start driving away from the city. As we drive past the people, they are not panicking about what to do but they are still refusing to leave.

The dream suggests you are in a critical situation but if handle it wisely will be okay – and is about the whole ‘out of harmony with Life’ that many people in the world are in. Your dream clearly says there is a difficult time coming, but there is time to act wisely. That because you have an excellent view of what is happening with all round windows.

Torpedo

Unconscious or unadmitted sexual drive which could be destructive, or unconscious aggression. It is also an indication of dangerous sex. Unconscious desires to injure others, or hidden danger to you. Hitting below the belt.

Example: The ships have been sinking in the middle of the ocean, near the shore and even once, we were docked, and ship just split in half and sank. Sometimes there is fire and debris, other times the ship is just sinking. In one dream, I was in a fishing boat on a small lake and a large warship shot a torpedo at us. It’s been day, night, warm, cold. I’ve been in the water swimming or I’ve been running around the deck trying to find a lifeboat. I’ve been in a lifeboat or another small boat (fishing, etc) watching a ship sink. See Ship

It also suggests you are in or have set in motion a conflict. So, it would be helpful if you try to become aware of what is going in in you.

Tortoise

Outer hardness or shell, in which we may hide when others try to contact us deeply. Slow but patient efforts. Sensitivity and shyness.

Totem

A sense of your connection with your forebears and nature. The intuition the unconscious has of your links with the past and with your connection or lack of it with your own animal/mammal past. See Levels of the Brain and Dreams; Seed; Religion and dreams 

If you just read or then think about your dream animal, you have not fully entered into its meaning for you. A dream image is, in many ways, like an icon on your computer desktop. It just sits there, you can think about it till you are red in the face, but it doesn’t come alive until you click on it. A dream is a product of the miracle we do not understand – LIFE. As such each dream image is alive with intelligence and information, and links not simply with ideas we read in a book or website, but with the workings and wonders of our body, the depths of our mind and even beyond.

Remember that dreams occur in animals and have been a feature of living creatures long before humans arose. So, dreams come from a part of us prior to the arrival of human language. Therefore, it might be useless to think about dreams. It is best if you actually explore your dreams as explained below. You can then ‘click’ on your dream images using the following way in. See: Being the Person or Thing

My first one was a Hare.

Example: ‘I was walking across open moorland, followed by a crowd of people. I was their leader, and was supposed to be leading them to “Salvation”. The only thing was, I had no idea in which direction salvation lay. We came to a barbed-wire fence and stopped. I was considering the best place to cross, when I noticed a rabbit beyond the fence. My dog was with me, and leapt on the rabbit to kill it as in my previous dreams, but this time the rabbit fought back and bit his foot, and he stood back respectfully, as he would if a cat clawed him. I now saw that the rabbit had turned into a huge and powerful hare, with four pink furry babies. Then the hare spoke to me, saying, “Where are you going?”

‘I told him we were looking for salvation. He listened, then quietly said “Turn back. Go back to whence you came. At this I became irritable and said, who was he to tell us what to do. There were so many so-called authorities telling people how to discover truth, and yet most of them either disagreed or hadn’t found it themselves.

‘The hare looked at me and suddenly disappeared. Then, in a few moments it reappeared. This impressed me tremendously. I felt it was a sign of complete self-mastery, and knew the hare was the master. He then said again, “Go back, and carry on with your accustomed tasks. Do not seek wildly the Kingdom of Heaven, for you already have what you seek within you for you are looking for yourself that you miss by frantic searching. Your seeking only hides it.” Then we all turned around and went back to our village, and carried on our usual tasks, knowing that in time, we would realise our heaven.

The dreamer explored his dream and saw the hare as depicting his intuition which speaks of the inner wisdom. He was amazed to later find that the hare has been used as just such a symbol in many countries and cultures of the world. The dream and instruction were potently important in his life. He had been desperately trying to force his growth by extreme practices of meditation and yoga. In fact, his practices bordered on the fanatical or compulsive. The words of the hare helped him to start the process of taking a very different approach to his inner unfoldment. Has your animal ever spoken to you?

Example: The living totem animals are now on my level, the wolf is in front, the squirrel up in a tree, the boar beside me, the earth mother tells me that everything is in its place, except for a dark dangerous bear like creature that is stalking me, she tells me I must beware of this creature, as I walk through the forest I feel protected by the animals around me, but am on edge as I know I am being watched by the dark creature.

The totem in your dream is a magnificent manifestation of the living forces within you. It is something that like a rock has pushed through and from the earth by the forces of nature in you, but it is your own work on yourself and shows what has been produced in and by your life in the carvings it artwork at the top. The dark creature is a representation of your own fears you have not met and dealt with yet. See The Rock Beast

People, especially Americans, often dream about their totem animal. It as been a part of the American people’s inner life for thousands of years, and recent American apparently have it as part of their inner life too. This is apparent in this man’s experience where me met the Puma and was told be a Guardian to killit with a knife the Guardian gave him.

In trying to understand the dream I became The Puma. As such I am. I am life. I am love and the untamed expression of being alive, of feeling passion and love. I am both a test and an opportunity in my life. He was not afraid of me, and so I become his companion. I am a native of the America’s. I know this territory. I can survive here. It is what I do, what I know. I can hunt for you, but I need something from you too. Take the lead and we will be of good to each other. As the Guardian I also test the traveler, as I did by giving him a knife. I attempted to frighten him by my appearance – half alive – and by carrying a knife, and also by telling him the Puma would harm him. But he passed the test by loving the Puma instead of killing it. To pass beyond here you need courage and love.

Touch Touched Touching

The degree of relationship with another person or an aspect of yourself. The connection with an influence, and the experience of something other than oneself.

Being aware of, becoming conscious, or meeting and becoming intimate. Touching is about contact. It sometimes shows how you link with something, as when a person touches a power line and gets shocked. That would suggest you have ‘touched’ feelings or drives which were a shock to you or dangerous.

The act of touching can apply to many things, so one can touch the high ground of their life experience; touch the wonder of Life within us; touch a new understanding of the natural world and its creatures; even though remaining behind prison bars, we could still be touching people’s lives deeply; with awareness we can touch uncountable things.

Touching another is often an attempt on the part of our spontaneous inner feelings to bring about healing change. Sometimes a feeling of power will surge through your body as you touch as an expression of your strength and healing. See Heal

It is often directly or indirectly sexual. Touching is a means of communicating your emotions or intentions. This can be love, anger, sympathy, or a statement which attempts to break down insularity. Albie’s dream below shows another aspect of touching, which is its use to produce a change.

‘My husband came over to me with his arm out to touch me, but I was so angry I put my arm up to shield myself from his touch and then began to throw things at him to express how angry I was feeling.’ Susie R.

‘The man was so superior in his attitude, and patronisingly arrogant about the lost children, that I cursed him with a touch, saying ‘May you lose children of your own.’’ Albie G.

Albie wanted to leave a mark, make a change in the man, who is an aspect of himself.

The absence of touching in otherwise intimate scene: Can suggest lack of ability to reach out or express your needs for contact or be in a passive attitude in which you want the other person to act; or a more automatic aspect of yourself, refusing to take responsibility and risks.

Active avoidance of touching: As illustrated in example, shows feelings of anger. The anger may be passive, but such avoidance of contact is as vicious as hitting. The dreamer moves towards a healthier state by expressing her anger.

Idioms: Get in touch; keep in touch; lose touch; lose one’s touch; out of touch; touch and go; touch someone; touched up; touch something off; touch upon; common touch; Midas touch; touch bottom; soft touch; touch wood.

Tower

Something you have built or created in your life. As such it can be an outer achievement or erection of inner attitudes such as defensiveness, isolation, insularity, or an attempt to reach the heights of awareness or recognition. It can also suggest male sexuality and drive which may not be expressed satisfactorily, and thus be the source of aggression toward females and society. This also has the elements of insularity and defence. Occasionally it shows heightened awareness, as in the lighthouse dream of Priestley in the entry Religion and dreams.

Example: ‘The devil was trying to force me to make love to a girl. I wanted to leap off the tower and fly away, but it was high, and I was frightened I would fall.’ C.C. 

C.C. is fifteen and facing his emerging drive of love and sex. The woman in the tower is his idealised relationship with the opposite sex. Actual intimacy is threatening, and he wants to ‘fly’ from it but feels this would be failure. The Devil is his own life pushing to grow but felt as threatening.

I was exploring a dream about a derelict tower block I had lived in.

I realised on Sunday that I could not pull tower block down and that I was left frustrated because until it came down, I could not build anything new. I realised that I was this damaged tower block, yet while I stood there, I was keeping my head up like I have always done. I was in fact my wife’s convenience. I took her abuse with my “I’m above it all” stand. When the building crashed, I cried and cried and I felt it was the death of my adulthood. I had hated my Mother and Father and how I always kill myself as I couldn’t kill them. Hampden Rd. was where I lived before I was put into the orphanage by my parents. Even Jesus never came to get me out. There has been no ability to believe in anyone since that time. Yet this growing up has come about because of all the misery I have seen in my relationships. I then felt a deep fear that I must turn to God as I am now in old age, so I need to know the Divine Principle as much as possible before I die. The tower is down now and there is a strong feeling that I should turn inwards and focus on rebuilding my inner character. With a sense of self-worth and not just an acceptance of my lot as given by parents and society. I felt I had a gentle love still within me, leaving me with a wider feeling of gentleness that has encompassed me since.

Example: That was a tall, gothic tower which I knew to be my library with a “wizard’s study” at the top where I could find the quiet and solitude needed for contemplation. The last piece of this may be the most revealing to me as I was not only feeling joyous about the tower but was very excitedly showing it off to members of my extended family. I believe I have a good idea of what this all means to me, but I would value any objective insights. Thank you for creating this website as a guide for folks like me.

From you dream I see you have a very balanced life , with your children and wife all there, the modern and the ancient together. But here is the wonder of it, the Wizards Study! This is, I believe the Centre of your life showing you have achieved a great deal in your life – perhaps enlightenment. This is where your strength arises from, the ability to transform yourself, and perhaps those around you. I salute you. I say this because I do not think such dreams come lightly.

J. B. Priestly wrote that he and his wife had recently visited the lighthouse here at St. Catherine’s, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, to do some bird ringing. I dreamt I was standing at the top of a very high tower, alone, looking down upon myriads of birds all flying in one direction; every kind of bird was there, all the birds in the world. It was a noble sight, this vast aerial river of birds. But now in some mysterious fashion the gear was changed, and time speeded up, so that I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek, and then, in a flash bled and shrivelled; and death struck everywhere at every second. What was the use of all this blind struggle towards life, this eager trying of wings, this hurried mating, this flight and surge, all this gigantic meaningless effort?

In this dream the tower represented the ability to experience a much greater area of awareness than usual, enabling him to receive a greater insight into the meaning of life. He sums it up, “Birds, men and creatures not yet shaped and coloured, all were of no account except so far as this flame of life travelled through them. It left nothing to mourn over behind it; what I had thought was tragedy was mere emptiness or a shadow show; for now, all real feeling was caught and purified and danced on ecstatically with the white flame of life. I had never before felt such deep happiness as I knew at the end of my dream of the tower and the birds.” The dreamt left a great impression on my mind than any experience I had ever known before, awake or in dreams, and said more to me about this life than any book I have ever read.

Town

Your life as it interacts with the people around you. The way you express in relationship with opportunity and stress in society. Your visible social life. See city/town

Home town or town of birth: The familiar way of life; the way you usually go about things.

Strange town: The new; different attitudes or way of life, new choices or opportunities. Or it can be an influence that is negative and needs to be dealt with.

Alone in a town: Feeling isolated and out of touch.

In a deserted town: Outmoded social attitudes or way of life.

Lost in a town: Feeling uncertain regarding your place or direction in society.

Toy

This indicates childhood feelings or attitudes to life or people. This will usually include childhood needs, dependencies and anxieties. Or it could be not taking something or someone seriously, but just ‘playing’ at life or love. The ‘play’ can also be very positive and creative – not killing your creativity by being too serious. Therefore, toy dreams may be a way of ‘playing’ with emotions and sexuality which allows you to explore and mature in a safe way.

Some toys may act as a way to develop skills. Some years ago three of my sons and I were playing with a toy made with a looped string going through two holes in a button. By pulling the string apart and then releasing it and then pulling again the button spins incredibly fast. Except this was factory made, and when it is pulled correctly gives out sparks.

My youngest son was having difficulty just being able to pull the strings to make it spin. The son who was two years older being about 8, could make the thing spin, but my older son could do the whole thing with massive sparks. As I watched I realised the enormous amount of information and use of our body we take in as we move through childhood to teenage. My youngest son, who is intelligent hadn’t yet learned body skills. The son two years older had those skills but still couldn’t get the speed. My teenage son, I realised understood the technology of the toy he was handling.

We are all like that in our lives. Many, like my youngest son cannot manage the simplest tasks. The next step is to start to become aware of the deeper mystery of living. The massive step is in understanding, becoming aware of the working of life, its technology so to speak, and starting to use it.
The youngest among us cannot understand the simple life events. At the next level we begin to understand but cannot get it to work. The ‘teenage’ level has seen, become aware of how it works and has mastered its workings. So, toys are extremely useful to enable a child to master its environment.

Toy animal or cuddly toy: Often a desire for a non-threatening emotional or sexual relationship. As such the toy, a teddy bear for instance, may have been your sole certainty for emotional comfort when you were a child, the only emotional contact you had any control over, and so used now to depict that.
Broken toy: Something you have been playing at that has broken or caused you to feel loss about something, perhaps a skill or pleasure. See: Doll; Games and gambling; Teddy bear.

Because young children often see a toy as representing themselves, so this child’s dream may be showing how he felt when he had the operation for his circumcision.

Example: “I broken teddy bear. I killed it. I like it killed. I dead it. I broke it like my teddy bear. I can’t ask, it’s broken. I’m broken like a teddy bear. No pee pee. Don’t want to we we in potty. Don’t like it.

Track

A little used, unconventional, or more natural way of going about something. A direction already taken and made by others but not often used – not a main thoroughfare.

We can be making a new track or path, a way or method that is not a way that many use, but if you wish to travel a new way, it is one without any tracks, it can be very powerful.

We all leave tracks from what we do in life, so we leave a ‘track record’ which is worth being aware of. So, what is your track record?

Example: I was aware of the danger of two, or maybe one young child. Who had been allowed to carry a small animal which acted as a scent lead for large tracker dogs that were hunting and would attack and kill whatever they were tracking. I found one of the boys trying to hide under a pot or a basin in the spare ground behind the house I lived in London. I pulled him out from his attempts to hide. He had no idea of his danger. Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing.

Example: How am relating to my dream lover? Are there problems, difficulties or angers and resentments in the way of my union with the lover? Honestly, what is my track record in loving? Dare I really look at myself and say how I have destroyed or enhanced love with a partner?

Railway tracks: The rails themselves represent orthodoxy, the accepted way of going about things, moral values or a direction that is hard to change, and perhaps shared with others. Thus, one can say someone has gone ‘off the rails’. A communal or generally accepted direction; habitual pathways of thought or action; rigidly fixed to certain attitudes or way of life; inflexibility.

Idioms: Off the beaten track; in one’s tracks; lose track of; make tracks for; hard on someone’s track; on the right/wrong track; track record; blaze a trail. See: Road; Railway for railway track.

Traditions

Traditions are very important and if you understand the traditions of the culture you came from – or the mixture of cultures – you will have an understanding of your basic self and even some of your behaviour.

See Ancient Greece – Dream Beliefs – Assyrian dream beliefs – Australian Aborigine Dream Beliefs – Babylonian Dream Beliefs – Chinese Dream Beliefs – Dream Beliefs Dreamed Dreaming Dreams – Egyptian (ancient) Dream Beliefs – Hebrew/Jewish Dream Beliefs – Islamic Dream Traditions – Macedonian Dream Traditions – Native American Dream Beliefs

Traffic

This may reflect your daily interaction with other people, but also the constant and massive flow of life events around you. What happens in the dream will indicate how you are feeling about that, or what you predict is or will arise out of it. See: Car.

 The traffic we meet is not only on the roads but also the people in the streets or the amount of traffic/people appearing on a website. How do you handle or deal with the ‘traffic’ you meet each day?

Tramp or Dropout

The ignored or little expressed side of you, or at times a part yourself you feel threatened by. Some tramp dreams indicate the ‘yes but’ syndrome – I would make an effort in life BUT I’m broke, people put me down, others are against me, I come from a broken home – I’ve had a hard time in life – life owes me a living – feeling. It expresses the attitudes, fears and excuses we make that paralyse you and lead to missing life’s opportunity to realise who you are and flower as a person. So, the dropout can be the unacceptable parts of you and others that is held back and so depicted as a ragged, unsociable person. If an attempt is made to find ways to express or accept these repressed parts of self, then the beggar or tramp changes in subsequent dreams, and develops positive and useful characteristics.  See Avoid Being Victims

In a woman’s dream: May refer to the negative feelings and thoughts connected with your urge toward personal identity and success – feelings and attitudes such as ‘a woman can’t make it in the world’, ‘it’s a man’s world’, ‘my husband puts me down’. But the tramp in your dream can also indicate unconscious fears or even fantasies about your own desires, sexuality and potential. We sometimes fear failure and meet such fear in the dropout.

Of course, in a woman’s dream it can represent her fear of being approached by men, so it may indicate her feelings about men in general. In London one day walking along a road with many people a woman stopped her car to ask the way. She had a map on her lap and her window was opened, so saying that I could show her the way on her map I leaned in her window. Her shock was awful; she almost leapt out of her car. I had witnessed such extreme fear in other women, probably caused by past experience.

Trance

Depends how the trance is expressed in the dream. It may represent neglect or loss of awareness of your outer affairs. It can also indicate becom­ing aware of deeper levels of your mind, expressing facets of your abilities you do not otherwise touch, or a shift in what you are experiencing or what is influencing you. See: Altered states of consciousness Hallucinations.

 

While dreaming we usually accept what we experience as real. A hallucination is an experience of a ‘dream’ occurring while we have our eyes open, which is actually a trance state. The voices heard, people seen, smells smelt, although appearing to be outside of us, are no more exterior than the things and images of our dreams. In fact, with this information one can understand that much classed as psychic phenomena, trance experiences and religious experience is an encounter with the dream process. That does not, of course, deny its importance.

 

In lucid dreaming we can sometimes see what was happening in our body, to recognise signs of illness and heal them. This would be a wonderful addition to our natural healing process. This is not a fantasy, it happens with a few people, and understanding the process can help us conscious work with it. Similarly, people have learned to work with the dream process to ‘dream’ traumatic episodes of their birth, babyhood or childhood. In doing so they uncover the powerful reactions that were experienced, or decisions made which have subsequently influenced their lives negatively. They also manage to meet the person or baby they were at that period of their life, and help it integrate more fully with the present situation. See Lucid DreamingWaking Lucid DreamingBodiless

Transfiguration Transfigure Transform Transforming Transformation

When we fall in love with someone, the feelings, emotions, ideas, and energies released by the experience of love can change or transfigure our whole life. Similarly, the release of inner feelings, spiritual energies, new ideas, can have a transmuting effect upon us. It thus symbolises outer change through the release of inner forces.

Transformation is also natural to us. From the microscopic sperm and ovum we transform into an adult millions of times larger, and capable of living in a different environment. This transforming influence is still at work even when we stop growing physically. It is still available to continue mental and spiritual growth – spiritual meaning an awareness that transcends the limitations of the physical senses. See Life’s Little Secrets – Opening to Life

Transparent

This means something is available to insight and awareness, or it is something or someone you can ‘see through’ – therefore suggesting gaining understanding or discernment. It may also show you feeling vulnerable because others can see parts of your nature usually hidden – or that you are revealing more of self.

Example: An evil spirit appeared through the door (without it opening) and swept in moving very fast. It was a half transparent murky-shiny cloud and it came to rest in front of us and we could feel the chill on our feet. I felt tired and angry with this thing and bellowed GO at it and pointed at the door, and it shot off. I have a feeling that immediately preceding this all of us in the house had been playing a sort of hide and seek with it, trying to work out where to find it, what it looked like, and get rid of it, but it was very elusive. See Evil Spirit – Glass.

Trap Door

An attitude, realisation or feeling by which you can access unusual or hidden parts of your own mind, feelings or memories. Where the trapdoor leads to may contain treasure of forgotten skills or insights you had forgotten, or not used for a long time. It may also be a hiding place – a way you hide your feelings and ideas from others.

Trap Trapped Trapping

The trap is often made up, or rather was built, from a way of life you lived when you were a baby and child. You were trained to behave in particular ways, to respond as was thought fit, and in a manner dictated by the culture or religious beliefs in which you were raised. And yet as a natural human animal those attitude, behaviours and restrictions may have been completely against your nature. Yet that is the life you have lived since then, and it seems as it is who you are. The only signs of your entrapment are your your body tensions and pains, your mental and emotional agony, your dreams of being trapped,  at times as the natural human animal you are trying to find its way out of, or trying to break out of, the trap.

We are all trapped in old ideas, habits that may have been applicable at one time, but are now detrimental, and are hurts and responses that linger on. These traps are often depicted by prisons, snares, impassable barriers, ropes, threatening people or animals. Finding your way through them is the great adventure of life. Out of this arises your strength, your waking up to who you are, your emergence into real life and identity. See: Snare; Opening to Life.

You are trapped because you cannot break free of old fears, attitudes or relationships. You are held prisoner by beliefs or religious views not conducive to you as a living being.

‘I am trapped in a small brick room with no way out. I shout for someone to help me. Then either a huge bird or creature with arms tries to catch me and I scream myself awake.’ Karen S.

Karen had lived through a divorce, unhappy love affair, and the loss of a baby. In the dream the figure who comes after she has called for help might save her, but her fears make her reject it. (Big birds often appear in dreams and the huge bird in the house means contact with a lesser used ability you have, one of being able to have a wider view of who you are and the world you live in.) Perhaps Karen’s feelings about her carers or partners paint them as monsters. Whatever her past carers or partners may have been like, with such feelings, it is Karen herself who is the prisoner and suffers loneliness or great anxiety. Trapped dreams can also depict feelings we have about work, about lack of opportunity, and so on. It must be remembered that the dream puts into images your feelings about the situation, not the external thing itself. If you are lucky it also suggests ways out of the situation. See: Healing Experience; Stuck in life – unable to move or growDream visualisation; Imprisoned; Cage or cell; Escape; Holding.

 Example: One day as I stood raging at the bars of the prison I had been in for years and I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

Then one morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong, I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The dream enabled me to experience what it would be like if all the angers, beliefs, justifications, thoughts and emotions that usually possess my life were dropped away. The freedom and bliss were extraordinary. I practised what the dream showed me and my pains dropped away as I learned.

Trash Trash Can

See: Dustbin.

Trauma

As to what trauma is I tend to leave a lot of ideas behind and look at any life form – and I believe that trauma is anything that interferes with the development of that life form.

I often use the analogy of a seed, and watching what can interfere with how the seed can express its potential is, in my view, a trauma.

I believe that basic to all life is sentient. I would like to call it consciousness, but people mix that with self consciousness. The word ‘sentient’ is defined as ‘having awareness through the senses’. But it also means or implies much more. If we have awareness we can respond to what is going on around us. Plant’s, for instance, respond to light. Their shape may radically change if the source of light is moved. Plants also react to pain or subtle changes in the atmosphere – they close the petals of their flowers for instance. Therefore we can say the plant is sentient. Generally we may feel that the ability to respond ends with plants or bacteria. But the quantum experiments, where a photon of light is one thing when observed, and something else when not observed, suggest that the fundamental particles of the material world can also respond. We can therefore think of them as being sentient. It is because of this that I suggest we float in an ocean of sentience, one part of which knows, and perhaps responds, to what is happening to another part, even at a great distance.

So, what we are not capable of being personally aware of does not exist for us. In a very real way nothing exists for us unless we can be aware of it in some way. There is nothing outside of consciousness. Or to put it another way, without personal awareness nothing exists for us. If you have no consciousness the world, other people do not exist for you; so death is an exploration of consciousness. If you are still stuck at the physical awareness level of what you are aware of, have never explored the dream world or have broken through to the inner world, then you are missing the amazing depth of your consciousness. For a view of these levels see https://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/rudolph-steiners-genius-life-after-death/and https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dimensions-of-human-experience/

I also believe or see from experiments that sentience is linked with another quality – potential. I am not suggesting that it is potential with a fixed aim – but raw open door potential. I see the countless life forms on our world as an example of this – the potential could have been anything – and it has from bacteria living in super hot underwater vents, to the wonder of flying, the power and majesty of predators, to the unusual phenomena of human existence.

All this was to make plain that I see all life forms have almost unlimited potential – but there are things in the way – various forms of trauma. To explain that Lyle Watson, a scientist and biologist, in researching human potential for one of his books, was asked by a boy’s father in Italy to observe his four-year old son. In Watson’s presence the father rolled his son an ordinary tennis ball. A little while later the boy rolled it back. The ball was turned inside out without any cuts or damage to its surface. Watson then signed his name on another tennis ball and the boy repeated the change. Later Watson cut open the ball in front of witnesses, revealing his signature on the inside of the ball.

What the boy did questions all present scientific understanding – except perhaps the findings of quantum physics. But when the boy was older he was sent to school – his ability was wiped away, suggesting our present forms of education take away real potential, suggesting that education can be a form of trauma.. See Quantum Physics

The agony of birth begins a bank account of pain which grows until death. This account is limited to no one kind of currency but includes a wide range of all denominations extending from the aches, burns, and stings of the body to the humiliations, guilts, shames, terrors, and doubts of the psyche. The knowledge-indeed the scalding memory and horror of those pains-remains in the psyche demanding relief. It is hard for people to recall them; ordinarily they absolutely refuse. But in sessions they can come back unbidden in full and excruciating intensity.

Deep within the subconscious, at the boundaries of identity, lies an ambiguous hinterland where the polarity of subject and object becomes flexible and miscible. There the rudimentary identity, in an effort to rid itself of pain, seeks to reverse the polarity of damage and project it out onto “other.” By a trick of symbolic manipulation, it strives to become the hurter instead of the hurt, the destroyer instead of the destroyed.  The primitive identity assumes that in giving pain to another, it has given its pain away. In reality it has only shifted the destructive consciousness from the self and projected it into the mental limbo of psychic not-self within the brain. Actually, the consciousness of pain has been temporarily repressed, nothing more.

But before I go any further I would like you to read http://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/animal-children/#Program  It is the end of a feature that may be about the archetypal human trauma. If so, trauma is a part of nature’s way of putting obstacles in our way to overcome, and is there for every living thing.

To explain that in term of everyday events, I quote from The Tree –

I can’t remember it not being there –
On the cliff edge overlooking the sea.
I don’t even know how old it is.
There’s no way of knowing.
Perhaps an ancient oak tree
Yet barely to my waist.
Shaped and stunted
By harsh onshore winds,
By the salt and the rock.
It is clinging and growing
To the very shape of the wind,
Perfectly reflecting its environment,
And stunted, as you or I might be,
By circumstances of our birth,
Or events –
Yet still a magnificent oak tree.
Just as you or I, at our core,
Are magnificent human beings.

The point being made is that the tree had in it the potential to be a magnificent tall oak. It was its environment that stunted it, and environment is another cause of trauma. As is birth, education, diet, parental influence and a thousand other factors that can stand in the way of infinite potential. 

Example: “Repression, a function of the mind almost as pervasive as its opposite, cognition, has one purpose: to suppress knowledge of unwanted truths. Traumas involve overwhelming invasions of fact that are met with emergency measures. Here the strictest repression is applied. But there remains a large class of repressed memories, prob­ably a majority, that cannot be called traumas because they are too niggling and insignificant. Yet when they are analyzed and tallied together they reveal patterns of non-acceptance that are significant in the total psyche. Many, of course, lead back to the excessive claims of infantile megalomania, which patients must correct if they are ever to discover the reality of themselves and their world. Turning to investi­gate these claims, they find that they are not the exclusive rather exotic vanities of children nor the simple urges for excessive power they had supposed, but universal human distortions.” Quoted from LSD PSYCHOTHERAPY by W. V. CALDWELL

A thought that is very real to me and I have realised that all the massive rocks and landslides that blocked the road I was travelling in my life were not ‘bad’. All were necessary for me to learn things or to develop strength to shift the road blocks. I have heard from others who have travelled the road of growth that they too say there is nothing bad in our life. I mean that also about things like having my stroke that took away my ability to speak and move my right side of my body. I honestly do not think Life plays with us.

A reply from ‘BooBoo’ on reading the above:

Thanks very much for your thoughtful response. I like the analogy of the tree a lot. One thing I was wondering after I asked, is if my question weren’t more part of the confusion itself. More specifically, if trying to reduce trauma to one thing per se may not be the right path, since it is such a murky and complex entity. But I like the concept of trauma as more of a process than a thing… I have also been stepping back and seeing it more as a dimension, or a ‘lack of’ something rather than some ‘thing’ in itself. As in, trauma creates a tear in the social fabric into which we are born and which nurtures us along the way. The tricky irony (irony being where the truth often hides I’ve found, where the opposites unite) is that the tear CAN strengthen and develop the fabric towards an even more beautiful quilt, if I could finish the analogy awkwardly…

————————————————  

One of the things I have learned about trauma is that to some extent being willing to deeply experience a conflict burns it out, but for some types of trauma only for a while. It is not like a childhood trauma that clears when it is experienced. This type goes on again, and again, even if experienced, because it arises not from past trauma, but from present disposition.

That is, I love my children and want to be with them – I love my partner who is not the mother of my children and want to be with her, but because I spend a lot of time with my children who live at a different address than my partner, gaps appear between us  – conflict. So, experiencing does not solve it. As Jung said, most human problems are insoluble. They cannot be solved, but sometimes we can outgrow them. I am having to learn to be decisive in where I want to go in life, and attempt to go there despite the pain and the obstacles of hopelessness, emptiness, and despair. I have to do that because I know there is satisfaction in the direction of growing beyond ones old self that was so open to pain. Then the pain and black cloud lifts. To outgrow your life problems we may have to open to the primal force that grew us, the process of Life. So it might help to try using Opening to Life

I saw once again so clearly, there was not an actual problem to discover in the sense of hidden childhood trauma to release. There was no trauma or injury. There was instead a very powerful behaviour that led to repeated destruction of what I had carefully built up – like refusing to teach weekends – being snotty so they will not invite me anyway – writing to cancel it once I had accepted it. Also by making a good start so it looks as if I have tried, then withdrawing effort when it comes to extending into the unknown, so an insecure area of advancing a cause. I can then look around and say, “You see, I really did try, but it’s no good, life, circumstances were against me. Feel sorry for me.” Maybe I blamed it on my lack of money, not enough time, psychological pain, but not on my own terror of walking out into the unknown and so it exposed areas of insecure life.

“I am so alone. Even when someone loves me I can’t feel it. I want to change. I don’t want to keep hurting. My wife feels like she is feeling like she isn’t there at an emotional level. But that is the feeling world I have lived in – who is there for me? I was part of something and I lost it. I was part of something that was good, and I lost it. I was a part of a woman and I lost her. I was rejected. Now I face this struggle just to exist, just to breath, just to be. This feeling of life being a terrible struggle just to keep going has pervaded me all my life. I’ve got to struggle to exist just to keep alive. Got to struggle just to keep alive! GOT TO STRUGGLE TO EXIST – JUST TO KEEP ALIVE! GOT TO STRUGGLE BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING THERE. I WANT SOMETHING TO HOLD ONTO. I’VE GOT TO STRUGGLE JUST TO KEEP ALIVE.

I cry like a baby. The question burns in me – Why is life like this? I cry again. Then I realise that at first when I was born I was too small and undeveloped even to be able to cry properly, so I couldnt let out my misery. It is such a relief to cry now and be understood, to have known what I felt at that terrible time.

I am aware of my connection with my stream of life having been broken – the umbilical cord. What I realise as the adult watching this, is that because of its proximity to the genitals, there is an unconscious connection made between the genitals and the connection I seek to sustain my life. So even as a baby I am reaching for that connection with my genitals. I want to be fed. I attempt to reconnect through my genitals, but the pain of the separation is so acute even when I do try in adulthood, the pain of the separation turns me back. This is the story of the Garden of Eden. I was in the garden and was cast out. Now when I attempt to return, an angel with a burning sword turns me back. Not only was it painful every time I attempted reconnection, but I had the unconscious expectation to be fed, to be nourished. Instead of that every time I had sex I felt cheated, deceived and betrayed. I was not fed, but deeply sucked dry of what small nourishment I had managed to build up. I wasn’t fed, I was fed upon by a predator. Each sexual act was a betrayal, a predation, and a torturous pain. Yet I had to find my way to the garden again, because there lay the secret of my genesis and myself. So, I would return, to be wounded once more. It is even painful to look back on those years of misery now. Why is life so painful?” 

“The kicks my mother gave me all related to threats of leaving me or giving me away. These would perhaps have been felt as mild parental emotional beatings except that my mother didn’t connect with me easily at birth because of my fragility. In fact, my grandmother took over my rearing until she died when I was eighteen months old. This meant that I had not connected fully with my mother or she with me. My grandmother had been my mother. When she died, I lost the one who had mothered me, and I felt abandoned, as I had felt at birth.

So, at three when I was taken away to a convalescent home because of my sickly constitution, my world fell to pieces. The wound of abandonment cut into me at birth, then at the loss of my grandmother, it was ripped open again, and it took over fifty years to put some of the pieces back together again. I wasn’t long in the home, but that I was there at all stabbed a blade of pain and fear into me that left a wound that didn’t heal. The convalescent home shattered whatever frail sense of being wanted I had been able to build in the intervening years. Going into hospital again at six to have my tonsils removed, opened the injury again and deepened it.

What is so strange is how little parents understand about the inner world their baby or child lives in. Perhaps it’s because most of us manage to brick up memories of childhood so it is all but lost except for a few snapshots and what they portray. Without remembering how it felt, the adult has no idea of what they faced and how they dealt with it themselves as a baby. I have to conclude this bricking up, this building of an impenetrable wall against feeling one’s early years, has been going on for generations. It must be so otherwise adults could never treat children the way they do. As a group, we could never expose them to the tortures involved in some aspects of school, hospital, and in fact everyday life as it occurs in many families.”

“Began with a knotted feeling in stomach, went inside myself and found a lump that I had kept deep within that no one could touch or ever has done. I spilt the lump and there appeared two halves of a walnut with a picture of my mother and father in each half as they were when I was a child. As I looked the two halves crumpled into dust. This was the secret I have carried since childhood, that I had parents unlike the other children in the orphanage, yet the truth was I too was left behind in the orphanage by my parents. The emotions really came to the surface and I really cried. After this wave passed I was left in a very passive state. I then went into the telephone box and tried to make the call to reconnect, but again another shock, there was nobody to connect with, again the realisation that I was an orphan. Another great wave of emotion tore me apart. I then turned toward the dogs as they came at me, I began to feel the sickness that I have always experienced in sessions but I just shrugged and let the feeling wash over me, it felt like I have always ended up in hell by that route, and I realised afterwards that hell is hell and will never be anything else.

I felt that there was something deeper and so I kept to a centre line, again there was no feeling and so I turned toward the god dream that I had when Rob was here. The look of total love for me in his eyes gave me the strength to trust my own process. I then went into fantasy, God holding my hand and picking up all the people and events in my life and placing them all together on a stone altar, which he then placed me upon and told me to surrender and allow myself to die. This I did and images of great water falls, and molten lava flows filled my being. Then the crisis broke through, and there I was in the kids home as my father was leaving, I saw my self, or I should say my being go out to him. I felt that if I loved him he wouldn’t leave us. I then saw that I was already bonded to my mother and in that moment of transference there was guilt and I was caught in the middle, then he left creating a schism in which I was left in my spine with a personality on either side. Schizophrenia is the word to that covers this state about: Schizophrenia a mental disease marked by a breakdown in the relation between thoughts, feelings, and actions, frequently accompanied delusions and retreat from social life. I then felt what I would call the primal scream emerge from my being and then I was through. I then saw the dogs as my anxieties that have taken up two thirds of my being constantly tearing me apart, also saw that as a kid I didn’t have enough information to redirect the energy elsewhere.”

“In regard to sexual touching I would like to explain my own relationship with it. You see my father was a good man, he never hit me, he never really talked to me, and he never expressed loved to me. Love – what an enormous power for good or ill that is. Its absence in a child’s life is equal to frequent beatings and being locked up in a cellar. It is an awful traumatic event. When I relived the trauma of it I was shocked at the power of it. It also opened up my awareness to that fact that I, and maybe other children in such a love empty house, would do anything to get a sign of love – I would have let my father fuck me, anything to know he wanted me! But fortunately my father was a ‘good’ man. But for a period of my life I attracted homosexuals who were, in the eyes of ‘normal’ people pillars of society, who praised me and saw I was worth something, which my father never did, and gave no praise. Fortunately, my homosexual phase was not physical, and was cured as I went through LifeStream – Opening to Life”

 

“I remember when my first wife divorced me because I had left her I was told many things such as what a bad father and husband I was, and how could I do it to my children. So, each time I visited my children – almost every day – when I left the house it felt like my world had collapsed and also I felt that my new wife was like a prostitute who had tempted me away from my children – despite the fact that they visited us almost daily. My children were so important to me that the idea that I was a bad father tore me apart. I recalled a man living down the road from us who had left his children and married again. I asked him how he managed it. He said that he had killed any thoughts and feelings about them. I felt that was not for me.

I suffered that torment for years, messing up my life, until a dream showed me what I had been doing. In the dream I was walking along on the flat roof of a university building, and in my right hand I was carrying the head of a man stripped of flesh, and in my left hand a bag containing the dismembered body of that man.  As I looked from the roof I saw a man draw up in a car park below and I threw the head to fall near him.  He picked it up thinking it was plastic, but then dropped it in horror.

 I explored the dream opening to what arose within.  Quickly I felt the depth of the dream.  The man was myself.  I had torn myself apart trying to deal with the constant pain I was experiencing.  I had even put before other people, the awful situation I was in, and they had pulled back.

The view that I was shown by the dream was that my pain was from habits created by the culture I grew up in. I realised that I could create a new life by changing the habits of a life time. So, every time I left the house and the old habits started tearing me apart again I stopped just outside the door and looked at my feelings. I had tried positive thinking and that didn’t work. What I saw, and reminded myself, was that I had gone down that road a thousand times and it always led to self destruction. So, by seeing that I decided to change the habit and reminding my self, not that I was a wonderful person, but that I was a human man, who did not want to make his wife suffer from my awful moods, and also I saw from the dream that we are always free to go in any direction, and that sense of freedom enabled me to start a new life.

So each day I visualised a different way of relating to what had happened. I saw myself going in a different direction than the one causing so much pain. I saw the old direction and saw how it was caused by my believing I was an awful father and parent, and took a direction of seeing myself as an ordinary man. It didn’t happen suddenly, but each day it got easier until I walked in peace. It was the recognition that my state of mind led me to self destruction every time it took that road that resolved me to change outside the door.

I had thought the pain and misery was from some earlier trauma, but could not find one. And the dream showed me that it wasn’t a trauma but cultural programming that said that I was a bad father, and also a bad husband, both true from a certain viewpoint.”

Children’s Traumatic Fears

http://dreamhawk.com/poems/the-tree-2/

http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#DualBeing and the continued text beyond it

https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/summing-up/ 

http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Levels

http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

Also Wilhelm Reich’s http://www.amazon.com/Function-Orgasm-Sex-Economic-Biological-Discovery/dp/0374502048/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432110631&sr=1-9&keywords=wilhelm+reich – Or try the Hive for buying books https://www.hive.co.uk/

And another view entirely http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Freedom-Erich-Fromm/dp/0805031499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432110742&sr=1-1&keywords=fear+of+freedom – Or try the Hive for buying books https://www.hive.co.uk/ 

 

 

Travel

Your movement through life, your ageing process, your search for meaning and new experience. It can also suggest a way of keeping away from extended relationships, lasting and therefore confronting relationship.

This is about what you are doing and where you are going with or in your life – thus your destiny or direction in life. The travel dream shows the direction or process of your personal growth at time of dream. It can also be about the movement of life through the ageing process.

Each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. It is the current if Life. This current then carries us on through old and through gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this force of growth and change. and is fought like hell by many as we are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death

Example: During the sixty years of seeking the wild wondrous beasts of the mind and spirit I dared my own inner adventure. But I also travelled with other people as an ordinary person, not a therapist, sharing their experience of fear and wonder as they unveiled and set loose their fountain of perception. I have travelled countless dream pathways, traversed the timeless with those using awareness enhancing drugs, and wrestled with the vitality of the body as people mimed and shouted their deepest intuitions through movement, dance and voice.

In dreams or in waking life we can sometimes travel as a manifestation of inner power. “As an example I was flying across the German countryside where I was living, curled up with my knees to my chest, looking down at the countryside beneath me. I noticed as I passed over the rural countryside what looked like radiations emerging from several places; they were a bit like ripples on the surface of water when a stone has been thrown into it. But these ripples were three dimensional, and I wondered it they were emerging from people, perhaps praying. Then I was over the sea and saw many ships below, but suddenly I was standing in our sitting room at home in London. It was such an astonishing experience I stood in shock looking down at my body, feeling it and trying to understand.” See Out of body experience 

Travelling without goal: Having no aim in life; confused about direction; taking life as it comes.

Going on holiday: Moving toward giving yourself more free time; growth toward allowing yourself to fulfill your needs instead of always considering other people.

Travelling to an island: Becoming more independent; isolating one’self.

Travelling alone: Independence; loneliness.

Travelling to far or mysterious country: Trying to find one’s way through the strange mists of the mind and memory, to realise parts of childhood experience that are important, but now seem far off.

Travelling with others: Involvement with others; relationship; social relationships; how you compare yourself with others; what feelings and attitudes influence you. See: Railway; Boat; Road; Aeroplane.

See Travel; Archetype of the Night Journey; Archetype of the Search for Self

Treadmill

A feeling that life is nought but work and effort. That you are trapped by duty and work and demands made on you.

Treasure

The riches of your core self – the wonder, wisdom or value of your life in its wholeness. The treasure is often something we have had to face difficulties to gain, such as personal achievement, mature love, self-realisation, wholeness, so something that is enormously valuable in bringing you wholeness and health – such as a balancing of dry intellectual achievement with deeply felt love, or an introverted personality with outward activity.

There are enormous treasures to be found in the tools that enable one to mine the treasures from one’s inner life of dreams. But foremost among them is the jewels of understanding garnered in the past and that of insight into one’s personal psychological history and personal traumas. This I believe is unique to our times, and not fully appreciated generally. From this new skill a way is being developed to integrate the many aspects of one’s own multifaceted being. See Tools 

Because we tend to avoid anything that is frightening or ‘dark’, we have a shadow side of us that is ‘out of sight’ our awareness, but this aspect of us also holds in it great treasure through its connection with our unconscious potential. In fact, a great deal of our energy is involved in our ‘negatives’. When we meet our shadow or our fears, we are enormously more energised in the sense of being more wholehearted in expressing oneself creatively. Also, we are meeting the shadow and unfolding the possibilities held unexpressed is our life’s work. Without it we may never become the mature and full person we are capable of being. As Prospero says to Caliban, we need to say, ‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge as mine’.

Example: She began spilling tears which became a steady stream running down her cheeks. And she began to talk of the overwhelming love she was feeling as she was sobbing. The people with her listened as she described the wonder of being in the presence of a warm Light where she felt so loved, so clean, so treasured. I remember the awe that all of us had in the room. She said, “I am in the hugeness of space and am filled with love”.

Tree Trees

The tree depicts the living structure of yourself or another person. In particular it shows not only your past in the condition of its roots and trunk, but also what you have grown into and what your possibilities or potential are.  It is what has grown from the past into the present. Its roots show your connection with your physical body and the earth, your family background and influences, and cultural roots; its trunk the way you direct the energies of your being – growth, sex, thought, emotion. The branches are the abilities, directions and many facets you develop in life – varied and yet all connected in the common life process of your being. The tree can also symbolise new growth, stages of life and ageing, with its spring leaves and blossom, then the falling leaves. The top of the tree, or the end of the branches are your aspirations, the growing vulnerable tip of your personal growth and spiritual realisation.

From this point of view, the leaves may represent your personal life, this particular life with its many activities and desires, that may fall off the tree – die – but what gave it life continues to exist. The leaf may indicate something in you that is living, growing, or outworn (depending on colour of leaf). This may be part of your thinking or feeling. You can also be blown like a leaf, suggesting separation from your roots and main growth; or you can take a leaf from someone’s notebook, thus following their example or idea.

To sum up:

The roots depict your connection with the earth through food, air and water, as well as your psychological roots in family and culture. Earth is made up of everything that has died and so becomes soil. In the cycles of life things live and then die. In death they become important fertiliser and nutrients for what is growing. In human life earth represents all that our forebears left us from their lives – our inheritance. It has all been purified by death and so is worth our roots feeding from it.

The trunk shows your body and what you have developed in your life, the main thrust of your expression. The tree can also depict new growth, the stages of life and ageing, with its spring leaves and blossom, then the falling leaves. The top of the tree, or the end of the branches, are your aspirations, the growing vulnerable tip of your personal growth and spiritual realisation. From this point of view, the leaves may represent your personal life, this particular life with its many activities and desires, that may fall off the tree – die – but what gave you life continues to exist. The leaf may indicate something in you that is living, growing, or outworn (depending on colour of leaf). This may be part of your thinking or feeling. You can also be blown like a leaf, suggesting separation from your roots and main growth; or you can take a leaf from someone’s notebook, thus following their example or idea.

The tree may also at times represent a place of safety or refuge, as when we climb it to escape. In fact, the tree is such an enormously deep symbol it depicts your whole life, as well as the urge that pushes you into being and growth. It depicts the force or process which is behind all other life forms – but seen as it expresses in your personal existence. See Ancestors

The seeds or flowers are your own fruition, the expression of what is deeply your own unique self manifesting creatively. They are also your reproduction as a parent with children or ideas or influences in the lives of others.

Dead wood represent parts of you that no longer carry life and energy, perhaps ideas or opinions that you no longer hold.

The lightning struck tree represent sudden change, even death. The tree may also at times represent a place of safety or refuge, as when we climb it to escape. The tree is our whole life, the urge which pushes us into being and growth. It depicts the force or process which is behind all other life forms – but seen as it expresses in our personal existence.

The phrase ‘family tree’ describes a way the unconscious uses the image of a tree to represent something that is an internal reality. Within the unconscious there is an awareness that our present personality is built upon the lives and character of our forebears. So our face may be presented on the top or surface of the tree, but behind our face, or on lower branches, or in the trunk, lie the lives of our ancestors stretching back throughout the ages.

In some old manuscripts pictures show a man lying on the ground and his penis growing into a tree, with fruits, birds, and perhaps people in its protective shade. This illustrates how ones personal life energy can branch out from its source in the basic drives, and become creativity, fruitfulness, something given to others. The tree can also represent the spine, and the different levels of human experience – physical, sensual, sexual, hungers, emotions, relatedness, communication, thought, self awareness. 

Example: In the dream I was looking at a very large and old tree. I wondered if I could climb it but couldn’t see any way up it. But I noticed a large area without any bark, like an old wound, and I thought that area would become rotten and so the tree would become hollow and offer shelter to animals and humans. Then I walked around the back of the tree and saw that the bark was like thick cables about 6-8 inches wide. I could then see a fairly easy way to climb the tree. So I climbed up and the top of the tree was like a massive bell shape made by the branches, like a huge flower, a crocus shape. And it was light and colourful. Suddenly I saw a spirit, a beautiful female. It was the spirit of the tree. At this point I was semi awake, and I wanted to hold the beautiful spirit, but realised that the tree was a representation of my life, and so was the spirit of the tree. The spirit sat on me in a sexual position, so I was lying on my back and she was upright. She slowly took me into her, I mean the whole me, as if she was sucking my whole body into her. There was no sexual movement as this happened. Then I realised that I had to die because she wanted to take all the experience of my life and endeavour into her and fertilise herself to form a baby. So I was ready to let go and watched her form a new baby, a mixture of her and me. See The Sacred Tree In Dreams And Myths

A wood or collection of trees: The natural forces in your own being, therefore ones connection with or awareness of the unconscious; other people’s personal growth and connection with self. The wood also indicates allowing yourself to be natural, to express what is innate in you, and for the mind and emotions to move in their own way. Walking in a wood might therefore suggest a feeling of relaxation, but it can also mean delving within your deeper feelings and mind – your unconscious – exploring your inner life.

Birch or Silver birch: The birch symbolises growth, renewal, stability, initiation and adaptability because it is highly adaptive and able to sustain harsh conditions with casual indifference. Birches are also associated with the Tír na nÓg, the land of the dead and the Sidhe, in Gaelic folklore, and as such frequently appear in Scottish, Irish, and English folksongs and ballads in association with death, or fairies, or returning from the grave. The leaves of the silver birch tree are used in the festival of St George, held in Novosej and other villages in Albania. (Sidhe are Irish earthen mounds, which in Irish folklore and mythology are believed to be the home of the Aos Sí (the people of the mounds))

Birch bark played a key role in the manufacture of canoes for transportation, wigwams for shelter, and a host of useful implements made by the many tribes and nations of the Northeast. Indians believe that the mist emitted from birch tree leaves placed upon heated rocks in a sweat lodge helps purify the body; the tree’s branches, when tied together and then used to lash the body, result in the removal of poisons. Because of the prolonged existence of ancient birch trees on Earth, American Indians maintain that these trees have much to offer humans.

Branches: Members of your family; directions or possibilities in your life. Or the end of the branches are your aspirations, the growing vulnerable tip of your personal growth and spiritual realisation.

Burnt tree:If this is just an area of the tree or trunk, it shows painful events and the mark they have left on you, perhaps from early in your life. If the hole tree is burnt it shows great difficulties or the death of someone.

Christmas tree or other evergreen: The eternal or unchanging aspect of your transitory experience.

Climbing a tree: Exploring or becoming aware of the directions and facets of your personal growth; using your skills or strength to get away from anxiety or danger, such as you do when climbing to get away from a dangerous animal.

Cutting down: Could be that you are getting rid of old influences in your life, or clearing space. It depends on what attitude is behind the cutting. Are you seeking wood to burn, to build with, or just for devilment.

Dead branch: A direction that no longer has life or motivation in it; a member of your family dying or leaving you.

Dead tree: Past way of life; something which was full of life for you in the past, but is now dead; dead relative.

Falling fallen or crashing down tree: Sense of threat to your identity; this can often suggest a big change in the way you express yourself. It is a breaking down of the influences you lived from in the past, perhaps because your childhood set in place painful or negative influences, or it could suggest the loss or death of a relative or someone close to you.  It can also sometimes shown the death of someone. When trees are old or storm blow in our life trees are felled by wind or weather. But in some dreams it may suggest making more space around by the dead trees falling.

Flowering tree: Fertility; femininity.

Human or animal hung on tree: Personal sacrifice; the death of some part of self so further growth can occur – death of dependence so independence can arise; surrender; the pains and struggles, the sense of crucifixion occurring in the maturing process, so the pains and suffering of life in the body.

Leaves and tree tip: The tip is the living, growing part of you. The part that is still vulnerable because of its newness, or outworn (depending on colour of leaf) part of your thinking or feeling. leaves, well you can also be blown like a leaf, suggesting separation from your roots and main growth; or you can take a leaf from someone’s notebook, thus following their example or idea. The leaves as a whole, if falling, can represent the end of your a period of your life, or can be the passing ego that dies, but leaves the trunk, the process that gave life. See Death of Ego

Roots: Your connection with the past, with your family heritage or influences; the things you are tied to by necessity or love; your fundamental physical characteristics as they express in your personality; the aspects of your culture or family ties that you particularly identify with or find connection with.

Roots in dreams represent the hidden and often unconscious links that reach deep into our body and its long past. For our body is an outcrop of the life that began when life began on this earth, and it carries with it ancient memories. The dream roots give us entrance into that long past and what it brings with it into our life today. See The Conjuring Trick  

The root can sometimes indicate the ‘root’ of your biological potential/energy – the root centre. As such it shows your undifferentiated self – the you rather like an energy, like electricity. that is invisible until it flows into an apparatus/body, which enables it to show part of its enormous potential – movement, feelings, self consciousness, etc.

Tree trunk: Your family background and connections; What you have developed or grown from. Any injury to the trunk shows a traumatic event; if it is low on the trunk it indicates youth, if higher up then later in life.

Example: Dreamt that I was looking at the large plane tree at the back of our house in London. I noticed the base of the trunk was burnt internally. I pulled away bark. It looked a bit like a bees nest, but was cindered wood. Now I saw folds in the trunk of the tree showing that the tree was leaning, and I realised the cindered bark I pulled away had been supporting the tree. It would now soon fall. I saw a very clear mental image of the tree falling to the right where there was space, because straight ahead was a building it would crush. The tree then began to fall exactly where I had visualised. I now saw the top of the trunk base cut clean.

The dreamer explored their dream and said: The tree is that which has grown from the past into the present. When you discover it is burnt at the base, this means you begin to see that deep within, at the foundations of this lifetime, much has been destroyed in you.

The burnt wood means that much which was to have been expressed as growth was turned inward and consumed the inner life. The burning was realised as your loneliness, your fear of relating, and the pain of living within yourself. When the tree fell, this is the part of you built upon those problems falling away. Tree threatening to fall on building is perhaps having a medical career, but have gone in another direction, against something being built. The burn is the debt on the hands. It is in my hands what I do.

Uprooted tree: It is mostly about your inner world so your every day life has been uprooted – to remove a person from their home or usual environment. See The Inner World 

So it can indicate either a serious psychological injury which can lay you low; or that you are living a life that does not connect with your real or core self. See Core

Idioms: Top of the tree; family tree; barking up the wrong tree; tree of knowledge; dead wood; can’t see the trees for the wood.

See: Sacred Tree in Dreams and Mythdeath and rebirth, and archetypes of the self ; IndividuationCross, Wood.

Trespassing

When you force your attentions on someone, or vice versa.

Feeling that you are not respecting someone else’s boundaries or wishes – or vice versa. It could also mean you are entering someone’s private life, or having sex with someone else’s partner.

Triangle

This can indicate the three major aspects of human nature – body, personal experience, and universal consciousness. It is similar to the number three – see Three. The triangle can also refer to the ‘eternal triangle’ of love relationships, or the mother, father child triangle.

Triangles are the strongest shape! Any weight placed on them is evenly distributed between all three sides. A triangle in any fashion can always represent strength. Place a triangle symbol on your altar or wear one as a reminder of how strong you are.

The triangle with point upwards: Depicts the physical aspects of human nature moving toward the personal or conscious or cosmic consciousness.

Triangle with point downwards: The cosmic forces moving toward physical expression.

Triangles linked in Star of David: Complete balance in human nature. The Life process/cosmic and the physical level in harmony and balance.

Sometimes: The points of the triangle are used to represent three stages of human development of awareness. The first is undifferentiated or preconscious stage. The second is the sense of individuality, feeling ‘otherness’ in regard to the world. Three is the relationship of the self to the ‘other’ in people and the world.

Trousers Pants

Very frequently they depict your sexual feelings, your desires, or what you may be hiding of yourself. See: Clothes

Maleness, authority, male attitudes or style of behaviour. They can also point to a form of  protection or socialised sexuality.  With some trousers we can carry things, and the front pockets are near the sexual organs, so anything in them can in some way link with sexual feelings or needs. But lacking trousers might also link with having lost wallet, money, or keys – so a loss of personal power and confidence.

The colour is important so see colours for other possibilities.

As with tights, many dreams mention them either being on or off. This is sometimes about remaining socially acceptable with trousers on, or more revealed as to what you really feel, or being ready for a sexual encounter with them off. Trousers off also shows you feeling or having less protection in regard to your legs – your confidence and strength – or your genitals – your sexual and intimate feelings and power to bring forth a creation. No trousers reveals whether you are really a man/woman or not.

In the English language UK, pants refer to underpants. See underpants

Jeans: This often suggests an attitude of casualness, or relaxed social situation. This also depends on the condition of the jeans.

If you only wore jeans at a certain period of your life then they indicate that time, and what you felt an confronted then.

Example: I dreamt I was looking at and trying on an old pair of jeans. They were quite worn and had some holes in. As I put them on I wondered why I was wearing them as I had stopped wearing jeans when I was much younger, and it was a phase of my life I didn’t want to return to. Zeb.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If you still wear jeans, ask yourself what situations you wear them in, and what this means to you?

Are the jeans ones from the past, old ones or new ones? If from the past or old remember when you wore them, and what memories are connected with them. If new ones what feelings are connected with them?

What is activity or feelings are connected with the jeans in the dream?

New trousers: A new stance or form of work or play.

Old trousers: A way of expressing yourself or feeling confident that you have used for a long time – or if the dream shows them as worn out, that you need to change.

Trousers relating to role – i.e. soldier, pilot, etc: These intimate your feelings about the role shown. As these are very variable you need to explore your associations. See Associations Working With

Woman in trousers: Feeling confident in the world and with men. Taking a more male role and not being as submissive sexually.

Idioms: Wears the trousers; with their trousers/pants down; beat the pants off; by the seat of your pants; get into her pants/knickers; piss your pants.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are the pants on or off, and what is being done or felt that I can associate with?

What quality of trousers are they, and what does that say about my attitudes, confidence, or masculinity?

Am I being protected or revealed by the trousers – if protected, from what – if revealed what is revealed?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Truck

Anything that transports you, like a truck, a train or a car, is an image of your ability to get somewhere in life, to motivate yourself and other people. Who you are with in these forms of transport show what attitude you have to those who share your endeavours. And breakdowns are just that – the fears and feelings that interrupt your journey. See: Lorry.

Trunk

Similar to a storage chest, except it may be word play indicating your physical chest. In either case it often refers to what you have stored away and perhaps forgotten. This often means the emotions or memories which you still hold within you perhaps even locked in the chest or trunk as muscular tensions. Such memories are often very powerful, passionate or painful, and that is why they have been ‘stored’.

The story of Pandora’s Box graphically illustrates this. See Pandora’s Box. For car trunk see Car.

 The trunk can equally apply to our body – our trunk – or an elephant’s trunk, in which case see Elephants Trunk

Trunk Of Car

See: Car.

Tsunami

A tsunami can indicate a tremendous and fundamental change in you. Most people now know that tsunamis are caused by massive earth changes under the sea. These changes are part of the natural order, and often show themselves to people in their dreams. So they can be understood as an expression of our personal adaptation to enormous changes. They can wash away most of the beliefs, social structures we have built or held onto as important. Yet if we are not afraid of change and the forces that we are actually involved in, then we can find enormous power and force within us.

Remember that tsunamis are dangerous in waking life, but are the expression of your inner life in dreams. They are not dangerous and need not be avoided or run from while asleep. Meeting a tsunami is saying that some tremendous change has happened deep in you and in the world. Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes on the sea bed. So many people are dreaming about them at the moment because of the enormous change going on around us and within us. So learn to face them without fear and be ready to meet change in your life and in your family.

Example: Dreamt I am looking out of the window and it is a very stormy day, raining heavily. I can see the storm and the rain are the way the world adjusts itself all the time. The weather is the world’s means of self-regulation. Through earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, the earth manages to regulate itself. In that way it deals with the enormous forces playing on it from the cosmos and from within itself. It also has to deal with the influence of the life forms it carries, such as ourselves, pouring out poisonous gases and carbon dioxide.

I have a feeling that occasionally the earth has to make massive adjustments, as when the earth was hit by the huge comet 124 miles in diameter 65 millions of years ago when the dinosaurs died out. Such adjustments are difficult. Some species die out, others that survive, then develop further. What survives flourishes, because it has what it takes to deal with catastrophe and change. It has learned how to survive dark times. So we too need to survive and also be a part of personal earthquakes and meteors entering our lives. See Opening to Life; Tidal wave

Tunnel

If the tunnel is dark, it usually signifies entering into experiences you do not understand and are not fully aware of, usually past experiences that are felt but not verbalised or made conscious yet. Entering into unconscious contents, so going into a dark tunnel can also be the entrance into reliving a traumatic experience.

Pathways you have created into your unconscious; ways you have evolved to deal with innermost feelings and memories; exploring inner ideas or tendencies. It could also represent the  vagina or being in the womb; a period of your life that is limited or has difficulties, or an experience you are going through that is limiting.

Example: In the dream I am a detective following clues toward solving a crime. The clues had led me to descend stairs into a large underground room. It was not well lit, but I could see two large tunnels leading off from the space I was in. Each tunnel was about eight feet high, and very dark. The clues led me into one of the tunnels and I started to walk along it.

Suddenly I found myself some distance from the tunnel, running in terror. I stopped and turned, to once again enter the tunnel, determined to discover its secret. Once more I was many yards away running in terror, and at this point I woke from the dream.

I explored this dream with the support of my wife. It was difficult to get to the degree of feeling shown in the dream, but gradually I arrived. I remembered an operation I had as a 9-year-old in hospital. I was given a rectal anaesthetic because I was about to have an operation on my nose. I fought and begged for the nurses to stop because nothing had been explained and they were pumping stuff into my behind and I felt I was dying. But by cries were to no avail. This led to a very real feeling that humans were terrifyingly dangerous animals who would not respond even if you were on your knees begging. So, this fear was the awful thing in the darkness. Darkness here is the unconscious area of experience.

An attempt to get out of a tunnel, especially if small and difficult, can refer to memories of birth; strategies developed to reach your inner resources and bring them to the surface.

If the tunnel is dark, it usually signifies entering into experiences you do not understand and are not fully aware of, usually past experiences that are felt but not verbalised or made conscious yet. Entering into unconscious contents, so going into a dark tunnel can also be the entrance into reliving a traumatic experience.

Pathways you have created into your unconscious; ways you have evolved to deal with innermost feelings and memories; exploring inner ideas or tendencies. It could also represent the  vagina or being in the womb; a period of your life that is limited or has difficulties, or an experience you are going through that is limiting.

If the tunnel is dark, it usually signifies entering into experiences you do not understand and are not fully aware of, usually past experiences that are felt but not verbalised or made conscious yet. Entering into unconscious contents.

An attempt to get out of a tunnel, especially if small and difficult, can refer to memories of birth; strategies developed to reach your inner resources and bring them to the surface.

See: Last example in death and rebirth under archetypes; corridor; examples in dark.

Turquoise

Jewels often indicate your unconscious treasure, your integrity or sense of wholeness or the lasting parts of your nature such as the eternal or the essential core of you. For instance, ability to creatively work with others, is not just valuable in general, it also expresses the powerful symbiotic force in nature. It connects you with the universal. This might be depicted as a jewel.

In particular turquoise represents the mind as it goes beyond the boundaries of thought into intuition and wider awareness – awareness of connection with the essence of life. It is therefore sometimes connected with healing or wholeness, as you move beyond limitations into their own health or mind and body. So it is your ability to experience intuitive perceptions. For meaning of the colour see Green – Jewels.

Turtle

There are so many different sizes of turtles it is difficult to be specific, but turtles are creatures that can live under water and also on land. They have a protective shell they can withdraw into, and these are probably the main points your dream uses to depict something you are doing. So, this part of your dream may link with feelings of deep inner feelings or even vulnerabilities that are surfacing or being felt at present. In other words, you may feel vulnerable and withdraw into a protective shell – or are emerging from such vulnerability. It may be referring to a time in the past you did one or the other.

For women the turtle can appear in dreams about pregnancy, so you may dream this if you are or are trying to become pregnant. See: Pregnancy and Dreams.

The turtle is a slow mover, but nevertheless is a survivor and can live easily in different environments.

Useful questions are:

Am I feeling vulnerable at the moment, and if so what about?

Are there ways I withdraw sometimes, and in what way do I do that?

What am I feeling from deep within me?

Is there any indication I am pregnant?

Tuxedo

Mostly this suggests a special occasion, or links with a past memorable occasion. The tuxedo also suggests formality, male success or strength, and sometimes authority or a leader figure.

Example: My boyfriend then came down the staircase wearing a tuxedo. When he got to me he got down on one knee and asked if I would spend the rest of my life with him as his wife. Of course I said yes, but then he opened the ring box. Instead of there being a diamond on the ring there was a small clock.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I have worn a tuxedo, when was it and what the occasion and memories?

What is the main point of this dream, and how does the tuxedo play a part in it?

If I am not wearing the tuxedo, what is the character and personality of the person who is – and how do those characteristics apply to me? See Characters and People in Dreams

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Twelve

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance, we may have had three children, so the number three in a dream could be connected with your feelings or fears about them – but three has generally been seen as the troublesome triangle in love, or the child, mother, father threesome. So a number may refer to a particular year of one’s life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event; your family group – or have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

In particular twelve is used as a division for many things – twelve months in the year; twelve hours in the day; twelve disciples and twelve signs in the Zodiac. So, the twelve often represents wholeness, the unity of a variety of qualities, even conflicting or opposing one’s, that when together form balance and

Also, it represents completion, as with the twelve months of the year encompassing the four seasons. It also can depict the twelve traditional aspects of human personality shown by the signs of the Zodiac. For some people it would represent teamwork.

Key words for 12 in I Ching: In Autumn do not expect summer flowers. But one can sell leaf mould.

See: Numbers.

Twin

There are several possibilities when you dream of a twin or twins.

The first one is that it is part of you that has got split off from your main development. So they can be one of the many polar opposites or splits in our being – the split between waking consciousness and sleep or the unconscious; the split between what we want in our deepest desires, and what we can allow ourselves socially; the split caused by infant trauma; the split between our sense of eternity and the facts of physical mortality; introversion and extroversion; something of self which has got split off, or perhaps even ‘died at birth’, leaving us feeling only half a person; the lack of balance in our being.

Twins can also represent duality, conflict, or two sides of an issue, but also the emergence of something new, something that was denied, that you were born with, but never acknowledged as part of yourself. It can also be your unconscious relationship with another person, such as occurs in a telepathic link. In some cases though it is about separation, and the feelings you have about that, or about the denied or unrealised part of yourself.

But if you were a twin at birth and you twin died it could be a reference to them and your continued link with them. To quote from http://www.twinlesstwins.org/GRIEF/ProfessionalResearch/TwinBereavement.aspx –

“When we lose a twin, it feels for many of us like the literal end of our lives. That is true, in that it is the end of life as we have known it since the moment of our conception. As one twin explained to me: ‘The day my twin died, the lights went out.’ Another twin said to me, ‘After Daphne died, it was as if I couldn’t breathe. I’d never in my life thought about breathing. I just took it for granted that Daphne and my breath were part of being alive.’ When our twin dies, we must begin to breathe again; we must begin again with our lives, starting with what truly feels like the end.”

“Twins begin their identify formation in the womb. Whether fraternal or identical, they receive different stimuli and resources in the womb environment and, therefore, have different experiences that affect their fetal development. But from their cellular origins, they are ushered into the womb in relationship, both to their mother and to each other. And early on, they begin to show distinct, individual, and also interactive patterns of behavior and temperament, which have been observed and documented by researchers with the use of ultra-sonography. These patterns are often repeated after birth.”

But here is another possibility, explained by man who was trying to find himself.

There is a part of me that he has never actually involved in this present life. It has never been expressed. It has never been incarnated. It is almost as if it was not born with me. It has never expressed through the body. It hasn’t made itself real through the body. So it is almost as if it has been a spiritual or invisible twin, a ghost, a spirit guide. It is influencing his life – God, what a story – and yet is so frustrated. Frustrated all the time because it can’t live its life. It is pushing and pushing me toward what it wants to do, yet it is not felt as wholly me. It is not something I have built into my life and trusts, and so I do not live it in the same way as he lives the other areas of my life. When I look at this question though, I see there is a problem which is a part of my nature. It has created this division. When I was born there was a struggle about incarnation. I didn’t want to be born. I didn’t want to face again the experience of the world. So, a very large part of me was cut off from involvement and expression. It was pulled back or held back. It did not directly build the body or build the experience it might have done otherwise. See Meeting My Baby Self

An amazing conception happened after two eggs were fertilised at the same time in the womb. Both Kylie and her partner Remi Horder, pictured below, are of mixed race. Their mothers are both white and their fathers are black. According to the Multiple Births Foundation, baby Kian must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst Remee inherited the white ones. The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one.

A mixed-race British couple has defied the odds — twice — by producing two sets of twins in which one sibling appears to be black and the other white.

Twine

See String.

Two

Duality; relationship, indecision or making a decision; balance; male and female; two sides to an argument – or a way of comparing; opposition; the opposites such as light and darkness, harmony or conflict; parents and reproductive possibility. Astrologically this is Taurus the Bull, the builder or farmer governing the throat. So basically it represents division, decision, choice, femininity, formative power, receptiveness, motherhood, breadth. See: Numbers.

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance, we may have had two children, so the number two in a dream could be connected with your feelings or fears about them – but two can also relate to an age when something important or tragic occurred, or even a house number. So a number may refer to a particular year of one’s life; the months or years that have passed since an important event; your family group – or have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

In particular two can denote duality, a relationship, indecision or making a decision. If you consider how two appears in nature it is often about balance between two sides or something, or two qualities, such a male and female, or scales. Your body, with two eyes, ears, arms, legs, two hemispheres to the brain etc, is a good example of this balancing. It can also suggest things like two sides to an argument – or a way of comparing, opposition, the opposites such as light and darkness, harmony or conflict; parents and reproductive possibility.

Chased by or fighting with two people: Two against one feeling, as may have happened with child and parents; feeling odds are against you.

Idioms: Put two and two together; two’s company; two timer; in two minds; no two ways about it; two abreast; two fisted attack; two heads are better than one; fall between two stools; kill two birds with one stone; two bits; two cent’s worth; two sides to every story; lesser of two evils; two left feet; two for one; takes two to tango.

Tyre

The attitudes and skills you use to smooth out and travel over the rough patches in your life.

Flat tyre: Physical problems or injury.

Letter U

Ufo

Suggests a change in yourself, or personal growth; becoming aware of something new, or some new aspect of yourself, one that you are not familiar with, and so seems strange or alien. For instance a change might be occurring in the way you relate to people or events.

Our mind has the ability to view our experience as a whole, rather than in parts. What we sense unconsciously in this way is presented to the conscious mind as images such as UFO’s or circles of light. Another way of explaining this is to realise that our conscious self is only a tiny part of the whole process of life active in us. There are amazing potentials in each of us that might only be glimpsed in stress situations. Occasionally this more powerful or bigger side of ourselves breaks through and is experienced as an alien, or great being. Because of the hallucinatory aspect of the dream process, and the fact that in dreaming we see exterior imagery as real, when this breaks through while we are awake, it is difficult to accept the source of it as our own unconscious. See: altered states of consciousness; space; spaceship.


The ball of light or fire: This is a common waking experience as well as dream image. It occurs when the person touches their sense of wholeness as described above. We see this mentioned in the description of Pentecost – the flame on top of the head – and may account for cases of people seeing flying saucers.

Example: ‘A flying saucer dropped a man on our lawn. He was seven feet tall and stood in a ring of light. The sky was vivid pink and a peculiar aeroplane flew over. It was the shape of a cross.’ Mrs A.


The circle, the light, the shape of the cross and the big man, are all symbols of the Self.

Ulcer

See: Abscess.

Umbilical Cord

Ties based on dependence rather than love or mutual interests. It can also refer to a strong tie to your mother, or to life in the womb.

There is another aspect of the umbilical cord though. It shows how we connect in a relationship. Pains in the area suggest anxieties about our connection with someone we love or depend on in some way. But the umbilical is also a symbol of flowing connection in love. It is the very life-line or survival cord.

This is particularly about your earliest dependence upon your mother or carer. It also relates directly to your skill or difficulty in moving toward independence. So in many dreams it would illustrate your connection and emotional ties of dependence or need with other people – or how you are moving toward independence.

Example: I was looking at my belly button. There was a good three inches of cord sticking out. The end of it was red and raw. Cassie A.

Cassie had been in a long dependent relationship which she had recently broken. She felt at the time of the dream she was having to stand alone and do things for herself. The end of her relationship felt like a ripping apart, and thus the sore cord.

See: navel. Particularly read the piece under active imagination about the umbilical connection loss.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this dream bring any awareness of my deep dependent need for a flow of life and love?

Is this illustrating move growth toward independence – if so how am I achieving it?

Does relationship enter into this dream, or does it link with relationship?

For a deeper understanding of this see Growing Up to Love and Beware of Love

Umbrella

The strategies you use to deal with difficult emotions, or things you want to avoid. The coping skills you use to ward of difficult feelings and changes in circumstance.

Nowadays people use umbrellas to shield them from sunlight because they are terrified if getting skin cancer. But a nurse told me that such cancers are often caused by the person never exposing their skin so avoiding the building up natural defence, and then, even accidentally, being exposed with awful effects.

For millions of years we were exposed to sun’s rays which provided enough vitamin D. Some symptoms of a deficit in vitamin D include thinning or brittle bones, osteoporosis, or frequent bone fractures. muscle weakness, particularly if there is an unexplained change in muscle strength. changes in mood, with people who have low vitamin D experiencing anxiety or depression.

Sometimes we use the word umbrella to mean either a protection from a looming trouble, or “He runs a group of companies under the umbrella of Universal Foods”. So if I say to you or you dream that someone says, “You can shelter under my umbrella”, It is like offering great help in saying, “I offer you some shelter from the emotional storms and hurts that you may be subject to.”

Useful Questions

Are you an old umbrella?

Do you know you are carrying an umbrella?

What is the function of this umbrella?

Is the umbrella big enough to shelter you and something or someone else?

 

Uncle

To some extent an uncle is a role model. From their success or failure, you gather strategies for your own life. Whatever feelings you have about him, whatever you think of him, the dream will use this to illustrate something for you. So, consider how you would describe your uncle, what sort of person he is, and how you feel about him. The dream will be using his image to illustrate yourself in some way. If he is a success, ask yourself what in yourself you are facing regarding success. If you feel he is a failure, ask yourself what of your own feelings about failure you are facing.

Nearly always when people dream about someone they know or a strange new person or situation they automatically believe the dream is about that person, situation, or animal. But it is usually our thoughts or feelings that are portrayed as the person or even the animal; for when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them.

A trick dreams often play on us is to use the image or person of someone else to represent you. This happens because we often do not want to see the truth about ourselves the dream portrays. See: Family.

Under Underneath

This can imply a wide range of this depending on the dream context. It can suggest protection, when you are under a roof or a tree. It can imply being ruled or dominated by someone, or feeling them as superior, if you are in some way underneath them – as suggested by the idiom ‘under the thumb’. It can point to your own feelings of superiority if something or someone is underneath you in some way. The idiom ‘under a cloud’ also shows how we use this word to describe being depressed or down in spirits.

This might refer to the person you are beneath your social mask, the feelings and urges you have but may not admit to others or even yourself, and the less expressed or capable side of your nature, so something you hide. Or being under the ground level and basements representing our experience of not being aware, or simply aware of what is going on at the surface level of your everyday life. See Dimensions of Human Experience

Under or underneath can also relate to how you feel about your, or someone else’s, status or social or physical power. From that we have the phrase, ‘top dog, underdog’. Being under something can also show what you are struggling against, or that you feel is holding you down or even killing you. So being under a fallen house could suggest feeling crushed by the weight of family traditions, responsibility, marriage, children and all their needs. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your DreamsDreams are a reflection of your inner worldMartial Art of the Mind

 If dreamer is under something or someone: Feeling suppressed; feeling weighed down or worried about something; feeling the underdog.

If dreamer sees something under them: Feeling the top dog; seeing your own less capable functions or self; looking down on others; having a wider view. See: Above; Underwear; Underground

Idioms: Come under; down under; under one’s wing; under the weather; under the thumb; under one’s hat; under a cloud; under one’s nose; under the counter; under the influence. See: The Unconscious.

Underground Metro Subway

Dreams use the images of being under the ground level and basements to represent our experience of not being aware, or dimly aware of what is going on at the surface level of your everyday life.

Many people do not realise that we have several levels of life we live in. But it is now understood that our brain developed its sections over the long span of evolutionary history. Because of this it has, within and also separate from the two hemispheres of our brain, a number of levels. As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991).

We often have no or little awareness of these levels because these  four separate ‘brains’ or levels, operates each with its own memory, motor and other functions What is important is that these levels are often described under collective title of ‘the unconscious mind’. I see that it is important for people who want to or try to explore these deeper levels of their awareness to understand, for any expansion of our awareness takes us into the unconscious. Many people trying to do this expect entrance into heavenly worlds, but they forget they are just entering the next or first level of the unconscious, and this is where we have repressed all those things we did not face, the emotions of hurt, the childhood traumas and the fear we have run from are all here.

Of courses many people only want to go upwards and thus try to escape their unconscious to avoid doing their inner housekeeping. See Pandora’s Box

We are all so full of traumas that act as huge blockages that stop us from dealing quickly with such hurts. Unfortunate most sufferers are not even aware that they have been traumatised. Traumas can occur at any time, while in the womb babies who are not loved or are stressed can suffer traumas. Some people are so full of crap that they hold on to, blaming the hurt, the depressing feelings on others, sometimes the smell becomes too much they have to end their life.

“So I came to that frontier with everything that I had. I came with everything that I am, everyone and everything that I love, everything that I possess. And I understood that the process, although it is no form of judgment, nevertheless cannot help but reveal the shadows, the lies, the falsehoods one brings. Because of this it can be a meeting that we might avoid, because we may not wish to lose or have revealed certain parts of what we are, what we hold onto, or what we have hidden within ourselves. But this was quite a wonderful feeling. I understood why Abraham was asked to bring his son to the Mount and sacrifice him. It had nothing to do with killing his son. It represents a willingness to come with everything that you love with the risk that you might lose it. Or at least, it might be revealed to you that it has no real value or place in your life.”

If you take time to watch where any type of memory arises from, you will perhaps realise that it arises from what you experience as a dark place in yourself. Then it is known and is held in the light of awareness. that dark place I link with the core of your existence – the great mystery of the unknown, the mystery of Life. If you care to walk into and explore that dark place you will find wonders.

If we realise that Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Our unconscious, below the ground level awareness, expresses this wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millennia.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in other levels. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital.

: Usually symbolises inner feelings, unconscious direction and tendencies, things that influence you that act below the level of your everyday awareness. This could include childhood feelings or painful memories that are suppressed; instinctive or intuitive responses; family or personal attitudes that are deeply habitual.

The hidden side of yourself; what is going on underneath the everyday – street level – of your life; your unconscious depths of experience – ancient strata of psychological and physiological processes in you or parts of yourself you have ignored or buried.

Example: Suddenly I was in a huge underground cavern. It was hundreds of feet high and as wide. It had two great statues in it, both to do with death. The whole place overpowered me with a sense of decay and skeletal death, darkness, underground, earth, the end. I cried out in the dismal cave, ‘Death, where is your sting! Grave, where is your victory!’ I immediately had the sense of being a bodiless awareness. I knew this was what occurred at death. Fear and the sense of decay left me. Andrew.

Underground-Metro-Subway: Your exploration or realisation of your own usually unconscious tendencies and influences. Or perhaps what you are doing that is not accepted in general society – an ‘underground’ activity.

Your journeys into what is usually unconscious in you – such as realisation of childhood traits still active in you as an adult – meeting repressed sexuality – discovery of unexpressed potential or insight; something alternative you are considering or involved in – as in ‘underground’ newspaper; your unconscious connections with other people or things. See: tunnel.

 

Example: I was on a red underground train, sitting at the end of one of those carriages with door only in the middle. I noticed on the seats opposite me some cardboard boxes full of books and pamphlets. On looking at them I realised that they were mine. I got up to leave the train but the gangway was blocked by two well dressed coloured men. One of them – the furthest away – who looked whiter than the other, moved aside in a friendly fashion. The other remained in my way and I bumped into him trying to get by. Then I said “Excuse me” three times. He made no effort to move, in fact purposely ignored me. So I pushed by him, not roughly but firmly. As I stood at the doors waiting for them to open he rushed at me in anger, Our hands linked and we grappled together but I forced his hands down and felt a match for him. It went through my mind as we struggled, “This is what yoga has done.” (That is, given me the strength to hold my own against the coloured man.)

Underwear underclothes knickers panties

Intimate or shy feelings, sexual feelings,  sexual excitement or desire,  or conversely, repugnance, difficult feelings about sex or oneself. Feelings or personal things you keep hidden from others.

These can also be used to express feelings about being attractive, ‘feminine’, sexy or girlish. Underpants seldom appear in men’s dreams in a similar way – to look sexy or masculine.

Occasionally underwear appears in dreams about being examined medically, or about not hiding who you are. The medical examination is about exploring, worrying about, discovering usually hidden aspects or information about you.

If black: restraint or unconscious sex drives.

Dirty or grubby: Sexual attitudes we are not proud of; difficult feelings about biological side of self. For female underclothes see knickers.

Removing panties:  Usually a prelude to sex, or to attract a sexual partner, or as a sign of readiness for sex. Occasionally they are to show or examine an injury, or something regarding that part of the body and the associated feelings and functions.

Example: I felt a tremendous sexual need and  reached out to touch the woman. She didn’t mind and I put my hand under her  clothes to caress her breasts, which were delightfully full. Then I put my hands  down her knickers and at first touched her hair and thighs gently, then masturbated  her and she me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling in regard to the underwear, and in what way is that relevant to my waking life?

Is this reflecting repressed desires?

Am I accepting my sexuality and need for physical contact?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Undies

See: underwear

 

Undress

Revealing what you really feel; showing or sharing your sexual feelings or being intimate. It can also be about seeing things about yourself that may be hidden by your everyday life and social activities represented by clothes or the state of your body. See: Clothes; Nude. 

Dropping your facade, attitudes or feelings that you may mask your real emotions with during everyday life – for instance a child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure.

So being nude may be about expressing things that are not usually accepted socially; desire to be seen for what one is; expression of natural feelings or desire to be intimate or revealing your true nature.

Anxiety about being undressed: Fear that others know what you really feel and desire, or that you are revealing desires and acts that are considered socially unacceptable and therefore you feel guilty or shocked about being seen doing or feeling – such as being caught making love with the husband’s/wife’s best friend. There might also be difficult feelings about being a human animal with sexual characteristics and urges.  See: Naked.

Unearth

Bringing to consciousness things that were previously unconscious or unknown. So, it means to reveal something to you or to realise. Many such dreams help you to become aware that you have buried things – feelings about a past love, old hurts and traumatic experiences, for instance.

If you are an archaeologist or involved in the work, then it relates to whatever is concerning or interesting you at the moment. But it will still probably have a more interior meaning.

It links to the process of gradually bringing your past experience to consciousness. Literally it shows you digging into what are usually your unconscious layers of yourself to unearth personal meaning and perhaps deal with past problems that were buried.  It can also depict what you have to pull out of yourself through hard work, or ‘digging’.

Example: ‘I entered a neglected garden adjoining a house I had formerly lived in. I was astonished that I had never noticed this garden before. I took a spade and hoe and began to vigorously work in order to put things right, digging like a navy. But wherever I put my spade I turned up live shells and hand grenades – highly explosive and very dangerous. I was terrified I would be blown to pieces and hurried away.’ From Organism of The Mind, G. R. Heyer, Kegan Paul, 1933.

The dreamer was a man in his forties who had taken up meditation on the suggestion of a friend. It shows him discovering and uncovering a parts of himself he had not known before. In doing so he meets explosive emotions and conflicts he is not used to dealing with.

Unearthing things we have not been aware of before means their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self and feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic. So, we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear, we will pass on.

Example: Dr. Karagulla, a famous neurologist, in her book Breakthrough to Creativity has described an experiment she made with two doctors. To test heightened sensory perception, she blindfolded one of the doctors and gave him a photograph. It was a medical picture of a pregnant woman. He was asked to pass his fingertips over the photograph and report any impressions and sensations. At this the other doctor began to protest that what she was asking was not possible. But at this point the blindfolded doctor began to speak of impressions which vividly described the picture he held. The other doctor began to protest so violently, and began to feel so ill, the experiment had to be terminated.

Unearthing Bones: Remembering something from the long past. Looking at the memory of something you repressed in the past. If you are digging your own grave, then it is an obviously statement about the life you are leading.

Unearthing a Skull: This often represents the life of a person now dead, perhaps from the long past. It is also a common symbol of human mortality and frailty, but a skull does not represent death, although most people see it as such, it is a shell, like those of sea creatures, left on the beach and is simply the shell that life itself used and has left, the essential us passes on in its journey.

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past, I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.

Don explored this dream and realised that through his internal digging into himself I had uncovered some feelings he had never met consciously before. The dinosaur speaking, he understood as his awareness of instinctive feelings, such as the anxiety, which he had suffered from a lot, and about the anger he felt toward his step children for not appreciating the work he was putting into building them a home and working to provide. Seeing these things helped him understand what was behind his difficult feelings and fears. For instance, I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience and is part of his animal ancient and primordial self that I needed to meet it and help to enter into the modern world instead of being repressed and remaining primitive.

Unearthing treasure: Although in the dream it may show gold or money the dream is about the feelings and sense of finding something so valuable. So, the value it depicts can be about a new opportunity, a developing talent even a new baby on the way.

Useful questions:  

Have I been ‘digging’ into myself in any way – if so, what have I uncovered?

Have circumstances or events uncovered what was previously buried in me?

What part of my past are my dream images suggesting?

Unicorn

Because it blends the image of the horse with that of the virgin, and the outstanding single horn, it suggests purity with animal or basic sexuality. The message is therefore that sexuality can be directed in a new way with single mindedness. The mythology of the unicorn suggests it can only be tamed by a pure woman. The image of the woman suggests that if a man can meet his own femininity, or if he can be with a woman without letting the energy of desire flow into physical sex or ejaculation, then the energy of sexuality transforms into something else, a wider awareness for instance.

The following dream illustrates something of this. Nicola’s dream seems to depict powerful opposites in her nature. The tiger is her powerful possibilities of aggression and desire, and the unicorn depicts the possibility of transforming these. The opposites are often shown in such a confrontation.

I am in a house with a girl in a wheelchair. Bored I go for a walk. The girl said it would be dangerous. I am on a shoreline. The ocean is in front of me like a wall. To my right is a calm sea and a tiger. To my left is a rough sea with a unicorn. As the tiger runs at me the unicorn charges and butts it. Nicola

In another dream Anthony meets a similar situation. He describes his dream as follows:

A massive force underlying the basement of my house was threatening to emerge. It had already torn down part of the ceiling of the basement. This force was in the shape of a woman and a serpent. But when it did emerge the figure of Christ also came into the room and the two seemed to change each other. When I explored the dream I felt the woman represented my own natural and unrestrained desires and needs, and Christ was the power of social pressure to conform. In releasing them, both my natural urges and social needs could be expressed in creative acts – such as a singer might do in performances. They might therefore be acceptable, though still containing the socially dangerous natural impulses.

Carl Jung writes of this saying:

Christ himself symbolically appears as the Lamb of God or the Fish, but he is also the serpent exalted on the cross, the lion, and in rarer cases the unicorn. These animal attributes of Christ indicate that even the Son of God (the supreme personification of man) can no more dispense with his animal nature than with his higher, spiritual nature.

So the unicorn and the pure female represent this transformation or raw animal urges into creative human action and awareness. The virgin represents the virginal mind or heart that doesn’t hold any preconceptions. Even men can do this, and women and men can then give birth to a holy child – the realisation of their own wonderful potential, known as the Christ.

But as this photo suggests, that young teenage girls can become unconsciously sexually aroused, it shows also the horse holding the girl to it, so it is not a one way experience. I believe that young girls can allow such feelings saying they love the horse. So a magical erotic relationship exists. The painting has a very similar theme to the photo.

Uniform

Conformity, orthodoxy. Also, authority, power, an expression of a universal activity. A priest has the power of the church behind him; a policeman has the power of the law. So, the uniform may imply these influences acting on you. The uniform might also depict your identification with a social role, such as that of a nurse or teacher. In this case it might be about how much you need that role for your own sense of confidence, or maybe how you are changing in the role.

This depends on the uniform, but can suggest identification with a role, such as soldier or nurse. It might also say you are identifying with or conforming with collective likes and dislikes – being ‘in’ with the group. This might include feeling a sense of being accepted or rejected by a group or work situation, social correctness, and maybe loss of your own uniqueness. The uniform on someone else could point to social pressure to conform.

Some uniforms, such as police particularly link with feelings of authority or social pressure to conform.

school uniform This usually expresses your feelings about the time you were at school, or what you feel about being at school, or being the age to be in a school uniform.

So, the uniform also holds in it the possibility of the dependence, the desire to ‘get out of a uniform existence’, the desire to excel or escape, you experience or may have experienced at school.

The uniform may simply also link with learning something – what did you actually learn at school – what life lessons, perhaps learned by the experience rather than the lessons?

Army, Air Force, Navy uniform: This may connect with memories you have, either of being in one of these services, or of someone you know in the uniform. If not, then it suggests the qualities or stereotype ideas and feelings you connect with them. See: roles

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did you feel about the uniform either in the dream or in real life?

What is happening in the rest of the dream as a comment on the uniform?

What was your experience of school like and what did you get from it?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Union Unity United

Conformity due to outer pressure rather than inner direction. The power of united emotions, energies, ideas.

If this is a trade union it can suggest conformity due to outer pressure rather than inner direction, or if it is positive, the power of united emotions, energies, ideas.

It is also important that we have a largely unconscious urge to find union with what causes us to exist. To understand this, you must first see that while we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So, we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. This Will is observable while awake and expresses as spontaneous movement as seen in our breathing, sneezing, vomiting and all our vital functions such as heartbeat.

Remember that it wasn’t your mother who created your body, but the process of life. The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations. See Opening to Life

Sex is about the profoundest of unions; not the jigging about of humans, but the meeting of the sperm and ovum, and that is an expression of what, in our experience of human self-awareness, we call love. The opening of the sexual organs of a plant – what we call a flower – is an expression again of what humans call love. If a woman displayed herself in that way to a man, we would say she was in love. All of these fundamental drives, urges and body transformations are part of the archetypal power of love or union.

The sperm and ovum – when they meet, burst asunder and give themselves completely to each other – I mean completely, and they become a unique life form out of that union/love.

United or merged with someone or something: This is like love, in which you absorb qualities from the other person, animal or thing and they from you. In some dreams you might even become them as you make big life changes and allow new aspects of yourself to emerge. See PotentialNot Seeing

University

Learning lessons about life; the ambition to improve your life skills or status. Or it can link with your own experiences of university life. In which case it is worth defining what your overall impression of university was – loneliness, pleasure, intense friendships? See: school 

Your individual potential and learning ability, but often the university is associated with ‘higher’ learning or personal advancement leading to opportunity. It might also link with something important you are learning or aspiring to; something important you have to offer but are not yet fully aware of.

This becomes clear once we recognise that the human mind does not work from the top down, but often from the bottom up. Our waking self usually only thinks in ways it already knows or has been taught. Most people when asked, “Who are you?” reply by saying their name or what they are known for – I am a housewife – a steel worker – etc. But who are you? Your name was given you and can be changed – it is not you? We all live in readymade phrases that are put there by words or things we have learned or seen – but do they reflect truly you?

“Who are you?” In fact it is the most difficult question to answer and has been used for centuries in methods of helping people cut through to realising who they really are.

It helps to be clear about this point of allowing fantasy if one understands the way completely unconscious inner events gradually emerge into consciousness. W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through levels of our mind{

An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.

As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the man’s conscious attention, and the spontaneous dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level and then beyond it to the thinking mind level – ones conscious self.

This shows how the deeper usually unconscious mind is the source for much that then becomes conscious thought. The Neomammalian or Human conscious brain, known as the neocortex, takes up 85% of the total size of the brain. Despite its size it may not be the most powerful., Describing the three brains – the reptilian, the mammalian and the human conscious brain – in its instructions to planning advertising campaigns says, ‘Our Reptilian Brain is more powerful than the Limbic (emotional) Brain, which in turn is more powerful that the Cortex (thinking) Brain. It is best to take all three brains into account when planning a marketing/branding campaign.’

Nevertheless, it is this Older Reptilian ‘brain’ that is involved in much of our daily life in activities such as speaking, writing, reading and doing skilled tasks. MacLean describes this, ‘brain’ as “the mother of invention and father of abstract thought”. With it we are able to learn the complexities of language and analysis, along with self-awareness and examination. It gives us the ability to reprogram old behaviour patterns to some extent, and to be personally aware of our relationship with others, rather than simply responding from old behavioural patterns. It, if linked with the older brains, can become very wise in its understanding of being human.

Example: An actual example of this is of a woman who wrote telling of a recurring dream in which she discovered a door in her house she had never seen before. Beyond it was a whole apartment she has never known or used. It was obviously an area of her life she had never lived in, but she had no idea what it was. So, the technique of exploring the dream while awake was explained, and she imagined walking into the new apartment and observing what she felt and what memories arose. A soon as she entered the apartment she began to remember and feel again things that had happened in her childhood. Her mother and father had separated when she was very young and her mother had constantly presented her father as weak and of no value. But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.

An important point here is that the woman did this working alone on her dream, not with professional help or supervision. See Dreams – Practical TechniquesPotential

 Learn from Your Dreams – They are the Greatest University

Many people have amazing dreams but apparently learn nothing from them. If you come away from a dream empty handed then you have received a wonderful communication and ignored its message. OK, it may be difficult to understand. So what, things are not handed to us served up with gravy. Struggle with it, pray for help with it, live with it, for this is a message that is vital to you.

And yes, I mean vital. Without understanding your dreams you are like a ship in a storm without a rudder or even an engine. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/

Of course it is not an easy teacher for its lessons have many levels of meaning. See Dreams.

 

Unravel

To understand; to untangle the confusion of anxieties. To heal fears and tensions.

Up Upwards Upper

Looking through dreams in which the words Up, Upwards, Upper or Upstairs are used, again and again one sees the same feeling as expressed in the example below – getting away from being ‘pulled down’ by difficult feelings, by depression, by everyday duties, by difficulties in relationships, and so on. It expresses the technique we use when worried, such as reading a book, being entertained, having a drink – anything to take our attention away from the difficult feelings. This does not remove the anxieties. It would be longer lasting if we faced them and transformed them.

Moving upwards of course also depicts positive change; shifting toward mental activity; gaining a wider view of things; and at times promotion. See: Ascending; Flow – Up and Down. 

‘When I was very small, probably even pre school, I often dreamt of flying. I was mostly dressed only in my short vest and usually floating upwards to escape adults who were clawing at my legs to pull me down.’ Miss G. C.

 Idioms: One up on; on the up and up; up a gum tree; up and down; ups and downs; up the pole; up the wall; up the spout; up to the hilt.

 

Urine Urinate

 

This could point to release of tension, letting go of restrained feelings, or release of sexual feelings. Sometimes, if this is not your urine, it could be about other people’s sexual attitudes – or their negative sexual attitudes.

On a positive not urinating has classically been linked with the flow of life through you. See the Manneken Pis of Brussels below. Dreams in which we try to go to the toilet, but it is mysteriously locked or closed, may be due to the need to pee during the night.

Example: ‘I was in a huge cathedral, the mother church for all religions. I wanted to go to the toilet/gents. As I held my penis to urinate it became a snake and reached down to the urinal to drink. It was thirsty. I struggled with it, pulling it away from the unclean liquid. Still holding it I walked to a basin and gave it pure water to drink.’ Bill A.

Here the snake is not just Bill’s penis. It is the direction his sexual urges take him that he is struggling with. Wanting to urinate is Bill’s urge to release an inner tension. Out of his sense of love and connection with Life – the cathedral – he wants to lift his drive toward something that will not leave him with a sense of uncleanness. In this sense a snake might be something one wrestled with, depicting the wrestle one has with inner drives and hunger, especially sexuality, food or anger. See Ox Herding

Useful Techniques

Using The Dictionary

The long entries in the dream dictionary are often in two or more parts. The first part is a short summary of the entry’s meaning, and then there is a larger explanation under the heading Longer  Explanation.

The Dictionary contains explanations on almost any type of dream subject. The entries are placed in alphabetical order for easy reference, but some, like ‘dog’ or ‘running’ may be placed in certain categories such as animals and posture, movement, body language.

The major collective entries are – animals; archetypes; birds; body; car; clothes; colours; esp in dreams; family and relationships; fish and sea creatures; food; furniture and furnishings; games and gambling; house and buildings; individuation; insects; jewels; man; numbers; peer dream work; positions; postures movement and body language; processing dreams; reptiles – lizards and snakes; roles (such as actor/actress, captain, dentist, etc.); shapes and symbols; size; time – of day; trees; unconscious; weapons; woman. See: List of Features.

So if you dreamt of a flying saucer landing in a field, and aliens getting out and taking sheep and a dog back into the saucer, you could look up each of these subjects in the text. Turn to the ‘F’ entries for flying saucer; the animals and then the entry for dog and sheep, and so on.

Each entry gives the general meaning of the dream subject, just as an encyclopaedia or dictionary does for a word. Several possible meanings are given, as in the example below.


perfume, scent or smell Good smell: Good feelings; non verbalised intimations or love; a sense of personal beauty. Idioms: On the right scent; throw someone off the scent. See: nose under body.

Example: ‘I went back in time in circles, almost as if going unconscious. I went back and back and then there came this awful smell such as I’ve never experienced. I always felt it was the smell of death. I would wake terrified. One night my husband, a practical and down to earth man, said he would read me to sleep to see if it helped me not have the dream. It made no difference I still had the nightmare. Imagine my surprise though. He said ‘I knew you’d had the dream again for there was an awful smell in the room for a minute.’’ Mrs E. C.

The above entry on perfume is typical of most entries. The example it contains is indented and illustrates the entry, or an aspect of it. In general, the description of what the dream image means is set out as the part which reads – ‘Frequently in dreams a bad smell expresses an intuition of something rotten in ones life. Rotten might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship; a hunch or feelings about something, as in the example; memories.’ The insertion of the semi-colon ; means that a separate suggestion for the meaning of the dream image is being given. We could therefore read it as saying, ‘Perfume or smell might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship. It might depict a hunch or feelings about something. It might mean memories of something – depending on the smell.’

To pack as much information into the available space, sometimes the semi colons have been used to shorten statements. Therefore, in using the entries to find meanings of dream images, consider each suggestion given.

Many entries, as with the above, also give variations, as with Good smell. The headings for these are underlined to make them easier to find. Because many dream images depict our unconscious thought processes, as used in language, the section Idioms, also underlined, is frequently given. Standing in a pink room might well be our dream’s way of saying we feel ‘in the pink’. Coming down from a tall building to street level might be quickly understood by the idiom ‘coming down to earth’.

‘See:’ suggests the reading of other entries which might be useful. Sometimes a suggestion is made to ‘See:’ an example. This is because the example has in it mention of the symbol dealt with.

Throughout the dictionary, an effort has been made to list entries under the word you are likely to search for. For instance an entry on the use of computers to file dreams, would not be under a heading such as dreams and computers – but computers and dreams. Similarly, an entry would not be dream beliefs in the Bible, but Bible – dreams and symbols. Therefore when searching for information on a topic, go to the word central to your search.

A dream has in it many sources of information. Not only should you consider the basic dream images, but what is happening, how people are dressed and their posture, and what the dream environment is. A dream is often like a film. The background gives a lot of information making the foreground action meaningful. There is a great difference between a scene taking place in a farmyard than in a bedroom. So even things such as what hand was used, left or right, should be referred to. Entries in the Dictionary – such as settings and posture – help to understand this aspect of dreams.

Where sex or sexuality is mentioned, I am not simply referring to the sex act. I mean sexuality in its overall aspect, which includes the urge toward parenthood, and the love and caring connected with it. Also I am not attempting to present the ideas in this book as scientific or proved. My aim has been to take what information I have gathered from dreams and present what it suggests. To save space I have not argued the points.


Using the dictionary to find a dream meaning

When we sleep and dream we enter a completely different realm of experience than when we are awake. It would be foolish to try to breathe under water in the physical world, but in dreams this is not only possible but lots of dreamers do it. In dreams we can fly. We can make love to men or women as we please, without fear of social or physical consequences. While dreaming we can die over and over. The dead can be reborn, and the world around us can be changed simply by changing our attitude. A monster pursuing us one moment can in an instant become a warm friend because we changed our fear to love.

In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene, something that haunts our feelings or memory shown as a ghost or demon. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream.

A dream portrays each part of us, such as our ambition, as being exterior to us, because in that way it is something we witness, and it at first appears objective and separate from us, not something we are. By showing our urges or fears as people or places exterior to us, our dreams are able to portray the strange fact that while, for instance, the love we have for another person is intimately our own, we may find such a feeling difficult to bear, as when one is married and falls in love with someone else. While we dream, the subtleties of such dilemmas are given dramatic form. To observe our dilemma as if we were watching it as a play, has very real advantages. The different factors of our situation, such as our feelings for our marriage partner, our love of the new person, and social pressures such as our family’s reactions, might all be shown as different people in the dream. The drama of the dream shows how these different parts interact. See Characters in your Dream

We can therefore not only experience these as separate from our central self, but we define in the dream’s action how we relate to them. Most important, we can EXPLORE SAFELY the possible ways of living within, or changing the factors involved.

This exteriorisation of internal feelings is clear in many of our dreams, such as when we run from a wild bear, we exteriorising our fear. Dreams might do this because they frequently portray intimate parts of ourselves which have never been made fully conscious or verbalised. Put in another way, because some parts of our feelings and  nature may never have been consciously felt or recognised, they cannot be grasped by us as a thinking or perceiving being. We cannot see them with our eyes, touch them with fingers, or smell them, let alone think about them. After all, they are unknown and formless. But a dream can portray what has not yet been put into words or organised into conscious thought by portraying it in images and drama. The woman who dreams of trying to contact her dead husband may not have fully acknowledged her question of ‘Why he left me?’ Being able to ‘think’ in story form, about subtle areas of our experience, is a great additional faculty when added to our other modes of gaining information and insight. In this way dreams are able to bring to our notice, areas of our being which might otherwise never be known. The dream is thus another SENSE ORGAN, looking into areas we might not have any other way of examining.


Monitor of the Unconscious

A way to understand this is to consider the now commonly used monitors one sees at the bedside of critically ill people. Such monitors depict in the form of an image – a flashing moving graph – the heartbeat of the patient. They can also portray temperature, breathing, brain pulses and blood pressure in the form of externally visible images. These internal events would otherwise be unknown or unconscious. In a similar way, dreams are a monitor, giving apparently external images to depict the subtle and otherwise unconscious processes of body and mind.

That the external person or object in the dream is actually the dreamer’s own internal feelings and mental structure is difficult for many people to believe or even grasp. The following unusual dream helps us to develop a conception of this. I say it is unusual because very seldom can a dreamer admit to themselves while asleep, that the world which in their dream appears as exterior, is actually their own internal thoughts feelings and psychobiological functions. The dreamer, A. B. is a man in his fifties, and dreams he has found a huge thistle in his garden which is as big as a tree.

I look at the trunk of the thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

What is of particular importance in this dream is the point of transition where the dreamer moves from seeing the hole in the tree, to seeing the hole in himself. But this transition continues, for the dreamer then moves to the feeling of being old and decrepit. These points of transition mark the stages of realisation that what seems exterior is not. It also shows a transition that few dreamers ever make.

Some of the key statements in the dream are EXAMINING – I NOTICE – A HOLE – I LOOK IN – and SEE – THE FEELINGS OF BEING OLD and DECREPIT. If we put this into a flowing sentence we have, ‘In examining myself I noticed ‘a hole’ or emptiness in myself. When I look into this I find a sense of being old and decrepit.’

In looking at his hand and realising there was a hole in his life, A. B. took note of what he felt. Just prior to the dream he had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether his marriage was breaking up. The dream made him realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life. He could see that as a person he only ENTERTAINED thoughts and emotions. They were simply what he thought and felt about reality, not reality itself. It was up to him as to what he wanted reality to be. Did he want to entertain the reality of the tired ageing man who could no longer satisfy his wife’s need for love and companionship, having nothing worthwhile to contribute to others? That could certainly become reality if he allowed such feelings to dominate him. He had thought that his life was like a giant thistle, but on closer inspection he saw it was a giant hardwood. It did have branches which needed pruning, but the rest of the tree was good and perfumed – giving off good feelings to others. So he decided to put love and care into his life and marriage instead of self doubt and a sense of defeat.

Some observers have attempted to determine the pattern of interaction between physiological variables and dreaming that might occur during a given night. An account was published by a French physician in 1821 involving a twenty-six-year-old female subject who had lost a large portion of her skull and brain covering. He reported that when the woman was in a dreamless sleep, her brain was motionless and lay within the cranium. However, when she was agitated by dreams, her brain moved and protruded outward from the cranium. The physician commented that, “in vivid dreams, reported as such by herself, the protrusion was considerable.’


J. Esquirol, a French psychiatrist noted for his humanitarian attitude toward patients, spent considerable time in the 1830’s sitting beside sleeping mental patients, observing their facial expressions and movements and noting their pulse and respiration. He claimed that he often knew when patients were dreaming and could predict the general nature of their dream content from this combination of behavioural and physiological indices.

When we realise each aspect of the dream, each emotion, each landscape and environment are materialisation’s of our own feeling states and body condition, we begin to see how we live in the midst of a world – the world of our thoughts, feelings, values, judgements, fears and physiology – largely of our own making. Whatever we think or feel, even in the depths of our being, becomes a material fact of experience in our dream. It is almost certainly this inner universe that religion speaks of as heaven or hell. Finding some degree of direction, mastery or harmony within this world of our own being, is the great work of human life.

But our overall direction of dreams is an attempt toward growth and wholeness, not easily achieved because of the fears we inject into out dreams.

Utopia

This might be an attempt to escape from your difficulties or internal pains. But many dreams in which the person enters a wonderland are about finding their way to their own innate blissful self, an experience of their own wholeness.

Example: At first, I saw the image of a huge cathedral or church with a magnificent domed roof and I knew that I was in the house of God. I felt the utopia, I felt like I have never felt before, so very good, so excellent. I knew all things; I didn’t have to read the bible or any kind of teachings because the answers are all here in the presence of God. With each energy release the feeling was greater than all things, above all feelings, not sexual but immense and fantastic.

According to Plato, “In a utopia there is always a contrast, or a dilemma, between individual needs and public and social needs. It is this dilemma which often is a stimulus for looking into the future, in terms of opposition to the present”.

Letter V

Vacation

See: Holiday.

Vaccination

This might be illustrating what feelings or thoughts you use, or can use, to deal with negative influences in your life. See: Syringe.

Ideas or feelings received from someone else – depending upon how you feel in the dream. What has been received can aid in meeting negative influences in life and the influence of other people in your life. The meaning may be similar to injection and suggest sexual intercourse. See: Injection. 

It is also possible that you have injected into yourself poisonous emotions – such as fear, hatred, malice, wanting to kill or even jealousy.  Also, a snake bit is like an injection of your poisonous emotions – either self-inflicted or from another person. For instance, if we feel anger for another person it can actually create poisons in our system.

Example: It seems as if someone has been injecting malicious talk or ideas into you, and you could feel it. Such ideas are poisonous if taken seriously, but quite harmless if you see where the poison is coming from and why they are doing it. It is usually a person who wants what you have or is dangerous. So, look around and see where the poison is coming from.

There are also other ways people can inject us. See Autonomous Complex  

Example: I had two very powerful examples of this and their power. My wife and I were visiting my wife’s sister and her husband. Her husband’s brother visited and sat and talked to us and afterwards I felt strangely ill at ease. Being able to ask my unconscious – inner self – for help I was shown that in fact the brother had wanted to ‘have’ my wife and wanted me out of the way. He had said things to me that didn’t seem bad, but the hidden feelings in his words had caused me to react badly. When he came again, I was watching and listening for any signs. He immediately said, “What is that silly hat you are wearing”? A simple enough remark, except I recognised it was his way of making me look stupid in my wife’s eyes.

Vagina and Uterus

In dreams the vagina and uterus represents not only sexual feelings and desires, but is a symbol of complete womanhood and femininity. The vagina and womb/uterus, in their shape represent the human qualities of sympathy, receptivity, loving, acceptance, desire to absorb and creativity. The womb is a symbol of fertility, the willing sacrifice of personal resources, life, energies and ideas, so that the new life, new love, new spiritual impulse can take form. The new idea or creation uses the old parts of yourself, but reshapes them, adding new features or qualities. The life processes the vagina and womb give rise to shape, substance and the growth of the new impulse or form.

A penis when erect can reach across space and enter a female and leave its seed. Like the sun which reaches across space and enters the earth bringing forth life – So the sun and the earth are the positive and negative of cosmic and human life. A fundamental quality of a female vagina is the ability to receive seeds, but it also has its own treasures, its precious eggs, and together they give  substance and form, enabling the growth of Life itself that we call a baby. All of life’s mystery comes to life in the baby.

The femaleness or maleness, the vagina or penis you dream of must not be confused with your personality, your conscious feelings. Many of us believe we are ourselves because we were born human. Not so. As babies unless we are taught to speak we remain little animals. See Programmed 

We are carefully fed programs about what we are by being taught it. We are programmed – and of course we can learn to recognise that programming and hopefully grow beyond it. For the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self.

It is this older and primal self that the vagina represents, and dreams try to help us connect with this older and huge self that underlies the human personality. I first came across this older huge self when as a boy of seven I was asked to collect something from a woman who owned a large country house. She led me to a big open barn and climbed a ladder to get what it was I had to take home. But as she got to the top of the ladder her beautiful white thighs and beyond came in sight. The view hit me with such force that it has been engraved in my memory ever since. Looking back it seemed to me I had glimpsed the Holy Grail and it was years later that I understood what I had been exposed to. As a child, without any sexual urge, I had touched something that remains unconscious in most of us, for I had seen the source of all life, the place that every living creature emerges, a truly amazing and holy place. I read somewhere that early man, seeing baby emerge from a woman’s body, was in awe of her. Also, Jane Goodall in observing chimpanzees wrote that she saw a young female, bewildered by the miracle of birth and stared at her new baby for ages with a look of wonderment, as so many other mothers have done throughout the centuries, animal and human alike.

Many of us still feel that awe when a woman gives birth to another living being. As I wrote above, a woman must not confuse her personality with primal feelings that arise from the core.

The female in her relationship with maleness, is not generally so active in the outer world, but through her sympathy, love, receptiveness and giving of self, shapes the male actions and creative forces, as depicted by the womb shaping the creative forces of the sperm. On the other hand, a man is not generally so active in his inner, intuitive life, and his outer activity penetrates the woman’s inner life, stimulating and directing her intuition and soul.

Something that I have often seen, is how, particularly women I suppose, have often failed to understand the great power they have in their instinctive sexual drives. Those drives links them with their ability to create and be creative. But what I see is that those drives need not be expressed through producing a child. This does not mean they need to frustrate or repressed these drives, but that they be accepted and directed into another expression. It means being fully aware of the sexual dynamics of interrelations, in business, in work, in everyday dealings with people.

Taken as symbols of the two parts of one person’s nature, the penis represents the outer self, creative and active, intellect and reasoning; ability to succeed in business and social activity in its constructive elements. The vagina symbolises emotions, inner feelings, irrational self, intuition, sympathetic and inner contact with people, the ability to produce new ideas, new energies. new concepts. The two working together fulfil and complement each other, outer activity expresses, tests, and brings to realisation the intuition.

The vagina refers to much more than a woman’s sexual feelings and drives. It depicts the urges and processes that are the foundations of her waking personality. It deals with her ability to procreate, not only in regard to children, but also in her bringing things to life or reality in work and other people’s lives. The vagina can associate with her unique glandular bias which underlies the energy or lethargy or her drives, emotions and mind. It is this bias that helps or hinders her with what she faces in emotional, mental and physical expression. It gives, in whatever degree, the caring, nurturing feelings which emerge out of sexual mating when healthy.

The vagina in a woman’s dream also might indicate her desire for a mate; the sense of connection and identity with other women, other female creatures and female aspects of nature. In its positive aspect it may represent the sure confidence with which a woman may demand from her man that he treat her womanhood with the respect it deserves. This means expressing the full flood of her sexual need with its desire for a child, a caring and supportive nest to rear that child in, and her female creativity which may rise from that basic reproductive drive into social creativity and personal demand for respect. It means she will confront her man with this and expect him to meet it with his own masculine power.

If the dream is directly about the uterus, this suggests an immediate connection with the ability to reproduce in some way, with pregnancy, with nurturing a child. See: ovaries/uterus under body.

This wonder that is the basis of yourself and of Life in you is often not recognised by many women. It is a secret and beautiful aspect of your womanhood. It is that deep down feeling that most women recognises, it is that she is very special and even unique. This wonderful secret treasure women offer when they really love. They come to love with the expectancy, maybe not even very conscious, of having this wonder in them, this treasure, recognised and honoured.

If this has been grasped by your soul, or felt in some dreams or meditations, it is then suddenly transformed into a universal truth.

Unfortunately the woman may identify with this wonder as a person, and that could be a mistake. The treasure, the unique and wonderful riches she has are her eggs. Within her are the living accumulation of millions of years of life experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To explore it see Opening to Life

Nobody else carries exactly the eggs that she does. These eggs are beyond imagining in their wonder and history, in the information, lives, secrets they hold. This is the treasure a woman offers to her lover. If she believes her own personality is this treasure it might lead to over inflation of her self image. But also of course, it will lead to the terrible despair that often follows human love. Betrayal of the trust may follow. But her eggs are for her to honour and treasure. They are for her to recognise and know what a great wealth she carries within her. So in some dreams the vagina is an image of this sense the woman has of her own unique wealth.

As an egg and sperm we are tiny single celled creatures. The next two stages of development as the cells increase in size and number resembles the activities found in many simple living things such as plants. The twenty day old embryo develops four brachial grooves, which in the embryo of a fish grow into gills. At this point the formative forces which produce a fish are active, as were the formative forces of a plant at an earlier stage. These are then supplanted by forces which bring about features of the potential mammalian upright animal we could be. See Mammal Brain

So the vagina can represent the very basis or core of your existence – not your personality, which is a small part of your make up. See Core Self

In a woman’s dream: Generally how you feels about your own sexual needs, but this includes procreation as well. It links with the health or feeling state of your sexual self and physical vagina, as well as your experience of motherhood or experience of the procreative relationship with your mother and nature.

As such it depicts your central femininity, your sexual urge and your ability or inability to have a child. It might be used in your dream to show what you feel about your physical attraction. And in some dreams it is shown as the reality underlying the temple or church of life. Temples and churches are in fact just symbols of the creative reality of the vagina and the holy sexual mystery of life.

Your Creative Centre – See Seven 7 Levels of Us

Bleeding vagina: This might indicate your fears about sexuality and femininity, or hurts to your emotions connected with sexual relatedness.

In man’s dreams: The vagina represents your feelings or fears about meeting a woman’s full sexuality which includes not just a woman’s body but her deep self, her ability of motherhood as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your mother, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in you from your childhood. It also connects with your experience of birth, and how your mother met your emerging male sexuality. The vagina is the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression.

Bleeding vagina in a male dream: Your trauma, fears, hurts about your sexual and emotional ability to relate to a woman sexually, socially and emotionally.

Example: ‘She was now quite naked, dead and stiff, but still bleeding from the vagina. I walked along, the dead body walked like a clockwork soldier. It was quite horrible to see its semblance to life.’ Derek A.

Derek’s relationship with a woman, and with his own emotions and sexuality is ‘dead’ and deeply hurt – the blood. He can mechanically have sex – the clockwork soldier – but not with deep feeling bonds or satisfaction.

Examples of other types of sexual dreams are as follows:

Example: ‘He was very brown, could have been a native but he didn’t feel strange to me. We were making love, I was very aware of the pleasure in my lower body. It was very slippy slidy and wet, there was enjoyment for both of us. Very intense body feelings with a childlike quality, not passion – but pleasure and joy in my vagina.’ Susy I.

Susy is feeling happy and joyful about her ‘native’ or natural sexual feelings – particularly the sensual side of sex. Sensual pleasure, as with emotional pleasure, is as much a food for our physical and emotional self, as bread is for our physical body.

Example: ‘I had very little pubic hair and thought it must be because I had just had a shower, but, no, on looking again I had very little hair. I was hugging Mary, a friend, my arms around her back and one hand holding her vagina. It was then I noticed she was the shape of a man there. I drew away for a second at the discovery then felt OK as it meant I was hugging a male/female person. We were very warm together. Two days before this dream my husband had said his mother called a vagina a MARY.’ Lucy R.

Lucy is ‘touching’ or becoming aware of what could be seen as her own wholeness, which includes her male nature. See The Animus

Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is the central thing this dream is presenting to me – is it about the way I feel about sex, about residues of my father’s influence in my life, or about my female power?

In a male dreams – The vagina represents your feelings or fears about meeting a woman’s full sexuality, as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your mother, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in you from your childhood. It also connects with your experience of birth, and how your mother met your emerging male sexuality. The vagina is the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression.

For many men there is a fascination with the vagina, for it is the ‘Holy Grail’ men have an inner sense if seeking or at least its suggestion. It is not so much wanting to see it, but the tantalisation of seeing the knickers/underclothes and holding it, the flash of a woman’ naked legs and where the the V of the thighs lead.

Does my dream in any way indicate my fears or strengths in my relationship with a woman – or is it about residues of my mother’s influence?

What are the main or even the suggested feelings or emotions shown in the dream, and what place do they have in my waking life?

Bleeding vagina in a male dream: Your trauma, fears, hurts about your sexual and emotional ability to relate to a woman sexually, socially and emotionally.

Example: ‘She was now quite naked, dead and stiff, but still bleeding from the vagina. I walked along; the dead body walked like a clockwork soldier. It was quite horrible to see its semblance to life.’ Derek A.

Derek’s relationship with a woman, and with his own emotions and sexuality is ‘dead’ and deeply hurt – the blood. He can mechanically have sex – the clockwork soldier – but not with deep feeling bonds or satisfaction.

Examples of other types of sexual dreams are as follows:

Example: ‘He was very brown, could have been a native but he didn’t feel strange to me. We were having sex; I was very aware of the pleasure in my lower body. It was very slippy slidy and wet, there was enjoyment for both of us. Very intense body feelings with a childlike quality, not passion – but pleasure and joy in my vagina.’ Susy I.

Susy is feeling happy and joyful about her ‘native’ or natural sexual feelings – particularly the sensual side of sex. Sensual pleasure, as with emotional pleasure, is as much a food for our physical and emotional self, as bread is for our physical body.

Example: ‘I had very little pubic hair and thought it must be because I had just had a shower, but, no, on looking again I had very little hair. I was hugging Mary, a friend, my arms around her back and one hand holding her vagina. It was then I noticed she was the shape of a man there. I drew away for a second at the discovery then felt OK as it meant I was hugging a male/female person. We were very warm together. Two days before this dream my husband had said his mother called a vagina a MARY.’ Lucy R.

Lucy is ‘touching’ or becoming aware of what could be seen as her own wholeness, which includes her male nature. See The Animus

 Useful Questions and Hints:

In a female dream – what is the central thing this dream is presenting to me – is it about the way I feel about sex, about residues of my father’s influence in my life, or about my female power?

In a male dream – does my dream in any way indicate my fears or strengths in my relationship with a woman – or is it about residues of my mother’s influence?

What are the main or even the suggested feelings or emotions shown in the dream, and what place do they have in my waking life?

You could try using The Sense of Nonsense to explore other dimensions of you or use Easy Dream Interpretation

 

Valley

In its positive aspect the valley depicts everyday life with all its richness.  But it can also show how you have descended from the heights of awareness into material values, sensory impressions of the world, gloominess, outer activity, practical issues, and sometimes into problems and fears.

The valley can also represent the female vagina. Combe in English and Cwm in Welsh is a valley between the hills, but also refers to the vagina.

Example: It is beyond understanding and Life in me cries out – Oh darling – Oh my God – my darling – as you bathe me in the stream rising steadily from your valley – and I bathe you in my living waters as we merge and lose ourselves in each other.

But we have valleys that stand at the base of hills and mountains of human experience.

And I consume what I have formed. But in the midst of my creation and destruction I mark upon my substance the passage of experience. And experience forms valleys and mountains, brightness and shade, misery and laughter.  These valleys and peaks, with the light and shade, are the script with which I write the journal of my being, the record of my life and death.

Idioms: Valley of tears; the shadow of the valley of death; lily of the valley.

Vampire

The fear associated with emotional or sexual relationships; feeling that someone is too demanding; the sense of not being able to be independent of one’s parent/lover, and feeling any personal independence or will is sucked away by them. We create this creature out of our own doubts or fears. If a man or woman is afraid of sex – afraid his mother/lover will disapprove if he has any sexual feelings of his own – the fear and perhaps anger, will sap any good feelings about sexual relationship. Such a man or woman, every time they have sex – because they still do not really wish to give of themselves – feel bad after sex, perhaps sucked dry, even ‘dead’. The fear or anger about not having a will of their own, and still emotionally dependent on mother/father, turns back upon them, depicted as the vampire.

Example: I had a breach birth and arrived blue with near suffocation. When I relived this experience in therapy I felt my body trapped and I was struggling for my life. I was imprisoned in a woman’s body and it was killing me. As I witnessed this I realised like an explosion of insight how my difficulties with women and sexuality had arisen. There was no way I could happily put my dick back in a woman when one had nearly killed me. John B.

Example: I hurried away to find a police station to report this situation. When I found the police station I went in and said to them that they had some strange people in the town that seem to be like vampires, wanting people’s body or blood. There were four or five policemen in the police station, and they looked at me unsympathetically, their faces gradually changing. I began to recognise the same situation in them as with the dog and the man. They looked at me and told me to get out and mind my own business. They said that if I wasn’t from a country that would cause a fuss if I were to disappear, they would lock me in a cell and nobody would hear of me again.

I hurried out of the police station feeling, not terrified, but certainly anxious and worried about what was happening. I was still walking along the roads in this town that looked as if it were in Central Europe somewhere, not at all modern in its buildings or feeling. As I walked another dog began to follow me. This one looked aggressive and seem to be excited by my anxiety. I made the mistake of starting to hurry away, and the dog bit at my calf while my back was to it. I now turned to face the dog and it backed away but certainly did not run away. It was waiting to see what I was going to do. I had no weapon and could only stand and face it, wondering if the situation would now degenerated with other dogs or people starting to surround me. As I was thinking this, and noticing people watching from behind; stores or through windows, a young woman came toward me with a stout broom handle and drove the dog of. She took my arm and told me to hurry and come with her. She said I was in danger if I did not.

She took me to her home, which was very basic, stone walls, stone floor, open fireplace. In her home she dressed my wound that was bleeding but not too badly, and would hopefully soon heal.

I asked her what was happening in this town that the people were so strange. She told me that the war and difficult times had done awful things to people giving them strange and extraordinary needs. She said they recognised in me something I did not realise I had, and wanted it from me. As she said this she was kneeling bandaging my leg and looked up at me, and I could see in her face the same hunger and strangeness as in the faces of the others.

She could see the recognition in my eyes and stared at me tears forming in her own eyes. “Please don’t be afraid of me,” she said. “I am needy too, but not in the awful way some of the townspeople are.”

She began to cry and look at me with great longing and earnestness. As she did so, to my astonishment her whole body and face began to change into that of a young girl of about 12 or 13. She stood up and reached her arms out to me to hold her. I could feel the pain and desperation, her need for love. I began to recognise this painful need was behind what I had glimpsed of her own inner vampire. I took her into my arms and held her. I felt a tremendous sexual stimulus, as if I were still holding the woman as well as the child. But somehow I knew that I must allow this feeling without acting upon it. And as I did so the girl relaxed in my arms as if she were exhausted and began to slip into sleep. I discovered her bedroom, tucked her into the bed and lay down beside her on top of the covers and also fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning she was still asleep, but now a young and very attractive woman again.

The above example is an excellent description of what makes a vampire in the inner world of dreams, and to some extent in the waking world. But in the book Beggar Among the Dead by Hans-Ulrich Rieker, he describes a scene which he witnessed of a slinking human living among the sick in India living in extreme poverty going from person to person sucking their blood. It seems the answer is either love or a caring society.

In his book Dreams and Nightmares, Hadfield suggests that crab, spider and vampire dreams depict the internal bodily feelings connected with orgasm. The crab, he says, portrays the tension in the abdominal muscles which produce a gripping sensation. The relaxed, perhaps ‘washed-out’ feeling of fatigue following orgasm, are shown as the sprawling legs and soft underbelly of the spider image. Therefore the blood being sucked dry by the vampire figure is an excellent description of what is experienced.

But many vampire dreams are centred around all the vampire films now produced. Any fear of being possessed or attacked by an influence are actually a way of expressing ones own fear of the unknown and unseen. There are sometimes also a response the dreamer’s spontaneous life process being met and are interpreted as being taken over by a vampire, demon or even an alien. The reason is that we have now experience of such spontaneous interventions. See Two Powers

Vanish

Thoughts and feelings constantly appear and then disappear, sometimes never to be seen or captured again. This is the magical world of mind and emotion, where things emerge out of the vast world of the unconscious and vanish again. Therefore, vanishing suggests you are losing awareness of something. In this case it indicates something that is manipulated by or emerges from the unconscious. Unconscious – What Is It 

Person or animal that vanishes: Love for someone which has gone, or something we realised or learned which we have lost sight of. It could also be an independent part of you that you cannot yet direct.

In Jung’s book Man and His Symbols, Marie von Franz says, ‘Thus our dream life creates a meandering pattern in which individual strands or tendencies become visible, then vanish, then return again. If one watches this meandering design over a long period of time, one can observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, one can watch this at work by noting many dreams from the same individual over a period of time. When one does this ‘tendencies become visible, then vanish, then return again. …… one can observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, creating a slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth-the process of individuation.’ See Self-regulation

Example: ‘I have been a widower since Jan. 1979, having married in Oct. 1941. I continually dream I am in London where my business was. I am walking the streets with my wife and suddenly I see her ahead of me in a yellow raincoat and hat. I call her and try to catch up, but suddenly she vanishes. In spite of calling and searching I cannot find her.’ Douglas G.

This is a common theme dreamt by widowers or widows – disappearance of spouse. Douglas has ‘lost’ his wife. His dream shows the paradox of love after death of partner. He is struggling with his realisation that his partner might die. See Inner People

At a certain time of life women start unconsciously worrying about ‘losing their husband’. That is probably either because they know women live longer, or that you are unconsciously worried about your man. Women know men often die before them as women are longer lived, so they dream of a husband’s death as a way of getting used to the loss.

Person or animal who vanishes: Love for someone that has gone; something we realised or learned which we have lost sight of; an autonomous part of self which we cannot yet direct. See: autonomous complex.

Vase

Womb; receptivity; our ability to contain something and supporting its growth.

The meaning depends upon what vase you dream of, for vases are used for all type of purpose. Vases are often used to hold the ashes of a persons cremated body so look up Death – Who said it was the End?; as a point of  beauty in a home; because the vase has an illustration on it meaningful to the owner; for flower decoraton; because of past associations connected to the vase or a person. See Working With Dreams

With flowers: Sense of beauty and growth emerging out of receptivity; could be brothers and sisters. See: Cup.

Vault

The womb; your store of resources; sexual potency; memories; unrealised wisdom, influences from the past. If the vault is used for burial, then it links with feelings you have about death, dying or the dead.  See: Death; Womb; Death What do you think happens.

But vault can also connect with vaulting so look up Archetype of the Athlete. Or a bank vault which may relate to your deeply unconscious resources. What you value intensely and are trying to protect or hide, your potential or reserves. See Bank

Does this have something to do with family beliefs or influences if I am dreaming about vaults, for we store precious memories deep within us, and this can often be symbolised by a vault. See Memory and DreamsWorking With Dreams

 

Vd – Venereal

Sense of being unclean in sexual life, or an unhealthy sexual attitude. Because this involved infection passed from one person to another, it shows you feeling infected by another person’s sexual attitudes or relationship with them. Or this could be an expression of your awareness of your fears about getting an infection, or the hurts that infect your sexual feelings.

The name is venereal disease, so it is about  a form of illness that can be contracted by sexual contact. But dreams see illness as more than a physical thing, so dreams about VD might be referring to the damage you can do to yourself or others by your attitudes and sexual behaviour. That sort of illness is depicted below.

As I lay down exploring my dream the pain in the head increased. I felt sick and dizzy.  My body began to jerk and it was like words being forcefully squeezed out of my body.  It feels as if those words, and the emotions pouring out with them, were literally in the body, like juice is in an apple, and the process squeezes out this painful juice.

At first the words were just a jumble of noise being pushed out as my body cramped up and squeezed.  Then I was shouting out ‘I’ve got VD I’ve got VD’.  Then every so often I would gasp out ‘A father…s father…’

Then I could feel some real deep emotion in my chest just beginning to come up. ‘Dirty, I’m dirty,’ I was shouting.  ‘I’m a father and I’m dirty’.  Then my body just gave a big heave like I was having a baby or something, or a tooth out, and I was just one frozen block of pain, and a great moan of pain came out.  I was sobbing and moaning about my children.  Hardly able to say it because of the pain and sobbing, nevertheless the words squeezed out of me ‘D…. Duh …Does a… Does a father…’  I just couldn’t go on for a while.  My body contorted up with this inner emotional pain again, and a sort of bellow of it came up from deep down.  Then the words came again.  ‘Does a father…Does a father kill his children?’

See Sex and Identity – Sex

Vegetable

Your basic down to earth needs. It might also be a dream suggesting your dietary needs. See: Food.

“The root of the word ‘vegetable” means the very opposite of dullness and inactivity: to animate. invigorate, enliven, grow, refresh and vivify’. The concept of a vegetable soul that nourishes all living things goes back to classical Greece; it passed then into the Hermetic and alchemical philosophies of the Renaissance. Humankind is viewed as having a tripartite soul, including the vegetable. animal and rational.”  By Rosemary Guiley  See Levels of the Brain and Dreams

We often use the word vegetable or vegetate to mean someone has lost all their drive and creativity or spark. So, your dream might be referring to that. See Signs of consciousness in People who are Considered Vegetative

Vegetables are also about growth, and the largely unconscious processes of growth in you. They indicate your fundamental relationship with life and your environment. Your dream might of course be about your dietary needs.  See: Eating

If long as carrot: Can sometimes suggest male sexuality. If a woman’s dream – feelings about sex with male. If male dream – your own sexuality.

Onion: Something to cry about; also, the different layers of yourself – inner self, outer self, body, mind, spirit. See Veneer; Brain levels 

See: vegetables under food.

Vegetarian

Restraint from passion, aggressiveness and destruction. The cleansing of self of actions and desires arising from sexual, aggressive urges, and thus a greater realisation of the spirit. It does not, as a symbol, represent the repression of aggressiveness and sexuality, but suggests a search for urges arising from something other than instinctive drives..

Veil

This can suggest several things. It indicates something you want to hide or half-hide. It can be knowledge, ideas, feelings, motives, intentions, secrets you wish were not on view. Veils can suggest shyness, modesty, mystery, being a flirt, or trying to tempt or enticement. Or are you hiding because you lack confidence.

Is there is something you want to hide. It is often used to represent the veil the senses cast over reality; the veil that hides real contact between the spirit and our personal awareness, the ability that pierces the veil of forms to enter that radiant light beyond all light which seems the very matrix of existence.

“But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil.” 1 Corinthians 11:4–16

This was because of the sexual temptation that St Paul felt would happen if women openly showed their faces or their body. The same in Islamic countries where women and men were separated. In some sects of Christianity, the women sit separated from the men, with heads covered.

In marriage the veil is said to represent purity – which meant she was a virgin. In fact it was the custom to show a sheet with blood on it after the first night of marriage to say that the woman had never had sex before and would bleed. The marriage ceremony was very biologically and sexually based, for if the woman never had sex with her husband the marriage was dissolved – in fact they were never marriage. Marriage was the coming together of a male and a female in sexual union, which makes a mockery of two males marrying in church. Marriage was to beget a child from the body of a woman through marriage.

Also the veil that often people use to hide from themselves the real meaning of dreams, the messages from beyond. There is also the veil of forgetfulness that hides things from us. We are often behind a veil hiding us from people on the other side of the veil, but also hiding from us what is beyond them.

Our way of dropping the ignorance of our mind and emotions, and meeting our karma, or inherited tendencies, which usually veil our own Self. A way to veil you from your own shortcomings.

The ability to shut the world out, or to remain withdrawn in sleep, and sometimes the veil between life and death, or sensory impressions and extra sensory impressions. To part the curtains shows you are no longer afraid of death, and have entered the realm of spirit.

A veil is also used in bee-keeping. It protects one from being stung.

 Example: If dreams prophesy the future, if visions which present themselves to the mind during sleep afford some indicia whereby to divine future things—dreams will be at the same time true and obscure, and even in their obscurity the truth will reside. “The gods with a thick veil have covered human life.” [Hesiod]

Example: “And it is not vouchsafed to a mortal that Allah should speak to him except by revelation or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger and revealing by His permission what He pleases. Surely He is High, Wise.”

Example: First let me start off by explaining that I have recently come into a major life realization and change. I have found out that I have been emotionally abused my entire life by my mother who has a very bad personality disorder called NPD – Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For those of you who don’t know about it, it affects your entire life, self esteem, relationships, career, etc. When I found out it was like the veil was lifted and I was seeing my reality and all the things I was living in denial about for 34 years. So, my process of healing has begun as I am trying to undo many negative patterns that my mother inflicted in my subconscious. It is not easy and I have very deep depression that I am trying to overcome in addition to anxiety and frequent panic attacks.

Example: ‘In this age brothers, we are almost through the veil that has hid us from ourselves. Come, let us break through!’ From Do You Dream

Example: I will battle you. I will stand my ground. You have flayed me alive with your negation. I point my naked terror at you in defiance that is all my own. I will rip your black veil open into clear light. The blazing shine will melt you into India ink.

Example: I am dressed in Army fatigues and spend a lot of time crawling on my stomach after doors are thrown open. My female companion wears a veil over her face so people will think she is a virgin which will make it easier for us to get into each apartment. Each apartment has people worse than the last – mentally ill, physically sick, old, crippled. Nearly everyone is fucked up in this building.  

Veneer

Your outward self, which is shallow, and may hide desires, longings, reactions, that are quite different, and of a rougher or coarser quality. If peeled away, the veneer might also reveal what is under the surface, previously unconscious fears or wonders in you.

It is obvious that we have different layers or levels of experience within us.  As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991). Each new level, as it developed, elaborated on and extended the function of the preceding levels. So, from the spinal cord the hindbrain and midbrain developed. The first level of brain that developed beyond the spinal cord has been called the Reptilian Brain. This is because what we carry within our human brain is still found in reptiles. This ‘brain’ often encompasses several parts of the physical brain.  MacLean’s definition says that the base brain is the Reptilian. The next level he called the Mammalian or Monkey Brain, and the third is called the Neomammalian or Human Brain. These levels of the brain work like “three interconnected biological computers, each with its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own memory”.

So what you are aware of as yourself is only a tiny thing, a veneer behind which is much older and powerful levels of awareness. So we ‘put on a front’ and behind it we are often very different. See Brain levels – Dimensions of Human Experience

Vermin

The fears or anxieties you have; your sense of horror or repulsion about something, or some aspect of society or human behaviour. Irritations or thoughts that are ‘bugging’ you. Frightening or disturbing instincts or urges.

What you sense as sick or negative, so can depict your fears or anxieties, frightening instincts or urges, physical sickness or anxieties about health. Perhaps also feelings of sexual repulsion or using sex to gain material aims. But the sense that rats bring disease and dirt was caused by the fallacy that rats carried the plague and are unclean, but rats are very clean. It was found out by historical research that it wasn’t the rat that brought the plague to Europe but the gerbil was the culprit.

Sometimes a rat in your dream can remind you of love that was betrayed, or intuitions about a person being a ‘rat’ or ‘ratting on you’ – doing things behind your back or underhandedly – or deserting a relationship when difficulties arise.

The rats can point to threatening things going on that you are not clear about, or a view of the underhanded side of yourself or others – the evil side of human nature, its dirt and squalor, or time gnawing away at your life. The unacceptable parts or oneself.

In some dreams the rat has the character of most rodents, the gnawing inquisitive searching out of things. It can therefore relate to one’s anxieties, self-questioning and worrying mind that disturbs or eats away at things like peace of mind or confidence.

For some people the mouse depicts their feelings of revulsion, filth, horror, an influence that is unconsciously but persistently pervading their life and response to things.

 Example: I saw that the place was infested with mice, and was somewhat dismayed. Then I took off, or shook out, my jersey or shirt, into a bathtub full of soapy water. Hundreds of mice fell into the tub. I saw that they all died in there as the bubbles dispersed a little. Then my wife and my mother were with me, and I told my wife she must make an effort to put all the food away and into containers, as if the mice found nothing to eat they would go away. TP.

Example: A mouse darted across the kitchen work surface and I caught it by placing a clear glass cover over it so it couldn’t escape. I was upset because mice are unhygienic but I didn’t know how to keep them out. I was trying to stop somebody from lifting one of the covers off the mouse but they lifted it anyway and the mouse ran out. I turned and moved away quickly so the mouse wouldn’t run up my arm. I turned my back on it and crouched down, hunching my shoulders up. But the mouse ran up the back of my clothing, under several layers, and got trapped at the back of my neck. In the dream the scenario was horrific for me as this little mouse was wriggling around inside my clothes desperate to escape and I wanted it out ASAP but didn’t want to hurt it. I was annoyed that it had run up MY back. It could have run up anybody’s back so why did it have to run up mine? CJ

As these two dreams show, the dream mouse can generate great feelings of revulsion. The last dream also illustrates a feeling that was trapped, but then released and travelled up the trunk of the dreamer. This is typical of released feelings that have been repressed and held in the body. The upwards movement showing the shift toward consciousness.

 Example: I could now see that it was a small white mouse that moved. It was walking towards the children’s bedroom. We were all staying in a friend’s seaside holiday cottage at the time. I asked my wife what a white mouse was doing in the house, and thought maybe it had been a pet left by a previous holidaying family. Wanting to catch the mouse I got out of bed and went towards it. As I did so I saw that it was not just white, but shining, very beautifully. It also seemed to grow larger. First to the size of a rat, then to that of a cat. I was now close to it and it looked enormous, shining with an inner light, white and radiant. It was a thing of beauty. Its eyes especially struck me; pink but also shining.

Dreaming of insects can indicate irritations or feeling something is ‘bugging’ one; feeling insignificant – the ant in the mass of other ants.

It can also relate to the automatic unfeeling processes of life; cold unfeeling urges; sexual urges, especially with cock-roaches – insects may also represent the sperm swarming toward the ovum, and therefore may deal with pregnancy.

See: Insects; Mouse; Rat.

Vertigo

Anxieties, loss of confidence. It might also suggest you are on the verge of what you usually allow yourself to experience – the shallows of the mind. So you sense a vastness that makes you feel uncomfortable or anxious. See: Acrophobia

Vet Veterinarian

The healing energies capable of helping the instinctive and unconscious self to become acceptable and functioning in conscious life.

Very similar to doctor, only caring for our animal nature. Jung write of this in saying Christ himself symbolically appears as the Lamb of God or the Fish, but he is also the serpent exalted on the cross, the lion, and in rarer cases the unicorn. These animal attributes of Christ indicate that even the Son of God (the supreme personification of man) can no more dispense with his animal nature than with his higher, spiritual nature. See The Spiritual Path

That is particularly so of humans who are often divided from their fundamental animal self. For you as a person are a tiny spark of consciousness, a little bit of self awareness, for you are the latest face/person riding an incredibly ancient beat that you call your body. Remember that your body has formed from cells and genetic information that has gradually developed over millions of years. It holds that information in itself, unconsciously.  See animals; doctor; Seed.

Vibrate Vibrating Shake Shaking

Vibration and shaking is movement, and movement is one of the main signs of life. Life and growth are interwoven, and one of the first signs of massive personal growth or change is shaking or vibration in the body or pelvic movement or even electricity running through your body. That was why the Quakers used that name, because they shook or quaked as they were moved by the Life Force or as many people call it – God; also the Shakers had the same experience.

The push to grow is often thought to come from ambition or ones urge to succeed in life, but that growth is usually from our personality, but the major source of physical and psychological growth is from the process of life. People tend to think of life as an automatic and senseless process. But human experience in personal growth points in another direction. The next example is from a man who had repressed hid sexual feelings for years because of a personal problem. The example shows what happened when he began to emerge from the repression. See Potential

 Example: But very shortly the urge arose strongly again, this time for O. to handle my genitals, and to suckle her breast. As this happened, the most tremendous sexual feelings arose, and I began to shake and vibrate at the pelvis with pleasure.

The vibration is often a sign of what is often called spiritual growth, but is better named the emergence of a person’s innate immense potential. Here is a man describing what, because I know his history, was the first sign of great personal growth. See Life

 Example: There was a peculiar conscious and semiconscious experience without dream images. My hips and pubic area vibrated. Moved is not the right word, as the movement was too quick. I have seen the movement on a buck rabbit during mating. Not really a backward or forward movement, but very rapid vibration. This occurred with me quite spontaneously, and I relaxed and let it happen. There was no direction as far as I know. It happened about four or five times, then as I became more conscious, disappeared.

The dreamer felt sure it was a process of loosening up his body and allowing the Life process to do it work of personal growth.

An excellent and full example:

It was with much interest that I read the article by Tony Crisp in the May issue of YOGA & HEALTH concerning the Chakras. 

Many years ago, over a period of about two years, I had constant experiences of the shaking and trembling which Mr. Crisp described in his article. I was very young at the time, happily married with a baby daughter, and although considered to be highly strung, was neither repressed nor mentally disturbed. 

These ‘attacks’ would come upon me almost every night. I would be quite relaxed … and then the quivering would start, very gently at first. It would begin in my toes and then gradually work upwards throughout the whole of my body until it increased in intensity until I seemed to be one great overwhelming vibration. At this point I would feel that some thing or some power was trying to take over, and I would sweat with the effort of holding onto myself. There seemed also to be a great void full of brown light opening beneath me into which I could feel myself sinking. 

I saw several doctors and specialists (my family were very worried about me) but they could find nothing wrong; the symptoms were something they could not account for at all, and they eventually decided that my strange condition was due to ‘nerves’. 

Eventually the experiences ceased, but very soon afterwards, I began to be very interested in Yoga with which I have now been actively associated for nearly twenty years. 

Deep within my heart, I knew that what I had experienced all those years ago was not due to ‘nerves’, and am now convinced that, had I not been overcome with fear, I would have been fortunate enough to undergo some enlightening spiritual experience. 

Because of this knowledge, although practising Hatha Yoga for physical and mental fitness, the real area of my interest lies in the study of Yoga as a whole … as a way of life and as a path towards enlightenment and liberation. And I know too that the experience I had thought to be meaningless and frightening had after all a meaning far beyond my comprehension. Thank you Tony Crisp for confirming and deepening my belief. Mrs. J

Now a description as the person is learning to work with the Life process.

 Example: Somehow I felt Life was working on me in this stillness, healing the memory of this traumatic event in me. Then, gradually, a new movement started. I began to shake in the genital movement, my whole body vibrating at fantastic speed. This, I knew, was the full movement, and it had only now been able to break through properly due at last, to the clearing of the enormous fear.

Because such vibrations emerge from the Life process which move us spontaneously – as when we carry on breathing, a spontaneous movement, even while in deep sleep – it can be seen to not be something the person consciously produces, as in the next example.

 Example: The vibration was not nearly as fast as it was this time. It is like a very rapid tremor involving the whole body, emanating from the base of the trunk. My wife told me that over the last few weeks she has seen me vibrate like this in sleep several times. She saw me because she had to get up to see to the baby.

Here is someone exploration of their dream which describes how the power of Life works in one.

 Example: Great power was being brought to the present life from the past. The present personality will be used to express to many the great power that lives deep within. When your body vibrates during sleep, work is being done on the lower parts of your body. They are being prepared to act as channels for more and more power.

The bent gun represents down-bent sexuality or power. Being bent by Les means that through loving with attachment the power has been directed down instead of up the spine.

The path of the snake through the earth is the path of the energy through the body. The brush is the cleansing of these channels. Like power being expressed in your life, the lower powers must cleanse their pathways. See The Dowflowing and Upflowing Life Energy

Example: What I am given to understand is that once those organs start to function it begins to transform the body. New energy or different levels of energy flow through the body. Sometimes the person feels themselves vibrating either as they meditate or in sleep, and this is a sign of that new energy. It also shows that in some way, as suggested in the analogy of the seed, when the seed produces a stem and pushes above the soil, it can take in the energy of the sun. So as these organs unfold in a person they become almost like leaves that taking this new energy in. See Dimensions of Human Experience

Here is a full experience, a sort of enlightenment that says it all.

 Example: I am in a landscape and notice that everything is brown; the whole world is brown and lifeless. There is also a feeling of solemnity or dullness. I have enough lucidity to wonder why the world of my dream is so brown and dull. As I ask this I become more aware of what feeling the brownness expresses. It is seriousness – with no room for humour or fun. The feeling deepens, real enough and clear enough to look at and understand. I see it is my father’s attitude to life that I have unconsciously inherited. I realise how anxious he always felt about life, and how I took this in. That is how I became a ‘brown’ person. I see too that I do not need to be either brown or serious anymore.

Then the landscape changes. There are trees, plants and animals in brilliant colour. I wonder what this means, and the landscape begins to spin until the colours blend and shimmer. Suddenly my body seems to open to them, as if they are spinning inside of me, and with a most glorious feeling, a sensation of vibrating energy pours up my trunk to my head. With this comes realisation. I see how stupid I have been in my brown anxious existence, how much life I have held back. The animals and plants are the different forces in my being that blend into energy and awareness. I feel I am capable of doing almost anything, like loving, writing a song, painting, telepathy, or speaking with the dead. This sparkling vibrating energy is life itself and can, if I learn to work with it, I can grow into any ability or direction I choose. I wake with a wonderful sense of my possibilities.

See Water WonderlandLife’s Little SecretsPeople’s Experience of LifeStream

Victim Victimised

Feeling victimised; having a passive relationship with others, or one’s own internal aggression; the aspect of self which one has injured or murdered by repression or moral condemnation. This might be saying that you are not acknowledging or expressing your own wants or needs. It might also be that you are victimising someone else who is not strong enough to stand against your desires or will.See: murder; aggression

The situation of being a victim is a central and a key point so time will be taken with it.

We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Therefore, it is wise to be able to recognize that these are habits of reaction to events. We might say we are victims of the world or life. But we can alter it by learning how to change our habits. And it started for me a long time ago because I had to learn things without which no change could have taken place. I do not mean book learning but learning by living it. The first thing I remember learning was that I could change habits. Fortunately, it was a simple habit. I noticed that as I walked through the building I worked in I left the doors open. I believe I had read somewhere that the only difference between a criminal and a successful person was their habits. So, whenever I left a door open I would close it – even if I had forgotten and walked on, I turned around and closed it. Within a short time, it became anew habit to close doors, all done now without effort. So, that was the first thing I learned, and then moved into greater challenges with our psychological habits. These were hard because many of them were unconscious and I had to dig deep to find them. See The Healing Experience

The next thing I needed to learn was that we are all victims, but we do not admit it. What I mean is that we are all victims of beliefs, convictions, word people say, what people or parents have told us or hit us about – and I am not talking about traumas. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Your natural response to your environment is to be influenced by it. A disturbing event would stimulate you to feel fear, a calming event to feel pleasure. Your moods are usually influenced by what happens to you. So, being in prison would be more depressing than being free. Being rejected would cause more pain than being admired or loved.

Our emotions and feelings about ourselves are like a keyboard that is played upon by people and events. If we are praised or rewarded our self confidence and therefore performance will usually be enhanced. That is fine except it means we will usually depend upon the world to create our moods and our sense of our own value. This makes us victims. We may not be dependent on a drug, but on praise, success, being admired or wanted. Without them we may experience the lows the drug user does on withdrawal.

So, we need to see how events, words, our own thoughts are playing on our own victimisation. If you learn these two you are taking steps toward your own wellbeing. Change the habit of being a victim. See I Had Been In That Direction A Thousand Times

However, there is an extraordinary possibility. This dream of Ed’s explains it.

I was in a prison with several others – all in one cell. It felt as if I had been in the prison for years. I was standing near the bars angry and shouting about the injustice of my incarceration.

As I stood raging I suddenly realised that all my anger was having no affect on the world. I was the only one suffering it. I saw that the peace and freedom I wanted from release I could have now by letting go of my anger. I would then be in peace, and would be free of my own negative emotions. So I let go of he feelings I had about my judges and gaolers, and a change came over me. In the following years I learned to drop the other ideas and emotions I tortured myself with. Then one day I woke and was filled with joy until my bliss filled the cell. In this way all had changed for me. In a strange way I was now utterly free even though in prison.

The greatest prison of all, the greatest of torturers, is our own thoughts, emotions and our concepts or ideas. While Ed felt angry and held the idea he had been wrongly accused, he was tormented and trapped – imprisoned in his own ideas and emotions. To have received a public apology and released would have changed his feelings, but he would still have remained a passive victim of events. Instead he found in his dream the greatest freedom of all – a blissful freedom – the release from his ‘natural mind and emotions.

For instance, if a married woman with two children falls in love with a man outside of her marriage, and her family and cultural values stress the wrongness of such feelings, she is likely to experience enormous conflict. This conflict could lead to depression, withdrawal or suicide. But in the end what she is struggling with is the opposition between personal drives – her love for the man – and her cultural and family standards. If we look at the way men and women live and survive throughout the world, then such standards appear purely local. They are not innate, so, underlying the ‘local’ customs she is trying to honour but is in conflict with it, but there exists a human potential for many different ways of dealing with love and attraction. See Learning to Love 

Being the victim: Feeling victimised; often depicts the chip on our shoulder. We may have been hurt sometime and go on bemoaning our fate. The ‘chip’ may be useful in avoiding real responsibility or in hiding from trying out ones positive creativity or sexuality. Thus we avoid possible failure or further hurt. This is a form of blaming that puts all responsibility onto others.

Example: We all have so many feelings, like keys that can be pressed, and when pressed by outer influences such as social pressure, beliefs or things said to us, we can be played like a merry or awful tune. We react to them all in various ways.

And nearly all reactions are habits, and the trick of shifting them is to start a new habit. Such habitual responses may be built into us as instinctive reactions – to scary circumstances, feeling hurt, the fight, flight or freeze response and so on.

Other person as victim: May still be as above; the hurts and damage received from relationship with others; passive anger – by being the victim we get someone else to be a bastard and can thus sneer at them because we have manipulated them; hidden desires to avoid success, perhaps as a way of hurting parent.

See Avoid being a Victim – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im_SmDVn1ZI

 

Village

Possibly relates to your childhood, or quiet homely feelings. It might point to you being rural or unsophisticated in a business or commercial sense or indicate past values. Such dreams often hide an immense and important information as example below.

Village of your birth, childhood or home: The experiences, values and attitudes which prevailed at that period. See: City and town. 

Example: “I was, I think, trying to clear up in the house and village of my childhood. ‘Clear up’ what, I am not sure. There was a sense that something had come to an end and the house must be prepared for a new phase. To this purpose, I was gingerly setting about taking down the curtains that hung in the bow window of the front room. The curtains, I was aware, had been left there by my mother. She was gone now. Perhaps she was dead, or perhaps – I seem to remember seeing this out of the corner of my dreaming eye – she had recently been rejuvenated to a state of girlhood in a kind of reincarnation. The curtains seemed to be made of bubble wrap. They were perforated horizontally with ‘dotted lines’ at two levels – midway and just below the curtain-rail. I was tearing down the right-hand curtain along the lower of the two dotted lines, at the mid-point. I was unsure, however, that I was doing the right thing.

“My sister was standing a little way to my left, looking on.

“‘Will we have to put this back up?’ I asked her.

“There was something confused about the question. I wanted to know whether I should be tearing at the mid-point or the higher point, but it was not really clear that only tearing half of the curtains down was an effective compromise if they needed to be put back up again.

“‘No,’ she replied, ‘the whole lot can come down.’”

An interpretation of the dream: “What a story your dream tells! You start by clearing up the house of your childhood. In the language of dreams that says you are trying to clear up the mess created by your childhood experiences or traumas.

Something had come to an end, indicating a new phase of your life is about to begin but remember that swing overs have a period where nothing appears to happen because the ending of one phase and the beginning of another takes time. As your dream emphasised, “preparation for a new phase.”

You start by gingerly taking down curtains that seemed to be made of bubble wrap.  Bubble wrap is used to protect things, which probably relates to protection of you – something left by your mother. Gingerly taking down shows that you were uncertain about taking down the protection that probably indicates you were experiencing anxiety about being exposed to what is outside; a situation suggesting that your mother was a very anxious person and passed it on to you.

But you said, “She was gone now. Perhaps she was dead, or perhaps – I seem to remember seeing this out of the corner of my dreaming eye – she had recently been rejuvenated to a state of girlhood in a kind of reincarnation.”

This is saying that you have rejuvenated your view of your mother to that of a young girl – not the mother figure that as a child you were totally dependent on. Then your sister comes into it, a completely different figure than the dreamt of mother. I feel she is an older sister who cared for you in a different way to your mother.

“‘Will we have to put this back up?’ I asked her. “I was not really clear that only tearing half of the curtains down was an effective compromise if they needed to be put back up again.”

But the more positive and caring side says, “’No,’ she replied, ‘the whole lot can come down.”

I see this as telling you that all the protective material you have been living behind is now being torn down, obviously by enormous changes within you.”

See: Town.

Vine

Your connections with family and ancestors; growth or fruitfulness of parts of self; the transcendent in your life. The vine is what you have created in your life through the use of your potential, your ‘talents’. It links with your most valuable assets, more important than money or belongings – namely your creative and timeless possibility.

There is a life I’ve seen,
Beyond the limits of fear,
Outside the prison of conditioning,
And through the walls of pain.

I have breathed that life.
The blood of it has
Run through me warm and rich.
The fruits of its vine
Are in my limbs
Sinuous and strong.

In their own words I heard them saying to me something like ‘The worst was they did not kill us, but they cut our vine at the roots. They burnt our land and they killed our children. If you want your sons to live, teach them not to hold their head up, but to keep their eyes on the ground.’

And this tender mighty vine, that could be torn apart by a babe, yet is indestructible, takes the water that could rot it, and makes of it streams of delight within its being. For the emotions that were rotten within us become fountains of pleasure. So is the burning sunlight that threatened to kill, taken in and made as life. For the as yet-unknown is for many like unto a threat of death, and to enter into it is destruction. To this vine come the wise men, who are our own wonders, the treasures and riches of our own past life and lives, now unlocked to us, and built into our new growth. For in the earth, water and air of our being, lie all the treasures of our past, our wisdom learnt through pain and years; our talents dug long labouring from within.

Then the light of my stars will shine forth. I will stand upon a hill, and men will be bronzed by the light of the sun. The vine of my soul will rise up in the light and bear fruit and the truth of my being will enhance the truth in other beings. But now, in the light of this light there is a call. You are neither darkness nor light, it says. Neither stars nor earth, form nor formless, but the essence of all. Therefore, why deny the dark or worship the light? Why cling to the world or drop into the void? Why fight the devil and worship God, for all these are contradictions. If there is God who is ruler of all, there can be no devil. Your fight with the devil is but an affirmation of his reality and of God’s non-existence.

Occasionally the vine or creeper represents the spine and the flow of life up the body. If there are flowers on it, then it shows the opening of potentials. So cutting back a creeper or vine can suggest controlling or stopping urges and emotions that have been growing, perhaps even overwhelming you, such as happens sometimes in love.

In some dreams a vine or creeper links the earth with heaven or the sky. This suggests the rising spinal energy that lights up areas of the brain that are usually dormant, thus arousing altered states of consciousness.

Occasionally the vine or creeper represents the spine and the flow of life up the body. If there are flowers on it, then it shows the opening of potentials. So cutting back a creeper or vine can suggest controlling or stopping urges and emotions that have been growing, perhaps even overwhelming you, such as happens sometimes in love.

In some dreams a vine or creeper links the earth with heaven or the sky. This suggests the rising spinal energy that lights up areas of the brain that are usually dormant, thus arousing altered states of consciousness.

Idioms: Clinging vine. See: creeper; tree.

Violet

indigo – violet This depends a great deal on what you associate with these colours.

Violet: Mostly appears in dreams containing a deep sense of ones eternal nature and the life that includes, but stretches beyond the body. It may also include intuitive awareness or universal love. A wisdom arising from an extended awareness.

The flower violet suggest shyness, perhaps a passive quietness, as suggested by the idiom, a shrinking violet.

Also a girl’s name that dozed quietly for decades, Violet was popular a hundred years ago, then began its steep descent by 1920, bottoming out in the early 1980s. But it started rising again about a decade ago and climbed even more sharply after Garner and Affleck chose it for their daughter. Today, Violet is near the top of the charts, joining other such popular flower names as Lily, Daisy, and Rose. Viola is the Italian and Scandinavian version, used by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. Violetta is the frillier, more operatic version.

Useful questions:

What are my immediate feelings and associations with this colour?

What feelings were linked with this colour in the dream, and what do I gather from those feelings?

Have I been thinking on or feeling things to do with the spiritual dimension of life – if so what?

Am I or a relative or friend named Violet – if so what are my imprssionsw of her?

See: Colours.

Violin

Your heartfelt feelings and longings. Pathos or subtle feelings, or may express innermost feelings, or urges.

This shows how well you can express your flowing feelings and spontaneous creativity. In some dreams it is linked with what you feel about sex or your genitals, and how well you express pleasure and feelings sexually. Sometimes it might be depicting the mind.

At times playing the violin can also represent sexual intercourse, or even masturbation. If so it is doing it as a symbol, suggesting you are not directly owning your sexual feelings. See: Fiddle; Music; Musical instrument.

If you are a violinist, in the dream is indicates a special feeling or event you are faced with regarding your skill and feelings.  See Being the Person or Thing

“For once you are going to hear a dream, I dreamed all this: never could my poor head have in-vented such a thing purposely. “Schumann claimed he recorded a song that he heard in a dream, and in 1954, Steve Allen recalled from a dream portions of what has become his most popular song, This Could Be the Start of Something Big.’ At the age of twenty-one, Guiseppe Tartini had a dream in which he handed his violin to the devil:

But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flights of my imagination. I awoke. Seizing my violin, I tried to retain the sounds I had heard. But it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the “Devil’s Sonata,” was the best I ever wrote, but how far below the one I had heard in my dream.’

Virgin

State of being which is free of preconceptions; receptivity; girlhood or innocence.

Eliot described it well when he wrote: “I said to my soul be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing: wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing.”

“There is yet faith. But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

This represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and thus being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self. Christianity named this the holy ghost impregnating Mary. But older cultures also depicted this inner state of fertile receptivity as well. For instance Egypt expressed this human possibility in the form of Isis. The Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl was born by a virgin named Chimalman, to whom the god Onteol appeared in a dream. Also Buddha’s mother Queen Maya, is said to have dreamt that a six-tusked elephant pierced her side with one of its tusks. This produced an immaculate conception. She understood the dream to mean the resulting child would become a monarch whose domain was the world. What we usually fail to realise is that this is not about an external historical person, but an inner truth about everyone.

Example: I just turned 18 a few weeks ago and I don’t quite understand why I keep having this dream. I had a detailed dream about being pregnant, which I currently am not (I’m a virgin). In my dream I didn’t know I was pregnant, nor did I show any signs or symptoms that I was. While I was studying in my cosmetology class during the summer, I started feeling some pains that I couldn’t describe. At first I had thought I was starting my monthly period, but it was nothing like I had ever felt before. Once my teacher started to notice, she took me to the hospital and the doctors said I was going in to labor. Later that day I had a beautiful premature baby boy named Noah. I didn’t quite understand how it happened, but I saw it as a miracle. He was so healthy, and somehow my parents saw it as a blessing.

Dear young woman, it is natural to dream of having a baby, and a beautiful one too. It is because you are a woman and have the wonderful ability to help Life create another being. And it doesn’t matter that there is no father – don’t you remember the story of Mary and the virgin birth? Unfortunately, the church has mixed us up over it, claiming it only happened once. But it is about the wonder of women and their ability to create – it is about every woman. You have brought forth something that only Life has given you – as the story says – and it is a special and holy inner child that will grow and mature if you care for it. Remember, you have the power of creation, and that was seen as holy in past cultures. So, please read Woman’s Creative Power

When we experience this personally as in the example, the child we conceive is the union between the receptive conscious self and wider awareness or Life. This receptivity and virginity of mind leads to the birth in oneself of a force or activity that gradually transforms and enlarges one’s life and experience. For it is your own enormous potential that often gets squashed by our education. In the west we call what grows in us ‘The Christ’. Other cultures give it different names. See Potential Virgin – How I became One

In a woman’s dream: Oneself if still a virgin; a daughter; that one has had sex doesn’t mean that ones girlhood feelings actually were met and mated with. These might very well reappear in a new relationship or in a phase of ones marriage.

In a man’s dream: Ones feeling self which is receptive; ones soul or psyche; the aspect of oneself which can connect with expanded awareness because it can rid itself of preconceptions. See: How I Became A VirginMary – virgin.

Virgin Birth

This represents motherhood or the positive and even holy feelings about ones mother that arise in one at a very early age. But Mary is also a symbol of religious openness or receptivity.

This represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and through that being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self. Christianity named this the Holy Ghost. But older cultures also depicted this inner state of fertile receptivity. For instance Egypt expressed this human possibility in the form of Isis. Also Buddha’s mother Queen Maya, in 500BC, is said to have dreamt that a six-tusked elephant pierced her side with one of its tusks. This produced an immaculate conception. She understood the dream to mean the resulting child would become a monarch whose domain was the world. So the idea of virgin birth was not new to Christianity.

When we experience this personally, the child we conceive is the union between the receptive conscious self and wider awareness. This receptivity and virginity of mind leads to the birth in oneself of a force or activity that gradually transforms and enlarges ones life and experience. In the west we call what grows in us ‘The Christ’. Other cultures give it different names. See: How I Became A VirginLifestream; Archetype of the Christ; archetypeof great mother; virginMeetings with Christ.

Generally speaking, outside of the Catholic faith, the image of the Virgin Mary is smiled upon. Even where critics point out that many older religions also had virgin deities who gave birth to a holy child, they still often fail to see its significance as far as mankind is concerned. This does not mean, however, that a few with understanding have not openly pointed out that the Virgin Mary represents an active principle in every person. Literally, every person can turn to this for help. But let me explain. Seen as dream symbols, the virgin birth gains a personal, inner significance to the man outside any religious beliefs. From this we can see that Mary represents the intuitive, receptive part of our own nature. Our feelings, our own virgin nature (i.e. that part of us not interfered with by thoughts, doubts, fixed opinions, biases and pre-conceived ideas) is open to new ideas, new opinions, new feelings. So Mary conceiving from the hidden processes of Life means that our own state of receptivity, of freedom from bias and prejudice, of ‘pre-conceived’ ideas, can receive parts of our nature that are as yet unknown. This is really only common sense. No new idea comes to any man with a closed mind and heart. No discovery is ever made by a person who believes they already know it all. To receive the new, we have to have at least a part of our mind ‘virginal’.

As Einstein said, “Knowledge is limited – Imagination circles the world.”

Virus

Fears or feelings that are detrimental to your well-being. A hidden attack, perhaps verbally by someone you know, but you have not been aware of how deeply the influence went. It may also show feelings of uncleanness about something you have done or are involved in. It might also refer to actual bodily infection.

I moved from this to meeting feelings about viral attack. I have become far more aware of such attack over the past few years. I can feel the dropping of my energy as an attack starts and develops. Also, there is a lot of anxiety spread by how much attention the media gives to viral attacks such as we face today. I could feel my own tension in regard to this – viral attack – but could not at first find any resolution of this. I felt how it might become a battle in which one is fighting this way and that, dodging and ducking to avoid defeat. I didn’t want that relationship with illness or a virus. Yet how does one deal with it at a feeling level? This led me to ask for an understanding of viruses. Perhaps if I understood what they did, what place they had in life, then I might be able to find a different approach.

Gradually a subjective image or sense built up of information arising intuitively about viruses. I saw or realised that viruses are like packets of energy, of information. They could be likened to a video recording or a tape recording of music or information. Each video, unless of the same film, holds a different set of data. So, if one video is played a murder film is seen. Another video might produce an educational film about biology – and so on. I saw that each different virus was such a packet of data or information, and that life had produced packets of data about the potential for almost anything. In other words, different viruses could have an infinite number of effects in one system. Some might produce a destructive response, others might produce a positive change in mind or body. They are the information base of life. They are the lumps of information other life forms take and use.

Also I distinctly felt that just as different people going to a video shop would take out different films – some would always take out pornographic or violent films – others might take out tutorial or documentary films – so people actually take into themselves certain types of virus more readily than others. With a pro-life attitude one need not be afraid of viruses. Of course, unconscious negative emotions that are held long without discharge – such as long suppressed guilt, trauma or grief – would attract viruses holding information as destructive as the emotions.

The main point of change for me lay in the feeling that a virus might have a very life enhancing effect, not simply a life destructive one as we are led to believe. At the end I felt I had made an agreement with life for myself, my family that our choice of ‘viral data’ was a life enhancing one. We had chosen to be on the side of life, and this would act as a way of choosing the packets of information we would need for our physical, mental and spiritual growth. We live in the midst of continual change. Part of our fundamental need is to change to meet the altering environment in which we exist. But without care we might choose a direction of change that becomes destructive.

See this wonderful man’s view of all the threats that we all face and how we can come through – climate change; viruses; the end of humanity – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUMqEfxcUWU&feature=youtu.be

Vivisection

An attack on the deeply feeling and intelligent unconscious processes of your being. The animal drives or responses in you, such as flight and fight, the urge to parent and care, are being torn apart or hurt in some way, perhaps by an over rational attitude or views.

Voice or Hearing Voices

This is a very subtle expression of an enormous range of your feelings, hurts, wonder and creativity. The voice also depicts communication, or the reaching out beyond you to cause effects in other people or the environment. So, it is a power that can influence external people, things and events.

Spontaneous speech or a voice that speaks through or to you: Your personality or mind is not a totally unified whole. You do no identify or know some aspects of yourself. Because you disown them, or fail to connect with them, they become split from your main expression. Contacting them may be like meeting a stranger – thus in dreams they are shown as exterior to you, or a separate voice, perhaps disembodied.

Some aspects of you express spontaneously, just as your breathing and digestion does. The voice may therefore be your intuitive expression of unconscious but not integrated parts of you. These may be wonderfully enlightening, or express past pains and abuse. To aid with this see Throat .

Example: I woke in the night to pee. As I was getting ready to climb out of the bed, I remembered a dream. It wasn’t a dream with images, but it was a formless person – a bodiless voice – telling me about my son. It said that my son was destined for success and was a great man. I asked why it was such a struggle for him to find success and was told it was because he was in training for greatness, and that is what it took. I then asked when it would happen and was told when he is 50.

Example: The other day I watched a program on the television in which a man was talking about his relationship with the recent Korean air crash. He said that he was a frequent air traveller, but before boarding that plane he heard a voice saying to him not to get on the plane. He said, “Look, I travel all the time. Why should I hear a voice like that? I think somebody was trying to tell me something.” His explanation of it was that he felt there was some sort of guardian or person caring for him.

Example: I felt like an animal that could not form words and so all it could do to express its intense feelings was to make these sounds over and over. It wasn’t a sound of pain.

Such deep feelings that are made by a beautiful animal consciousness inside me, and it had to slowly rise to the level of human speech. And finally, it poured out of me in the words, “I love myself.” Which actually meant I love something hard to express – something so huge that was everything and everyone that had led me to this realisation that I am an enormous collection of hundreds of people, animals and things beyond understanding.

And that in turn became, “I felt the wonder years ago” all in a voice of great emotion. “I felt that wonder and it has been burning in me ever since.”

Example: ‘My present lover, Tony, and a man I had loved years before, were standing side by side. A voice was telling me to go to Tony.’ Miranda L

Here, Miranda’s unconscious is summarising her feelings and helping her transfer her feelings of love connected with the past, to her new lover. See Voice – Using It

 

Void

The void or abyss in a dream gains its meaning largely from how you respond to it. It suggests a situation you might fall into or be lost in, but it is also space, infinity, a situation or state of mind not limited by form or smallness. Sometimes the abyss is the same as a void, suggesting the formless spirit of life lying within and at the core of all physical formed life. Therefore, it might link with the transcendental or the spiritual life of death.

The strange thing is, every time we go to sleep, we fall into the void where we no longer have any sense of ourselves and are in a sense dead and merge into a huge void, because we have lost any sense of ourselves. But the huge difference is that we have no consciousness of it. In dreaming of or entering the void while awake, we are faced with our own enormity, which is a shock, because our personality is only a very small thing. See Reaction to the unconscious

If fearedFear of losing control, loss of identity, fear of failure, meeting with those dark fears or worries, we hide in our depths; lack of confidence, we fear death in some form and are afraid of the hugeness of the unconscious. Having these fears in no way suggests the external or internal world warrants such anxiety. But lack of confidence will obviously hamper performance in dealing with the difficulties represented by the abyss.

Without fear: Being able to take risks, not be afraid of illness and death in a paralysing way. It suggests going beyond the boundaries of one’s own limitations, concepts, present experience. It represents the enormous personal potential lying beyond already formed conceptions and experience. It is the aspect of human consciousness existing beyond the opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong, light and darkness. Access to this gives tremendous liberation to the dreamer, freeing them from restricting rigid concepts or habits of thinking, responding and relating. See: death; falling; pit; flux dream under void.

In living a full life, we may meet at some time an experience of facing emptiness, of something so primal to existence that it has no form, no future, no past, nothing. This may be a very frightening experience because this void, this core of our existence feels as if it will take everything away. If we are in love, meeting the void seems to say that nothing matters, nothing is important because in the end all is void, all is empty. The strange thing is that if we dare to meet the experience of the void it holds in it the most wonderful transforming influence. Because it is nothing it has the possibility of everything. It helps us break through boundaries that previously held us captive. It frees us from limiting ideas and beliefs. It is a power for change and liberation, it is enlightenment. When meeting the void, it isn’t that the truth about things we experience is taken away. What happens is that everything is seen as true, everything is added not taken away; for we have been living in the absence of this wider life. Every opposite becomes true for us, and this can be incredibly unnerving. It often feels as if meeting it will be like dying and losing everything, like falling into a huge nothingness. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the Nothing is the indefinable everything that underlies your particular life.

In dreams this void may be represented by standing on the edge of a cliff, or by a mysterious emptiness or perhaps by an enormous pit. See: Abyss.

Example: I was standing in front of a mysterious emptiness. It wasn’t like a mist as it was transparent, yet I couldn’t see through it. I felt slightly anxious about it but wanted to explore it. So I slowly extended my hand and arm into it. As my hand entered it disappeared. But as my hand went deeper so a hand slowly emerged from the translucent emptiness, and I realised that whatever I put into this mysterious void came back to me. Benny.

In some profoundly interior experiences, the void and the everyday life of change and form are experienced as coexisting at the same moment. When we meet this there is an experience of liberation. The illusions we hold so tightly to fall away. A man who was suffering great emotional misery, while exploring a dream had the following experience of the void:

Example: Suddenly the image and feeling changed. The view was of a great open space, with a hill and sky in the background. Right in front of me on the ground sloping toward the hill was a stick plunged into the earth, upright. At the top was tied a length of coarse wool. At its end a feather blew in the wind.

It is difficult to explain what all this communicated to me, or led me to experience, but suddenly I was free. There was no pain. Pain arose out of identifying with the mask, the unreal me. My Ego was a shifting unreal thing. The reality was this emptiness within which all the changing events of life took place. I was a part of that emptiness and the changing events. For some reason I saw all this in Red Indian symbols, although I have never read much about them, but I knew that what I was experiencing was also the Void in Zen. It set me utterly free, as I now knew I had always been, could always be. The freedom wasn’t a mysterious or mystic thing, it was totally rational. I had always lived in a national belief system or habits built out of those beliefs or convictions that couldn’t help but lead me into conflict and pain. For I had been convinced the I had been an awful husband and father, and those beliefs had been like a cancerous growth causing immense pain. I had just stepped out of them into a condition where those habits no longer functioned. The change could occur because I had let go of what I thought was ME – and I had been holding on to that so hard it had been the cause of my misery.

Jalaludin Rumi the great poet and mystic wrote:

There was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves; earth existed not, nor heaven above, ’twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere.

Example: One day, perhaps, strange hungers and anxieties assail the patient. He is unnerved by the chair and the door. A chair is to sit on, a door is to go through. Why is it this way and no other? Couldn’t one sit on a door and go through a chair? But the thought fills him with panic. He is an astronaut sailing in a black void where directions have lost all meaning; up and down are useless terms, the polarities of life have ceased to exist. Nothing is true, everything is relative—not only time and space and direction but thoughts as well. As the senses fuse so do the thousand personalities and functions of the mind. The father-in-him and the mother-in-him are encompassed, and all the faces, names, scenes, hatreds, and loves join together, fused into one mighty passion which moves through them all. That passion feeds on the few remaining forms, dissolving the rhythms into light, burning into ecstasy the last vestiges of time and space, self and other, light, sound, and sensation. And when all is gone, it feeds upon itself, dissolving into one blinding radiance of ecstasy.

The following dream illustrates another aspect of the void.

Example: With no real hesitation the woman and I walked into a wall of energy that was in front of us. I believe we knew more or less what would happen – that we would be absorbed and become wholly a part of this life form, or flux as I called it. As we walked into it, I was trying to analyse what was happening and what it felt like. I knew we had merged with an unknowable number of merged beings, sharing all that they were, and we sharing or merging all that we were with them. I lost all sense of my body as a dense form, but I could still feel my partner’s hand in mine in a very delicate way – again like energy playing upon energy. I could feel that the beings or energy had totally penetrated me and was working on me in a healing way that would transform all of me. Also, I felt that we could decide upon our own movement and it seemed as if we were still walking within this life form. So, I knew we could walk out again and return to our solid body form.

But here is an example that sums it all up.

Example: To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

See: Void, under archetypes. Also see Dimensions of Human Experience 

Useful questions are:

Am I frightened of the abyss? If so, what is my fear about?

What does the abyss offer me if I enter into it?

What holds me back from it?

What have I found in meeting it?

Volcano Eruption

A breaking into awareness of urges, fears, terrors, or even insights that may have been repressed and in releasing are seeking to be dealt with and healed. Basically a healing process, but it can be disturbing.

Your being, as when you eat something poisonous, tries to get rid of irritating or harmful past experiences or feelings. It does this by pushing them to the surface, and for a while, as when we vomit, we feel ill at ease. But if we can allow it the sense of being healed is enormous. Dreams express this action with images such as boils, eruptions as with a volcano, or sometimes an explosion. See: Conflict; Emotions.

If sex is linked with difficult or painful emotions the eruption might depict the release of sexual pressure or ejaculation.

An eruption is something that comes from a deep level and usually forces through to consciousness. Eruption can be in dreams such as a nightmare, or movements or emotions or even speech that we feel do not come from us. Even so this is usually because we are so out of touch with the life process in us that we feel scared of it. Sometimes the eruption is in the form of what is usually called hallucinations. This usually is taken as scary or false images we see while awake, but in fact is the breaking through of the dream process. It is often because we are – as already said – so out of touch with the life process in us, that our inner process takes this extraordinary way of trying to get out attention. See NightmaresReaction to the unconsciousHallucinations

Example: A number of us, soldiers, were moving up to the battlefront. We had to climb over a pile of rubble, like a wall, and ran across open ground. There was a great fear of being shot down as we came into the open. This did not happen, and once passed the obstacle I felt it was actually a sort of training circuit getting us used to battle conditions. We moved on into the fighting. A volcanic type of eruption from the bowels of the earth spewed up a prehistoric monster. There was a lot more, but cannot clearly remember.

The dream came just before the man was able to allow a deeply buried childhood trauma to emerge. The prehistoric creature was a release of a power that was the means of releasing such ancient and trapped emotions.

A volcano is a symbol of great importance, for it portrays the immense power of natural forces in the world and in our own body. Dreaming of being near one is about being near to this tremendous energy you have within you. If you are scared it shows you are too scared to handle it well; if you are treating it as a great and even magical power, then you are in touch with its wonder.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was erupting, a volcano, emotions or words?

Did any strong feelings emerge – if so what were they?

Was there fear of what was happening?

What is pressing for release or expression in me at the moment?

Is there something that is bursting through my usually reserves or inhibitions?

What do I feel I am ready to erupt about?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams Secrets of Power DreamingLife’s Little Secrets

Voyage

In general, the dream journey is a comment on what is happening in your life, and how you feel about it. It may also relate to undertakings you embark on; new experiences or ways of life you are entering. You can go on the journey of life, a spiritual journey, the journey into marriage, parenthood, etc. The journey cannot be undertaken unless you are willing to travel, to move from one experience, one attitude or way of life to another. So sometimes you meet hesitations or things to do before you can go.

Throughout history we have examples of how such inner journeys were lived out. Mohammed for instance, describes his massive breakthrough into what he felt was a cosmic revelation as The Night Journey, which occurred in a dream. Siddhartha, after years of discipline and privation, finds a new way of experiencing life in what we now call the experience of enlightenment, and became the Buddha. Jesus transformed into the Christ at baptism through an opening to a new type of awareness. Thousands of people in today’s world have followed in the footsteps of those early pioneers and experienced for themselves the meeting with what Jung calls The Self – the emergence into an experience of greater wholeness or completeness; the falling away of the defences, resistances and fears that have held us back from our fullest and most profound experience of ourselves; an experience of enlightenment. It is not a case of developing an attribute we didn’t already have, but of bursting through the personal or culturally imposed barriers that have walled off this greater expanse of self from easy access. See Enlightenment

A journey at sea cuts us off from our usual activities. It puts us in closer and inescapable contact with fellow travellers. It also offers the possibility of missing the boat, something that may be irreversible. This all points to how we are always in the midst of enormous natural forces, times and tides of activity. Your sea dreams will indicate your relationship with this.

A dreamt of journey often shows how we are feeling about our life and its ups and downs, goals and destinations, challenges and opportunities. It also can define undertakings we embark on, or experiences being met. The overall tone of our life is may be depicted by the dream journey and the direction our unconscious is taking us and our life and what it is achieving.

In our life we have lots of journeys, such as that through schooling; marriage and perhaps divorce; work; parenthood; and the overall journey of life and death.

In a similar way people have remembered their life from conception on, a life of tremendous change and wonder, a life of amazing transformations from a vegetative state of simple cell growth, into basic life such as a fish – for we go through a phase in which we have gills – and from that we pass slowly into a creature that is capable of life out of the water. In fact, we still carry the evidence in our body. See Levels of the Brain

Such journeys are all forgotten for most of us, and yet we are the result of them – perhaps unconsciously. But there are countless other journeys we have usually forgotten, for we are the latest stretch of a journey that is as old as life on this earth, and even older if present scientific discoveries are true. There has never ever been a break in the line of life that started in the beginning of life in an ancient sea. Some people remember it, see Jesse Watkins Enlightenment

We tend to name them past lives but could be better thought of as forgotten journeys. For example, a single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I are the result of gathered experience.

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than humankind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life, you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To explore it see Opening to Life

Forgotten journeys: We have been on a long series of journeys, and the series make up our present life, or at least underlie it. For instance, most people cannot remember their birth – yet that was an important and often dramatic life journey. Yet thousands of people have recovered such memories, often because they were able to face the enormity of their emotions – as a baby you could not think and so all you had was feelings and instinctive responses. See Programmed

Interrupted or difficult journey: Expresses difficulties and anxieties of present life situation; symbol of the psychological journey of self-realisation.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of journey was it – walking, but, train, bicycle, car or plane, or even space flight?

Were they difficulties on the way?

Did you reach your goal?

See: Where applicable day and night, for time of journey; cartrainboathillaeroplane. Also it is important to see individuation; Travelling; Boat; Journey; Archetype of the Night Journey; Journey Through The Mind ; Journeying Beyond Dreams and Death; Journey Inwards.

Vulture

A relative waiting for you to die – or vice versa. Not usually a pleasant symbol and it can suggest people around you trying to live on you – or vice versa. Perhaps it indicates difficult feelings about dependants, or an environment of ill will or hopelessness.

Example: The Vulture is often associated with indiscriminate overeating. This warning dream which came to a woman contains three vultures that illustrate the message of overeating: “I am in an open grave. Three vultures are hovering over me. They resemble three relatives. I awaken frightened.”

The woman associated the relatives with a comment she had made the previous day. Because of their demands on her time, she had said, “They’ll be the death of me yet.” The dream recalled this statement, and the natural association of vultures with indiscriminate eating explained the rest of the dream. It was telling her, in no uncertain terms, that unless she lost weight and improved her dietary habits she would kill herself.

I am happy to say that the dream and her doctor’s warnings gave her the necessary willpower to achieve the desired results. Quoted from Dreams- Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist.

Herodorus Ponticus relates that great men of legend were always very joyful when a vulture appeared upon any action. For it is a creature the least hurtful of any, pernicious neither to corn, fruit-tree, nor cattle; it preys only upon carrion, and never kills or hurts any living thing; and as for birds, it touches not them, though they are dead, as being of its own species, whereas eagles, owls, and hawks mangle and kill their own fellow-creatures.

Example: I was sitting in my family room that leads to our pool. I looked out the window and there on the pool rail was a crow. He looked hurt and wasn’t moving too much. When I looked up again there was a vulture right next to the crow. The vulture seemed as if he was trying to peak and eat the crow. I ran outside and tried to shoo the vulture away but instead of him leaving he came and started to attack me. But after fighting with the bird he finally left. When I turned back round, I noticed that the crow wasn’t there anymore. The crow fell into my pool and was sinking to the bottom. I went to get a bucket to save the crow but when I came back the poor crow died. Please tell me what my dream means. I don’t think having crows and vultures in a dream is a good thing.

The dream suggests the crow is nearing death and vultures are natures sanitary cleaners, their stomach acid is exceptionally corrosive allowing them to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with botulinum toxin, hog cholera bacteria, and anthrax bacteria that would be lethal to other scavengers and remove these bacteria from the environment. So why have you got such a fight against death; for the dream is saying that something in your experience is dying and you have trouble accepting it. The end might be of a relationship (e.g. a divorce), having to change jobs or schools, or the end of your present living situation (e.g. a move).

Idioms: Charm the birds from the trees; a bird told me; the bird has flown; bird in the hand; bird of ill omen; free as a bird; odd bird.

Useful questions:

Is the bird in my dream expressing any of the important stages of growth such as babyhood, leaving the nest, or making a nest?

What quality or attitude is the bird expressing and how does that relate to me?

What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?

Letter W

Wage Wages

In nearly all the dreams studied that refer to pay, the action is to pay for something like a fare or goods. None of them are about being paid. This suggests that pay and paying depict concerns about wanting to, or having to, give something of value, either to get something, or to feel a situation is dealt with. The payment can therefore refer to what you have to bring to a situation to make it work, get positive results or to feel at ease.

Being paid: Results of previous effort or experience. Reward for what you have done or been. See: Money.

 

Waiter Waitress

This might mean you feel as if you are providing other people’s needs. In which case ask yourself if your own needs are being provided.

Being waited on: Feeling of support or help, or that your needs are being met. This might also be word play for waiting about for something or someone.

Waiting

Looking to others or circumstances for your cue. In some dreams there is an indication that you are waiting for an event or a person. This can be an intuition and it is worth trying to see if it is that or simply the lack of initiative or even your hopes for it, not an intuition. See Being the Person or Thing

If it is the first it can be a very powerful thing to understand. We are raised in a culture that tells us unless we fight, push and get ourselves ahead we will never achieve our goals. That may be true in an external sense, but if you are seeking personal growth it often comes from within simply through living your life fully and attending to what emerges from your core self. Also, our dream creator has a much wider view that our waking personality and can sometimes see things coming so needs listening to. See Intuition – Using It.

What we often do not consider or realise is the enormous effect our inner life has and how it influences or creates your view of your outer life. As an example, supposing you had a love affair that ended leaving you in pain – well many people are stuck in their pain and do not or will not admit that they created the pain themselves. But it is our inner life of beliefs and past experience that creates so much pain. To understand the enormous influence our inner world has on our daily life. See The Inner World  Inner People

Waiting also is a huge part of growing up or maturing. A child has to pass through its period of crawling, so its legs are strong enough for it to start walking. Also waiting is an important skill because if we hurry in love, in life skills, in business was might not have reached the degree of maturity allowing us to make the right choice. So, the waiting described by T. S. Eliot is a huge Life lesson because your ego, your personality, does not grow you, Life does, and in our folly, we often cannot anticipate what our growth holds in store, so waiting without expectations is wisdom. See Virgin – How I became One

Therefore some things are worth waiting for, but I have seen many people waiting for someone to acknowledge or hear them; waiting for love that never comes or is not given; for success and the great suffering that comes when one waits in vain, for love would be love of the wrong thing.”

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Idioms: Waiting in the wings; lady in waiting; wait on someone hand and foot; a waiting game; lie in wait. See: Queue; Waitress-waiter; Waiting

Waking Awareness Versus Unconscious

Waking consciousness exists as a tiny part of the total being it manifests in. Maybe I am exaggerating, but in its tiny room it has a few buttons it presses and the voluntary muscles move. There are a few screens which, through some of the body senses give a view of a tiny range of the phenomena of the universe. The rest of our being, the remainder of the universe, we give the cover-all name of unconsciousness. It simply means – we are not aware of it. It is a bit like having a web camera stuck in a certain place, and that is all you can see through it – yet there is the whole wide web to explore.

The unconscious is not a thing or a process-it is a mass of functions, processes, actions and reactions of which we are not usually aware. We frequently make the mistake of believing that anything we are not aware of does not have consciousness – in fact does not exist. Because of that we assume that one could never be aware of the intimate details of, for instance, liver func­tions, or brain-cell activity. But we are used to the idea of a part of our body being anaesthetised, or going to sleep because of a circulation block. These areas, which were devoid of awareness, can become conscious again. Could not anything which was entered into with waking awareness be considered conscious?

In 1953, when I was sixteen, and already deeply interested in the possibilities of the human mind, I took a course in deep relaxation. I practiced every day for three months, tensing my muscles, relaxing them, then passing my awareness over and over my body, dropping the feeling of tension. After three months I was quite proficient. One evening, after coming home from dining out with friends, I went to bed thinking I would leave my usual practice, but in the end decided to practice even though it was late. After going over my body several times I suddenly lost my right arm. I had no sensation of it other than space, hugeness. Then I lost my left arm, and – my whole body. It was like falling through a trap-door into the stars. I had no sense of having a body. Thoughts had ceased, except for a murmur apparently a thousand miles away. Yet in blackness, in immensity, in absence of thought I existed vitally as bodiless awareness. We think that we are our body because we have no other experience of our existence. So we identify with our body and so are terrified of dying – which in a sense is what we do every time we go to sleep and leave our sense of a body behind.

After that day I could repeat the experience almost any time I sat down and used the relaxation technique. I felt at the time, and still believe it correct, that I had fallen asleep yet remained awake. Waking, critical awareness, had been taken through the magic doors of sleep into a universe it seldom ever sees – deep dreamless sleep. I realised that as we enter sleep all our sense are switched off and we are fundamentally bodiless awareness. See Levels of Awareness

I realise that what I described must seem like a strange and even imaginary world to many people – except that it isn’t. But many people do not give three months of their life in everyday practice at the age of 16 to break through the barriers of our physical senses.

I do not think, in my experience of bodilessness, that I had ‘left’ my body. Rather, the connections with the sense organs had been switched off – so that I had no body awareness. And because we are  in the dream state, it is depicted as leaving the body, instead of leaving the body senses behind

The experience made me certain that waking consciousness could have a completely different experience of itself, other than the ‘normal’ one which is dominated by body sensations, emotions and thoughts. There were, I realised, other dimensions of mind to experience. Being of a practical nature I wondered what could be done from this new platform of experience. However, at that time, despite some months of experiment, I could achieve nothing more than bodiless consciousness. It is a condition most people can reach with a little regular practice. See Dimensions of Human Experience

See Levels of AwarenessYou Are a Dual BeingJesse Watkins

Walk Walking Stick

Walking was the first thing we learned that enabled us to become independent, it allowed us to take our fist steps to becoming free of the enormous childhood dependence on Mother. So walking is an expression of that freedom, and how well or badly reflects how you are handling that freedom.

Walking usually depicts personal effort, making your own way at your own pace. The conditions or surroundings where you are walking suggest what you feel about that, and the situation of your personal life. The direction you are walking shows where you are aiming to go in your activities and hopes. the future is represented by where you are going. If you are walking backwards, it suggests a wrong attitude or going backwards and not making progress.

When you walk you do so in a way that expresses your motivation and confidence – or lack of it. Where you are walking is what you are going to in life, or where you are going or exploring. It also involves personal effort in trying to get somewhere. It can be about changing your relationship with things, or a period of experience you are passing through.

Also indicates motivation and confidence. Where you are walking is what you are meeting in life, or where you are going or exploring. It also involves personal effort in trying to get somewhere. It can be about changing your relationship with things, or a period of experience you are passing through.

Walking with bare feet: Going through a rough patch in life if walking is difficult, or feeling unprepared to meet your present life situation. Letting go of the everyday duties and responsibilities, or feeling in contact with nature and your life situation if enjoying it. Feeling embarrassed about not being ‘properly’ dressed, or that you are not conforming.

You might also have taken shoes off t walk quietly so as not to be noticed. If this is so it suggests you are trying to fade into the background in some way.

Letting go of the everyday duties and responsibilities or feeling in contact with nature and your life situation if enjoying it. Feeling embarrassed about not being ‘properly’ dressed, or that you are not conforming.

Going through a rough patch in life if walking is difficult and there are sharp objects or feeling unprepared to meet your present life situation.

Walking up a lane: As above, but may be memory lane.

Idioms: Walk over somebody; walk away with; walk off with; walk on air; walk tall; walk the streets; walk out on; walk out with.

Idioms: Walk over somebody; walk away with; walk off with; walk on air; walk tall; walk the streets; walk out on; walk out with.

 Useful questions:

Where am I trying to go, or what achieve, through my own efforts?

What are my surroundings and what do I express through the way I walk?

Is it clear what direction I am taking or goal I am moving toward?

Wall

These express codes of behaviour, belief systems, attitudes – often unconscious – you live within, or are protected by; the boundaries of behaviour or thought you keep within, are fearful of extending beyond, or are trapped by – thereby what one feels to be barriers of protection or restrictions.

Ones feelings of confidence which protect against anxiety or social ‘knocks’. So, it could be fear that keeps you limited in your activities.

The feelings or attitudes you keep people away with – the walls we put up between us to maintain privacy, stop being hurt, or to maintain a role or status. Or a special feeling situation which you have created, such as developing a sense of one’s own value.

There are boundaries created by anxiety or a view of life – a nationalistic or tribal attitude might act as a barrier to seeing other viewpoints on history. Your dependence on your physical senses gives a boundary to your awareness, and a wall may also express such a frontier.

The wall might equally be your feelings of confidence which protect you against anxiety or social ‘knocks’; or fears that keep you limited in your activities. The wall can be one you erect through your feelings or attitudes you keep people away from you – the walls we put up between us to maintain privacy, stop being hurt, or to maintain a role or status.

It can be a special feeling situation which you have created, such as developing a sense of your own value, as might happen as you gain rank or status. The ‘reality’ we have accepted as the truth, either given us ready made by our culture, or one we have built personally. This reality is like walls we live within. See: the second example under death in archetypes. The example describes powerfully the breaking open of the ‘walls’ of reality to reveal another sort of reality. Also see The Paradigm

Such as garden wall: Your defensive attitudes or your boundaries that give you feelings of ownership or security. Sometimes we put boundaries on ourselves to undertake or achieve something. The wall can also depict social or personal barriers or psychological blocks to progress. We might feel such a barrier on entering someone’s house that we do not know.

Example: I was standing in the back garden of a house – one of a row of terraced houses. Each garden was fenced with walls and ran down to a large drainage ditch. It seemed to be raining and water was filling the drainage ditch. The water was backing up into the gardens because something was blocking the ditch. I was standing in the ditch and the water started rising up my legs. It was quite hot. I realised this was because hot water was running out of the baths and sinks in the houses. I felt I must get out of the gardens. Not only because of the water, but because of how people might feel if they saw me in their garden. I managed to find a way into a farmyard where I felt relaxed.’ Ted F.

Ted explored his dream and said, “I am going through a lot of changes at the moment – the garden. These are to do with allowing myself to have a warm but non-sexual relationship with women. I have always been too dragged along by my sexuality in the past. But just a few days before the dream I was in a ‘growth’ group. I had made friends with a woman there, Susan, who I had warm feelings for, but not sexually. The group work required some close physical contact, and I and another man worked with Susan. It seemed to me to go without complications. A while afterwards a woman in the group came to me and with evident emotion, said I had made love publicly to my lover, meaning Susan. I had certainly been physically close to her and had felt at ease, but the viewpoint and feelings of the woman’s accusations, coupled with her threat to expose me to the authority figure in the group, bowled me over. This is the hot water in the dream. The fences are the boundaries people erect between their personal life and what is socially acceptable. For some days, up until understanding the dream, I felt really blocked up emotionally – the blocked drainage ditch. I cut off any friendship toward Susan. When I realised that in the Farmyard – the acceptance of natural feelings without neat little boundaries – I could feel at peace, I was able to allow my natural warmth again. 

Wall of house:  This is probably about the codes of behaviour, belief systems, or attitudes – often unconscious – you live within, or are protected by. It is the boundaries of behaviour or thought you keep within, are fearful of extending beyond, or are trapped by – thereby what you feel to be barriers or restrictions. They are probably the codes you were brought up with, or ones you adopted in rebellion.

So called truth can also be a terribly solid wall. It may have been given you ready made by your culture, or you built it personally. This reality is like walls we live within.

Walls of a favourite house: They might be your feelings of security in your marriage or family which give you defence against the ‘storms’ of life.

Sometimes what the wall depicts is obvious as in the example below, where it is shown as the way Cyril maintains his separation from others and thus as a private individual. The fall of the wall shows how ‘exposed’ one might be. The description of private areas of our life in a newspaper might be an example of just such a wall coming down.

‘I realised T. had been in Bill’s room and not respected his need for privacy, so Bill had torn down the wall as a protest and made the room, which now appeared about four times its usual size, into a public sitting room.’ Cyril A.

Repairing wall: Considering that the wall suggests either a protective shield or a separation or boundary of some sort, repairing the wall indicates the strengthening of the way you meet the impacts of life or other people, or strengthening the boundaries between you and others.

Wall of prison or trap: Fear; pain; ignorance; prejudice; anger; sense of being an outsider; family attitudes or responsibilities one feels restrained or trapped by.

In the above example the wall is obviously to do with defending the dreamer against attack. Such a wall might be made out of our aggressive feelings, with religious dogma which might defend us against fears and uncertainty, or from tightly controlled behaviour and emotions. See Control-No Control

(Also see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U )

Idioms: Drive somebody up the wall; go to the wall; writing on the wall; back to the wall; head against a brick wall; fly on the wall. See: Fence.

Useful questions:

What does the wall contain, protect or limit?

What do I feel confined or restrained by in my life?

Is this wall more of a shelter that might suggest a confident, protective attitude?

Wall-Paper

Often represents a veneer, or surface show, that hides the real person underneath. It can also represent the world we create from sensory impressions, and personal attitudes. This is a world that can be ripped away by such things as sudden illness or war. Then it is as if another world is revealed underneath the wallpaper.

Surface appearance of things; the surface layers of your own feelings and awareness, perhaps a cover up. It can also represent the world we create from sensory impressions, and personal attitudes. This is a world that can be dropped away by such things as sudden illness or war. Then it is as if another world is revealed underneath the wall-paper or our everyday feelings and attitudes.

Example: I was disturbed by an unusually vivid dream last night – unable to sleep afterwards for almost two hours. In the dream I went out for the evening to see some friends. Golden beer spilled as one of my friends doubled up and the room sprang open with a Death’s Head shrieking behind him, as if a skin had been peeled back to reveal the bones of life crackling in a gigantic electric chair. It burned my brain. With a great effort I managed to wall up the apparition behind the bright fabric of the evening, leaving only a blurred after-image of the hole, like the torn edge of a strip of wallpaper that has been ripped and glued back into place.

The dreamer had broken through into a wider awareness in which his enormous fear of death was revealed. When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic, but if met without fear it often rids us of fear of death. So, we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear, we will pass on. But otherwise it will continue to haunt us as something that will get you; or you feel uncertain even lost in facing it! But it is only our small self-image, our ego that reacts because it feels powerless, even though in reality the Hugeness is part of our totality. See Wider awarenessTransformation

Wallet

Similar to money, but may have more of a leaning toward power, or being in power, social effectiveness or ability to survive socially. The wallet is often used to denote your sense of self-worth and value, thus related to your identity, or how you see yourself. It is worth imaging how you would feel without your wallet, as this indicates what it means to you. Mostly it is felt to be your power to operate socially and do or get what you wish. See: Money.

Example: I had a young puppy dog. It was full of life and exuberance. I came in and found it had got hold of my wallet and chewed it so badly there was only a shred of my wallet and American Express card left. I was so angry I punched the dog hard several times, but couldn’t feel satisfied. Cliff.

Cliff explored his feelings and associations regarding the dream and realised that because he was hoping to semi-retire on income from investments which he was enthusiastic about – the puppy dog – but the investments had dropped in value because of a falling market, his enthusiasm had taken a beating. In fact, he had begun to feel he must struggle on to survive financially again. 

Example: While we were heading towards the movie area to pay, I suddenly decided to contribute half.  I felt good about doing this and looked in my wallet beforehand just to make certain I had plenty–I did; I was flush with cash.  I knew I was, but I just wanted to know it was right where I put it.  Still safely in my wallet.

Well, I announce that I’ll pay my way, and wouldn’t you know when I reach for the money in my wallet, it isn’t there.  Just a few bills, maybe a $5 note.  Not enough.  Where did all the rest of the money go?  I rifle through my wallet again, and again, searching.  Where could it have gone?  Did it slip into a pocket or crevice?  Is it really there, but I just am unable to see it?  Baffled

A lost or mislaid wallet usually indicates that the dreamer is uncertain or not sure of their personal standing socially or in a relationship. Also may be the dreamer is not confident about facing people in social situations.

Wand

A wand may suggest the power of will backed up or directed by faith or belief.

Personal influence over others and the power of suggestion. If there are any feelings of it being magic, then it can indicate a spell we cast over another’s feelings or decisions. This can be done by seduction, fear or subtle blackmail. The wand might indicate the power of will backed up or directed by faith or belief. As usual, its shape suggests male sexuality.

The wand is linked with magic. But I have found there is no ‘wave a magic wand’ route to the best in life. It will not happen because you read a great book or practiced magic rituals. Those things might help, but the real magic lies in whether you can enter into yourself in the right way. It lies in the difference between being merely curious, and really wanting to know. It matters whether you are a watcher of the sport of Life, or a player. A player gets involved, struggles against difficulties, experiences deeply is not afraid of hurt and works toward a goal. Extracting the magic from within you needs just those qualities. You don’t need to be extraordinary to do that – just an ordinary person with some persistence and courage. If you have that and travel into yourself, the rewards are like a key opening the door to a magical world.

I am such an ordinary person. I found the key. I opened the door. And I travelled in that magical world! I might be able to help you do the same.

A Magic Wand

The magic wand you need is to train yourself to be a player of Life. Strengthen your body and mind. I learnt an extraordinary lesson when I was thirteen. To learn that so young, to know that through directing my attention and energy in a particular way I could radically change my body was extraordinary. I went on to extend this with other physical exercises in the nearby YMCA gym. What I noticed as the months went by was that not only was I changing my body, but I was also changing my confidence and social life.

At fifteen this led me to start experimenting with what amount to mental exercises, to see if the mind could be changed as radically as the body. What I uncovered in that direction was even more far reaching than what had happened to my body. I didn’t just find change, I uncovered unsuspected depths and heights. I found facets of myself previously unknown. That led me to discover much later something magical that opened a whole world of experience for me. I had found the magic of my Wand. See A BreakthroughBeing HumanAvoiding Being My Own Victim

Idioms: Wave one’s magic wand.

Want Wanted Wanting

Wanting is a primal drive which through socialisation we may crush, and thereby lose contact with what we want or need. In doing so we may also lose much of our decisiveness and creativity.

Wherever the words ‘want’ or ‘wanting’ appear in your dreams, it suggests urges or desires you may not be acknowledging strongly enough in your conscious life. Sometimes the urge may be misdirected, as wanting to be loved by someone who has proved often they are incapable of love. But the urge is till there to be loved, and some other source of love should be sought.

When it is a ‘don’t want’ in the dream, it is helpful to change it to a positive. ‘I didn’t want to go with my mother’ could become, ‘I wanted to do my own thing.’ This gives an open channel for the urge to express, rather than a suppression.

Example: ‘I still want him all to myself. We never touch or kiss or anything in the dreams, and I want him to, but would never let on I wanted this. I am a bit coy in my dreams.’ Pauline B.

Pauline is dreaming about a past lover who she has tried to forget, but when we underline the ‘wants’ we see how strong her feelings are. Looking at dreams in this way helps us define what our desires are and what we might be denying in ourselves. But also, Pauline has not realised the difference between waking life and dream life. This happens with the morals we live by, which may be necessary in waking life, but we try to make them fit to our much bigger and freer dream/inner life, and that causes conflict because the two worlds are completely different. So, in dreams about sex we do not have to live by the same small moral world often necessary in waking life. In dreams, we experiment emotionally and sexually, so dreams often stand in place of actual experience. In doing so we expand our mental and emotional life without any danger or consequences. Through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally, because Pauline does not have to be coy in her dreams.

Example: ‘The older man still wanted something from me. I didn’t want to be involved with him at all and yet had to be polite etc. so he wouldn’t hit out at me/us. We needed some kind of contact with this man, I leaned forward and kissed him on his face and drew back quickly as I didn’t want to give any more than that, I had a fear that he would want more.’ Sandra O.

Sandra had divorced an older husband and was living with a younger man. The complication of her ‘wants’ is shown in the dream. When it is a ‘don’t want’ in the dream, it is helpful to change it to a positive. ‘I didn’t want to go with my mother’ could become, ‘I wanted to do my own thing.’ Because what we want is complex and often in conflict, our dream characters may want something which we oppose. But as her dream is a complete reflection of her, the man who she says might hit her or wants more from her, is simply a reflection of her own fear of men or of openly wanting more or actually saying no, maybe to do with her father.

 

War

We are all in the middle of several great wars which have been fought for centuries – The War Between The Rich And PoorThe War Between Influencers and Influenced – And The Great War Within Ourselves

Internal conflicts – there might be a bloody battle between your moral code and sexual needs for instance; or between what you allow yourself to feel and the self-healing process which attempts to release childhood pain; or between intellect and body needs or emotions. Conflict can also occur between your personal drives and the social, political or economic regime you live in. The war might represent a battle going on between your own gender identity and the opposite gender; between yourself and another person, or your conscious attitudes and your unconscious biological processes and intelligence – between body and mind.

Jung reports an interesting fact that men involved in actual war scenes, or people involved in threatening ongoing everyday life, seldom dream about it. During the first world war, if men began to dream repeatedly of the war scenes they were involved in, it was considered that their psychic immunity was breaking down and it was time to take them away from the active front.

After the Second World War a new world order fought to emerge amidst continuous bloody conflicts and political struggles for power and control.  The emergence has not been easy.  The psyche of individuals, the control of individuals, has been fought over by competing influences.  And we have managed to slowly grow in stature and awareness.

As with the emergence of anything new, old structures, old habits and systems have resisted change. I, like you, I am partly a product of my times.  As dearly as I would like to believe that my mind and opinions are my own, they are of course largely what I have inherited.  They have been shaped by the social structure in which I was born.  Without realising it I have inherited a way of life that I was largely unconscious of and took for granted.  As a child I was beaten by my teachers with canes as thick as walking sticks – 1930’s.  It is only looking back that I see I was part of a punitive society, and I was on the wrong end of the stick.  It was a society in which you either conformed or you were punished.  And that was how school children were trained – to conform.  The schooling for the children of the ruling class was completely different.  They were trained to wield the stick.

Idioms: In the wars; on the warpath; war of nerves; declare war. See: Attack; Fight; Soldier; Bomb; Air raid; What on Earth is Happeing

Wardrobe

Memories; attitudes you use, or social stances you use, to do different things in your life. The wardrobe might also depict feelings about a past relationship if it is one that was in a house you shared.

Trapped in a cupboard: Trapped in past feelings or attitudes arising from a past relationship.

Warehouse

Memories; past experience; aspects of yourself put in storage, such as ambition while bringing up children. In some dreams it might be shown as a place of activity, creativity or commerce or even as a place to shop. See: Shopping.

A warehouse offers enormous space, and if the dream is positive in feeling, suggests great possibilities you have. See: Space.

In many films’ warehouses are often used to show criminal or murderous scenes. But in peoples dreams they can be about any activity. So, look up the activity for clues to its meaning. See What is the main action in the dream?

Example: So, the next step in interpreting your dream was to understand your arrival in a huge room like a warehouse, it was well lit but filled with papers old paintings, pieces of wood, scraps. My guess is that this represents your huge memory filled with scraps, old imaginations – paintings – papers – your intellectual learning; but again, a huge place showing your potential.

The Master gave you a carton that you opened – this indicates finding something that you had not been aware of till it is opened. Opening often represents opening to a new realisation or a new facet of your mind. You found a stencil of a horse’s head – the key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to repeatedly and rapidly produce the same letters or design. Then the Master said, “That’s Napoleon, teaching him how to fly.” A stencil is rather like a habit, producing the same result over and over, until it turns into a living thing like Pegasus that can fly.

The suggestion is that if you keep repeating the new action it breaks through old habits and becomes a new way. Flying suggests the desire to rise above things, to attain greater heights, to break free of limiting viewpoints or cultural norms. Freud explained all flying dreams as expressive of sexual desires, intercourse, or life in the womb, which in some cases is true. But flying also represents ambition, abstract thought, and rising above your fears. See: Shopping;

Example: I dreamt I took LSD given me by Ann. All sorts of things happened. I was going up in a lift, and a very beautiful girl got in. It then seemed as if we went into another dimension. Possibly she had tricked me into having sex with her. Anyway, we walked into a huge warehouse place, and there were glass cases with us at various stages of the future. In one case, we had three daughters, very lovely. Then, as we progressed into time, it was as if body changes took place, and the fingers became segmented, and the face changed. Then we were back in the lift. There were various other experiences, and then I was back in the house, coming out of the LSD. All the colours were very bright still, I began to tidy up the furniture, and realised it was morning and I was not tired from a night of being awake.

Warmth

Often appears alongside sunlight and comfort in dreams; physical comfort and well-being; supportive family feelings; love, cheerfulness or hopefulness; feeling of emotional situation ‘warming up’. Very often when dream that point out lack of warmth and love appear we may need to parent ourselves. See Depend Dependent Depending

One has to learn how to parent yourself in way that one could raise yourself into a non-dependent, non-grasping and non-jealous adult. I had a sort of mantra which I held in mind when things got tough – “Love without grasping – Power without breaking or bending other lives – Wisdom through which love can flow.”

To be able to parent oneself you need honesty to see the faults your parents live in, raising you and also to be capable of seeing your own failures in raising any of your own children. Strange as it may seem, most of us are often terribly judgmental, impatient and angry with ourselves, and so this would be a tragic thing to raise yourself with. Also, we are awful at admitting our own faults, all of which make us inadequate parents, and not good at self-parenting. The fundamental needs of childhood are almost never met by modern parenting within the environment of today’s commercial and industrial world. See Ages of Love

Example: I understood what she said implied that because of being trapped in badly misshaped bodies, the children had gradually played with their mental faculties and broken through the boundaries most people live within. They had thus discovered these wild talents.

I went and sat on the end of one of the beds – the children were all girls – and I felt very warm to them. I put my hand under the bedclothes and held one of the girl’s legs affectionately. They were so eager for any affection one of them managed to squirm from her bed under the covers to the bed I was sitting on and get into my arms. I held her very lovingly and there was a great feeling of pleasurable warmth between us.

In exploring the dream, the girl says to the dreamer, “I wasn’t properly formed, because I was born two months prematurely, so it was very traumatic to be separated as a baby. I am trying to heal this at the moment. I feel the struggle of resisting what has happened to me. I cry out that I don’t want to be born. I am not ready. I feel deeply alone. There is in me a sense that tells me I shouldn’t be alone. It is like something that pushes me to seek not to be separated. I feel lost. I’m not ready for this world. I’m feeling awful. My whole body feels strange and collapsed in some way. Then I knew someone loved me. I knew they understood what pain was and were not afraid of it or of death. This pierced me right through. It was my grandmother, but to me it felt like some higher being who had reached out of the unknown to help me. She was my resurrection; her warm love gave me life.”

Example: So, Mrs. C. is being reminded by her dreams that she is neglecting either the needs arising from her own childhood emotional dependence or her need for warmth and love as a baby. The imagery of the dream suggest it is warmth and love she is not getting enough of, and most likely she didn’t get enough when she was a baby.

Example: Even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream, yet I gave birth at home with no pain. I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal.

Example: “Not that my father had ever hit me. He hadn’t. But blows would have been less painful than this absence of love and encouragement from the man who was most important in my life. So, my conflict with him had led me to never able to co-operate at school, at work, in marriage. I had to keep on at my wife over nothing, just to prove how good we were. I didn’t understand what he wanted of me. So, I kept on at my kids like he kept on at me. Trying to attain the unobtainable instead of a little warmth and love. “Dad, you killed me right back then”.

Example: The corridor comes out to my own front yard. My grandfather draws my attention to a cloud through which shines a beautiful golden sunbeam. My grandfather tells me that the sunbeam represents love, the greatest power in the Universe, and that I have to learn to love and accept the circumstances of my life, forgiving and understanding those who I feel short-changed me. If I can do this, he tells me, I can use this power to help others and I myself would develop more rapidly. His grandfather had died, but Herb had dearly loved and admired him. In reviewing this part of his dream, it was clear to Herb that his grandfather represented his higher self, his teacher and guide, and that he was indeed guiding Herb to the best that meditation could offer. “In my dream I was aware of my body in bed. The sunbeam came through the roof and hovered over me. I could let it enter my body if I wished. I allowed the beam to enter my being, and it did so at the base of my spine and moved up my back and came out the top of my head in a shower of sparkling golden light. I felt the soothing warmth of it and allowed it to enter again. I felt inspiration and joy and awakened with tears of happiness streaming down my cheeks.” Herb felt that he had experienced in his dream what he could obtain in meditation by applying the precepts in his dream to his everyday life.   See: Heat-Hot.

Warning Feelings or Dreams

If we could have a record of every dream each person had, we would see everyone dreams again and again of being injured, murdered or killed. Because these are common themes, some dreams are going to coincide with an actual accident or plane crash. Because these dreams are common themes, many dreamers attempt to link the dream with a later event. But such dreams are usually about psychological injury or anxiety; nevertheless, many people do have warning dreams, feelings or hearing voices.

Example: While walking home alone along a road I had walked hundreds of times; I was suddenly hit by an enormous feeling of fear which I felt told me to get as far away from the road as I could. It was a country road in the UK, and a car was stopped in the middle of the road to turn right into a factory yard, because cars were coming the other way. I went as far away as I could into a hedge. Then I heard a scream of tires on the wet road, and a car which obviously couldn’t stop flashed up onto the pavement and went between me and the parked car and onwards. My fear disappeared and I said, “Thank you” to whatever had caused such an amazing warning.

Example: On the night of February 17, 1964, Master Sergeant James Lee of Sheppard Air Force Base was reading in his home in Wichita Falls, Tex., when the telephone rang. It was his mother-in-law, Mrs. Rose Smith, calling from Clovis, New Mexico, about three hundred miles away. She told her son-in-law that she had just awakened from a nightmare in which she dreamed something terrible had happened to her daughter, his wife Selma Louise. Lee assured her that Selma Louise was well and that he would call her to the phone to prove it. When his wife failed to answer his call, he went looking for her and discovered the bathroom door locked. He forced his way in and found her dead.

Example: My dream of someone’s coming death was so simple, always the same. I would dream that I went to my dressing table and opening my mouth examined my teeth in the mirror. I always found a decayed tooth (I had very fine teeth at that time) which I picked out and laid on the table. If a river of blood flowed from the tooth I knew when I awoke that I would suffer agonies from the coming death; if it did not bleed, I knew the person about to die would be someone outside my immediate family, but always a relative. If the tooth was a front one the person concerned would be young, if a back tooth it would represent an old person.

My mother told me that a great grandmother of mine had the very same dreams with the same results, but I did not learn this till I was nineteen and my dream foretold the death of a younger sister, who was in perfect health at the time of the dream. I never knew after the dream who was to die as the dream always came well in advance of sickness. I used to think some malign spirit wanted to torment me and took this way to do so.’ Quoted from The Mystery of Dreams by William Oliver Stevens. Published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1950.

Warning About Alcohol: Does the dream or voice warn us of overindulgence or dependence upon alcohol or is the alcohol a symbol of a life changing influence or an influx of power or potential.

Warnings about drugs: The dream may refer to a drug you are using and being warned about in your dream. Sometimes the fear of something is the power which does dominates us – not the thing itself. Each of us have areas dominated by such fears or anxieties.

Warning against acting prematurely. Wait until your plans, ideas or abilities are mature, or the situation ‘ripe’.

Warnings about health: In many cases in the past, dreams were looked to for signs of prophecy about important issues such as one’s health. In some way, dreaming is necessary to maintain psychological and physical health; for if dreaming is stopped by waking the dreamer every time they start to dream. The result was that within a few days, the non-dreamers showed signs of mental illness and breakdown. The same would happen if any natural process such as breathing or passing urine was stopped.

The evidence shows dreams as critical to mental and physical health and also suggests that dreams may be a last ditch stand against the inhibition of some of the most important aspects of yourself. There may therefore be a connection between the expression of subtle needs and emotions in dreams.

Example: I was in the house of a friend I knew many years ago, having just got out of bed, and started walking along an upstairs passage toward the bathroom, to wash and shave. As I took a few steps along the passageway I realised I had got wet somehow, and looking back I could see, against the sun coming through the window, a fine spray of water coming from a burst in a water pipe. Then suddenly a wave of water rolled out from the bedroom. A whole section of a large lead pipe had come away. That is, the front of the pipe had come off. I rushed into the room and pushed the pipe back in place, holding off the massive water leak. – Ken Sprague.

This dream occurred just before Ken experienced a major burst of an artery. Unfortunately, the warning was not understood.

Example: My wife was there as it occurred. She wrote, “I have the experience of Ken Sprague at my fingertips too……..he was bleeding buckets full as the ambulance took him away to Barnstaple…….I remember watching the car drive away as I hugged the two children and felt that I was seeing a dead man walking!  I thought it was the last image that the children would have of their father.   After a horrendous operation…..I was with him in intensive care as he was coming to …..in and out…  his experience of the pain was unbearable…His words….”It is worse than in the WAR.

Ken recovered and lived for several more years.

Warning or arguments about money: Worries about money or an inner warning to watch expenditure; a conflict relating to feelings about money or your personal value.

 Warning bell, voice or signal: Intuition that something needs attention in your life, either internally or externally.

Being warned by someone else or voice: You may not be living up to your own standards, or not taking notice of something you have observed unconsciously but need to give attention to.

Warp Warped

Inner feelings or energies misdirected by outer beliefs or fears. The wrong idea; misunderstanding.

Wash Washed Washing

It shows you making an effort to change or shift your feelings, or clear away irritations or emotions that cloud your life.

Occasionally it can either show feelings you have about being unclean in some way, such as might happen in a sexual encounter that is felt as unloving or actively transforming yourself. See: Bath. 

Clothes: Getting rid of negative feelings such as despair or self doubt; fears about health – neurotic phobias about your own wholeness.

Hanging up washing: Making changes in your life and letting other people see your new attitudes.

 In a mother’s dream: May refer to caring for the family emotionally.

Washing hair: Changing your attitude or altering the way you think about something or your viewpoint.

Washing hands: Getting rid of feelings about something you have done or been involved in.

Washing vagina or penis: Clearing negative sexual feelings; dealing with the results of pent-up sexuality or reproductive drive.

Idioms: All come out in the wash; lost in the wash; it won’t wash; wash dirty linen in public; wash your hands of. See: Soap.

Washing Machine

Cleaning up your act in the sense of dealing with past negative feelings or habits. Thus, it can suggest making changes in the way you go about things or present yourself.

Example: I was watching a man who insisted on living in a small stable like room that was foul with his shit and urine. He wouldn’t go out or clean it and his clothes too were filthy. He wouldn’t be helped but blamed his condition on anything and anyone but himself. As I watched though, he came to the point of accepting responsibility for his own condition. He came out, and we then happily asked if we could put his clothes in the washing machine. He started a new life. Dennis.

Dennis had been passing through a period of recognising how fears, guilt and lack of confidence had imprisoned him. He had literally been living in this emotional ‘shit’ for years.

Example: I was in a washing machine shop. I had bought the machine from them and expected it to be under warranty now that it was broken but they didn’t want to be responsible for it. My mother was with me and the salesman was showing us how washing machines can become damaged and my mother looked inside and nearly put her whole body in. I was worried she’d fall in. And I told the salesman that I certainly wouldn’t buy a new one from them if they didn’t stand behind the one they’d already sold me.

I see this as something that is an automatic body function that is not working well. Pity the dreamer didn’t say what the salesman said was the problem or what the mother found.

The washing machine can point to faults within you. A woman dreamt she was washing white clothes in a large amount of water while her friend Alice watched her from the background. In this dream, Alice, the “friend” in the background, was the dreamer herself. Her own comments on Alice were that she possessed a great deal of spiritual knowledge but applied little of it to her daily life. Therefore, the dream was urging her to greater application – represented by washing clothes in the machine.

It can be less dramatic and relate to washing away yesterday’s problems, or refreshing, restoring, making the best of what you have. If you usually wash your items in a washing machine at home but are in the public laundromat it could suggest you are washing your dirty items in public.  See Washing

 

 

Wasp

Painful emotions or feeling stung by remarks. If the wasp hasn’t stung you, then it suggests memories of past hurts and feeling threatened again. Wasps also can eat flesh, so can indicate feelings eating away at you.

Wasps can also show your own waspishness, or your hurtful words or actions.

I was with John and David and on the left was a huge thistle. It was as high as a big elm tree, and really powerful. I was then near the trunk of the thistle examining it. It seemed at that point like a giant hardwood tree. I snapped a twig and its smelt very nice – a perfumed wood. But other branches were going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark was rotten, I noticed a hole where wasps had a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and saw that there was also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps were flying. With great shock I looked in the hole and saw wasps eating away my flesh so that my hand was almost hollow. I felt very depressed and being eaten away inside and awoke with the feeling of being alone and decrepit.  Dennis.

Dennis explored his dream and said, “John feels like the practical, achieving side of myself. David is the part that doesn’t wish to change but is strong and wants a stable relationship. This part of me doesn’t push to use the potential of new opportunities and growth that I have. The thistle is the enormous amount of hurts and antisocial feelings I have developed over the years. My inner life is so fertile, but while I only wish to hold people off through fear of being abused or stepped on, all I grow is thistles. Also the wasps are my pains and stings of daily life eating me away inside, leaving me feeling old, alone, and without living contacts with others.

John is the part of me concerned about caring for my children, financial security and planning ahead. David is a type who is willing to live without those things in order to do what he loved – being on the sea. My left-hand is my inner feelings, being eaten away, eating away the hand I reach out to others with love.

Wasps can also show your own waspishness, or your hurtful words or actions.

 

Watch – Wrist

If a present it probably relates to the giver or circumstances of giving. So, what is said about clock is a good indication. You might have been given the wristwatch in the dream by your father for instance. It might be you therefore treasure it or have difficult feelings because of bad relationship memories. Although breaking of a wristwatch by someone you know can point to feelings about their death, or their dying. See: Time; Presents; Clock.

 A digital wristwatch can give an audible beep on the hour or any length of time so it may represent a warning or your intuition.

 

Watching Watched

Being aware of or observing something – perhaps something you have noticed from everyday events but not made conscious, or something about yourself. It could also suggest watching out for what other people are doing to you – therefore suspicion or watchfulness.

 

Sometimes we learn by watching, and if the dream has this feeling it is good to define what you were learning. Sometimes we learn by watching, and if the dream has this feeling it is good to define what you were learning. We as humans, like other mammals, in our earliest years particularly, still learn like most mammals do, and that is not verbal at all. A massive amount of information is absorbed from our parents without any effort or awareness simply by watching and absorbing. So, the lessons learned by pain or through long experience through generations are exhibited in our parent’s behaviour in dealing with events. The young bears are fully focussed watching what their mother does. There are no words spoken because we learn by copying. The young bears are learning the skills of the mother to hunt and survive. Such skills are passed through the generations, that is why ancestral worship is important.

The mental and emotional state in which we watch is also important in understanding our dreams. For if we are feeling anger or fear it changes the dream and the comment the dream is making about you, Other emotional or attitudes also change the dream and it is wise it see what your emotional and mental states are saying about you. See Emotions and Mood in Dreams 

Being watched by a person an animal or a huge powerful being suggests that you have become aware of yourself from a different perspective. That often has very important information about you, so it is important to understand it by using Being The Person or Thing

 Intently watching or observing something can lead to wonderful new insights into your own nature. A man who was observing something unfolding in him using the Keyboard Condition says, “Suddenly I was aware that something held me. It was the process that had grown me from seed in the first place. My ego had not created me or grown me. But now this deep part of me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me.”

Because of the many nature films shown on television we are used to the idea of mature and intelligent adults spending days or years watching the behaviour of animals such as hyenas or chimpanzees.

By watching our dreams through such observation of them it first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond one’s personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self-Observation 

Idioms: Be on the watch for; watch out; watch one’s step; watch over; watch someone like a hawk. See: Seeing – Saw – Sightburglar or intruder; peeping tom

Water

It can refer to the Life in you, the spirit that lives in you and can advise, uplift, grow and lead you. To understand it see Life’s Little Secrets

In most dreams water indicates emotions, moods and flow of feeling energy. Because of the nature of water it lends itself to depicting aspects of how you relate to your feelings. For instance you can ‘drown’ in or feel swept away by some emotions. At other times you can feel cleansed and refreshed. But because water is vital to your existence it can show how you long for or thirst for something and feeling fulfilled.

But any flow, even if it seems threatening, is the flow of our own life energy. Most of us are only aware of a trickle of life energy, and when it dreams it is a torrent we have no experience of dealing with so much of it, and become scared, which blocks it even more. See Our Reaction to meeting the Huge that we Are

Example: The first time I ever slept in the bed with my wife Hyone, she quickly went to sleep and I noticed she had difficulty breathing through her nose while asleep. She would start breathing through her nose but couldn’t continue and the breath burst in through her mouth. I felt it must be a tension, so while she still slept I spoke to her quietly, suggesting that the muscles in her nose and face would relax. I repeated this a few times and Hyone’s breathing became easy and normal. Seeing that she responded so well, I decided to try something else. So I quietly suggested that her whole body would drop unnecessary tensions, and emotional and mental stress would melt away. I went on to say that this would open all the doors of her being, allowing cleansing and healing throughout.

There was no apparent response to this, so I lay quietly ready to sleep. But suddenly, about eight minutes later, Hyone woke, almost with a jerk, and said enthusiastically, “I just had the most amazing dream.”  In the dream Hyone had been with her mother and sisters in a garden at the back of a house. Hyone was lying in the sun relaxing. As she relaxed she felt a wave of energy flow up her body to her head. Then, wave after wave moved up her body, giving her tremendous pleasure and feelings of well-being. But the waves got stronger and stronger, and she was frightened they would overwhelm her, and at that point she woke.

This is very important, because it shows how our good healing energy can be felt as threatening. It is because our personality is so guarded and insecure it feels it will be overwhelmed or they would lose their self-control. See What Happens When I Die?

That flow of energy shown in Hyone’s dream is like a river, and a river can carry you along or you can resist its current. For each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change; and is fought like hell by many as they are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death. See What Happens When I Die?

Water also represents your potential to experience many emotions because water can take any shape or move in so many ways. How you relate to the water shows how you are meeting your emotions and moods. In a collective sense, as a lake or the sea, it can represent the mysterious source of life, the womb and the processes of life creating you.

But any flow, even if it seems threatening, is the flow of our own life energy. Most of us are only aware of a trickle of life energy, and when in dreams it is a torrent, we have no experience of dealing with so much of it, and may become scared, which blocks it even more. See Our Reaction to meeting the Huge that we Are.

How we relate to the water shows how we are meeting our emotions and moods. In a collective sense, as a lake or the sea, it can represent the mysterious source of life, the womb and the processes which bring us about; women frequently dream of being in water or swimming during menstruation. The dream content will show something about what is happening in the body at such times, or even if there is excessive water retention.  See: Flow.

‘I was standing in front of a series of glass water tanks. I had apparently written an article about the balance between intellect and emotion, which had presented emotion in a way to show its equal value with intellect. The tanks demonstrated the different relationships between intellect and emotion. Some tanks were beautifully clear and colourful, showing the right balance. The unbalanced ones had weed growing in them. I was then in a lift with a young woman. We moved close together and kissed. This moved my feelings so much I felt a great melting in my abdomen, and a lot of body sensation against her body.’ Anthony F.

Anthony’s dream perfectly illustrates how water refers to the emotions and flowing body feelings.

Deep water: The deeps of your inner life and what lies under the surface of your waking awareness.

Dripping water: Sometimes can depict the damaging feelings or interference that can enter your life, especially if the water is coming through a ceiling or wall. Otherwise a dripping tap might mean the leaking away of your feelings or energy, or the passage of time.

Electricity and water: Emotions which can generate very powerful reaction to a situation – such as jealousy or anger – so a release of enormous energy that can be negative or positive.

Entering water: Entering into strong feelings such as might arise in a relationship or new job. Starting a sexual relationship. If it is a deep lake or turgid water, it could point to emotions that might stand in your way of moving on or changing.

Going under water: It suggests bringing internal contents to consciousness; remembering the womb experience; letting our ego surrender a little; looking at death.

Also it shows that we, our conscious self, has entered more deeply into the enormous depths of our consciousness; we have literally dipped below the level of our conscious self. See My Body is a Moving Sea

Hot water: Strong emotions or facing difficult situations, such as social criticism. Or being warmed by flowing feelings.

Leaking water: This can mean that your emotional energy is be used unwisely, possible through such things as anxiety or fear, especially if the water is coming through a ceiling or wall.

Muddy water: It suggest you may be experiencing a lot of emotions that are causing you not to be seeing clearly

Walking on water: It depends upon the state of the water walked on. If it was stormy or calm can make a difference. But in general it is about having confidence that you meet the storms of your emotions and feel okay. But it could also mean you are frightened of ‘going under’. In dreams you cannot drown, and going under the surface can meet a dip into your inner life.

Water overflowing: The water overflows means that the life force now flows freely. It suggests your life purpose is being expressed. If nothing is hurt when it flows over, all is well, but if it ruins things watch your emotional overflows. If you take care, your present life will allow it to express without harm.

If you are a Christian it might point to having trust that you will be upheld by your faith. See: Baptism; River; Sea; Spring.

Idioms: Make water; muddy the waters; tread water; water something down; turn on the waterworks; water under the bridge; hold water; in hot water; head above water; pour cold water onto something.

See: Water Wonderland; Fluid; Pool; River; Rain; Sea; Spring.

Wave Tidal Wave Tsunami

Any release of emotional or sexual energy. The reason this image is used is that when we feel enormous release of emotions such as might happen when we fall in love, have a baby, or are publicly condemned, our ego often feels carried along by the experience rather than in control. We may have learned how to ride such waves as surfers do. This requires confidence, daring and balance. If we can do it we can open ourselves to much greater range of feeling or change than if we felt threatened, overcome or powerless. Even happiness may be repressed due to feeling threatened. Anxiety or depression is one of these enormous waves that may threaten to engulf us, and so is one of the human conditions the tidal wave represents. Yet if we face it and meet it can be an enormously transformative influence. See Dream Yoga – Tsunami.

But huge waves cause many people enormous fear or terror. Often this is because of a past experience such as attack or rape. But dreams are not simply replays of the awful emotions, but are ways you can meet and transform them into healing. See Life’s Little Secrets; Secrets of Power Dreaming; Summing Up

The following examples illustrate our relationship with the forces of Life within us.

‘My husband and I were standing looking at the sea’s surface. It was just falling night. I saw a mass of dark shapes, thought it would be a school of fish. Then we were looking at water birds, maybe ducks, again dark shapes as the light had almost gone. Then there was a hole in the sea, like a belly button, I was wondering what it was, how was it being made, was there something under the water? Something very big was coming up to the surface very close to me. It shot me to wake.’ Ginny Q.

Ginny and her husband had been exploring the content of their dreams. The image of the sea shows Ginny sensing there are enormous depths to her own being, and something big – a previously unconscious insights and feelings – are becoming conscious. Unfortunately the fear woke her – unfortunate because: We can interfere with the life saving process behind dreams actions because often we are  scared or even terrified of experiencing things that might be necessary to keep us balanced. An example of this is in the following:

I am in a very dark, bleak house, with a young boy. It is night outside and the house is isolated. A dark, shadowy, Thing, is trying to get into the house. I am terrified of it, and I am holding the young boy behind me protectively while I try to keep the door closed with my foot, as the Thing batters at it. – James H.

The interference in this case is that most people block the action of SR by repressing the feelings involved. But James explored his dream by imagining opening the door and meeting the Thing. When he did this, feelings from childhood arose – the young boy. He felt the fear of the German bombs he had experienced in his youth. He realised that this hidden – shadowy – fear had kept him from taking risks in life. In meeting the Thing he was now free of that fear. Most of the shadowy creatures of our dreams are expressions of similar fears or hurts, and if met, can be just as transformative.

‘A small speed boat was at sea. But the sea dissolved anybody who fell in. One man fell in but held himself together as a blob of water and jumped back to the speedboat. I remember the words ‘The sea is a great solvent’.’ Tim P.

Tim is aware of his unconscious sense of being a part of the huge ocean of life or energy. In it one might lose sense of identity. In the end, identity is ‘held together’ by one’s own belief in oneself.

‘I am either standing at the edge of the sea or near, when suddenly enormous tidal waves appear in the distance and are coming closer. I know they will engulf me, I turn and run away. Sometimes they do overtake me, other times I wake up.’ Mrs A. V.

We can run from pleasure and wider insight, just as much as from pain or fear.

On the first night I slept with my present wife I noticed she struggled with her breathing. While she was asleep I spoke to her suggesting she would relax and allow her breathing to be easy. Within moments she responded. This encouraged me and I suggested her whole body would relax, and the barriers within her dissolve, allowing healing and well-being to be experienced. Within ten minutes she suddenly awoke and told me a dream.

She was at the rear of a house sunbathing with her family, feeling very relaxed and happy. As she sank into the enjoyment waves, like a tidal wave began to roll up her body. The pleasure was so intense she couldn’t take any more and woke up.

Waves: Impulses, feelings and emotions, such as sexuality, anxiety, anger or fear. Waves can also indicate an impulse such as life in one that has its beginnings from a mysterious source. See Sea

Idioms: All at sea; plenty more fish in the sea; lost at sea; stranger things happen at sea; between the devil and the deep blue sea.

 

Weakness

In some dreams we are suddenly weak and unable to fight off an opponent, or too weak to run. This represents fears of not being able to deal with the situations that face you, or the urges or emotions that arise from within you. It might also mean you feel too weak to say no to someone; or your resolves are weakening.

This can be about weakness you sense in your body or as personality traits or emotions. Very often dreams show emotional difficulties as physical problems.

Example: The unconscious fears of illness, or attitudes about such fears we have are not simply ideas or feelings as many believe but are inextricably woven into the structure and cells of our body. So, bringing them out of the body is like tearing out from the fabric of our intellect, emotions, and body, it is like a growth or structure that is built into our being. One man in class during a relaxation period said, “As you began the I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.” Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness regarding his heart, and the “dark shape” was probably a representation or embodiment of his fear.

A weakness of body or mind is frequently revealed when we create a lot of stress by what we are doing or what happens to us. A man I knew experienced his wife suddenly and unexpectedly leaving him. The stress was so great for the man he was put in a psychiatric ward because the pain was too much for him to bear.

Example: Yesterday while in a multi story car park sitting in my parked car, I saw a woman who is in a friend’s yoga class. She drove up near me, and then called me. She was almost rigid with tension, as she had not parked her huge and expensive car alone before and asked me to help her. Noticing her tension, I saw the episode as yet another symbol of how we relate to Life – afraid often that we cannot handle the enormous power of the car and life and our emotions because they might, or they will, run away with us.

My strength in the situation hasn’t arrived easily. I had slowly learnt, with failures, to handle more powerful vehicles, even a massive removing vehicle. The woman was not weak but cautious and her caution led her to fear crashing the car. We gain such strength by practice; children often start with a scooter and slowly work up the scale. When we handle the power we have within us we too should practice – women often say they have no power by that is not true, learn to apply it, everybody, women and men meet failure and resistances, learn how to meet them. It may not be by being an unflinching warrior, but someone who learns how to adapt, how when you are uprooted put roots down elsewhere and water them and also you can learn new tricks. I started work as a photographer and then I was drafted into the RAF and learnt nursing. Meanwhile I took a course in journalism as a writer, then a yoga teacher, which led to becoming a psychotherapist, but as I didn’t believe in charging enormous amounts, I washed dishes for nine years in a restaurant. That led to learning building work, knocking down walls and rebuilding – and so an electrician, a plumber, then a newspaper journalist, a cook a landscape gardener, a book writer and publisher – and so on. The thing is, apart from nursing and journalism I didn’t take a course or seek diplomas, I learnt because there was work to do and I did it – sometimes failing, like the time I said I would wallpaper a room with woodchip wallpaper and put it on back to front – well I learnt something that day. 🙂 Don’t hold yourself back. See Work I DidDegenerating.

 

Weaning

Because of circumstances we may not have been able to satisfy all our babyhood needs – we may have been weaned earlier than we wanted; our need for attention may have been unsatisfied or we felt rejected or unwanted – and these are shown as a baby in our dreams.

Dreams, such as the example below, show how we sense the need of this part of us to be cared for and nourished. If some of these earliest needs are not met in some way, the development of our enthusiasm, our pleasure and ability to be involved and self-giving, may be diminished, giving rise to dreams suggesting the need for nourishment. See: Inner Baby and Child

Hindu and African babies have always enjoyed demand feeding. They are seldom far from their mother’s side, and whenever they begin to fret, their mothers nurse them. It was only after my return to live in a block of flats in London that I realized how infrequently one hears a baby crying in India, how frequently in Britain.

I have already suggested that the early weaning of our babies may he responsible for the slight bias towards pessimism which colours our outlook. Among the Hindus whom I studied; the opposite bias prevailed, they seemed to live in constant expectation of a stroke of good fortune. Each new acquaintance was scanned hopefully as if he might be the agent of their material and spiritual salvation; and in spite of many disappointments, these hopes would rise again. Quoted from Lysergic Acid & Ritalin In the treatment of  Neurosis  

Example: ‘I have my own baby who is lying in a cot in a bedroom looking very weak and pathetic with eyes closed. I know that he or she is getting weaker and weaker through lack of food and care. In fact, the baby seems to be dying. The feelings of guilt are terrible because I know it is my responsibility to do something to make it well. I keep saying to myself I must go and feed that baby – but I don’t. I just keep worrying and feeling guilty.’ J. C.

Example: When I was about four years old I was looked after by an elderly woman while my mother went to work. One day I was in the house and the woman’s’ daughter came in. I stood watching her as she was in the dining room. Then I saw something that has remained in me forever. The daughter had a split up the side of her blouse, and through the split I could see her firm bare breast. Seeing it I felt an enormous hunger that filled my stomach, chest and mouth. I wanted to go to that breast and cuddle and suckle it.

At these deep levels of fantasy and desire, one has to recognise that the first sexual experience and sexual desire – hopefully – is at mothers breast. At a certain stage of development the emotional bond and cuddling is more important.

Weapons Gun Knife

Fears or desires connected with hurting or being hurt. The weapon often hides a deeply felt childhood pain that has not been felt, so might express as anger or rage. Some weapons, like guns or knives can also represent male sexuality or fears regarding it.

Yet whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of anything you dream of.

Guns, rockets, knives, spears, etc., depict our desire to hurt or kill someone, or if we are being shot or hurt in the dream, how we have internalised our own aggression or past hurts or fear of being hurt. We often kill parts of our own feelings, our love or even our most creative self. Perhaps what we kill most often is the deepest feelings and passions that would guide us in the life that expresses who we are, and what our work on earth is.

Weapons are also defence against fears of being hurt. If we shoot or stab someone or something, we need to consider what part of ourselves we are turning our aggression upon. If we kill or injure a recognisable person, we may be harbouring the desire to hurt or kill that person, even if only in reputation. All weapons can represent male sexual drive or aggressive sexuality.

All weapons can represent male sexual drive or aggressive sexuality. See: Fight; Attack; Shot; War; Rocket; Stab

The situation in which the action takes place: Defines what the weapon expresses.

Ineffective weapons: Feelings of inadequacy.

 A work tool used as a weapon: Our skill or authority turned against ourselves or someone else – as might happen if a doctor got sexual favours through his position. See: rocket; shot; stab.

 arrow: Something that has really got into us, like hurtful words or actions; or being pierced by a powerful emotion such as love; turning our attention inwards in a wounding way; sometimes a message, perhaps of love or endeavour.

bullets or ammunition: If it is something someone else has: Things that you feel others can use against you, such as lies, criticism, anger , etc. If it is something you have: Attitudes or thoughts you use to bolster your confidence; things you feel or think that could be used to wound other people or even yourself; ways we defend against other peoples attack. Lacking ammunition: Feeling without hope for some difficulty you are involved in, perhaps an emerging conflict with a partner or at work.

gun: Penis; male sexuality; anger; confidence in defending oneself against criticism, etc.; fears or anxieties; attitudes we use as a defence against our own emotions or realisations – a man might feel depressed about growing old, and defend himself against these with positive thoughts; also the bulldozer emotions we sometimes use against others, like a pistol held to their head.

When shot by gun: Feeling hurt, wounded; being the target of criticism or hurtful remarks; fear of sex.

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

knife: Penis, cutting intellectual insight, aggression, depending on how used in the dream; an attempt to wound someone. Idioms: Get one’s knife into someone; on a knife edge; under the knife surgery; cut it out; cut the air with a knife.

Because it often has a cross as a handle, has mixed meanings. Erection; conflict or a fight; doing battle with someone; anger; social power; justice; spiritual strength.

Heirloom: A heritage of attitudes from one’s family; will power or discrimination; strength to defend oneself and one’s rights. Consider background of dream for meaning.

Sword coming point first out of mouth: Angry words; argument or vicious verbal attack.

Sword hanging by a thread: threats hanging over one.

When sheathed: Power or anger under control, perhaps even forgiveness; strength held in reserve; the soul or self in the body.

Idioms: Shot in the arm; shot across the bows; shot to pieces; shot in the dark; long shot; Cross swords with someone; double edged sword; sword of Damocles.

See: cross under shapes and symbols; fightattackshotwar

 

Weather

We often use weather and scenes to depict our moods. A relationship can be ‘stormy’ for instance, and someone’s disposition can be ‘sunny’. So, in trying to understand nature in your dreams consider how you would use what appears in your dream if you were making a film. What mood or emotion might it portray?

What aspect of your character or life would it illustrate? So, weather can illustrate one’s changing external situations – or internal response to situations; our moods and emotions. See Idioms for indications of the meaning.

The changing external situations of your life – or your internal response to situations, so your moods and emotions. See: blizzard; rain; flood; cloud; snow; lightning; thunder.

Sunshine usually represents happiness, life-giving energies, growth, positiveness. Cloudiness is akin to despair, fear, depression, emotional unhappiness, gloomy attitudes. Raining can be a release of emotion in a pleasant relaxing manner, or a flood of emotion that overcomes you. Storms are anger, violence, release of emotions in a dramatic way. See: Rain; Storm; Sun; Earthquakes; Tsunamis

Example: Dreamt I am looking out of the window and it is a very stormy day, raining heavily. I can see the storm and the rain are the way the world adjusts itself all the time. The weather is the world’s means of self-regulation. Through earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, the earth manages to regulate itself. In that way it deals with the enormous forces playing on it from the cosmos, from within itself and from the immense influence of humans on the earths balance. It also has to deal with the influence of the life forms it carries, such as ourselves, pouring out poisonous gases and carbon dioxide.

I have a feeling that occasionally the earth needs to make massive adjustments, as when the earth was hit by the huge comet 124 miles in diameter 65 million of years ago when the dinosaurs died out. Such adjustments are difficult. Some species die out, others that survive, then develop further. What survives flourishes, because it has what it takes to deal with catastrophe and change. It has learned how to survive dark times. So, we too need to learn how to survive and be a part of personal earthquakes and meteors entering our lives. Perhaps we need such extraordinary tragedies to move us on. See Opening to Life

Idioms: Sunny disposition; things don’t look so bright; things will brighten up; it never rains but it pours; like living under a cloud; things are a bit rough/ stormy/ overcast; don’t rain on my parade; every cloud has a silver lining; throw caution to the wind; a breath of fresh air; on cloud nine; stormy weather; raising a storm; eye of the storm; weather the storm. See: blizzard; rain; flood; cloud; snow; lightning; thunder.

Weave Weaving

In general, it may indicate that you are creating a new approach or realisation by weaving together past ideas or realisation and arriving at a new insight, probably by working at it.

For instance, the Norse legend of how the weaving of flax was taught to humans by a goddess is almost certainly a description of a waking dream experienced by the person who invented weaving. Unable to reason because at the time in our evolutioin we had not developed the reaspning mind, many still haven’t, but having already noticed the separate pieces of information, such as the flax growing, then rotting to reveal its fibres, the person’s unconscious formed a new gestalt (something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts), maybe with the help of seeing woven baskets. So, the person, while awake, experienced a vivid ‘dream’ or image thought process, in which the new idea is expressed as a goddess showing point by point how to weave flax.

The important point is that everything we see and deal with, every person, every imagined scene, has such a background of feelings and perhaps memories. It is exactly this background of feelings and information that the dream weaves its story from. It is these associations we gather that are the language of our dreams. To understand them you need to become aware of the usually unconscious feeling responses you have in connection with everything, place, person and animal you fill your dreams with. For you are the weaver.

Your life includes a thousand hopes, countless pleasures, and pains beyond memory. Your life is not even your own, but a vast wonderful weaving of many others into your being. Even the animals and landscapes, the houses you have loved or feared are intricately a part of you.

The culture we live in weaves itself into who and what we become. A child born in today’s world will be influenced by the extraordinary number of chemicals and additives, medicines and drugs, alcohol and nicotine, that are part and parcel of life today. They are all factors that go into the make up of who the person is and becomes. They are the chemicals in the ‘paint’ of personality.

Web

A sticky situation you feel yourself in or feeling caught up in something that might trap you. You can be trapped by the power of someone else’s emotions or expectations, or their web of lies.

The web can also be used to show you the symmetry of your core self, or the delicate or sometimes imperceptible but real connections linking you with other people, events and the world. This link may be supportive or threatening. The circle of life or the ecosystem is a web of interactions, and the centre of the web can suggest a merging back into the primal energy of life.

Through the web of links you have with life and people you may sense what is going on in the world and in relationships. At its most fundamental level this sensing tells you whether what is happening or approaching can be eaten, or whether it will eat/devour you. At its subtler levels you sense your connection with all life and how you can find a place in the scheme of things. This aspect connects with the symbol of the labyrinth as the difficult journey to self discovery.

But spider’s webs, as in a dusty house, show you dealing with something you have not used, or not lived for a long time. Possibly it also suggests a need to spring-clean or deal with old memories or the past. See: Maze.

I am standing in a room full of extremely thick and dusty spiders webs. I am aware these are hiding beautiful wainscot walls. I wish to pass through this room to the ones beyond, but the webs are like a maze, and on the top of the web nearest to me sits a large SOLID spider. If I brush against the web the spider will fall and smother me – since it is every bit as large and solid as I am. Maria M.

 The dream shows how quite subtle old threads of experience or feeling can link you with something that is still powerfully threatening or frightening. This could easily refer to emotions that connect you to memories of childhood trauma or the past. See Trauma – What Can We Do About It

 The spider ants web indicates the basic survival instincts in us such as a spider might have – can I eat, or will I be eaten in this meeting/relationship? This level of our sensory and feeling perception is important. Like a spider it keeps one of our feet/fingers on the web of influences that connect us with other people and the world. Like the spider, if we are wise, we thereby know something of what is coming our way – do we advance or run?

Are you involved or been caught in the web? The dream spider and its web often relate to relationships, especially that with your mother, in which emotional bonds held you – as if you were caught in the web or feeling trapped by someone. But we are all enmeshed in the huge web of social interactions and that is the web of life. Perhaps your dream is telling you something about this involvement.

Quoting from ‘Women’s Ways of Knowing’ Basic Books. ‘Webs and nets imply opposing capacities for snaring or entrapment and for rescuing or safety. They also suggest a complexity of relationships and the delicate interrelatedness of all so that tensions and movement in one part of the system will grow to be felt in all parts of the whole. In the complexity of a web, no one position dominates over the rest. Each person – no matter how small – has some potential for power; each is always subject to the actions of others. It is hard to imagine other ways of visioning the world that offer as much potential for protection to the immature and the infirm.’

See: Spider.

Wedding

See: Marriage.

Wedding Dress

Feelings and hopes about relationship and wedding; in a negative dream it represents anxieties about one’s relationship or the future.

Wedding dress given by mother: Qualities and strengths absorbed from mother in regard to relationship; letting go of external mother by expressing her qualities in the present.

Example: I am at the wedding of my best friend. The groom doesn’t turn up and she decides to marry the first person who comes along. I wonder whether this is a good thing to do.’ Mary T.

Example: When I was engaged to my present husband I dreamt we were married and I looked down at my wedding ring. It was twisted and bent. In fact I now see it as a warning because we have not made a good marriage.’ S.W.

Example: I am a gay 20 year old woman. I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about four months now. Previously, she had been my best friend for six years.

Last night, I dreamt that we were married. I didn’t dream of a honeymoon, or announcing our marriage, or even proposing or anything of that nature. In the dream, I just…knew that we were married. My girlfriend’s hair was significantly longer than it normally is, if that means anything. In the dream, she insisted that she wanted to have a baby, and she wanted to do it by becoming pregnant through a sperm donor.

It was a little strange, because neither of us are really keen on the idea of having kids at all, much less actually becoming pregnant. We were both excited about it in the dream though.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dress what I felt easy with in the dream?

Were there any problems with the dress – if so what were they?

Was there any thing I would like to change?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsSecrets of Power Dreaming

Weed

A personal trait or attitude that is not contributing to your well-being. Something growing in your life that you may be best without. See: Garden.

Weeds

Things you have developed in your life which are not contributing much to your present life situation – or might even be stopping more positive personal growth. Weeds can also point to the way your thoughts or feelings have been allowed to get out of hand and grown in a way to crowd out real useful growth. So, they can suggest misplaced endeavour or energy. See: Plants.

I go into a bathroom and begin pulling weeds from my mouth; weeds, weeds and more weeds come out from my mouth – come from deep down inside me. I am still pulling them out when I leave the bathroom and someone, a woman walking behind me, helps me to pull some weeds that are still trailing from my mouth. P.

Pulling stuff out of the mouth is a common dream, and most likely expresses the feeling of discomfort we feel if something foreign is in our mouth or throat. It shows the feeling of urgently trying to rid oneself of something that is unpleasant – perhaps feelings we have taken in, or things we have said that leave a nasty taste in one’s mouth. Because we speak with our mouth and tongue, they can represent the things we are trying to say, but we are blocked by feelings/emotions that are difficult to express.

Of course, weeds are simply nature’s own living creatures, but as far as dreams are concerned, weeds often are shown as blockages for things to flow easily, or to function well, so ask yourself, “In what way do I feel blocked?” It might be emotionally, sexually, creatively, your voice or even your energy.

Example: I was walking by a riverbank near a cemetery. As I walked and drew near to the cemetery, I saw submerged in the river a record player – in fact my record player. I walked into the river and pulled it out.

Prior to this dream he had experienced several dreams showing the river being blocked, or silted up, or made sluggish with reeds and weeds, and in this dream, he was walking in the direction the river flowed, it being clear and free flowing. The river is the flow of his life, showing the energies of growth and creativity, the energies underlying emotions, thinking and sexuality. The dream shows him as consciously following their flow. The cemetery is the many past lives buried within him. The record player is the faculty of memory covered up by the emotions or flow of his inner life, but now he is bringing this faculty to the surface. He felt this dream had something to do with past lives but was far from being sure.

A weed: In the English language a ‘weed’ often refers to a person who has no physical or personal strength. Someone who may be thin, not fully developed and unattractive.

Weeding out: In dreams it can indicate you trying to ‘weed out’ the parts of you that you do not want to grow in your life; also an awareness of particular parts of your personality which need working on, perhaps negative habits that need ‘weeding out’.

Weeds in the pool: Also, emphases the dangers you may harbour in your thinking or habits, because weeds growing up from the bottom of a swimming pool may trap a person freely exploring their inner world. See Inner World

Weight

Your weight, or the weight of something else, can suggest seriousness, a sense of a burden or responsibility, its importance or even personal power.

Example: Again, she was like a child, an Oriental child, full of wonder at what it had seen. I had mentioned earlier what I thought brought this experience to people, and I asked her what had happened.

She looked at me quickly. Her eyes were very brown, but quite round. “I was very much in love with somebody.” Her eyes were wide open looking at me, and her mouth was trying to carry on speaking, but the weight of emotion behind what she wanted to say carried the words to her eyes, where they began to come out as tears.

Example: Everything, houses, trees, even people, looked as if they were but hints of shape and depth upon this wonderful golden yellow, all formed out of the same substance, with but hints of difference. As I looked, I rose high into the sky and looked down at the landscape. Doing so I began to lose myself in its beauty. But suddenly I was shot by a man on the ground who thought I was a strange bird. I fell but managed to slow my fall by forming my body into an arch. I landed near the man with the rifle and could not move. The man was terrified of what he had done, and wanted to run away, or to shoot me and finish me off. He was in a terrible state of conflict, between running away and shooting me. My calling him to help only made it worse. A man and a doctor came to me and carried me to the wall of the nearby house. The doctor attended my two wounds, one in the left bicep, and one in the right side of the chest, by the ribs. The two men spoke to each other as if I could not understand. They said, “What a beautiful specimen he is,” referring to my body. The other said, “Yes, he has the shape, but don’t you think he lacks sufficient weight?”

I feel the weight referred to in this dream was not simply the weight of his body but the weight or power of him. Considering he had lost himself in the beauty of the countryside, you could say he was ‘off with the fairies’ in his mind and needed a more down-to-earth attitude – more weight.

Weight of someone on you: Feeling they are being too dependent or a burden in your life.

Your weight: In western Europe and the USA enormous number of people are very overweight. Some are so aware of this it becomes a sickness. If your dreams point to this in any way see Fasting and Dreams – Practical Techniques to explore them

Idioms: Carry weight; pull your weight; throw your weight around; worth your weight in gold. See: FatPerson.

Well

Access to your deepest resources – therefore personal spiritual wisdom or information from the unconscious, so a view into your depths. The well can also be the source of your ‘well-being’.

When we use the words “something welled up in me” it gives another meaning to the image. It suggests that feeling, fears or even insights are emerging or coming up from somewhere deep. In fact, something emerging from a well shows the unconscious process of Life is showing itself. This ‘Life’ process is not something that has been made conscious so far. It links with the sort of intuitive knowing that animals have, and so often has a connection with the part of you that you nothing about now, unless you explore going down the well in imagination. In some dreams it suggests the vagina. See: Water.

The New Testament gives a great description of the water you can draw from the well you find in your dreams:Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water (from an earthly well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” The water referred to was not from the earth but what flows within you as intuitive widom. See Intuition – Using It

The suggestion is that one has pierced through to your Core Self, where all life processes start from, so receiving the influence from there means you are no longer at the mercy of your own fears, weaknesses and jealousy, and your life has been transformed. See Opening to Life

Werewolf

Your own, or somebody else’s rapacious desires, animal lusts, urges, hates. See: Vampire.

The fear associated with emotional or sexual relationships; feeling that someone is too demanding; the sense of not being able to be independent of ones parent/lover, and feeling any personal independence, energy or will is sucked away by them. We create this creature out of our own doubts or fears; or sometimes by our physical condition in which we lack energy, so sex is felt like an attack and sucking ones life force.

Because in the world of dreams we can create any creature or image, we use the image of the werewolf or vampire because it describes what we feel, probably in a violent relationship. It can also mean the fear or anger about not having a will of ones own, and still emotionally dependent on mother/father, and turns back upon them. See: animals.

West

Where the sun sets – death or the end of something, so the mature period of your life. Also the physical life; down to earth self.

The Native Americans saw the West as later adulthood the time of Fall, the time of the setting sun – twilight. The daylight fades and brings a new awareness in this time of gradual change. When the darkness comes, we must look inward to find the light of understanding the makes our path in life clearer and gives courage. To understand what we see in the darkness may be real or only shadows. See: Directions. 

Directions such as East and West are the total opposite, and so are definite things in themselves. Many Westerners see the East as an exotic or mystical place, and so in dreams they use it as such. For the Eastern born, the West may be represented as a materialistic or a place of plenty and riches. A great difference I have noted between Eastern and Western people is the enormous respect Eastern people have for those with real experience – thus leader figures.

Also, for hundreds of years, due to the Christian influence, dreams have been discounted in the West. The masses and their leaders do not realize, however, that there is no substantial difference between calling the world principle male and a father (spirit), as the West does, or female and a mother (matter, kali), as the Communists and Indians do.

In ancient traditions the west indicates, especially in dreams, going to the holy place, the awareness of the inner world and even becoming consciously aware of the death state. So, a state of expanded awareness. See Darkness

For many Westerners there is a profound temptation, when the urgent call of their inner life is first felt, to leave the rational and scientific world entirely. Often they associate with an Eastern religion or guru, or try to drop their entire occidental identity. Fortunately this cannot be done in a satisfying way. The positive elements of ones own culture come knocking on the door of awareness to be included. The rational, questioning, scientific and experimental aspects of our Western identity have a great deal to offer to the unfocused, intuitive, evolutionary drive of the unconscious. Also much of the structure of our inner world is focused around the cultural symbols of Christianity and Western literature art and music. Nevertheless, because the West has entered and in some ways raped the East, it has opened itself to a cultural back flow.

Whale

The whale can depict the powerful evolutionary drive involved in reproduction, and what lies behind individual male or femaleness. It is the beneficent power of the collective unconscious – the enormous life and mind that underlies our own little area of personal awareness. It can also indicate the ability to dive deeply into your unconscious life process and awareness.

Example: ‘I was leaning over the settee with my hands cupped under my chin looking out of the window. The view was spectacular, in that it was as if the house was situated on top of a cliff overlooking a huge bay, shaped like a horseshoe, with the house in the middle. From the sea suddenly, coming into the bay I could see three enormous whales making their way toward me. As I was staring in amazement they began to transform themselves and come up out of the water as three giant Viking like figures. They were so huge, that the water came up only to their knees and everything was moving so slowly, as they waded towards me. It was the most awe-inspiring thing I had ever seen in my life.’ Sue B.

The bay, the beautiful sea, the sperm whales/men, show Sue touching the most primordial yet inspiring aspects of her own womanhood and urge to find a mate and love. See: Religion and dreams; Sea.

Example: Tony, I had a dream last night of at least 5 or 6 gigantic, larger than life sized whales swimming in the ocean very near the shore! They were tremendous, powerful and I sensed that they were very aware of the people at the shore and their own magnitude. I wasn’t afraid; what could this mean?

Your dream shows that you are no stranger to your own inner/psychic/wider world pf awareness. Also, that the whales their size and their nearness to shore says that you are growing ever more aware of the world beyond your physical senses. The ocean itself is the huge world that most of us are unaware of for the sea, with its surface and hidden depths, lends itself to depicting this human experience of known and unknown regarding yourself. The enormity of the sea is also a visible image of the enormity of your own inner world – much of it unknown and lying in pre-birth or pre-speech – and also the relationship you have with the processes underlying your existence, that you exist by yet know so little about. The sea holds vast treasures, curiosities, and your history.

Idioms: Big fish; big fish in a small pond; cold fish; fish for compliments; fish out of water; queer fish; smell something fishy.

Useful questions:
Am I meeting a deeper awareness of my relationship with the fundamental drives in me?
Has a change occurred where I am starting the inner journey into who I am beyond the surface personality?
Have I recently felt a wider awareness of what I am?

What Is Offered In The Dictionary

So how can we get into this magical world of our dreams and start to harvest the possibilities held there? The following pages of this book are designed to help, guide and inform on how to do this. The book is also a counsellor on what you may find in your dream adventure.

The information about dreams presented in this book has been gathered during fifty years of working with and studying dreams and the dream process. It synthesises the experience of personally helping hundreds of individuals explore their dreams. The examples used have been taken from a collection of over 8000 dreams put onto a computer filing system. The filing system was also used to define general associations with commonly used dream images.

The major input for definition however has arisen from the actual exploration of dreams undertaken by individuals. These are either people I have worked with personally who have deeply felt the emotions and issues behind their dreams, not simply talked them over and come to an intellectual interpretation but a deep insight, or are people who have written up their findings arising from similar work. Added to this is the commonly held associations we have through our language and the way we use imagery within speech. Of course your personal dream imagery may not be using the commonly held associations, or those used by other people, and so you must read the definitions with care and consider if these fit what is implied or dramatised in your dream.

In the entries in the Dictionary are explanations of the many different types of dreams and dream images. Despite some people’s attempt to explain dreams in one simple formula, dreams cover a huge range of phenomena and human experience. Amongst subjects covered in the book are thousands of entries on the researched meaning of the things, people, creatures and places we dream about. There are also many entries on special subjects such as symbols and dreaming; interpreting dreams; recurring dreams; nightmares; sex while asleep; teenage girls love dreams; precognitive dreams; talking in ones sleep; the dream as an adventure; science sleep and dreams; and many more.

There are a compete list of these Features and the  Archetypes covered.

Therefore, if you have dreamt of such things as your teeth falling out; being chased; or your marriage partner dying, you will find an explanation of your dream in the following pages.

The aim of the book is to help you make connections between your dreams and your everyday life; to discover more fully the powerful emotions and reactions that unconsciously direct your decisions and responses in waking. The book is not an attempt to give you merely ideas to play with, to agree or disagree with, like fortune telling. It can lead to real insights which empower you to make more of yourself, and find your way through the many decisions life confronts you with.

But you can move directly on to Using the Dictionary – or better still read Meaning of Your Dream.

What we Need to Remember About Us

To quickly find what you want click on the following links –

We exist strung between enormous duality – sleep and waking, male and female, pain and pleasure, light and darkness, life and death, and death and resurrection, war and peace, matter and anti-matter, negative and positive, the void and bodily existence, success and failure and the many other things that torment so many such as, “Am I  attractive or am I not attractive to others?” To be whole we need to accept and meet these opposites. In the pursuit of love we need to recognise that we must integrate the other gender to become whole. See Archetype of the Animus

Most of us do not even admit it, that we are a very strange creature who becomes unconscious for a large period of our life. We simply accept that we sleep because we need to rest. Daily we pass through an extraordinary change that we often take so much for granted we miss the wonder of it. The change occurs between sleeping and waking. For most of us being awake is when we most fully feel ourselves. Compared with this sleeping is a period during which we lose any focused awareness of being an individual, of having a body except in our dreams and we sink into what is generally called unconsciousness — the lack of personal awareness, darkness. See Lucidity

We all know what it is like in our daily life with its pleasures and tribulations, but few know what it is like in the other polarity of ourselves. This part of us is not limited in awareness by  our physical senses, but has a more global awareness. As one person who experienced it regularly describes it, in our body awareness it is like looking through a crack in a wall at a big river.

So all that we can see is what ships are passing in front of us now. But in the other level of us it is like looking over the top of the wall and seeing the whole river, what has passed us and what is coming.

Yet this swing between waking and sleeping can be seen as the extremes within the possibilities of our experience. Sleeping and waking are the polarities, the North and South Poles of what we can confront. In quite a real sense we can say there is nothing beyond what is included in those polarities. When we begin to explore the depths of sleep through dreams and other ’sleeping’ phenomena, then the apparently black depths of sleep begin to reveal an amazing life and energy. Light is taken into the darkness. Things become visible that were hidden. What was unconscious begins to become known. The huge area of our experience that seemed to be a blank gains life and substance. Then the unconscious is recognised as an area as vast and varied as the physical world.

We are unconscious in sleep because our limited awareness of self – our personality or I – has lost all awareness of having a body, a gender, sight or sound, so exists in a vast timeless zone of bodiless awareness. It has become everything – and as everything it cannot have a shape, a body, a locality, for all or any of those would be something. This in older cultures was seen as the ‘little death’, because they understood that is is what happens when we die.

It is a vast darkness that is the source of everything, the source of our own existence as a person. It is our unconscious self until we pierce it with consciousness. We haven’t actually lost our self or I, it has been expanded enormously, and if we claim it we claim also it enormously expanded abilities. See  Life’s Little SecretsOBE ExperienceBodiless Awareness

But in fact you are a dual being in many other ways. You have a hidden side of being both female and male; of having a huge heritage of experience gathered from your forebears and the past that you are barely conscious of; and many other aspects of duality you become conscious of as you journey more fully into your unconscious self.

“I woke early this morning to pee. As I woke I was aware of having been dreaming, but I could not remember what the dream was. However, I was experiencing a strong feeling of being connected with all things. I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery. Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naïve, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle”.

Disciplines of mind, and the use of certain drugs, enables people to explore areas of experience that do not occur “naturally”. Through these it enables the practitioner to enter the condition of sleep while maintaining a certain amount of critical awareness, as happens in lucid dreaming. This really is a voyage of exploration, and is different to what happens when a person explores a dream. Exploring a dream brings contents of the unconscious into waking experience. Mental disciplines and lucidity enables a personal dive into levels of awareness that are usually cloaked in unconsciousness. Perhaps this can be likened to the first humans who dived under the sea with a submarine and began to personally witness the immense range and variety of life that exists under the surface. But it has to be said that the imagery of dreams and lucid fantasy are still almost at the level of waking. The depths and heights of what is usually unconscious within us revealed worlds completely different to what we know during waking life. Those worlds are no less real than the world of our conscious personality. They are in fact a balancing polarity to what we know and experience in our daily life.

In waking life we exist as only an awareness of our body that is locked in a position in time and space, and only aware of what our limited physical senses allow us to see. For instance you can see less than one percent of spectrum of light, and hear less than one percent of the acoustic spectrum. So ‘naturally’ you are almost blind and deaf. It can help if you realise that just as your eyes do not directly allow you to see, but nerve impulses are sent to the brain where they are translated into living pictures. Nothing we sense in the world is directly known, but it is all impressions that are translated into a sense of smell, sight, hearing, etc. So the eyes receive reflected light from an object that is translated into nervous impulses, which is then received by the brain which translates what are formless nerve impulses into what we feel we see. And yet we maintain we are in the ‘real’ world when we are awake.

Another aspect is that we often carry our morals, viewpoints, fear and means of protection into the inner world of dreams. But they are not necessary in our dream or inner life.

In waking life through the learning of language we have developed a sense of self, and believe it is our highest reality. See Animal ChildrenArchetype of the Paradigm

At the other end of our awareness is an ocean of consciousness that does not have a focussed sense of self. This ocean of consciousness that is at the core of our being is what has been called many names. In India it has been described as Sat-Chit-Ananda – Being-Consciousness-Bliss. When we discover it as the centre of ourselves it is no longer seen as exterior or distant. But in waking life where we lack awareness of it we see it either as non-existent or as separate and distant.

This part of us is not limited in awareness by  our physical senses, but has a more global awareness. As one person who experienced it regularly describes it, in our body awareness it is like looking through a crack in a wall at a big river. So all that we can see is what ships are passing in front of us now. But in the other level of us it is like looking over the top of the wall and seeing the whole river, what has passed us and what is coming.

Another persons description is – “I simply dissolved into an apparently spaceless and timeless void which was total “no-thing-ness” yet at the same time the most intense, blissful aliveness I have ever known. I think this is what is meant by the mystical notion that so-called normal human life is really a state of chronic forgetfulness of “who we really are,” and I suppose my NDE must somehow have shocked me into recognizing my identity with the Void, with the result that my forgetfulness is now spasmodic rather than chronic. Needless to say, I was bowled over by all this at first, and spent many weeks coming to terms with it.”

Although that is an amazing possibility, it is not uncommon for people to experience it. In certain circumstances we can be aware of the deepest levels of our body, its functions, organs and tiny . The Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, in his book Realms of the Human Unconscious, gives details of people experiencing vivid and specific awareness of what he calls Organ, Tissue, and Cellular Consciousness. Also, Dr. Bernie S. Siegel started the Exceptional Cancer Patient Clinic through his experience that patient’s dreams showed what was happening in their body. Such dreams diagnosed their illness long before present technology could.

As a living creature you are dual in countless ways. For example we are all both female and male, only polarised by our body. We are also alive and dead – in fact in every moment of our life we face the possibility of death. In fact we only live because we are constantly dying. Our body is all the time dying as thousands of cells die, and in doing so the new and living body can continue. If we allow ourselves to realise that it illustrates the meaning of the phoenix – it is consumed by the flames, and yet it arose anew. We have the fire of life within us, we eat and feed the fire that consumes us and gives birth to us continuously. It is the warmth of our body, the warmth, even passion, of our emotions and that is life – continuous through death.

We are all angels and devils, murders and saints. heterosexual and homosexual. Any long sturdy of ones dreams will show you that unconsciously we are potentially everything; the light and the dark, the energy and inertia, the whole universe.

During the last century an enormously expanded understanding of the human mind and consciousness has arisen. In other cultures much of what our own scientifically oriented culture has arrived at had already been stated. However, it is important for the western individual to gain insight from their own perspective, as much from past cultures is stated in language that is often not properly understood, and we often fail to really grasp what is being presented.

So in beginning to consider the levels of our everyday awareness and how this links with our physical brain, we can look at what anatomy, physiology and psychology have defined.

Basically the brain is separated into two halves, generally called the left and right hemispheres. But it is now understood that our brain developed its sections over the long span of evolutionary history. Because of this it has, within and also separate from the two hemispheres, a number of levels.  As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991). Each new level, as it developed, elaborated on and extended the function of the preceding levels. So, from the spinal cord the hindbrain and midbrain developed. The first level of brain that developed beyond the spinal cord has been called the Reptilian Brain. This is because what we carry within our human brain is still found in reptiles. This ‘brain’ often encompasses several parts of the physical brain.

The neurologist Paul MacLean gave a definition of these physiological and psychological facts of our brain in 1990. He said that these levels of the brain work like “three interconnected biological computers, [each] with its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own memory”.

In fact there are even older levels than these, but let us look at the most obvious.

Taking the Reptilian Brain first, this is sometimes called the ‘R-complex’, and includes the brain stem and the cerebellum. It carries our genetically transmitted ‘instinctive’ behaviour such as suckling at the breast as a baby, aggressive response as with and including territorial defensiveness, the courtship and mating behaviours in reproduction. One of the best known expressions of this brain is the ‘flight or fight’ response in survival situations.

This brain deals with behaviour that is either innate, as described above, is learned and has become habitual, or is a conditioned response. If it is habitual we can repeat it without having to learn it or be very aware of how we do it – as with riding a bicycle or driving a car once we have mastered the skill.

The functions of the second, Mammalian or Human ‘brain’ MacLean likened to the skills shown in mammals such as wild dogs and apes. Whereas the lizards do not demonstrate mutual activity in hunting or caring for young, mammals show enormous awareness of bonding, caring for young, group activity, hierarchy and recognition of family and pack. They also have a much bigger pool of behavioural responses and can learn even more. This ‘brain’ integrates and refines the functions of the reptilian brain. It provides emotional range and intensity, and gives a greater complexity to what motivates or deters us. It is this greater awareness of how we relate to others, and the social structure in which we exist, along with a sense of what place in it we occupy, that enables us to modify and coordinate the impulses arising from the reptilian brain. Here too lie the beginnings of being able to reflect and learn from experience in that way.

At times when we tap the resources of this brain we discover enormous insights and wisdom concerning relationships and social interactions.

And then there is the brain most of us are familiar with the Human Brain. So as we grew in our mother womb we developed through the levels of evolution. At one time we were like a fish with gills, and so within us is all levels of our past that is closed to our waking mind, but is there withing our Global Mind. So we have within us all animals – no wonder we dream of them so often. See Brain Levels and Dreams

A man – Jesse Watkins – stressed out of his normal awareness said – ““I was more than I had ever imagined myself. Not only was I living my life now, but I had existed from the very beginning of time, from the lowest form of life up to the present. The real me was all that experience. Then at times I could see ahead beyond even the awareness I now had, to where we become aware of it all.” Jesse felt that the new ‘world’  he was experiencing was something humans were moving toward, but most people couldn’t reach at the moment. In that world were beings Jesse called gods, beings who could live and move in that world easily, beings who were not afraid of the enormity of the experience. From this he felt that all the things that happen to us in our life are helping us evolve toward becoming like the gods Jesse met.

Such a leap forward in understanding dreams came when Aserinsky and Kleitman found rapid eye movements (REM) in 1953. In 1957 the REM were linked with dreaming. This defined sleep into two different observable states, REM sleep, and NREM non rapid eye movement, pronounced non-REM sleep. Within NREM three different stages have been identified. So whenever you dream your eyes move rapidly to follow what is happening in your dream.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) machine that measure brain activity shows that while awake the brain waves are low in height and the frequency is fast. As we relax prior to sleep EEG shifts to what are called alpha waves, with an 8 to 12 cps cycles per seconds. There is a transition between this drowsy state of alpha waves to sleeping, in which theta waves occur, with a 3 to 7 cps. and in this first stage we experience random images and thoughts.

This is called stage one This lasts about ten minutes followed by stage two, in which ‘sleep spindles’ occur that have 12 to 14 cps on the EEG; about half our sleep period is spent in this second stage of sleep. Deep sleep is reached when our brain exhibits Delta waves, with 1/2 to 2 cps. The illustration shows the periods of dreaming in red. It is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sleep_Hypnogram.svg

After approximately an hour and a half from falling into deep sleep, an exciting change occurs. We return to level two and REM’s occur. Suddenly the brain is alert and active, though the person is asleep and difficult to wake. This level has been called paradoxical sleep because of this fact.

During REM sleep while we are dreaming our voluntary muscles are paralyzed – except for our eyes. It is thought this was developed during a period when our forebears were sleeping in trees. Any movement would have made them fall. The eye movements were of course not dangerous.

An important fact about dreaming is that all the signals for movement while we dream are sent by the sleeping brain to the muscles but are blocked by a part of the brain called the pons. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/man-who-didnt-dream/.

But this block can be bypassed by having a passive attitude while awake (See Keyboard Condition). This allows for a little recognised phenomenon which, while awake and in a passive state, allows the dream process to break through as spontaneous movement, sound and emotion, exactly as with dreams. In the past, and still in the present, this spontaneous movements and speech are all things that happen when this dream process breaks through into consciousness. Things like Seitai, Chi Gong, Tai Chi, Shaktipat, Pentecostalism, and Reichian therapy, where spontaneous movement is practiced by thousands of people.

But when this spontaneous movement breaks through to consciousness many people are frightened of it and rush to the doctor to sedate it. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/sleep-paralysis/ – See also http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

In life and sleep we have two powerful actions working in us. The first is our waking experience based on having a body, its limitations, vulnerabilities and a particular gender. Our second is the power that gave us life and continues to express as dreams, in our breathing and heartbeat – our life. This I have given the description as the Life Will.

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will and in fact runs all our important life processes like heart beat, digestion and also dreams.

As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Edgar Cayce and the Cosmic MindESP in Dreams.

For simplicity I have called this experience, of what is actually ‘waking lucid dreaming’, ‘LifeStream’. It would take us too far out of looking at dreams to explore it, but it can be studied within these features: LifeStreamPeople’s Experience of LifeStream– Life’s Little Secrets – Arm Circling Meditation

This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive or we are restricted by being tied down.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.

But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness.

That is actually the story of the Garden of Eden. At first we were all living in an instinctive Life Will state, having no decisions to face and all directions automatically handled instinctively. But when we left the Garden of Eden by having developed our own will we felt naked and afraid – in the words of Genesis.

So we are in a situation in which we have only a limited awareness instead of the amazing wider world of the unconscious – the Life Will. We are in general very small creatures, and when we begin to meet the enormous world that we left in the Garden, and we meet it with human personality, it often frightens us. We fear that our ego or personality as it is will be lost, destroyed or overcome by the Hugeness. My experience is that nothing is ever lost, instead we are added to. See The Waking Lucid Dream

Example: Your wife’s dream of resisting waves of great pleasure was very interesting. I wonder why we resist and block pleasure. I’ve also noticed doing it in other things. The other day I was going for a run and got stitch and tired quite a long way from home. I was running under some huge oaks and I practiced “communicating” with them and their strong energy to exchange energy. And I felt the boost which kept me going. I was so high on this feeling that I cut it off. I think the reasons were a) that I was frightened it would be taken away from me for some reason by an external agency and then I wouldn’t know whether I could access it again, whereas if I cut it off, there was always the possibility in my head that I could access it; and b) gosh, if I can do this what can/should I do with this ability – where does it lead – it doesn’t seem to fit in with my life.

The man dreaming this reach conclusions based on his beliefs, his inner world, which was educated in an old, almost middle ages, view of what a human being is. He believes in an external agency, which he also feels doesn’t fit in within his life as he knows it through his old view. Please see There is a Huge Change Happening – Quantum Physics 

We are all subject to the forces of growth – it is one of the main functions of life. But because growth is a push toward change, change that we do not want to face, we often resist it, often without realising we are doing so. Psychiatrist say we have resistances to meeting the uncomfortable aspects of our self. A young woman who was anorexic dreamt of cutting off her breasts, suggesting trying to cut out the living process that was moving her into being a full woman. So such resistance can also relate to how we try to dissociate from our own process of growth and ageing.

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of not facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness.

Paul Levy writing about this says: “This process can be so extreme, so radical, that the ego experiences it as death …. This experience is related to the shaman’s descent to the underworld as well as the archetypal journey of the wounded healer. See Programmed

But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does.

Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. But otherwise it will continue to haunt us as something that will get you; or you feel uncertain even lost in facing it! But it is only our small self image, our ego that reacts because it feels powerless, even though in reality the Hugeness is part of our totality. It is the enormous potential you have within you, it is Life you are frightened of or have been ignoring. It often frightens us. We fear that our ego or personality as it is, will be lost, destroyed or overcome by the Hugeness. My experience is that nothing is ever lost, instead we are added to.

An example of a man, Jesse Watkins,  breaking through to his hugeness:

‘I felt that I had sort of – um – tapped powers that I in some vague way I had felt I had, or everybody had, al­though at that time I’d been a sailor most of my life, I had not – I had read quite a bit when I’d been at sea but I hadn’t read any esoteric literature then nor had I since, I hadn’t read anything to do with, er – with – ideas of trans­mog-migration of souls or whatever you call it, trans­mog – transmig – reincarnation. But I had a feeling at times of an enormous journey in front, quite, – er – a fantastic journey, and it seemed that I had got an under­standing of things which I’d been trying to understand for a long time, problems of good and evil and so on, and that I had solved it in as much that I had come to the conclusion, with all the feelings that I had at the time, that I was more – more than I had always imagined myself, not just existing now, but I had existed since the very begin­ning – er – in a kind of – from the lowest form of life to the present time, and that that was the sum of my real experiences, and that what I was doing was experiencing them again. And that then, occasionally, I had this sort of vista ahead of me as though I was looking down -looking to an enormous – or rather all the – not looking so much as just feeling – ahead of me was lying the most horrific journey, the only way I can describe it is a journey – a journey to – um – to the final sort of business of – um – being aware of all – everything, and that – and the – and I felt this so strongly, it was such a horrifying experience to suddenly feel that, that I immediately shut myself off from it because I couldn’t contemplate it’ because it sort of shivered me up. I – it drove me into a State of fear, so much – I was unable to take it.’

Example: Dr. Karagulla, a famous neurologist, in her book Breakthrough to Creativity, has described an experiment she made with two doctors. To test heightened sensory perception she blindfolded one of the doctors and gave him a photograph. It was a medical picture of a pregnant woman. He was asked to pass his fingertips over the photograph and report any impressions and sensations. At this the other doctor began to protest that what she was asking was not possible. But at this point the blindfolded doctor began to speak of impressions which vividly described the picture he held. The other doctor began to protest so violently, and began to feel so ill, the experiment had to be terminated.

Example: I have had dreams about seeing clear deep water and I have been afraid of it as if I would drown and die and nobody would be able to retrieve my body back. In such dreams I also dreamt about Lotus ponds. Huge Lotus ponds. I would suddenly find myself in the pond and I can see the muddy roots and long stems rising up.

The two examples show how when we enter deeply into ourselves we often feel scared of it. But usually we grow beyond such fears.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it.

This beautiful dream clearly shows how something magnificent and powerful coming into his life frightens him enough to cause him to run away. Fortunately his fear did not cause him to wake up, so he saw that in fact the huge unconscious and powerful side of him does not in fact try to destroy him, but wants him to join together to become a whole person.

When the Conscious Will and the Life Will find unity, ‘This union of the two wills constitutes the spiritual marriage, the accomplishment of which is in the Gospels represented under the parable of the marriage at Cana of Galilee. This divine marriage, or union of the human and Life wills is indissoluble, whence the idea of the indissolubility of human marriage.” Quoted from Clothed With the Sun by Anna Kingsford. We also think of it as Enlightenment. See Enlightenment

Carl Jung adds to our understanding of this. “We should understand that dream symbols are for the most part manifestations of a psyche that is beyond the control of the conscious mind. Meaning and purposefulness are not the prerogatives of the mind; they operate in the whole of living nature. There is no difference in principle between organic and psychic growth. As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.”

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. See Programmed

And a lot of the pain and the mental misery is largely because we put so much trust in what we think and feel. Yet thoughts are simple photocopies of reality and are never the real things. They are just sounds we make into words to help us move around a strange and confusing world. And feelings to are simply a response to what we meet.

We are small because we know nothing about who we are and how we came to be – except of course in the words we have been taught are really the truth. We do not know anything about the mass of things that keep us alive – except what we have read, yet more words. We are largely unconscious of what makes our heart beat, and all the millions of things that life behind our existence does, so we are moved by whatever moves us – whatever that is – childhood fears and social programming, or haunted by the past.

Also most people have lost contact with the animal they are, and so the human person is made even smaller by that loss. Yet we know if we think about without words, that we have evolved through past ages, and in our womb life go through the stages as we develop our reptile brain, our mammal brain and then the human brain – and they are still in us and working. And it is what I have called the Life Will or Life that lies behind it all and needs some acknowledgement.

And behind it all it the Nothing that is Everything. If we can acknowledge that then we may find firm footing. “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter [the kingdom].” Quoted from The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: Chapter 24

Also as we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are we often react to it with fear or panic. So we dream or being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created with fear we will pass on. If we refrain from the normal activities and diversions people enter into the conserved energy will flow into and enliven old traumas, and make alive the fears, pains and fantasies those traumas give rise to. So it could lead to neurosis or worse. It could also lead to fantasies of spiritual power or experience. It is, after all, the stuff of life, and is incredibly creative. It brings life to whatever it flows into, whether that is good or what we call evil. So we need to remember and keep in contact with our highest.

Example: During meditation in Convent Chapel – had been repeating a mantra dreamt about Chiayusin and then gone onto the meditation I cannot always do, the empty quiet within waiting for the delicate touch. I began to feel the delicate touch. As usual with this my spine straightened slowly without my making any effort. I sat extremely upright without effort or strain. Then my heart began to pound as it had never pounded before, except during heavy exercise or running. I also began to perspire and breathe heavily and slightly raggedly. I felt I had opened-up to an enormous power. Yet I had only brushed its skirts.

No wonder meditation is dangerous. If you opened to this before your body was ready, it could damage the heart, and maybe other organs. When I looked at myself in the mirror afterwards, my eyes were red and face perspiring as if just finishing sexual intercourse.

The heart pain – a pain right through my chest from front to back, or a general ache and pain in the chest – I have been suffering for some months now, I feel is tied up with this business of ‘opening up’. It started with my efforts at the head-stand and uddiyana. The head-stand had reached 30 minutes, and uddiyana had progressed to 1000 repetition daily. Then suddenly I began to suffer badly with what appear to be pains in the heart and chest. These pains do not occur during heavy exercise, but often during meditation.

However it is not as clear cut as that, as they also occur at odd times during the day, once as quite bad palpitation – this was while meeting S. during lunch break.

There appears to be some link with the sex act, as I have not had any sexual intercourse for a long time now. Neither have wet-dreams occurred. When any loss of sexual fluid threatens, even as I dream, I find myself doing the aswini mudra – tensing the rectum – and thus controlling it.

This control of the natural (?) loss of sexual fluid may have caused this build-up of heart tension.

The experience in the Chapel this morning shows a definite link with heart action and deep meditation. Remember that Jim Droust had the same experience when beginning a projection – OBE – i.e. terrific heart beats, so intense they frightened him.

I feel somehow that it may be a result of unconscious fears of being controlled by the unconscious forces. On the one hand we have the unknown – unknown by consciousness – force, and on the other the conscious self seeking, without really any clear conception of what it is looking for.

When one finds something real within oneself – something previously unconscious – one tries to block by various unconscious physical tensions, thus topping the normal flow of the life energy in the body. When we find the real thing we are frightened. Like a young inexperienced boy seeking sexual experience – when confronted by a full grown woman he may be scared silly, as it is an experience he has never met before, and cannot cope with his present psychological equipment.

The characters we meet in dreams, their variety and difference to how we know and think of ourselves, present us very clearly with the enormous variety of talents, sensitivities, possible approaches to a situation, and personality types that we hold within us. If we can tap them they are an enormous resource.

Technically they are called autonomous complexes,and hold in them such varied and spontaneous responses to life, that they have enormous creative potential if they can be met and expressed in a way that does not dominate or destroy the central personality. So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious.  So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious.

Although it can be very disorienting and even frightening to meet ones internal infant, and feel its explosive moods and deep instinctive longings, it can enlarge our perspective of life enormously, as well as our ability to relate more widely. Apart from the infant there are many beings we touch in our dreams. Everything from the deeply animal such as the dog in our dreams, or the wolf, to the sadist, the lover, the monk and the business tycoon. If we do not meet these characters and manage them in our life, they will certainly manage us, and lead us into relationship tangles, emotional responses and actions that are not what we ourselves choose to be or feel. See: examples under compensationsub-personalitiesIntegrating a Parent or an AlienUnconscious;autonomous complexes.

Example: Today I read something I had written at the end of The Conjuring Trick. I was so moved I could hardly breath but was trying to make sounds. When I allowed this without interfering I felt like an animal that could not form words and so all it could do to express its intense feelings was to make these sounds over and over. It wasn’t a sound of pain.

It went on for some time but slowly tried to move toward speech in words. At first it sounded like alla, alla, which reminded me of Allah, and I wondered if this was a sound made by other humans who felt such overwhelming immensity and could only make these sounds. But it developed further and became alow, alow which in turn became ‘I low’ which became ‘I love’. Such deep feelings that are made by a beautiful animal consciousness inside us, and it has to slowly rise to the level of human speech. And finally it poured out of me in the words, “I love myself.” Which actually meant I love something hard to express – something so huge that was everything and everyone that had led me to this realisation that I am an enormous collection of hundreds of people, animals and things beyond understanding.

And that in turn became, “I felt the wonder years ago” all in a voice of great emotion. “I felt that wonder and it has been burning in me ever since.”

A few years ago I wrote in my Journal – So as I felt this I could feel the enormity of it, and I could feel this was what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be a force in the world showing a completely different way of looking at life and dreams. In one woman’s dream she wrote to me that she could see a massive wave building up and coming towards her. It was so huge that the water was retreating as the wave was building. She said she couldn’t move because there was nowhere she could run from it, and so she stood in fear of it. Then as it hit her she woke in fear.

Now I want to say to somebody like that, “Why are you frightened of life?” I say this because it is so obvious in the dream that what is coming to her is something so huge and wonderful, and yet she is the terrified of it.

That wave was a massive force of positive change that if she had met it would have transformed her life. Unfortunately many people are frightened of Life. See Life’s Little Secrets

Example: As I looked at my impressions and rising feelings, I saw how powerful has been the realisation that within ourselves we are nothing. That our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

But it is a frightening realisation too. For it brings us to the realisation that nobody else creates the hell or heaven we experience life to be. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in our creation.

 

And I am not talking about air, water and food. If we look at all the human suffering in the world, not the sort brought on by floods or volcano’s or earthquakes and wars, we see enormous areas where humans cannot easily survive. Of course there is enormous mental breakdown, a vast number of people needing alcohol or street drugs to get by. And there are those living in emotional hell.

It is partly because we do not or have not learnt to survive amidst the huge forces that are part of human existence. How many of us actually realise that we are only just recently in our development left the animal existence, and admit the tremendous needs it places on us. Most of us totally take no notice of those needs, and so a great amount of splitting occurs in our personality. We have lost touch with the natural world and do not honour it as part of our life as many native peoples do, and this we can learn from our inner world, our dreams. We do not tend to the hurts we feel as a natural animal that we are, are so become sick in our soul – a soul that we deny we have.

As explained above, the dream process can also produce movements and sounds while asleep or awake. But it is not usually realised that the whole phenomena of dreaming can occur while awake and you are in a receptive state of mind. Any visions, voices heard or hallucinations are all the product of the dream process breaking through the barrier that usually only allows such things while asleep. If you have had such an experience you will see, if you think about it, that as with dreams, images, people, voices appear as if outside you. That is exactly the work of dreams, which project a whole dream, its drama and characters, onto the screen of our sleeping mind. See Visionary for more information.

But even more important for our understanding of what we are is the fact that as our body is paralysed we also lose all sensations arising from our body senses -our eyes, ears, taste, touch and smell. In that condition we are bodiless, but to maintain our confidence, as people get terrified when they get near to realising that they are fundamentally bodiless consciousness, we create a dream image of ourselves with a body. Out of that arises all the fear of death – for even if we lose all our limbs we are still us.

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. So the person you dreamt about is not them, but is a dream image made out of your feelings and memories.

Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us. But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts or fears that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiment’s of our fears and ideas presented to us as truths; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Remember that your are more than you appear. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

If you think about a person, do you honestly think your thoughts are them? Thoughts are like  photocopies and never deal with reality. Your dreams are like thoughts, they do not deal with the dreamed of people or things. But they do deal with the reality of your own inner life. It is similar to computer games where you can be killed or fail a thousand times and emerge none the worse. But if you learn the rules of the game of Life then you can go up the levels in this virtual reality world.

So in dreams if you dream of an evil creature devouring you, as in the last example in Archetype of the Devil, it is only an image created by your thoughts and beliefs, and you can alter it by changing you attitude to it. Even you body, what you call you, is only a dream image, so nothing can hurt you. but of course the fear you feel is what you have carried with you and is only an emotion. See Avoid Being Victims– Secrets of Power Dreaming

Something else that creates a lot of confusion is that people fail to recognise the difference between their inner dream life and the demands of their waking life. In our waking life it is good to recognise that our actions and deeds can hurt others and change the way they feel – even traumatise them. But in dreams we are nearly always facing ourselves, and what we do is always a virtual reality that we can experiment in and try out all manner of behaviour. So it can be very dangerous to ones psychological health to hold back ones anger or sexual feelings in a dream – whereas in waking life it may result in awful consequences if we release all our feelings on another.

The situation of being a victim is a central and key point so time will be taken with it. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Therefore it is wise to be able to recognize that these are habits of reaction to events. We might say we are victims of the world or life. But we can alter it by learning how to change our habits. And it started for me a long time ago, because I had to learn things without which no change could have taken place. I do not mean book learning, but learning by living it. The first thing I remember learning was that I could change habits. Fortunately it was a simple habit. I noticed that as I walked through the building I worked in I left the doors open. I believe I had read somewhere that the only difference between a criminal and a successful person was their habits. So whenever I left a door open I would close it – even if I had forgotten and walked on, I turned around and closed it. Within a short time it became a new habit to close doors, all done now without effort. So that was the first thing I learned, and then moved into greater challenges with my psychological habits. These were hard because many of them were unconscious and I had to dig deep to find them. See Life’s Little Secrets.

The next thing I needed to learn was that we are all victims, but we do not admit it. What I mean is that we are all victims of beliefs, convictions, words people say, what people or parents have told us or hit us about – and I am not talking about traumas. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Your natural response to your environment is to be influenced by it. A disturbing event would stimulate you to feel fear, a calming event to feel pleasure. Your moods are usually influenced by what happens to you. So being in prison would be more depressing than being free. Being rejected would cause more pain than being admired or loved.

We are all an amazing keyboard influenced and moved by all the interactions with people, animals and events. The keyboard responds to and produces all the emotions and fears we are capable of. So if we watch movies or read, then words and images move us to tears, fear, wonder, curiosity, terror or even enlightenment. Yet we are only seeing images, yet we are moved, and unless we are aware of it, we can become victims of our own impressions. People are often terrified or deeply worried by their dreams; they run in fear from an animal chasing them, or are paralysed by a demon attacking them, yet they are only images that we create in our sleep or witness on a screen. To run from them is to run from your own feeling of fear. That might be the right thing to do on the street if you see an attacker approaching you, but it is not good to become a victim of your fears, worries, speculations or even hopes.

So we need to see how events, words, our own thoughts are playing on our own victimisation. If you learn these two you are taking steps toward your own wellbeing. Change the habit of being a victim.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The dream enabled me to experience what it would be like if all the angers, beliefs, justifications, thoughts and emotions that usually posses my awareness dropped away. The freedom and bliss were extraordinary.

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Many of us get stuck in life situations from which we may never emerge. The situation might be one of never establishing a full and satisfying sexual relationship; constantly feeling hurt by the actions of others; existing in a state of depression or anxiety; forever having to seek activity or company to deal with ones own inner emptiness; experiencing enormous jealousy or anxiety in a relationship – the list could be endless.

There is however a self help path we can take that can radically change such situations. The first step is to recognise how we personally hold such inner conditions in place. Maybe we might even ask the question as to why we maintain such an awful relationship with life.

The answer to that question might very well reveal the most powerful process that freezes us in our difficulty.The power is self justification.

I recently asked a man who had experienced enormous pain through, as he felt, being misused by a woman friend. When I pointed out that this was the woman’s normal behaviour that he himself had described to me, so why was he hurt by it, he said that she should have been more caring for his feelings.

I then asked him if perhaps he was asking her to act like an adult while he maintained the emotional level of response normal in childhood – namely blaming someone else for his hurt. In response he again justified himself by saying that it was normal to feel hurt from such an action.

Such justifications, and the statement that it is normal to feel pain in love, at the death of someone close, at the twisting and turning of life events, or because of the unthinking remarks of someone, are the chains that bind us to that misery. Carl Jung wrote, “If we could fully meet our shadow, we would be immune to any moral or verbal insinuations. We would already have seen this for ourselves.”

The answer is to meet our shadow – to acknowledge our own follies – to see our own childish behaviour – to be self aware.

Of course that path is not for the weak hearted. It means to stop the continual justification of why we feel and respond in the way we do, and instead, to pull back what we hide from ourselves to reveal the underlying causes of our responses and behaviour. It lies in taking ourselves by the scruff of the neck and perhaps saying, “I am still responding to this as if I am a three year old. Come on, time to grow up, and stop justifying yourself for feeling angry, jealous, afraid, and ill.”

Growth is an innate urge in us. If we stop holding it back we will emerge from childhood and our countless justifications.

Some of the Eastern philosophies do not make such a big thing about evil and the Devil. But in the West we have been brain washed to believe we face an exterior evil, Satan or the Devil. There are so many dreams showing this, along with the huge fear of being possessed by a devil or the devil. It is a fear put into us to give others power over us, for without some person who could save us from such evil we would feel powerless.

A much more helpful way of seeing this is explained in the Chinese philosophy illustrated by the yin-yang symbol. The symbol shows the black and the white in a circle. The good and bad, the negative and the positive are shown as equal and necessary parts of a whole, not as something that has to be represses conquered or got rid of.Also each part had a dot of the opposite in it. So in the very good there is the germ of the bad. And in the bad there is the germ of the good. In that we are balanced. There is no struggle.

Of course there is evil in the world, but it doesn’t do us any good to run around like headless chickens being afraid of it and dreaming we are possessed by it. As the symbol above suggests, it is part of our nature and life itself, but it is only when we tip the balance toward the dark side it becomes dangerous.

Something that is obvious as you watch not only your own dreams, but other people’s, is that that we take into their sleep and dreams all the fears, terrors, sexual questions and longings, as well as all their speculations and beliefs. The huge bear, tiger or frightening person they are terrified of is actually fears either inherited or are frightening experiences from the past. They are purely mental things that you haven’t faced, and therefore are the victims of – victims of your own fears. See Victims

Obviously that only applies to those dreams that are frightening, and to the people whose sleep is disturbed by thoughts and fears and so can never sleep well. The number of these is enormous.

Here is an example of how a dreamer carries a mass of false information, beliefs and speculations into her dream.

In my dream I was in the hospital giving birth I could feel the strong pain medicine working and I assume I had been given an epidural. I held my same sex partner’s hand and she comforted me. Soon after I was handed a beautiful baby girl whom I decided to name Veridian my mom tried to convince me to name her something else but I refused. The child slept in my arms and my partner held my hand still. Then I woke up. It was strange because I was brought to tears upon waking up and finding the beautiful baby girl not in my arms. I have never had any desire to have children and I know it would be impossible to be impregnated naturally by my partner but yet I was so drawn to this child it was an instant bond and upon realizing it was all a dream I have been very emotional when reminded of the child. I am also in my teens so I have absolutely no need or ability to be impregnated because I would never cheat on my love.

But to highlight what is meant here are two other dreams also by young dreamers.

I dreamed that I gave birth to a healthy, happy, and smiling baby boy (even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream and gave birth at home with no pain). I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal.

Last night I had a dream that I gave birth to a baby girl, but I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I felt like I needed to push, so I did and began to give birth, but it didn’t hurt at all…I did not feel any pain. I was home alone giving birth by myself on my couch.

The first dreamer carried into her dream a fear that birth would be painful and she would need drugs to mitigate the pain. Then she carries in the feeling of disagreement with her mother. She also believes that the only way to have a dream baby is through sex with a male. Also she says that she doesn’t want a child, but her feelings in the dream and her emotions show otherwise.

The second examples show young mothers who do not fear childbirth and so have no sense of pain. So we can see that we create our dream situation by what we carry into it. It might be that the first dreamer has a fear of childbirth, though her body and instincts are crying out for a child – even a dream child.

There is also a suggestion of even a bigger problem in the girls dream. Her dream gives her a child, yet she says, “I have never had any desire to have children and I know it would be impossible to be impregnated naturally by my partner but yet I was so drawn to this child it was an instant bond and upon realizing it was all a dream I have been very emotional when reminded of the child. I am also in my teens so I have absolutely no need or ability to be impregnated because I would never cheat on my love.”

The problem is that she has the body of a healthy woman, a body which is built and has inbuilt urges to create a child, yet she is totally unaware of this. Such a separation between her basic life urges and her conscious personality leads to tension and neurosis. Of course she could decide never to have children, but to block the natural urge can cause troubles. Such splits in our nature put us at odds with ourselves.

But there is something that almost everybody brings into their dreams – their image of their body. Yet when we sleep and dream all our physical senses are switched off, and fundamentally we do not have a body but are just consciousness.

Another thing we need to bring is information. When I visited Canada and was involved in teaching everyday and working with clients I realised that in the UK I had to struggle with people to just understand therapy. Also I had to spend enormous amounts of time explaining basic facts about the mind and how it works. Working with people in Canada was wonderful.They didn’t question what I asked them to do; they were not resistant to their own emotions, and they were a joy to work with.

A statement about a therapeutic clinic emphasizes this. “The patients seemed to suffer that lack of psychological awareness characteristic of the Englishmen I had met, and the environment at Powick had done little to change it. They suffered a debilitating ignorance of their own particular problems and the larger issues of psychotherapy. They struggled in a darkness of confusion and misunderstanding, without theoretical guidelines to illumine the revelations of the subconscious, free them of horror and loathing, and allow their constructive integration into the ego. No wonder they blocked”. So it is important to educate yourself about. See and read What we Need to Remember About Us

 

Dreams are virtual realities that we create in our sleep. Even the wonderful dreams of God and angels are an external virtual reality, and mirror of our own inner immensity and our enormous variety. Unfortunately people either accept them as externally real, or as fantasy. But they are reflections of your potential, that cannot be seen in your daily life that is so dominated by your physical senses and hungers and fears. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-magical-dream-machine/

So the images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of deny any fear or repressing anything that threatens you.

You cannot be killed in a dream. All you can experience is the anguish and perhaps fear of dying, but in dreams you cannot die – or drown, or burn or any other threatening thing. We make the mistake of taking our very real values from our outer life into our inner life of dreams.

Here some examples to show the difference when you take fear into your dreams, and when you do not.

Example: I am usually in a house or something, with these spirits that are trying to attack me. Sometimes I see a ghost in my dream, it looks just like what you would think a ghost would look like, with a perfect face. Sometimes they attack me physically, cut me, or throw my entire body around. I have even been in rituals in the dreams with a feeling of something more, like demonic. It is terrifying, it is so real, I have a hard time coming around after, it shocks me for hours at times, depending on the dream.

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the second example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

Example: The mobile home was so large the edge of it was over the ridge I was walking. There was no space to duck down to avoid it. I looked to my left and there was a sheer drop for about 200 feet. This was like the face of a massive dam in shape. I jumped down and as I was falling and falling I wondered how I was going to land. Would I smash to bits on the obviously hard ground below? I didn’t have any great fear about this. So it wasn’t a nightmare or anxiety dream. I never seemed to resolve this question because suddenly I was on the ground without any sign of hurt or even a bump.

I was in a large motor vehicle with perhaps three or four other men. The vehicle was like a very large lorry or removals van. We were driving along an unpaved road in slightly mountainous or rugged countryside. As we were driving along we became aware of a huge vehicle trying to overtake us. This had caterpillar tracks on each side of it like some tanks. It was immensely wide and going very fast. We pulled over as far to one side – the left – of the road as we could to allow it to pass. But as we did so we got too near the edge of the road and went over a precipitous drop. Quite a long period of the dream was taken up with the experience of falling. We seemed almost to go into freefall, a weightless state, because the fall was so long. It was long enough for me to think many thoughts about death, whether death would be instantaneous. I was not aware of any sense of fear or terror, simply an awareness of falling and what it might mean. Then we had crashed and I was still alive. I then had a memory of standing at the bottom of the huge drop waiting for someone.

As can be seen, when there is no fear there is no hurt or terror. Also even when there is terror in the dream there is no hurt. Like the computer game, you can get up again and continue the game – of life – until you learn to overcome your fears and go up to the next level of the game.

In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream.

Every image and person in your dreams is an expression of your own life process. As such it is alive and intelligent and is something sent to help you. A dream is like a projection from a movie projector, except that you are the projector.

Everything you see as outside you is coming from you, your emotions, your fears, your beliefs, your joys and explorations and are all you, clothed in the dream images and drama. So when you dream of someone you should not feel you are dreaming about that actual person. As with most dreams, the person in the dream is not the person themselves, but is a collection of memories, associations and feeling about him or her. #

Here is an example:

Sitting in a window box facing outwards, with Neal H and my son on my left. I felt very scared of falling and asked my son and Neal to climb back into the building. I felt too scared to move until they had shifted.

When I explored the dream I saw it related to my recent situation. Although I am now working for two magazines, the frequency of payment is much less than before. So we are running out of money – my wife being out of work. I have felt very insecure and anxious during the last few days (the fear of falling). I thought of going back to the my previous employment to work, that I see as trying to get back to the safety of the building behind me – in the past. The two boys are my younger self that is more vulnerable, the parts of me I am trying to grow.

When I imagined doing that it was purely out of fear. In staying in the box though, I feel I am growing and opening to something positive entering my life. So I feel the dream shows that my unconscious assessment of my situation is that if I trust the flow of events I will enter a new stage of growth and experience. I am going to try that. It has obviously worked.

Most of us make the mistake of believing our dream images are all something outside of us. In fact they are all images underneath which are amazing destructive or constructive powers. Supposing one dreams or a devil attacking or possessing one, it is not an external devil, but is the persons ability to create havoc with their own beliefs and mind powers.

Here is another example:

As I looked I saw eyes shining in the dark. It was very eerie. I asked my father to get a torch so I could look down the hole. He went but did not come back. I thought he was frightened. The room was very dark, I saw a candle on the shelf, and tried to light it. It kept guttering out. Eventually I lit another candle that gave a good light.

Here the dreamer is meeting his fear of something, and the candle keeps going out. It is obviously his own power of thought and belief that put the candle out, a destructive power. But as he faces his fear he has the power to be able to see clearly by using his power of confidence.

Here is an example of a dreamer who has conquered fear.

Example: I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs.

When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it.

By playing with the symbols or images of your dreams in the right way you can make enormous inner changes and heal almost any problem. See Secrets of Power Dreaming; Using Symbols to Change Life Problems

Instead of running or avoiding things, even scary things. take them into you. This is like eating; you take something in and it becomes you. This is because we project all things outside of us in dreams, and to some extent we lose the energy they would otherwise give us. So accept that every part of your dreams is an expression of some part of you. So taking it into you makes you stronger and more capable. In fighting the tiger you are fighting or running away from yourself. Taking it in means you have its strength. Obviously you need to face and deal with your fears to do that, but that again is a wonderful thing to do.

Example: I dreamt I was outdoors walking through open ground, maybe at times gardens. I was with others – not sure who, and we frequently came across large snakes which we reacted to me as if they were venomous. Then I came across a lot of them and they swarmed onto me. I froze, terrified that if I made a move I would be fatally bitten. But they just swarmed over my body and got under my clothes without harming me. Gradually I relaxed and slowly began to move about with the snakes still on me. They started to feel like a built in defense system which would attack anyone who was aggressive to me. At one point several large and aggressive dogs walked past me. They turned as if thinking about attacking, then appeared to sense the snakes and ran off cowed. As time passed the snakes felt like part of my body.

A dream is something that comes from a deep part of you; it is something that is working upwards toward being conscious. As such it often, like a seed, takes time to break through to the surface, and then it has to grow. So often dreams are not recognised for their full meaning until later – sometimes months or even longer. The dream images are attempts to communicate something that has probably never been thought about or even been consciously thought about, so has never been put into common conscious thinking before. It is a communication from the depths, from beyond thought, and so any interpretations that are given by thinking may completely miss the point.

But the source of the dream, which is a process of Life, is intelligent in its own way, and will take part in any attempt to communicate. So exploring your dreams by entering into their imagery and attempting to understand them will be a two way process.

Always move toward pleasurable experiences in your dreams. If you find yourself flying in a dream, relax and let yourself float on the wind. If you are attracted sexually to an individual in a dream who in the waking life would be a taboo for you (your wife’s mother, etc.) let yourself enjoy the experience rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of the situation.

Morals and taboos are all for external waking life. Our inner being encompasses all aspects of life, and should be allowed safe expression. Inside you there are a murderer, a great lover, a sadist and homosexual, an inventor and genius, an angel and devil, as well as God and the stars. To repress them is to force them into expression in your outer life.

But expect some high or deep emotions emerging as you explore this. After all, we are passionate and living creatures.

If you can, always move your dream to a satisfying ending, even by visualising it when you are awake. Seek something creative in your dreams too. See Secrets of Power Dreaming – it explains how to do this.

So the snakes, crocodiles, lion, horse or other creatures are a part of you that if you took the time to really feel the feelings they provoke, and get past the blockages we have as protection, then you become more whole, more sane, and with more powers. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrain

You have to realise that there is nothing outside of you while you dream. So it is all taking place within your community of yourself. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether it is a dragon or a parent, it is still you paralysed by you if you fear it. So instead of pitting yourself against yourself, it is wise to integrate any figure and have their/its power.

So claim the strength instead of using it to paralyse yourself. To integrate another part of you open your heart and your body to feel the creature. Open by accepting it as a part of yourself – just as the blood and guts and faeces are a part of you. Allow yourself to grow emotionally and become strong. Seehttp://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/

Also, many people have amazing dreams but apparently learn nothing from them. If you come away from a dream empty handed then you have received a wonderful communication and ignored its message. OK, it may be difficult to understand. So what, things are not handed to us served up with gravy. Struggle with it, pray for help with it, live with it, for this is a message that is vital to you.

And yes, I mean vital. Without understanding your dreams you are like a ship in a storm without a rudder or even an engine. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/

Of course it is not an easy teacher for its lessons have many levels of meaning. See Clicking On

The real heroine or hero of the inward journey that comes from exploring dreams and incorporating them does not remain in a symbolised version of themselves. They do not accept the Devil as an exterior agent, or Christ as an outer and perhaps historical character. They do not accept their dreams at face value, but are ready to face themselves with the courage necessary. For it is an uncomfortable journey to actually see oneself. It is a demanding climb to have ones awareness stretched and widened beyond ones personal limitations in order to include a vaster experience of yourself. Therefore there are inbuilt or personal resistances to actually having direct insight.

It helps to be clear about this point of allowing fantasy if one understands the way completely unconscious inner events gradually emerge into consciousness. W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through levels of our mind:-

a] The deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness, but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through.

b] As the physiological or psychobiological process moves nearer consciousness, its next level of expression is postural or gestural. Thus we may express our deepest hidden feelings in an unconscious body posture or movement. Not only our feelings express in this way, but also our physical tone or health shows in our postures and movements. Even the plant droops if it needs water.

c] Next, when something moves from the gestural to the next stage of expression it becomes a dream or a dream image or symbol, which although it may not be understood, is now entering the arena of awareness. It is still a part of the move toward consciousness. This is sometimes called the mythic level, and is something we see working in producing religious thinking or myth creation. It still remains at the symbolic level.

d] At this stage, what had been deeply unconscious, then symbolised, now rises into consciousness and is capable of being verbalised or thought about and analysed. If one had attempted to verbalise something in level two it would have been so far outside of consciousness as to defy description. Also, when looking at these levels or stages, they suggest that the dream process is a means by which deeper stages can be portrayed to awareness in order to make them known. Therefore, by working with the dream process we can tap deeper levels of awareness and make them known. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

When this level is reach you can describe a dream in a way anyone can understand.

An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.

As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the mans conscious attention, and the spontaneous self-regulatory/dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

It is also important to realise that you are dealing with intelligence, even though it is unconscious. The unconscious has a much wider awareness that our conscious and logical mind, and asking it for clarity if what you experience is not clear is very useful. In fact while you are allowing the spontaneous to arise you can ask any question.

Death is a fact that we all face, and it is no good running away from it in our dreams. That only makes it more scary. Because you CANNOT run away from death you should meet it face to face. If you do that it will transform into the beautiful part of life it is, instead of the horror we have been taught to see it as.

What I find again and again is that people are often so shocked by the death of someone, as though it were a surprise. We all know we are going to die, and honestly we haven’t a clue when. So it is wise to realise that someone we care about will die, and even we will face our own demise. It is therefore worth not walking about with blinkers on trying to avoid the fact. It is worth thinking about what you want to do with them now, and what you would like to say to them now. Do not run around in a daze when they die.

Falling and the big black hole are things we need to avoid in waking life, but should not be avoided in dream life. Here is a dream of a dream of a man who understood.

“I can remember being dressed as an heroic warrior running through crowds of people or soldiers who were trying to stop me. I pushed or knocked them aside and ran toward what was a huge caldera – the mouth of a volcano. It was hugely deep, and in its depths was a massive glow from volcanic lava. But I knew that this was the core of oneself, so I ran and leapt into the void falling into what I knew or felt sure was the light at the core of my being.”

The hole is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it you realise that it is the way to your own center and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland.

But the hole and facing death are really gateways to discover who, or what, you are. Most people say, “I don’t believe in God. There is no evidence for His existence.” Some people say, “I believe in God with all my heart.” But both people are locked into only knowing a tiny part of them based on our conscious self, emotions, words and thoughts. They are so sure of themselves based on an almost infinitesimal small part of them. And the silly thing is that they are so sure of themselves from this small understanding.

Behind that conscious self, so new, so fragile, is the darkness of unconsciousness. And there in the darkness is the Hugeness that lies behind our small self. So, ask your self, “Who am I? What am I?” And do not be fooled by repeating your name, what you have achieved, and all the ready made word descriptions. Keep asking. As a man who did this and kept on asking those questions says:

“I was sitting opposite someone during a meditation. We had been posing the question for days – ‘Who are you?’ Suddenly I realised that it was a silly question, because I was the answer. All thought stopped and I existed as the answer. My being had always been this. In this state there was an awareness of being connected with everything around me, in the beginning of creation. This was the first day. Also I was aware of what I felt was a monkey running to keep up with what was me. It was what I had always thought of as the real me, and it was nothing but a monkey that wanted to be the real thing but couldn’t. The monkey me was a photocopy of everything we believe, not the reality. Our conscious mind is a photocopier and yet we are so sure we know reality.’

Remember what was said at the beginning of this section:

“At the other end of our waking awareness is an ocean of consciousness that does not have a focussed sense of self. This ocean of consciousness that is at the core of your being is what has been called many names. In India it has been described as Sat-Chit-Ananda – Being-Consciousness-Bliss. When we discover it as the centre of ourselves it is no longer seen as exterior or distant. But in waking life where we lack awareness of it we see it either as non-existent or as separate and distant.

This part of us is not limited in awareness by  our physical senses, but has a more global awareness. As one person who experienced it regularly describes it, in our body awareness it is like looking through a crack in a wall at a big river. So all that we can see is what ships are passing in front of us now. But in the other level of us it is like looking over the top of the wall and seeing the whole river, what has passed us and what is coming.

Another persons description is – “I simply dissolved into an apparently spaceless and timeless void which was total “no-thing-ness” yet at the same time the most intense, blissful aliveness I have ever known. I think this is what is meant by the mystical notion that so-called normal human life is really a state of chronic forgetfulness of “who we really are,” and I suppose my NDE must somehow have shocked me into recognizing my identity with the Void, with the result that my forgetfulness is now spasmodic rather than chronic. Needless to say, I was bowled over by all this at first, and spent many weeks coming to terms with it.”

As you learn to enter more fully into your dreams you will gradually realise that your real self isn’t the body with a gender of male or female, but a shape shifter. You also will have learned how to dive under the surface of your conscious personality and realise that there is a huge and wonderful world often called the unconscious. It is actually awareness of Life, and in it you can become a bodiless consciousness, or be an animal, or know the wonder of animal consciousness.

As this becomes real to you an amazing transformation takes pace in your understanding. Realising that you are or can be many things begins to emerge that whatever you believe fully can become real within you, and even in the material world. That might seem like a simple thing but it is immense. It means that within a world of constant change you can create a reality of your own. It is a gift to be so creative. But it is a gift that most people find an awful and terrible thing, because most people create a world of fear, horror, superstition, and feel, therefore believe, they are victims of fate or God. So they live in a dark world which is their own creation.

You are capable of a great deal more than you have ever been able to live. Your dreams link you with that limitless potential. In your dreams you leap beyond the limitations that usually bind and restrict you.  Without effort you can fly; or you can be a visionary, looking back into past ages, or gazing into the unlimited possibilities of your future.  Dreams allow you to solve intricate problems that evade you while awake – explore the complexities of a relationship by actually taking part in its drama in a full surround virtual reality – you can explore back through the strata of your lifetime to uncover past pains that still create present discomfort.

Those are not wild claims, but findings arrived at through the experience and the experiment in thousands of people’s lives.  In fact dreams are one of the most extraordinary experiences and resources we have. They are unlike any other form of everyday human experience. In your dreams you can explore a massive range of your emotions from terror to ecstasy. You can experience every form of relationship, love and sexuality, without any danger of repercussions, loss of present partner, or physical illness.  You can experiment with the future by trying out different directions in the virtual reality of your dream.  You can tread unknown regions of the mind, moving beyond the boundaries of your waking awareness into estates where you transcend the limits of your senses and swim in the ocean of consciousness.  And unlike the waking experience of creative thinking all day dreaming, during which you are always in some measure an observer; in young dreams you are totally participating in whatever you are experiencing. When you dream you are in the magic place where all the past is here involved in the present, and all that is present is creating your future.

All of those possibilities of your dreams enlarge your experience in a way that would never ever be possible otherwise. From experience you learn and grow. Such dreams also channel your potential into becoming real. Potential lies at the root of your being. Think of the latent potential that slowly expressed from the time you were a sperm uniting with an ovum. From that moment till birth your weight alone increased 27 million times. All the complexities of growth were possibilities that expressed. But even when you are fully grown, there is still unlimited possibilities waiting to be expressed.

Because I believe

The universe has good will,

Out of the very force of my life,

And from the stuff of mind,

I create a rock

In the midst of a shoreless sea.

In an ocean of change and uncertainty

I form an island of charm.

Because I believe.

An important part of exploration – in fact of all approaches to knowing who we are – is that it is a discipline leading to Union/Enlightenment. The path of dreams if practiced fully will lead to the union of your conscious little self, with your Core Self. In a real sense this is union with Life, the mystery that is ever with us but is little acknowledged. It is one of the most direct routes I know – having used so many. It has the advantage of keeping you whole, and actually confronting you with your fears, traumas – karma – instead of trying to get to the good place without the work of self transcendence.

 

Wheel

The ability to meet changes, or to be mobile. Being a circle, it represents wholeness, so any parts missing or broken shows something you haven’t developed or built into your life. The circle therefore shows an image of you; your personal identity; wholeness. It suggests a good harmony between all the aspects of your being – thus a feeling of pleasure, centeredness and openness, physical, mental and spiritual; it may be used to depict the larger you that you may be only partly aware of, your huge dark potential. It can also depict eternity; female sexuality; ‘the same dull round’ of routine, in which one might be trapped if there is no alternative, depending on the content of the dream. If the circle is irregular, suggests imbalance or lack of harmony. See: RingSelf.

Broken or lost wheel: Like any circular thing, it represents your wholeness, the best of you. If you have lost the wheel or it is damaged, it shows you have lived or done things in your past that have lessened your effectiveness in life, and you are trying or ought to deal with the failure in daily life.

 Example: One of my wheels had broken. Apparently, a new wheel was supposed to be in the room, which was like a spares store. I looked in a cupboard on the left of the room, but although other people’s wheels were there, I couldn’t find mine.

On exploring this dream the dreamer he saw that, “The dream was given to show the difficulties now coming into your own life. The wheel represents that wholeness which you seek and need. The wholeness is broken from past lives. The wheel reminds you that your journey up on the trackless way must have this wholeness. When you lost this wholeness, you lost your proper relationship with my light, life, and love. This must be found within the future.”

 Large water or fun fair wheel: The ups and downs of life; the wheel of life – birth and death; karma.

The wheel, or treadmill, of life – karma: We are all in various stages of life and also on a sort of wheel – maybe a circus Ferris wheel, which can lift you up high with an overview, or bring you down low in depression or feeling of failure – where we get off.

The Buddhist wheel of life is often described as a continuing wheel of misery which one must escape from by killing out our sense of self. Well that is one form of escaping, but another way is a path taken by ancient races such as the Native Americans of facing the pain and transforming it. It is a path that many in today’s world are taking, the path of transformation. See Opening to Life; Life’s Little Secrets; Street Wisdom

The wheel of Karma, the rule that what we sow in life is what we eventually get, is not about punishment or about pessimism but about your own power to create your future.

Example: I had the sensation a snake curling up around me. I then began to see serpents’ faces all over the wall – then I saw myself as a fat, pot-bellied snake slithering gaily away to destruction, I felt horrified and thought, “Whose destruction?” I then realised it was my own destruction – I was destroying myself. I seemed to be having a battle between life and death-it was a terrific struggle, but life won. I then saw myself on the treadmill of life-a huge wheel was going around and round with hundreds of people on it. Some were on top going confidently through life, others were getting jostled and trodden on but still struggling to go on living (I saw myself as one of these people) and then there were the others who just couldn’t cope with life and were being crushed to death in the wheel. I had another realization of how I was destroying myself-by carrying on this affair with this married man. . . . I knew it must cease and knew that I must never see him again.

Idioms: Behind the wheel; set the wheels in motion; take the wheel; wheeling and dealing; wheels within wheels; oil the wheels; spoke in one’s wheel. See: Nothing is Permanent Except Change; Shapes and Symbols.

Whip

In dreams the whip represents hurtful remarks or angry feelings or sexuality that has as its base a desire to hurt, or desire to control through threats or pain. Also scorn, hatred, pride, feeling of being superior. Also sexual aggressiveness; the conflict between sexual desire and dislike, which resolves itself in whipping, that is, sexual enjoyment and hurting the person at the same time, but it often shows how you turn such feelings against yourself by feeling them as true or believing them. Or it can symbolise guilt and horror of sex, yet desire for it.

Being whipped: A sense that you are the victim of hurtful remarks aimed at you by someone who wishes to hurt you or demoralise you. Someone has taken the role of mastering you by their actions or worlds. Also sometimes a way someone tries to keep you under their control.

Whipping others: Feeling that you are trying to hurt your victims; but the nature of dreams is such that it is yourself you are hurting, trying to control of demoralising. For all the images, people, animals, places we see in our dreams, are simply your own feelings, fears, hopes and wonder projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind as images. A trick dreams often play on us is to use the image or person of someone else to represent you. This happens because we often do not want to see the truth about ourselves the dream portrays.

Idioms: Whip hand; whipping boy; whip in; whip into.

Whirlpool

This may depict an inner state that is unbalanced in some way, a vortex of feelings or psychic energies that can draw you into difficulties in relating to everyday life. It can also be a force drawing you into your core self and new perceptions.

Example: They have always been a large part of my life…I have had some strange dreams that I have no idea where they came from…since I could remember I had a reoccurring dream every night…used to dream I was falling into a sand whirlpool, face down.  Being in Arizona I never experienced that.  I would wake up at the point where I felt afraid.  One night I decided to try to stop the dream and went through the whirlpool and ended up in a different country and time.  I’m sure you have heard many of things but that one was very strange. Magda.

Magda learned one of the great secrets of our dream life – nothing can hurt you in your dreams so don’t fight or struggle against what the dream is trying to show you. When she stopped struglling she was taken to a completely new experience – drawing you into your core self and new perceptions.

Example: I looked around for a stone to throw into the water for my dog Tramp to swim after but could only find a tiny piece of bark. I threw it in, wondering whether Tramp would follow it. He leapt in. When the bark hit the water, it looked as if the water had been hit by a bomb. The impact area then turned into a whirlpool, Tramp was dragged beneath the surface by the current. The path I was on had become a narrow wall and I stood on it wondering whether to dive in to rescue Tramp, but I couldn’t even see him. Eventually I noticed him about a foot beneath the water trying to swim to the side. I reached in and was just able to catch hold of his hair and drag him out. I put him on my shoulder and carried him along the wall to the churchyard where land was above water.

The dream is about my early attempts to breakthrough to what has been called the psychic world – ones inner or unconscious life. My dog is my instinctive reactiions that are new to me and so are swept away by powerful emotional responses. But as I am learning I recognise that those reactions are jst under the surface and manage to bring them to my awareness.

White

This colour has an enormous number of different associations. Most commonly it depicts being aware with a clearness of mind. But as with wedding gowns, it indicates purity, virginity, cleanness or light feelings. A brilliant white light usually shows a real and experienced inner realisation or enlightenment. It suggests something from your core self shining through to your waking self.

In certain dreams white is very threatening. Perhaps we have connections with hospitals in these dreams, and depict the anxieties and fear we have about illness or death. Maggots, mould, dead or sick people and shrouds can also be white, so white can depict the same sort of feelings. In some Eastern cultures white is associated with mourning and death.

Example: ‘There was a huge white kitchen. I was scared when I entered it and there was a door leading out of it into a white corridor with a turquoise carpet which scared me even more.’ H. H.

White can also be used to denote attraction, something noticeable or plain to see.

Example: I was looking at my right forearm which was bare. It was very brown from the sun, and at the top of the forearm near the elbow was a white slash. This surprised me and I ran my finger across it, and it felt something like a scar because the skin was slightly raised. The main thing about the slash was its intense white. It was so white it is difficult to know whether it was shining like light, or was simply incredibly white. Miche

In this dream Miche felt the whiteness was a very noticeable part of him, representing hurts (the scar) that had been transformed by hard work and skills (the right arm) and were now apparent to other people.

Black and white: The opposites appearing together. In ourselves the good and bad coexist, and one balances the other. So this would suggest such coexistence and balancing.

Shining white: The emergence of powerful life energy in a pure form. This is often connected with new insights amounting to enlightenment – i.e. the realisation of a much wider understanding.

White animals: Urges and sexuality that have been accepted or integrated with conscious activities. This means urges that at one time you were in conflict with or anxious about, and have been transformed in urges and feelings that are acceptable parts of your present life. They become available and creative energy.

White clothes: A sense of wholeness; purity or marriage. Attitudes that express or allow a lot of your core energy.

White face: Often a sign of feelings to do with sickness or sick attitudes. Sometimes it indicates fear.

White flowers: Love that has grown beyond the physical needs and dependencies.

White hair: Sometimes this is about feelings or fears regarding ageing, but it often indicates you accessing greater insight or wisdom about life and yourself.

White horse: As with any white animals, it shows sexuality and basic instinctive urges or energy that have become transformed into greater and acceptable release, It is the difference between holding back on your feelings and creativity because of doubts or conflicts, and then finding a great flow and ease with self expression.

White powder: Often suggests thoughts or feelings about drugs and your relationship with them, or poison. The dream might be indicating that you are doing something, or have taken in something that is detrimental.

White rabbit: Because of the almost universal connection of this with either a pet or with the rabbit Alice followed into the rabbit hole, it depicts feelings about vulnerability or dependence, as with a pet. If it is linked with a pet, it can also connect with feelings of caring and warmth – even love – felt for the pet. Being white suggests good clear feelings and inspiration. The Alice type of white rabbit links with an entrance into your inner world – a descent into your feelings and the world lying under the surface of your everyday life.

Example: I had relaxed deeply and entered a state of lucidity in which I felt like I was falling down a very deep hole. This wasn’t frightening, but reminded me of Alice in the rabbit hole. As I fell I passed through memories of things that had hurt me during my life, like the time I broke my nose.

Then I hit the bottom, experiencing a womb like feeling of great peace. I realised as I observed, that it wasn’t the womb, but the very basic level of my personal awareness.

Useful questions:

What are the feelings in the dream connected with the white, and what do I gain from them in my waking life?

Is there any fear in this dream, if so can I define what the basis of the fear is?

Am I finding something new here, a new release of innate creativity or realisation perhaps?

Whole

This means you have integrated and come to terms with every aspect of who you are. You have met within you the murderer, the saint, the swindler and the honest trader, the sexual pervert and the straight married person, the homosexual and the heterosexual, the darker and the light filled should find a balance in each individual.

This balance is like a razors edge in which any one-sidedness would lead to unbalance within the individual. But at the same time, it is not about being perfect as a saint, but a balanced and whole human being with very wide choices, with the light and darkness, pleasure and pain; also, the known and unknown are all a part of you. See The Mountain Path

I read the book, The Razors Edge, written by Somerset Maugham years ago, and I tend to see the meaning as the path we take toward our Self Realisation is like a razor’s edge. Walking it we balance between the opposites facing us.

If we can accept that we are always a dual person, then the wise thing to do would be to find a balance between our two sides. This would mean not repressing or hiding from the positive or the negative. The way of the razors edge can depict any behaviour or attitudes that are not one-sidedness, the opposite would lead to imbalance within the individual.

Many extremely creative people like Sylvia Plath and Alan Turing walk this path, but if it is not understood, because their lives are often lived in a way to include too much of what is dark or forbidden, so they face mental breakdown, suicide or social stigma. But the hero of the book The Razor’s Edge found the way through.

See The Time of the Quickening

 

Widow

Dreaming about being or seeing a widow if you are married shows possible fears or feelings about break up of relationship, or desire to break relationship. Feelings connected with someone you know who is a widow, suggests loss in a relationship, or feelings of loneliness.

May depict unconscious desires to be alone. Or can suggest you are not expressing your intellectual abilities and constructive thought, but depend too much on the emotions and irrational nature to guide you.

In a man’s dream it may point to desires for an experienced woman who is available.

In a married woman’s dream it can show the anxieties about being alone, or a way of meeting the husband’s death. Women know men often die before them as women are longer lived, so they dream of a husband’s death as a way of getting used to the loss. See Loss or Losing

Married woman dreaming of being a widow: Fears of losing husband, or maybe desire to be free of husband.

Unmarried woman dreaming of being or meeting a widow: Might refer to uncertainties or fears about a relationship you are in, or whether you will ever be happily married.

Wife

Dreaming about your wife usually depicts how you see the relationship with your wife, or perhaps more truly how you feel about her. So it may not be a good summary of who she is but your feelings about her. So it includes your relationship with your sexuality; sexual and emotional desire and pleasure; how you relate to intimacy in body, mind and spirit, and your feeling, intuitive nature. It particularly at times shows you the habits of relationship developed with your mother. In other words what lessons of love, betrayal, dependency or abuse you learned as a child.

Example: ‘My wife was trying to get me out of her life, and out of the house. It was as if she were attempting to push me into a feeling of tension and rejection which would make me leave.’ David P.

Out of childhood experiences in which his mother repeatedly threatened to give him away, David was finding it difficult to emotionally commit himself to his wife. In the dream his wife represents these feelings, so he sees her – his anxiety and pain – pushing him to break up the marriage. David ‘broke up’ the relationship with his mother by breaking his emotional bond with her.

Example: ‘I was standing with my wife at the end of the garden of the house I lived in as a child. We were looking over the fence to the rising meadow beyond. She said, ‘Look at that bird in the tree there.’ On our right, in a small ash tree, an enormous owl perched. It was at least four feet high, the biggest bird I have ever seen. I recognised it in the dream as a greater hooded owl, which was not native to our country. I was so excited I ran into the house to telephone someone – zoo, police, newspapers? – to tell them about the bird. I cannot remember contacting anyone, but felt the bird was there in some way to meet me. Also it was hungry and looking at next door’s bantams. So I wondered what I could give it to eat.’ David P.

This shows the positive side of David’s relationship with his wife. The garden represents the behaviour boundaries which arose from his childhood. But he is growing – the garden – and looking beyond them through his marriage. The amazing bird is the deep feelings he touches because he has a mate like any other natural creature. Out of his mating he becomes aware of drives to build a home – nest – and give himself to his mate. These are natural and are a part of his unconscious or spiritual nature. The bird is a hooded owl which can see in the dark – the unconscious – meaning David is realising things he had never ‘seen’ before. The bird is masked, because David through loving is learning to put his ego aside, which is a necessity for touching the wider dimension of life or the unconscious. The hunger of the bird shows an intimate detail of what David has learned from his wife. She had been working as a waitress and bringing home pieces of chicken for him, saved from her own meal. The spiritual side of David wants to develop this quality of self-giving, which his wife’s love had helped him see.

Example: ‘I have been a widower since Jan. 1979, having married in Oct. 1941. I continually dream I am in London where my business was. I am walking the streets with my wife and suddenly I see her ahead of me in a yellow rain coat and hat. I call her and try to catch up, but suddenly she vanishes. In spite of calling and searching I cannot find her.’ Douglas G.

This is a common theme dreamt by widowers or widows – disappearance of spouse. Douglas has ‘lost’ his wife. His dream shows the paradox of love after death of partner. His love is still there years after her death. He is possibly still trying to love his wife as an externally real person, so his feelings can make no connection. To meet what actually remains of his wife, within himself, he would need to face his own internal grieving, emotions, and ALL THE FEELINGS, MEMORIES, ANGERS AND BEAUTY, which make up the living remains of his wife within him. See Practical Techniques to Explore Dreams

The first wife or ex wife: This may be dealing with the things you met or learned in that relationship, but it can also represent a past way of life, something you have left behind or are leaving behind. The dreamer in the example below is now feeling easier about her husband’s first relationship. The first wife represents her sense of competing for her husband’s affections, even though his ‘first woman’ was dead. See Inner Wife below.

Example: ‘I was with my husband and our three children. About two or three yards to our right stood my husbands first wife – she died about a year before I first met him. I remember feeling she no longer minded me being with him, so I put my arms around him from the back, and felt more secure and comfortable with him.’ Mrs N. S.

Being a wife: If you are not already married then it show you practising this role to see if you feel comfortable in it, even experimenting with different scenarios.

If already married: Possibly showing what you feel about your role as wife, experimenting and exploring it. One often, through experimenting and playing different marital scenes or options, finds answers to problems – especially if you explore your dream – see

Inner Wife: Many people do not realise that they have an inner wife equally as powerful as an external wife. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences, along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your wife, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your wife was never there for you – you still have all the memories of her not being there for you filed under ‘wife’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner wife can appear in dreams because you are deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

Wig

False ideas; unnatural attitude or attempts to deal with what you feel about how others see you. See: Hair.

Example: In my dream I felt like a character from a film, changing my image to become a new character. I felt very sexy and attractive, but knew I was in disguise. My husband’s relatives tried to get in but I slammed the door. I felt embarrassed and frightened they might see the clothes and wig. A comfortable presence was behind me. I’m single, early twenties.  – Michelle.

A fascinating dream weaving together thoughts about future marriage, how you feel others might see you, and an emerging and attractive side to your personality.

Anything new feels strange. Established character traits are more like habits than essential aspects of you. Underneath the make-up we are all shapeshifters. But you feel the new things you are trying out might be seen as outrageous or false. But looking at the vast range of character traits in people throughout the world, which ones are RIGHT or TRUE? Of course you might be seen as outrageous by some people. So will you risk developing the sexy and attractive facet of yourself? Or will you let your inner wisdom – the shadowy character – guide you? From such experimentation and from she/he your wholeness comes. See Shapeshifter

Example: “I was wearing a wig much too large for me and, therefore, unbecoming.”

The dream illustrates a disturbing mental attitude the dreamer had because she had been magnifying in her mind something insignificant. Therefore, the dream was saying: You are thinking too much about that disturbance and your thinking is false (too large a wig). It’s also unbecoming to your better self.

Different coloured wigs suggest different thing, not always false ideas. Certainly a whole range of feelings or wanting to been seen as interesting or better than one is naturally. See colours under Hair.

If the wig has been artificially coloured, it may suggest a deeper deception about what you are projecting of yourself.

If you wear a wig: Feelings about being bald, or about your appearance and how you present yourself. See: https://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/hair/.

 

Wild

Urges and drives that do not conform to present social standards. This does not mean they are wrong. See Wild Side

Often, because we were trained  or brought up to behave in a certain way anything that does not conform to that may be shown in dreams as wild or even dangerous. But in dreams, and even in some measure in waking life, it is  good to allow our wild side expression, for it is often a very creative side, and allows us to gather fresh insights. But wild should not mean dangerous to oneself or others. Wild means the wildness of natural animals, that have an inborn wisdom, intelligence and standard.

The wild is that ancient and untamed parts of your inner life that evolved over millions of years and is still very much part of you. Your actual brain still carries these ancient experiences that underlie your present personality. Your base brain for instance is called the R Complex, meaning the reptilian brain. What happens with the ‘wild’ in your dream shows how you are relating to this necessary and deeply instinctive and wise part of you. See: Brain levels. 

Example: My fiancé and I were trying to ‘dispose’ of five infant bodies. We hid them amongst tree and lawn clippings which were piled up on a car trailer. We were trying to hide them and were ensuring no one could see the bodies.

I was thinking about disposing of them at the rubbish tip but was concerned that someone might actually see them as we removed them from the trailer, or that the police might pull us over on the way to the rubbish tip.

I don’t know why I felt we had to cover up the deaths; I don’t think we actually killed them. I don’t know why we thought it was our responsibility to secretly dispose of the bodies. The actual death of the infants is a mystery. I recall seeing each dead baby fleetingly and saw their bodies smeared with blood. It was a sad heavy feeling and I felt as though the deaths were out of my hands, as though there was nothing I could have done about it. I kept saying, ‘my god, five infant babies dead’. Candy

I think before you can understand your dream you have to realise that as a modern person you live a life of several levels. Your body is millions of years old and is that of a mammal. Your brain is segmented into several levels, and it carries the basic spinal, the lizard brain, the mammalian brain, and then sitting on top of that is the human brain dealing with speech, thinking, etc. So, you are a complex being. But mostly you know yourself as ‘Candy’ – a person relating to the social and physical world around you. This part of you – what you call ‘me’ – relates to the world quite differently to the other levels of yourself.

If ‘Candy’ didn’t exist – if you did not have your personality called Candy – you would still be a mammalian animal moved by all the urges common to mammals. That means you would probably have reproduced by now. The urge to reproduce is still there underneath all your social programming and consciously developed likes and dislikes, with the social needs and decisions you make.

So, if we look at you as a complex physical and mental being, in yor dream we see the opening scene is one of trimming back on natural growth, the unconscious emergence of life in you. In fact you are, in your relationship, cleaning up stuff related to your growth or development. You are at an age where as a woman you near a great change. Your ability to conceive and bear a child will go, along with the identity you developed out of being a sexually attractive and nubile female. This, I think, is why the clear up is going on. What you cut back on though are not dead things. You have cut back living growth, and as the images suggest, this means the possibility of children.

Even though you do not want children consciously – and that is fine – the mammal and fundamental life processes in you have constantly been trying to reproduce – thus the dead children. You didn’t actively kill them, but your direction in life meant you did not allow them to live. See Creative Woman

This exteriorisation of internal feelings is clear in many of our dreams, such as when we run from a wild bear, we are exteriorising our fear. Dreams might do this because they frequently portray intimate parts of us which have never been made fully conscious or verbalised. The wild animal in your dreams depicts your own urges or feelings which you feel uncertain about controlling or directing.

But whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of anything you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

Our animal dreams hold a great deal of innate information held unconsciously. Our animal or instinctive self holds much of this, so communication with it can lead to enlightenment.

Taming or being loved by a wild animal shows us learning to relate to urges and energies in yourself that were previously unavailable to your will or needs. So a dog may depict our natural drives that are well socialised, but still have the tendency to revert back to the spontaneous or ‘wild’ state quite easily. For instance our anger might usually be well under control, but if someone teases us we might surprise ourselves by the amount and strength of our anger. Therefore the different animals – domesticated or wild – can therefore be used in dreams to represent the socialised or unrestrained elements of ourselves.

Example: The wilderness swallowed me up, and fantasies and torment were everywhere; in my own body, on the faces of others, screaming from my mind and emotions. Behind me, the emerging from shadowing trees came an elephant. He was beautiful with tusk and eyes, with wildness, but I was afraid of a wild elephant in full charge. It ran past the end of the building and I went to the opposite window, seeing it charge another elephant. After the impact it seemed to be a strange mixture, in my mind, of elephant and rhinoceros. It then stood shaking with sexual motions, until a great deal of sperm came out and its tension was released. Again, the details are forgotten, but there was a part where a wild dog, or fox, came very close to me, because these people were accepted by the wild animals. As I was one of them, the animals were also coming closer to me. It came up and sniffed me from a slight distance. I was like Tarzan, walking through a street. Lots of people watched and walked along. They were curious. Then I began to roar like a wild animal and my feelings of ferocity matched the sound. As I walked I caught a couple of people who got too near, and threw them about. I was angry because I was a beast/man, a wild beast, who had, for the sake of children, disciplined my urges towards going to work every day to a job that did not interest me. I had restrained my desire for rest and pleasure. I felt enormous resentment that I had to restrain myself while they lived largely unrestrained.

Wind

Changeability, the ever shifting mental processes, unseen and often enormously powerful influences in your life. Ideas or other influences that move you or pressurise you. See: Air.

Powerful influences such as public opinion, thoughts and conflicts, and occasionally perhaps emotions and urges, that influence you, or against which you may at times feel powerless. They could even become obsessive.

Wind can also represent the movement of consciousness or mind; the hidden influences in your life such as ideas and conceptions that move or influence you. The different types of wind indicated the different states of mind and feelings.

Example: I am outside the sanctum, the room I use as my spiritual place. I know that I am going in to meet, or give myself in surrender to Life. So, as I pause before entering I let the sweet feeling of this surrender fill me. It feels like an opening to a wider life of experience. Suddenly the door opens and an intense wind enveloped me. It gripped me as with an invisible power and pulled me into the room. It felt to me as if the power I was surrendering to – Life – wanted me as badly as I wanted to be filled, and had reached out and pulled me into itself. As this happened I cried out in surprise and with some shock, waking myself as I felt gripped by this great power.

The dreamer explored his dream and wrote, “Waiting outside the door – what a wonderful symbol that is. What a beautiful image. It represents all that we have as humanity placed behind the door. All of the gods, all of our images, all of the dreams, all of our fears, the devil, the angels. All that we place unknown behind the door. And they were only available to us if we walk through the door. The wind was the enormous power of all that I had suppressed in myself behind the door. I had now released it and it had grabbed me.”

In some dreams the wind is the spirit of life that moves you and in its hidden ways takes you through or introduces you to life experiences.

Buffeted by the wind: Feeling knocked about by your feelings or worries, and perhaps made indecisive or uncertain. There might be difficulties in progressing.

Flying with the wind: Uplift of more energy into the mind to become a wider view or an integration of experience. Feeling great freedom and the ability to move with the things life brings you. See Are you a prisoner or a traveller of wider possibilities

Strong wind: Powerful urges; being moved by ideas and beliefs that have a strong influence on you, such as occurs when we change from childhood to adolescence or to middle age. Most people now realise that huge natural events in dreams are caused by massive changes within us.

These changes are part of the natural order, and often show themselves to people in their dreams. So they can be understood as an expression of our personal adaptation to enormous changes. They tend to alter most of the beliefs, social structures we have built or held onto as important. Yet if we are not afraid of change and the forces that we are actually involved in, then we can find enormous power and force within us. See: TornadoTsunami

Windmill

Windmills are used to drive millstones to grind corn to flour – in dream terms this means to make your personality in it ntaural form – the grain which is a seed – into flour – your ability to digest and understnad what you are experiencing. See Seed – Digest

The wind that drives it is an invisible force that can be gentle, but can ‘blow’ you into experiences that may be difficult – “The wind blows where it wants, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from where it comes, and where it goes.” John 3:8

Window

In general one is either looking out of, looking into, or going through a window. This makes them largely connected with what we see in the sense of perception or being aware of things, either within ourselves – as in the example – or in regard to other people. So they can depict our eyes or awareness also.

Example: ‘I was looking at a little matchbox shaped thing and one looked into it like a window. I looked at my arm through the window, then my vision was full of patterns of my energy going up and down my arm. It was very beautiful, leaf like shapes with glass like balls and clear liquid but even the liquid making patterns on the move up and down.’ Wendy O.

Climbing in a window: Looking within oneself or seeing what makes someone else ‘tick’.

Climbing out of window: Possibly your way of avoiding difficult feelings, i.e. by giving attention to exterior things – television, a book – rather than what we feel.

Domed window or window in roof: Depicts our head or mind. We each have a cosmic sense – a synthesis of experience in which we develop a personal view of what life is about in the largest sense – looking through the domed or roof window depicts the vision provided by this cosmic sense.

Example: ‘Presently I come to another domed window and stand looking at sea and sky. I am filled with serenity and peace.’ J. D.

Height of windows: Such as first floor: Suggest what area of your experience you are looking at the world through. You might only look at life through a basement window, which suggests being influenced by ones sexuality or unconscious feelings. See mention of levels of house above. See SevenLevels

Huge windows: A very wide and clear view of people, and everyday life. Your view or perceptions are not narrow or limited by small windows which make it difficult to really see or understand things.

Looking into a window: What you feel or ‘see’ in regard to someone else if you see another person; what you are aware of when ‘looking’ at or giving awareness to yourself.

‘I was looking at a little match box shaped thing and one looked into it like a window. I looked at my arm through the window, and my vision was full of patterns of my energy going up and down my arm. It was very beautiful, leaf like shapes with glass like balls and clear liquid but even the liquid making patterns on the move up and down.’ Wendy O.

Looking out of a window: Your ‘view’ of or feelings about what you perceive in your environment in life and people; looking for a way out of a situation.

Looking out of a window into your garden  or yard: Although it feels as if you are looking at the world outside you, you are looking at things that are happening within you that perhaps you do not recognise as yours.

Opening window: Letting others see your feelings or opinions; allowing other people’s influence into yourself.

No windows: Not seeing what is going on around you; introversion; attention held by internal feelings, thoughts or concerns.

Idioms: Window dressing; window on the world; a room with a view. See: Glass.

Wine

Sociability; relaxation; social pleasure; the strange mystery behind the existence of self-awareness; blood or the flow of life force.

The possible reason that wine, especially red wine, has become a symbol of the human spirit is most likely due to its method of production. The separate ‘lives’ of thousands of grapes were squashed so their life blood would pour into a common vat. This then underwent a magical transformation by yeast which turned it into alcohol. The connection here is that people who have a direct experience of the spirit, experience it as a unification of all that has lived and is living. The experience of countless human lives has been linked and transformed into a vast sea of wisdom and heightened awareness. It might be this we ‘drink’ when we drink wine in our dream, and we touch our own union with the ocean of awareness that is our spirit. See: blood; Example under Buddhism and dreams.

Example: We went to the same restaurant. This time it was narrower. We drank red wine from large goblets. On reaching for my goblet I knocked it over. The wine spread rapidly and I thought it was blood. I felt fear and ran from the dining room. Next I was sitting on a camel, being led by another girlfriend of mine. It was down a street where I had worked. It is called Hope Street. H. B.

The dream shows the connection the unconscious often makes between wine and blood. It shows how the alcohol produces transformations that lead the dreamer to experience fear. In other words the dreamer fears what emerges as the changes occur. Even so there is then the emergence of hope.

Example: I was sitting in a boat. It was a small sailing boat, on the sea. In one hand I was holding an ash tray with a joint, in the other hand was a glass of wine. I realised I couldn’t steer the boat while I was holding both. Bitz.

This dream clearly shows how the dreamer’s habits of drinking and smoking leave him unable to steer the ‘boat’ of his life properly.

Example: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. The King James Bible. Acts 2:2


Useful questions:

Is this dream about a transforming influence, or a dependent need I have?

If this is about a transforming influence in my life, can I identify it and use it?

What does the action of the dream suggest about the influence of the alcohol in my life?

What effect is the alcohol having on me in the dream?

If no alcohol is being drunk in the dream, what is the dream indicating about it?

See: Alcohol; Tea.

Wing

These show your ability to be independent, to have a mind of your own, and to take flight into creative imagination and spiritual awareness. Therefore injury to a wing would show how those things had been hurt or decreased. See: Bird.

There is a negative side to flying which depicts how we try to move away from internal trauma or fear by disassociating our feelings and mind from reality. We may do this by constantly reading books, watching television, or by internally deadening our feelings and body sensations. Thus some victims of sexual abuse dream of flying as an escape from their internal pain.

Having wings on: This suggests the desire to rise above things, your ability to become independent, to attain greater heights, to break free of limiting viewpoints or cultural norms. But flying also represents ambition, abstract thought, and rising above your fears.

Broken wing: It doesn’t matter whether this is a bird wing, a plane wing or anything that enables flight it shows you lack the full confidence enabling you to maintain a good flight. See Flying 

 

Winning Money

Many of us have the desire to have more ability to get what we want, and this can often produce a dream of winning a lot of money. Usually there is no fulfilment of these dream, but those dreamers who take it seriously can often produce results. The following examples show how you need to be sure of yourself, that you are a winner.

I remember from -my experiences as an eleven-year old that I won at games and contests when I had a clear sense I would win; you might say when I had an aura of –‘Winning’. My dreams offered me this perspective too.

On waking I stretched my new title to Catalytic Betting and Wining. Then I practised, made bets, won and lost, honing my re-emerging skills. My dreams voiced their approval: From that rebirth comes the decision not just to win, but to take responsibility for being a winner. Having won, there is no longer any challenge — except that my prize has also become my responsibility.

It seems that having the sense of being a winner is vital. The next examples are all from Shirley G. a well known media cook.  Because of space, only three of the dreams are quoted.


‘I set out to dream the winner of a horse race each day for a week.

Winter

Death, rest, inner processes that have not shown themselves in consciousness. Inactivity with the falling away of outer activity to concentrate on inner consciousness. It can also depict a hard time in life or business, perhaps a period of cold, in the sense of nothing growing in your life, or little feelings. See: Cold; Ice.

Most of us have been raised to see the seasons as an external event. Even the Christians who continue the ancient rituals have the same feeling. Yet we know very well, if only unconsciously, that we are a product of nature, the Earth and its seasons. We are all influenced by the cycles of growth and death, and yet we usually fail to sense the seasons as an almighty influence within us.

Also, we are unconscious of being a part of nature in the sense of knowing as our own experience the enormous influence the seasons have on our inner life, and the power we could get from acknowledging them.

 Emotional coldness, a quiescence awaiting an appropriate period for growth or the end of a cycle of action and fruitfulness. Winter can also denote the absence of relationship or an unfruitful period of life, old age or death in some form. See: Death.

Winter is also a seeming death of so much, but under the surface enormous preparation is happening. The old past life, the past that you have been taken in as a tree might, where leaves and foliage – i.e. different experiences, has become fertiliser for the new year of your growth, the new life following from the past – the many pasts, for seeds are the survivors of the winter and in fact have carried the experience from the beginning of life. And that experience is held in readiness for another season and its experiences.

In nature there is no death, but simply an entrance into a different phase of life. So the seed dies by losing its present form to become roots and stem; the stem and leaves change to become flowers to experience fertilisation. Then, often the plant dies or changes its form to produce seeds. All a process of change, not death. Humans, likewise, when their body can no longer support consciousness, leaves it to become a new impulse. Someone recently told me, “But we are all atoms, and at death our body and its atoms fall apart.”

But they forgot that atoms didn’t form the body and its organs, another process organises the atoms into the wonder of the whole thing, our body, and at death the Organiser, Life, has left the body and it falls apart. The old phrase, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust” is about the body and its atoms, which no longer are held together by the organising process of Life, so it is not about the Life of which we are an example.

Wire

In the form or barbed wire and fencing it can depict a barrier – something in the way of what you want to do or where you want to go. Such wire can also be a protection or an area of privacy. As such it would depict your desires about that or your methods of maintaining or finding privacy or protection. See: Fence.

A fuse wire indicates the vulnerable parts of you that could fail under stress – or else the way you automatically cut off from a situation if it is problematical.

Wires have many other possible associations though, depending on the content of the dream. They can indicate connections you have with other people and what passes between you; the way you are wired inside. In other words the way your emotions might have been connected to certain ‘switches’ when you were young, so particular events or relationship situations connect with great pain or pleasure. Wires often relate to energy and how you handle or relate to it, or the trigger for an explosive device – suggesting a potent area of explosive emotions in you. In this vein we have the term ‘hard wired’ suggesting some responses are innate in you.

Wires can act as a support – the methods you use to ‘fix’ things in mind or to support things you are doing. Or even an art form –

Idioms: Got your wires crossed; wired for sound; pull your wire; wired; under the wire.

Wireless Radio

What you listen to or hear going on around or inside you. The radio can also be company, or other peoples ‘noise’.

Our sense of what is ‘in the air’ – messages we are picking up from other people or our environment. What we can tune into and find out about possibly intuitively. Broadcasted opinions which are just opinions. See Intuition – Using It

Being on the radio: Feeling valued; having a sense of something worth communicating; actually communicating and reaching a wide audience. It sometimes is an assessment of your ability to reach a bigger audience.

Inside wireless: Your mind, or inside yourself.

Radio station: Although it is a work situation for many people, the dreams I have collected on this are vary varied as the example. So I would suggest you use the Easy Dream Interpretation

 Example: I work for a radio station and am very well endowed in the breasts. I wear a shapeless sweatshirt to cover me up so men won’t stare. They are going to a company party thing at the “farm.” I go inside and then overhear a conversation the men are having about me. One says, “I don’t know if she’s with us or not. I can’t tell if there is a commitment. She seems to not care one way or the other.” I realize this is so, and go to a closet and choose a pretty jacket to wear to the party. Now I look very good and I go out there to join them but all the men stare at my breasts and it makes me very uncomfortable. I get on the piece of shingled roof we are going to fly on with the man, who is like the WKPR radio salesman, a sleaze ball. Barb.

Example: When I did so the movement had begun, and there were green dancing figures all over the wall. They all started from an obscure yet fascinating centre point, full of symbols and movement, and radiated out, dancing and interweaving. There were Indian goddesses with beautiful breasts, lithe figures like green grass, all moving in time to the music from the transistor radio. My hips were also managing a similar timing.

Example: And I heard singing. It was divine singing. It was God singing about his everlasting love, about the immensity of creating it all, about singing, about laughing and living: and I mean living and living, life full, totally in every organ. And the song went on. I heard it as plain as my own voice, every word clear, as clear as the transistor could make, because God was singing it, on the radio. Then the surface shook again, and I knew it was only a great skin covering the one life. No one, nowhere, no time, sang who did not sing as God. No one danced, or fucked, or shit, or did up their shoelace, except that one life did it.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you listen to on the radio, and does it appear in your dream?

What do you associate with radio programs?

Does what you listen to influence you in any way?

See Inner World – Working with associations – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Wise Man

Sometimes this is a disguised image of the way you feel about your father. It can also show how you are relating to your core self and what you are getting or learning from it. We each have a ‘wise man’ in us. Part of our mental functioning is to bring together and learn from all our life experience. The results of this learning are frequently expressed by an old or wise man or woman in our dreams. See Core Self

‘I was standing on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. By my side was a man. He had short cropped silver hair, gleaming, and piercing blue eyes. He seemed old, but was broad, muscular and gave me the impression of having lived many lifetimes, or being very wise. He indicated the sea and I understood I should plunge into it. I did so, leaving my body behind, and became a part of the ocean. At the same time it seemed I could at any time stand beside the man on the cliff again.’ Debbie.

In Debbie’s dream the cliff is also the edge between life and death; between fear of death and exuberance of life; between being trapped in the concept of oneself as simply a physical form, and the freedom of realising oneself as naked consciousness. Her inner wisdom shows her these great life lessons. See Guru  

An experience Jung had when communicating with an Indian versed in yoga:

‘You don’t mean the commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago?’ I asked. 

‘Yes, I mean him he said, to my amazement. 

‘Then you are referring to a spirit?’ I asked. 

‘Of course it was his spirit,’ he agreed. 

At that moment I thought of Philemon. (Jung’s ghostly companion.)

‘There arc ghostly gurus too,’ he added. ‘Most people have living gurus. But there always some who have a spirit for teacher’

Wise Woman

Sometimes this is a disguised image of the way you feel about your mother. It can also show how you are relating to your core self and what you are getting or learning from it. We each have a ‘wise woman’ in us, it is part of our mental functioning that brings together and learn from all our life experience; it synthesises our whole life experience plus what is held unknown in our unconscious. The results of this learning are frequently express by an old or wise woman or man in our dreams. See Core SelfArchetype of the Wise Old WomanArchetype of the SelfWitch

Witches Witchcraft and Wicca

If dreamt about, it suggests the fears or difficult feelings and relationship habits you have developed in relationship with your mother. Because these feelings are now part of you, if female, you can of course become the witch in relationship to someone else. The witch in drama is often depicted as an expression of vindictiveness, jealousy etc.

 Witch on black Pegasus

Example: ‘I talked about my mother, she was standing before me in full anger and blaming me for bringing out the witch in her. She said look at my eyes, they were horrid to see, all red and angry and she was dark.’ Lesley M.

Witchcraft started long before the written word, for it was a natural part of many women’s life, and still may be. As life-forms humans have a heritage of being an outcrop of creation itself, and so carry a huge animal heritage of finding healing herbs, of having insight into others and the future, of being channels of power and also having an inbuilt entry into the inner world – often called the psychic world.

Example: While in Ireland I sought a place to stay and came across a pub/inn that had a room I could sleep in. I wanted to be alone because I was struggling with feelings linked with just having broke up with a woman I had loved. I was thinking of going to sleep when the pub came alive with people’s voices and music. It was too loud for me to sleep and so I went down to the pub to see what was going on. The Irish are an extraordinary people and so the party had a similar extraordinary air about it. Before long an attractive woman held me in conversation which was leading toward being together. I explained that I was still struggling with a past relationship whereupon the woman looked me straight in the eye and said, “We’ll see about that that”, and she put her hand on top of my head. I felt like a strong electric current ran right through me. It was a very strange thing because the difficult feelings I had been struggling with had gone.

Example: But there has been an almost an unendurable pain lately and I thought I was going mad, and I felt it was due to living with my wife, Jane and her mother. Every time I came home the grinding pain would begin in my belly. I mean literally a physical pain. I picked fault with Jane. It got so bad a few days ago I couldn’t talk to or get near anybody. Yesterday I exploded over her mother’s action in our home.

Jane had gone out with her mother and I was left alone in our house. For the first time in my life I had a tremendous desire to go out and get drunk to drown the pain. Instead of that I went off in my car and explored the feelings to see if I could find out what was going on. As I lay in the car it was as if I searched through my whole mind and psyche to see, or to find, the madness. Everything seemed healthy and normal. So, I went searching again with the same result. It seems I had a healthy and sturdy structure in my mind. So, this time I went looking for the cause of the pain, and what I found was that I had an intuition that her mother was trying to influence Jane to get rid of me, and take over the place so they could live together. When I got home I put this to Jane and she said her mother had been talking in that vein. This was like an enormous load taken of me. And for the first time I realised that people could enter into one unconsciously and cause great pain.

I have experienced the same thing from other people, and it reminds me of the enormous negative power some witches, female or male, have on others,

No plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. It is this ancient self that witches had or have access to. For witchcraft isn’t a club or a religion one belongs to, it is a natural thing born in many women, as natural as being able to have children.

As such it had no organised way of existing, like early Christianity it had no rules because it was an outgrowth of the life process itself – ever creative – but as with Christianity it was taken and formalised by the Catholic Church. Witchcraft didn’t conform to these rules, because witches had no formalised way of being but like everything in nature they were all unique – fingerprints; something the church abhorred. This led to the terrible murdering of women who showed signs of contact with the ancient self – and then as an excuse to kill, murder any man or woman who showed signs of uniqueness – reading and interpreting the bible in their own way, forming alternative beliefs or practices, or standing up and denouncing the church. See Amersham MartyrsGeorge FoxWitchesSuper Heroes and Mythical Creatures

Unfortunately the media, films and TV, tend to use the old clichés about witches and portray them as evil, jealous and revengeful. But if you are not imprisoned by the Christian view, your dream witch can be a wonder to explore. See Practical Techniques to explore dreams

Eileen Garret  was maybe a modern natural witch born in Ireland, and so sensitive to the inner feelings of people, Eileen found school difficult, as she was in contact with so many people. To heal herself from the shock of so many impacts she learnt to allow her awareness, or as she describes it, “a fluid part of myself,”  to flow out to plants, trees and the earth, and feel connected with all living things. This ability developed to the point where she could extend her awareness to people or objects at a distance and feel as if she were part of them. She could sense the innermost condition and history of natural things, and the health and thoughts of people. See Super Minds – https://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/superminds/ 

 

Withdraw Withdrawal

Whether the dream shows the withdrawal in the form or a movement, such as pulling back one’s hand, or in the form of deep introversion, it depicts some aspect of pulling back the subtle extensions of oneself made in work, relationships, sex and life involvement. Consider the clues given in the dream to define what you are withdrawing.

In sleep and death consciousness gradually withdraws from the physical into its own centre rather like a snail withdrawing into its shell This disappearance of personal awareness in sleep is an entrance into the world of death. The half way meeting between the wisdom of the spirit and waking consciousness is experienced as dreams.

Occasionally extreme trauma can cause massive withdrawal. Changing from a child into an adult faces you with all manner of stresses. The risks are real. A few adolescents do commit suicide or go over the edge from anorexia, drugs or drink, alll are methods of withdrawal. Even feigning death is a powerful withdrawal; for feigning death, which in everyday terms means closing down emotionally, being introverted in some degree, not risking yourself too much in challenges such as exams or pushing in the competetive wprld. If the going gets tough you might once more ‘feign death’ and withdraw. This is not always the most productive stance, so be aware of it.

There was not an actual work problem to discover in the sense of hidden childhood trauma to release. There was no trauma or injury. There was instead a very powerful behaviour that led to repeated destruction of what I had carefully built up – like refusing to run weekends – being snotty so they will not invite me anyway – writing to cancel it once I had accepted it. Also by making a good start so it looks as if I have tried, then withdrawing effort when it comes to extending into the unknown, insecure area of advancing a cause. I can then look around and say – you see, I really did try, but it’s no good, life, circumstances were against me. Feel sorry for me. Maybe I blamed it on our lack of money, not enough time, psychological pain, but not on my own terror of walking out into the unknown and exposed areas of insecure life. At some point I remembered the tremendous physical anxiety I had felt when searching for work. It was an actual pain in my lower abdomen, a real burning gnawing deep inside. I went right into the anxiety, and it was the fear any life form feels when exposed to danger.

I believe that many reactions we develop in regard to childhood treatment are not simply traumas but are habits that got deeply etched into us as survival tactics. So not only do we need to experience and heal the feelings, but then we have to work bloody hard to develop new habits. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/habits/

Something I experienced in meeting this was when I met my first habit as a new born baby. I spoke as the new born baby of my dream I really felt as if this was me, newly born. I had had a difficult birth and my reaction was that I wanted nothing to do with life. I wanted to stay curled up like an egg, not getting involved in the exterior world.

The adult observing me could see how this aspect of my inner life had led me to be withdrawn from social activity all my life, so I explained this to the baby me, saying – I need you to be ready to meet the world. You are a part of me and if you continue to withdraw I lack the enthusiasm to get involved with other people.

Back as the baby I felt totally vulnerable and didn’t want to take any risks – No I don’t want to come out of the egg. This was said with set determination.

As the adult again I said – Look, if you remain curled up this is more of a gamble than actually getting out and taking risks in life. Just lying there anything can get you.  I had watched a documentary of baby turtles hurry to the sea, and some of them got eaten by seagulls.

The view of the seagulls really, really got to me as the baby. I could see that simply lying there was more dangerous than being still. I felt a change in me and a readiness to begin the journey of meeting life outside the womb.  This change really made a difference to my everyday activities. A lifelong habit of being introverted gradually dropped away.

So to meet the anxious or frightened defensive self we need to understand its real feelings and that it cannot let them go without a real other view of what it could do – move instead of lying there where everything can get you – or whatever you can do to move the inner determination of your child self. Obviously you need to experiment to see what will work.

Witness Witnessing

Because of the many nature films shown on television we are used to the idea of mature and intelligent adults spending days or years watching the behaviour of animals such as hyenas or chimpanzees. In her book In The Shadow Of Man, Jane Von Lawick Goodall explains how, by watching chimpanzees and taking note of her observations, radical new insight into the behaviour of chimpanzees arose. She didn’t think beforehand what she expected to find, but simply observed and put together the information that arose. For instance on several occasions she saw the chimpanzees kill another animal and eat its flesh. The knowledge that chimpanzees were meat eaters was entirely new.

In a similar way, by observing dreams and laying bare the emotions and associated ideas and memories we have with the dream imagery, we gradually define our personality, its strengths and weaknesses, we discover new abilities and we grow beyond our old problems, and that in a depth we had never managed previously. I have called this mind watching, but it covers every aspect of human nature, not simply the intellect or thinking.

This mind watching through observation of our dreams first presents information about our personal experiences and memories and how they influenced our growth and influence present responses. Gradually the information arising from such watching leads beyond ones personal self. It shows in many cases how our unique self has arisen from, and has indissoluble links with our forebears, with our culture, with the past as a whole, and with the cosmos itself. It leads from oneself to the edge of the known, and perhaps helps us take a few steps beyond that edge into the unknown, to create new understanding.

This mind watching gradually reveals to us the many aspects of the mind’s working, and with such insight may come the growing ability to use these facets of ourselves. Not only may we discover great vistas of personal memory, but also the roots of our creativity, the subtle senses of our emotions and unconscious, and the treasures of experience we have gathered. See Your Amazing Circle – Self Observation 

 

Wolf

Although the wolf can depict a feeling that ‘things’ are out to get us, the wolf in our dream often depicts just our fear. Fear is one of our instinctive reactions to situations, so is shown by an animal. We may find ourselves a prisoner of such feelings, as Anna in the example below. The wolf, as is suggested by such fairy stories as Red Riding Hood, also represents the female fear of powerful male sexuality; repressed sexuality or anger; emotions and drives that frighten you. See Animals

Also whenever we dream its images are not like real life. Because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward the audience; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

But the wolf also appears in our dreams as a master of life in the wild. It is a group animal and has tremendous loyalty and protectiveness to its family and group. As such it can depict your intuitive understanding of life on earth, the seasons of life and death, and the deep wisdom of group relations. In some dreams the wolf is a protective companion on your life journey – what in the past has been called a spirit guide or totem animal. This sort of wisdom tells us that aggressive urges are natural to us, but sometimes they can turn back on ourselves and injure our well being. You might then even dream of killing the wolf or animal in you. But love can resurrect that vital animal life and consciousness within you and the world. The following dream and commentary illustrates this.

Quote: We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we have deliberately and mistakenly perceived it to be… the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer… which in reality is no more than a reflected image of ourselves. Harley Blake.

To see the wonderful nature of wolves watch https://www.facebook.com/AppreciateENG/videos/1763709230595548/?t=63

Example: I dreamt two great wolf like dogs were on a headland. They had to be killed for some reason. I shot them. They seemed to take a long time to die and I felt compassion for them. Now horses seemed to be lying with them. The death struggles became the horses – mares – struggles to give birth. I saw the vagina parted to show a head. Birth would follow. Nathan.

Nathan explored his dream and had the following intuitive response to it as if someone was explaining it to him:

“When you were trying to murder the animal forces in yourself they would not die, they only thresh about, trying to survive. Try bringing life to them. The bringing of love is represented by your desire not to have them suffer. Great love turns the destructiveness of the lower forces into creativeness. The gun was the destructiveness of the fears and angers in you turned against yourself. The love redeemed this power, directing it in a new way. Love enables new life to emerge. The new life promises strength where there was only fear. When you love yourself, you lift parts of your being into new life.”

EXAMPLE: “I was in a caravan in the middle of a field and in this field was a large black wolf. Every time I tried to run from the caravan to the edge of the field, the wolf chased me back, so I was a prisoner in the caravan. It all sounds so simple now, but at the time I was truly terrified.” Anna S.

This next example from Oliver, a boy of six, illustrates how such fears can be met with a little courage. It is a dream which recurred several times, so his description is of a series of dreams.

EXAMPLE: “I am in my bed in my own room and I hear what I know to be a wolf wearing the sort of clogs worn in Lancashire. When the wolf gets to a certain point, there is a bang, and I wake terrified. My Mother’s reassurances do not help. Each night he gets a bit nearer before my panicky awakening. The night came when I know he will reach me. Sure enough he arrives, and the bedroom door – in my dream – is flung wide open with a tremendous bang. There is no one there. I never dreamt it again.”

When something gets nearer to us in a dream, it means that it is moving nearer to consciousness. So Oliver’s wolf – or at least, what it represents, namely his response to his childhood fears – is becoming ever more conscious. This means he is facing his fear and thereby dealing with it. If he had run away or fought to keep the door closed, then it would have gone on haunting him.

The wolf can also be a protective and life-giving symbol as in the following dream. In the dream Cathy is demonstrating a loving and unified relationship with her natural or instinctive feelings.

Example: I dreamt about a white wolf. I know you won’t believe this but I actually feel like I touched its fur in my dreams. I was protecting it and it was protecting me, and it was so real I woke up looking on the floor next to my bed to see if it was there. Cathy

IDIOMS: Wolf at the door; wolf in sheep’s clothing; cry wolf; throw to the wolves; a wolf – meaning a man who lusts after women and pursues them like a predator.

Useful questions are:

Am I still dealing with anxiety with my dream wolf – if so how can I change this?

Do I relate to the wolf as an ally or an enemy?

Is my dream wolf showing a negative relationship with my fears and aggression?

Are you accepting the wolf as a protector and giver of wisdom?

See Programmed – Levels of the Brain – Being the Person or Thing

Woman Women

In life the conscious attention a woman has to give to her animus (her inner male) problem takes much time and involves a lot of suffering. But if she realises who and what her animus is and what he does to her, and if she faces these realities instead of allowing herself to be possessed, her animus can turn into an invaluable inner companion who endows her with the masculine qualities of initiative, courage, objectivity, and spiritual wisdom. Archetype of the Animus

Example: For women in particular there is an urge to give their love. What are you going to do with that love, have babies? If that is the direction you want to go, wonderful, go for it. Let all the power of your love and energy stream into it. Claim it as yours. Fill it with yourself. If that is not what you want, don’t flap about thinking that’s not what you want and being half-hearted about it.

Don’t kill that energy however. The energy of procreation is the fundamental river of life. But if you want it to go elsewhere let it build up and build up until it bursts through into the area you wish . Awareness is the key. What are you going to spend your wonderful female energy on? Are you going to spend it on a man? If you do, he might not even know the wonderful thing you are offering him. Is that what you want to do with it? Well, maybe spend some on him. But not all of it. You have so much of it. Awareness is the key. It is the flow of your life. Do not block it or allow it to become tangled up by pain. If it does, return to the source of your being for renewal and healing. Take the energy up to expanded awareness. Feel the pain of giving birth to that new self. Become a whole woman. I see all women, as holding within themselves, all women who have existed. They are agelesss, and at the same time the latest, the top of the heap, the newest model with all the bells and whistles. But unless they keep in contact with the stream of their own life, their source of womanhood, they will desiccate, dry up, as a person. If they lose contact with that, they are simply a painted face. You are simply what the plastic surgeon does. You might look like a beautiful shell, but you are dead inside. See Core

A woman has a variety of ways she needs to be fulfilled. That is, by being cared about, being loved sexually, having her man do something valuable socially, and having a companion of depth and width she can play and cry, work and talk with. So a powerful woman can face a powerful man because she knows her own power. She feels within her the ability to stand as a force in the world, as well as the ability to care for her own children or even others. She acknowledges everything everything she is, from her animal within her to her human ability to take hold of the world and create, children as well as business or social functions. She has a natural religious feeling which may have nothing to do with the church or other religious bodies, but is a love of life and its creatures. She is a WOMAN.

Example: Part of the imagery I had experience was that the spider creature, the woman, the female of the species, has a fundamental message that she is crying out either unconsciously or consciously. It is, “I am different. I am different. I am different!” “I’ve got something wonderful.” This is a very basic thing, a cry from her own genetic material. She is saying “Mate with me I am offering you something that is different to anybody else.” This even flows into the personality where the woman might present herself as better, different, more wonderful. Very often the woman is trying to get a particular male, or a particular type of male. She has, consciously or unconsciously, an ideal that she is seeking. But that male, or that type of male, may not actually become her partner. So then she looks around to see if she can attract the nearest to that ideal, and if that fails she may take whatever opportunity allows. She looks to see who’s next in line.

A young woman may need to create an inner man, an image or concept of manhood, within herself, before she can relate to a mate. But before a woman takes a man as a mate she needs to define exactlty –What is a MAN. That is not what her fantsies or romantic ideas are but see the whole spectrum of maleness from murders; sexual predators; young inexperienced males, older males who have been married to old men.

A woman in a woman’s dream: An aspect of yourself, but often a facet of you that is not immediately identified with. See Being the Person or Thing

Goddess, holy or oriental woman: The dreamer’s highest potential; what she is capable of but may not yet have lived; her intuition and wisdom transcending her own personality. Something she has brought to life what lives and expresses through all life – a universal sympathy. If you have lived with someone for a while with a girl or a woman, you have developed an inner female.

Inner female woman: Many people do not realise that they have an inner woman equally as powerful as an external woman. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your the girl or woman, and they are what makes you the person you are. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner woman can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

Example: I dreamt of being with a woman who was desperately seeking a man. I was also with my own female companion. I believe the woman had been suddenly dropped by her man, and I and my partner were close and with her.

Still in the semi-awake state I tried ‘being’ the woman, and had a very clear response. I experienced being her, but was also me with experience of seeing into myself in some degree. I saw that the woman, like most of us, was a female creature whose instinctive drive was to find a mate. But she was not aware of this as an instinctive drive but as a personal feeling. As such she had become, like many women and men, lost in a huge web of personal ideas about whether they were attractive, sexy, with many complications about love, gender mixed with childhood unconscious traumas and the heartbreak all that brings.

But women have a much older and more wonderful inner woman. Yes, you grew from a seed, but no plant or creature grows from a dead seed, and each living seed carries within it all the past gathered from all its forebears. So, the seed in your mother’s womb is as old as and even older than human kind, and you carry that wisdom or memories in you. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very huge and ancient self. For in a real way, you are simply a conscious personality riding an ancient beast, your body.

Example:  I could then see a fairly easy way to climb the great tree. So, I climbed up and the top of the tree was like a massive bell of a flower, like a crocus shape. And it was light and colourful. Suddenly I saw a spirit, a beautiful female. It was the spirit of the tree. At this point I was semi awake, and I wanted to hold the beautiful spirit, but realised that the tree was a representation of my life, and so was the spirit of the tree. The spirit sat on me in a sexual position, so I was lying on my back and she was upright. She slowly took me into her, I mean the whole me, as if she was sucking my whole body into her. I realised that I had to die because she wanted to take all my experience of life and endeavour into her and fertilise herself to form a baby. So, I was ready to die and watched her form a new baby, a mixture of her and me.

Older woman: Could be the dreamer’s mother; her feelings about ageing; her sense of inherited wisdom; sometimes, if you are a woman, she represents the person you are becoming.

One woman one man: Behaviour patterns arising from parental relationship.

Two women and the dreamer: Conflicting feelings or drives.

Woman’s sister and female children: Particularly used to represent herself. The character of the dream woman, loving, angry, businesslike, lazy, sexual, give a clue to what part of the dreamer it is referring to. If the dream woman is a person known well, the above can still be the case, but the woman may represent what the dreamer feels about that person.

Woman in a house: Can represent your mother or wife.

Woman younger than the dreamer: Oneself at that age.

Woman in a man’s dream: This is fundamentally about your felt relationship with a particular woman, or women in general. What is happening in the dream will depict the aspect of relationship being illustrated. The dreamer’s present relationship with his own feelings and intuitive self; his sensitivity and contact with his unconscious through receptivity; or how he is relating to his female partner. The latter is especially so if the woman in the dream is his partner.

Old woman: Usually the dreamer’s mother. The woman, because she is his feelings, is obviously also his sexual desires and how he meets them. But very often it represent the power of experience, or old experience and wisdom. In terms of the dreamer, it can signify your own intuitive power – a power because it carries a lot of your own energy and wholeness with it. It can, in some dreams represent what you have brought to life what lives and expresses through all life – a universal sympathy.

Oriental woman in occidental dream: The aspect of mind and emotions that links the conscious personality with its unconscious transcendental wisdom and intuition, and perhaps the capacity to love.

Two women and the dreamer: An ‘eternal triangle’ situation; conflicting feelings.

Unmarried woman: Dreaming of being unmarried – is it a desire for freedom or independence, or comparison with present situation if married? Also it might point to the way you were prior to marriage. Possible hope for a new sexual partner, a husband prior to marriage or an unmarried male friend. Recent documentaries on tribal life showed clearly how polygamy in such groups was a powerful force in child care, women’s support, and leaving no one unmarried and uncared for at the death of parents.

It worked well in a group that had no social welfare and survival in a harsh environment that was hard for all. An argument against polygamy is that of females being subordinate to males, but in some cultures the polygamy is that of a woman having several male partners. An Indian young woman states she had no conflict over the fact that Hindus in Asia closely protect unmarried girls and that she was living with a West Indian. She said, “I am not being unfaithful to anyone and after all this is quite the usual practice among students in London”.

She finished the interview by saying that she felt much more united with the Almighty and at peace inside herself. She is certainly completely relaxed and able to discuss her situation living in Western culture with great charm and understanding.

One may remain unmarried because of immaturity or a powerful mother influence. An unmarried woman secretary of 28 was referred by the family doctor in 1959 because of her fear of being sick, for which he could find no organic cause. She was the only daughter of middle class parents and lived at home in comfort in a London suburb. She was of superior intelligence and a first class secretary. The details of her social relationships showed evidence of marked emotional immaturity and she was leading a social life appropriate to an 18-year old girl. After treatment she sums up – “I see now that I was terribly immature and very very greatly influenced by my mother, who had the most tremendous power over me. It was quite unconscious on her part, but she was my God, and that is what I saw under the treatment.

Example: It all started off, by this awful fear of sickness. I wasn’t sick but I was absolutely petrified that I was going to be. I think is was the fact that when I was sick, I associated that with being ill in bed and therefore under Mummy’s power completely. I was very much worse after I had glandular fever, which I had very badly, and I was in bed for three weeks. It also got worse every time I fell in love with anybody. I had lots of boy friends, but twice before I met my husband I fell in love, and then this fear of sickness became very much worse. Every time I went out with a boy friend to a restaurant I got quite panic stricken that I was going to be sick, and of course, I felt sick because I got in such a state about it that I made myself feel really sick.  Well of course, having been married for two years, and knowing what real love is, I would say no. I used to get these “little pink cloud” romances, which is the sort of thing that happens to teenagers, which was merely infatuation, but it was never a really deep love.” Quoted from LSD and Ritalin in the Treatment of Neurosis, by Ling and Buckman.

Example: I was getting married with two other couples. We all wore Cinderella dresses, but I didn’t have a husband. Then I changed into peach coloured long skirt and danced – really let my hair down. The others went off on their honeymoon. I’m 21 and my boyfriend and I have decided not to get married as both our parents are going through awful divorces.  Theresa

Cinderella is of course the girl without parents. So you are taking into your decision – to wed, or not – Cinderella is of course the girl without parents. So you are taking into your decision  feelings of being unsupported. Obviously your parent’s divorce contributes to this. Do remember Theresa, that neither marriage nor living as an unmarried couple, guarantees against break up. Many unmarried couples I personally know have gone through the most bitter separations.

Divorce is not necessarily failure, it is change. If you don’t live in make-believe-land where all things forever remain in a state of sleepy permanency, then you can plan for change. Most bitterness in parting is about money and hurt hopes, or maybe misplaced dependence. If you can learn to love each other without possessiveness, and with awareness of normal change, you can avoid many of these hurts. It makes the relationship stronger too. See Ages of Love

Younger woman: Can depict his desires for a woman of that age, or his more vulnerable emotions.

Example: ‘I gave birth to a baby girl I named Charlotte. I had mixed emotions about this, uncertainty, excitement. I wanted to share the news with my friends. I phoned one, a woman in Australia. I told her with enthusiasm, but she listened quietly and remained silent. I felt uneasy, then she said ‘We lost Luke’ – her son – ‘the week before.’ I then woke with muddled feelings.’ Mo.

The example helps make plain how the other woman in mo’s dream is the aspect of her that is in pain and mourning. Mo explored her feelings about the dream characters. It all fell into place when she asked herself what she had ‘lost’ recently. She had left a lover of some years standing. This gave her a lot more freedom and new opportunity, depicted by the baby, but also muddled feelings of loss. Her Australian friend represents her feelings of grieving for the ‘death’ of her relationship. Her muddled feelings arise because she both loves the new life which opens up, but grieves the death of her romance.

Example: ‘On a raised mobile platform a goddess stood. I loved her and flew to her, skimming above the heads of the people. I talked to her. She told me the only love I could receive from her was that which I gave to a human woman. Inasmuch as I gave love to a human female, she would love me. She was all women.’ Andrew P.

The example shows Andrew meeting his archetypal conception of a woman, his ideal. But he understands that you cannot love an ideal. His love must find a real woman. Through a real love he would call love from out of himself, out of his unconscious reserve. The conditions or situations of the woman, see under appropriate entries, such as illness, murder, swimming, etc. See: anima; the great mother; old wise woman – old wise man under archetypes.

Womb Uterus

Childbirth, pregnancy, the female receptiveness and ability to nurture life.

This can be about a woman’s relationship with the urges and emotions she feels in connection with having a womb – i.e. the reproductive drive, the unconscious desire for a child or more children, and the possible neglect of those feelings and longings. It can also depict fears of illness and pregnancy. As with uterus, for many women the womb represents their sense of being a full woman and their adequacy, just as testes do for men. Of course it also links with the ability to have children, so could represent fears or feelings about this. If you dream of problems in regard to the womb, it is always worth having a physical check.

In a more general sense, the womb depicts the state of existence or consciousness in which we have grown prior to birth or speech; the state or condition prior to your development of personality – this can be personal, but it also relates to all human creatures, so is historical or evolutionary. It is a condition without ego, with a sense of being life itself, perhaps even a sense of being an integral being; that is one’s being is caused by an organising force which integrates your body. It often holds in it fears connected with birth and or sex.  So much of our foundations of experience are connected with our experience of prenatal life and birth that we may need to touch these experiences to heal or free parts of our nature for further growth. See: Uterus; Ovaries; Vagina; Birth.

Many dreams suggest the period of our life in the womb. They are dreams about being trapped in a tunnel or tight place; being tortured by demons or devils; and some dreams about tiny babies. These indicate some level of regression to the ‘womb’ state of awareness – therefore perhaps a time of not being able to meet the stress of having a personality with self awareness – a time of gaining respite and perhaps touching your roots of being in order to gain new strength.

The state of existence or consciousness in which we have grown; the state or condition prior to our development of personality – this can be personal, but it also relates to all human creatures, so is historical or evolutionary. It is a condition without ego, with a sense of being life itself; fears connected with birth and or sex.

Going back to the womb or to the condition of withdrawal or autism: Regression to the ‘womb’ state of awareness – therefore perhaps a time of not being able to meet the stress of having a personality with self awareness – a time of gaining respite and perhaps touching one’s roots of being in order to gain new strength.

So, much of our foundation of experience are connected with our experience of prenatal life and relationship with ones mother and birth, that we may need to touch these experiences to heal or free parts of our nature for further growth. See: Opening to Life vagina under body; individuation; See also: balloon; nest under birds; breath; catacomb; blue under colour; dark; deep; descending; hole; hollow; example in room under house; igloo; receptacle; recurring dreams; river; sack; under the sea under sea; suitcase; tank; tunnel; water.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel this represent my ability to be receptive and creative?

If I am a woman, does this have anything to do with how I feel about bearing a child, or perhaps how feminine or sexually attractive I feel?

Have I ever felt te wonderful peace like being in the womb?

See Age and Dreams and Baby Dreams.

See Age and Dreams and Baby Dreams.

Wood

In general this is about things that have grown or developed in your life in the past and are now useful material to use in what you are making of yourself. It often indicates the intellect or intellectual information – material that in itself is not alive, but is nevertheless useful. For wood in the sense of many trees see Forest or Jungle.

Rotten wood: This often represents either a comment on things you are trying to create or build in your life, or are saying that your present thinking will not produce the results you want.

The following dream was last in the line of three other dreams about rotten wood.

My mother was telling me something about a warning of some kind, but I just could not see that it applied to me. There was something in the dream about a rotten piece of wood. Also something about flying white rats (squirrels?) or mice. These shot at one at enormous speed, and would somehow penetrate if one didn’t jump out of the way in time.

The warning was that of going the wrong way on a proposed journey. The very next dream starts to define what his journey is involved in.

Was coming up out of an underground station. On my left I noticed a brand new shop, like a chemist’s, but called Sexuality. I knew it was a new scheme, legal, smart, businesslike, but prostitution.

The mice that could penetrate one are minor irritations; fears and worries; the mousy or timid part of self; shyness; the activities within us – our house – which go on unconsciously, which might be important though small, or gnaw away at one. It can therefore represent a problem of some sort that needs attention; the sexual organ which goes in and out of a hole. So the rotten wood is feelings and thoughts that you are experiencing that will not produce the life you want on your inner journey.

Wooden things: The past, or structures of thought or behaviour you have built, which originally had life, but now may be habitual. Being ‘wooden’ lacking life or feeling.

Wooden room or house: A part of your nature that has been carefully cultivated or created out of past experience. See: Trees.

 Idioms: Babe in the woods; neck of the woods; out of the woods; touch wood, wooden head; a wooden performance.

Wool

May represent the soft, indulgent things of life, gentle thoughts, and pleasure, as in wool-gathering. Warmth; gentleness; motherhood; protective fuzziness of thoughts and feelings. Wool of course links with a lamb or sheep. So might link with the childlike, dependent, vulnerable part of you. There are other possible meanings though, such as new life. This might link with your own child or childhood, and with innocence, especially if the wool is white. The lamb has always been linked with Christ. As innocence and purity the weakness of the lamb has enormous power, and can defeat evil. In ancient societies who bred sheep, the spring lambs were a sign of survival of the often harsh and hungry winter. At last there was food. So the sacrifice of the lamb was linked with the feeling of being given life and redemption.

In many dreams which reference wool, the colour of the garment is mentioned – “…it has beautiful colourful wool lining, as if woven on a loom” – “the same brown wool.” – “nice wool sweater, camel color as well. I suggest looking in Colours – Colors for help.

Clothed in wool: It depends on the colour of the garment, for example a ‘coat of many colours’ show that the dreamer has achieve a many sided maturity – perhaps even wisdom because of the many aspects developed. White can also suggest having access to the ancient or bigger self within you.

Considering that every living thing from viruses, plants, all animals and of course us humans, all started from a single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from. But such cells never become old or die because they are immortal, for they keep dividing and do not die. In dividing they constantly creates copies of themselves, but as they do so they gather new experience, and so change what is copied, so becomes the ‘seeds’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I, are the result of that gathered experience.

Contacting the Big or Ancient You

A single cell, which is a seed from which all life forms evolved from, doesn’t become old or die because it is immortal, for it keeps dividing and doesn’t die. In dividing it constantly creates copies of itself, but as it does so it gathers new experience, it changes what is copied, so becomes the ‘seed’ for multi-cellular organism. We all started from the original one cell, and we, you and I, are the result of gathered experience. But in this life you developed a new brain, and the memories, education and programming you gathered this time are what you built your personality from, but beneath that is a very ancient self. To explore it see Opening to Life

Knitting wool: Creativity; ideas or thoughts you knit together.

Tangled wool: Tangled in relationship problems or your thinking or decision making are a mess.

Wrapped in wool or cotton wool: Protection for someone, or a part of you that is vulnerable, badly hurt or recovering from a mental injury.

Idioms: Dyed in the wool; Wild and wooly; Wool-gathering; Woolly thinking; Pull the wool over someone’s eyes.

See Lamb; Sheep

Word

In Indian holy writings, and in the bible, the same idea is expressed, In the beginning was the word. Sometimes in dreams a special word is realised or given. Such words are symbols of creative power and should therefore be used in meditation, to rebuild the emotional and mental attitudes or conditions surrounding the word. See: Name.

Work Clothes

Denotes something you are working at or giving effort to. This is usually to do with changes you are making, either in yourself or outer life.  This only seldom relates to the actual work you do. The work clothes might also portray the attitudes you have about making changes, or giving effort to projects or relationships.

Overalls: Most often suggest that you are or are about to work on a personal situation. Can also mean protection from things you are involved with. If it is another person in overalls, says that this is often a capable person, or in the USA maybe a hick who always dresses like that.

Example: Just my wife and I are on holiday in England. We are walking along the banks of a canal. Suddenly I lose my wife. Just as I am giving up finding her she turns up dressed in tatty old clothes holding an armful of garments, telling me she has brought me some clothes for work. I am apprehensive lest this is a bad omen on our twenty year marriage.

The suggestion in the example is that there is some problem in the marriage and it needs working on.

Example: I dreamt I was sitting up on a big machine or mechanism, partly outdoors. I think I had got to it by going to the top of a huge sprawling building. As I sat I saw an elderly man swim up from the depths of a pool 15 feet across. It seemed very deep. The man had working clothes on, but appeared completely at home in the water. For some reason I didn’t want him to see me. I believe I was anxious about whether I ought to be there. He didn’t see me and walked off. I felt he actually lived in the water and was going about some task. He didn’t see me and walked off. I felt he actually lived in the water and was going about some task. As he walked past another pool he lovingly and playfully skittered in the shallows. Then I started the mechanism working. I thought it was a huge clock works, and it was very rusty. Huge cannonball – like spheres rolled down a chute as part of the function. At first the machine made a terrible noise, and again I felt anxiety about doing what I was doing. I thought the lawyers would wake or disturb the people in the building. But as the man on it, it seemed to itself adjust and began to run smoothly. I felt it was going to run better and better. David.

David explored his dream and arrived at the following insights:

The building is my body and its many functions – I feel that strongly. The man is me – who loves dipping into that deep pool of consciousness, sharing in, working with, the process of life. I get so much joy, wisdom and satisfaction from that. Trying to understand my dreams is part of that. The machine is a function of releasing, restoring and producing energy. It is the self-regulating energy function that has never really been working in me properly. The anxiety I feel is that which I feel about releasing sexual energy. I’m frightened it will upset or disturb the rest of the body. Those thoughts have been on my mind a lot yesterday and today. The misery I have felt through feeling collapsed after sex – the agony of feeling inadequate, the anxiety of repeating the situation over and over, is a source of great misery and anxiety. The dream suggests that through my own activity I have started this function working. The balls, my testicles, are to release and produce energy. It is a cycle of release, that leads to producing the next level of energy. I hardly dared hope there is truth in this. (Later it became a reality for David).

Useful Questions and Hints:

What work is being done, and what does that represent in my life?

Have I got a constructive attitude to what needs to be done?

Are there changes I am making in my life?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Work Worked Working

Everything in the universe works. Everything exists because of a relationship with other things, with the whole. Our interdependence is complete. Without the universe we do not exist. One of the greatest truths of the universe and of human society is symbiosis, cooperation, collaboration. I know there are arguments against that – the red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest stuff – but the great predators are in a symbiotic relationship in that they kill out the weak and so strengthen the species.

Even in Genesis when understood tells us that,  “Despite many peoples idea that paradise is a place where one does not have to work, and that work is for the fools, the Hebrew word translated ‘dress’ means to work or labour. It suggests here that to take part in creation in harmony with the divine forces – to work at this – is a divine impulse in humanity.” Quoted from The Secret Bible

This suggests that if a person does not feel an inner urge toward certain work(s) they may well be unhealthy and missing the direct connection with Life itself. See Opening to Life

Our dreams and visions remind us of these things again and again. You have an experience of personal existence because your body works. Its organs and functions continue working tirelessly day and night. As a living creature it is innate in you to be a functioning part of the whole, of the environment around you, of the cosmos that gives you life. If you are not in some way expressing this there is a lack of ease somewhere. For every living thing is active in getting its needs to stay alive. Life is not a ‘dog eat dog’ life – see the example.

Example: Some years ago a species of wild duck in England were in danger of extinction. So the group caring for them decided to kill all of the predators who attacked the ducks – a particular kind of hawk.But as soon as this was done the ducks began to die in enormous numbers. The hawks were quickly reintroduced because it was found the ducks were dying from an infectious disease, and the hawks had been killing the sick birds thereby prolonging the ducks possible survival.

As human beings many of us are out of touch with what relates us to our environment and to the universe. Millions of us are sick enough to require antidepressants, continuous supplies of alcohol or mind numbing drugs in order to function. We live in family, social, political and economic situations that are part and parcel of our sickness. Recently I listened to a humanistic minister talking about the way she works with people. She said that in ministering she can find no need to have God in her life or in her work. That is understandable if we are talking about a concept, or the idea of some sort of father figure behind the way the universe works. But if it means that one lives without a sense of connection with the whole, without any awareness of how one’s own life is a part of a continuum, of the incredible mystery of existence, then it seems to me as if this is part of the sickness.

At work: Concerns or issues connected with one’s work or lack of it; often dreams are very encouraging not critical.

Working: Actively trying to change a situation in ones life – one might be working at ones marriage or learning something, depending on dream surroundings. Inner or outer activity that can produce changes or results.

‘I am working in a hospital in outpatients. Nobody is there. My two children appear. I know I have to find them somewhere to sleep. I lay them on seats and tell the only nurse I can find that I am going to find them a bed. I know where the children’s ward is, but I can’t find it. When I eventually find it all the side rooms are filled. I know I have been a long time so I start to panic, worried my children are missing me, and worried night sister will have found them. I pass a military action. As I continue the soldiers come out and I get caught in the crossfire and am shot in the leg. I am now terrified. I have to get back to the children. Night sister must have found them by now and if not, what will they be doing. When I got back, they are there with night sister.’ Laramie F.

Laramie works as a nurse, was divorced just prior to the dream, and was obviously concerned how her work affected her children. This internal conflict the cross fire – injures her confidence – the shot leg – her feelings that she cannot manage. But despite her worries what she cares about – her children – are fine and cared for. See Lorettes Video

Idioms: Have one’s work cut out; set to work; worked up; work like a horse; work off; work out; dirty work; donkey work; spanner in the works.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I been working hard at recently?

Am I uncertain that the things I am working toward will fail?

Have my dreams shown me the way ahead?

Workshop

It probably refers to your ability to create or mend various areas of your life or projects. But as the example show it can also be a place of wonder or discovery. I can be a way of discovering past talents, memories or even new ideas.

Example: There’s no wood. I gather up the nighties to take in before anyone steals them. A girl with me has tried to steal the sexiest, most feminine one. I ask for it and she returns it. Then I say, “The wood is probably in my workshop.” I walk around the right of the house to the back. There is a steep set of stairs to the basement, a large old house, like a mansion. I have recently inherited it from my grandmother Agnes. As I step on the stairs to go down, I am suddenly afraid of falling. I hang on tightly to the rails and look carefully at where I put my feet. I see a set of Britannica Encyclopedias on a shelf to the left. I then go down the stairs. I see 4 or 5 grand pianos and organs like in a music store. I turn right and go into the workshop. There are many drawers full of forgotten riches and junk. I think, “I must go through all of this stuff. Some of it will be useful and enjoyable.” I start opening drawers, and I find dishes, silverware, repetitions of items and paintbrushes. I find one that is the correct size of wood handle for the repair man and he goes away. Now Ginny and I are looking around. I find my old piano lesson books, color coded. I put them into a correct order. Then I find a record of my lessons on the piano.

Example: I had started a job working in a place like a garage or workshop. I felt like an apprentice, or at least on trial to see how I worked. The work place was split into two workshops in the High Street, opposite where I was born. I was working on a pair of loudspeakers. They looked quite worn. I was examining a small oblong block in them. It seemed to have a cog system in it, and I discovered a small brass spindle had been out. When I pushed it back into place I could see the cog system functioning and felt sure the loudspeaker would now work.

Running or being in a workshop – lessons: It depends very much what the workshop was about. Was it about art, music, drama – whatever it was about look it up in the dictionary.

But overall it is about either being a teacher or learning something.

World

Sometimes depicts the ‘world’ or viewpoints you have created out of your attitudes and responses to events and people. Your personal interactions with people and events.

The sphere of your experience; the world you live in – meaning the social, economic, personal and relationship situations you are immersed in. Also the personal interaction you have with the ‘world’.

We all exist in several worlds; the one most people are aware of is the world we are shown through our physical senses. Most people are so used to being shown that world we take it to be reality. But it is just one type of reality. Another world some people are more in tune with is the thinking mind, the solver of puzzles; another is the world of the creator in which they explore there physical input, their imagination and also often go beyond that into the world even of the future in which they can gain glimpses of a statement from a science documentary – I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE UNIVERSE. I WANT TO TELL YOU HOW THE FUTURE CREATES THE PAST WHICH THEN CREATES THE FUTURE. The documentary – – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ztlIAYTCU

 The future: From the world of our physical senses the future exist only in imagination. Many modern physicists, working with the information arising in experiments with quantum theory, tell us that our view of the world is based upon our blindness, and is very limited, and through its limitation, unreal. Yet this view we take to be the REAL universe. For instance we are only able to see a tiny fraction of the visible spectrum of light and as small amount of audible sound, so we are almost blind and deaf to the world around us.

The Picture is from the film Next Gen

To quote Gary Zukav from his book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, ‘Quantum mechanics is the theory. It has explained everything from subatomic particles to transistors to stellar energy. It has never failed. It has no competition.’ The implications of the theorem are enormous. Something can be in two places at once. Apparently distant objects, or people, are intricately linked in an immediate way. There is no separate existence as we previously thought. Our view of the world is not one supported by the facts of physics. Time and space are transcended. David Bohm, an eminent physicist, goes as far as to say that all things in our observable universe are inextricable linked. Nothing has separate existence. See Dimensions of Human Experience

End of the world: End of the way you have been experiencing or relating to life; fears or feelings about death; anxieties about external events; big change in ones personal growth. See: End of world dreams and fantasies.

Other worlds or dimensions: New ways of experiencing oneself and life; new paradigm; breakthrough to new realisations. See Archetype of the Paradigm

Idioms: A world of; on top of the world; out of this world; think the world of; best of both worlds; small world.

Worm

Lowliness, decay, earthiness. Feeling insignificant or ineffective; something you treat as insignificant, the penis.

Example: I had a dream that I lived in a beautiful Victorian home. While I went to sit down and relax I seen a guy looking through the window at me. I ran to the door and my son appeared and ran out to catch him. That left me in the house alone and worm-like aliens were coming in to get me through the fireplace gas-line. I had to stab them and burn them. Little window cracks or small places they squeezed through. I killed them all and was relieved and proud, but sad that it made a mess of the beautiful house and the furnishings. I normally don’t remember my dreams. This one was so vivid and the feelings I have felt have stayed with me since. Would love to know what you think.

Your “WORM like aliens” might express the way Jung also saw anxieties or fears as “a life-guiding gift from the unconscious”; because of the helpful function worms have. These worm burrows create pores through which oxygen and water can enter and carbon dioxide can leave the soil. Earthworm casts (their faeces) are also very important in soils and are responsible for some of the fine crumb structure of soils, suggesting a healing process could happen in you let the things you find alien enter you as your great anxieties, so see if you can face you anxieties. See Life’s Little Secrets

Dreamt they were relaxing their neck and getting vomiting, nausea movements. One man, fairly gaunt looking, vomited up some intestinal worms. I explained that these came from the throat. If a knot (granthi – I used some such word) i.e. a tension existed in the throat, an area of body existed in which these worms could develop. The worms, the area of putrefaction, would be cleansed if the knot was cleared.

The dream explains how a traumatic feeling or painful influence can cause illness because it knots up or blocks the normal flow of energetic functions that the body expresses to remain in good health. See Lice Fleas Bugs Worms – Relax Into the Big You

I dreamt I walked out into the woods and I stood among the trees and looked upon the beauty of the scene. A carpet of yellow flowers arose among the tree roots. I know not the name of them, only their yellow cups and greenness. And in the midst of the scene a large enameled oven thrown away as junk, shining in the sun, exciting in its endless forms as my child mind saw it as a cave, a tank, and an airplane. An old rusty bike, bed-springs, a broken pushchair, grew there too. Plastic bags were being cherished by the earth and leaves, whether drawn in by the earth’s passion for them, or whether they themselves sought this deeper communion with the soil, I know not. But the ants and worms found wonders in them – scraps of food, intricate corners with spiders there.

Here the wonder seeing that everything has its place the natural world, but perhaps to takes the child perspective of things that allows is this wider view.

But as humans we are capable pr feeling and being many different things.

‘I am a worm. I’m a worm because I left one woman for another, and now a part of me is not even with her – so I’m a worm.’ Another thing that haunts me is an urge, ‘I’ve got to win, got to GET THERE, get somewhere, achieve something, compete, COMPETE.

These things not only haunt people but are influences that lead to great depression or even suicide, but they are largely social attitude or programs that we have taken into us so in a way we have been programmed and are acting on the programming. See You Could be a Human or Wolf – Self HelpNothing is Permanent Except Change

Worms: Ill health; health worries. Intestinal worms can either be a creature that gives you immunity against things like asthma, or a health risk, using up your precious energy resources.

Idioms: Even a worm will turn. See: Maggots.

Worship

Opening yourself to the influence of what you worship – or to the influence of the ideas or feelings involved in the act of worshipping. It can also be an experience that transcends your usual sense of yourself. In this case a realisation of your wholeness.

Example: Dreamt I was with a group of people, perhaps in a house. Outside the house, in the Garden, was a small wooden shed, like a garden shed. This was empty of anything, and was used as a place to be alone with God. It felt as if we were Jewish. I went into the shed and began to call out to God by the name Jehovah. As I did so I began to cry as if in the realisation of my iniquities against God. With heart-rending sorrow that I should have gone against the wonderful love of God, I wept uncontrollably. It was like a religious experience of cleansing. Also, I remember, even though asleep, I hoped my cries were not expressing physically to disturb my wife.

Just as the appetites or disordered condition of the fat man stop him from touching his toes, even though his toes are constantly with him – so the self-will of man stops him from feeling the ever present Life within them being known. But a dog intent on finding his master and oblivious of his direction may run into a car, meaning that in the dog’s heart his pain may be associated with the love for his master, causing him now to suspect and deny his love. In the same way men and women suspect that circumstances of Life are the cause of their own distress.

To the practical mind any person is a fool who does not acknowledge dependence. For instance, a young child who does not acknowledge, even emotionally, its dependence upon parents, will soon find itself lonely, lost, hurt, misused or even killed. While an adult who does not acknowledge that his physical body depends upon food and many factors to do with their physical and mental health, may soon become seriously ill.

As an example, I witnessed a man talking to a woman he was confronting, “Religion;” he said, “That’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

And the woman he was accusing of this inability to face reality said, “You poor man! Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest an awareness of God is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure? Have you never understood that?

Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? It can also be something far more even than that. It can be an active loving relationship with what gives you life. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, and a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – the very substance of life.”

So worship is a way of opening ourselves to the unknown that gives us life and we are dependent upon. In computer use for instance, it is now commonplace to have an image on the screen that connects us either with information stored on the hard disk, or will evoke a programmed response linked with the image. So, by moving our cursor to an image and clicking on it we can start a program such as a word processor; or we can cause to be displayed information such as a book, music or a photograph, that is stored on the hard disk. In a similar way, by learning to use worship, or a condition in which you are engrossed in a directed fantasy – such as meditation or prayer – and by using a dream image in such fantasy, you can evoke responses from parts of you usually inaccessible. See Clicking On

Example: Gradually my being became quieter and quieter. My breathing slowed down so much it seemed almost non-existent. I had a feeling of my peripheral, changing self, slowly dying in ashes to reveal what all the world is seeking. I felt that as my peripheral self died, there was the possibility of this other part of my being shining through more brightly. My wife was still beside me, and I had the sense of my body being an altar on which the exterior me had burnt away, revealing an eternal quality, and my wife and other people, receiving it, worshipping it. There was nothing personal or worthy of self praise about this, because all have this central being. See Water Wonderland

Worshipping: Opening yourself to the influence of what is being worshipped – an idea, a person, an object.

Worshipped: Inflated sense of self.

Wound Wounded Wounding

Remember that whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares

Hurt feeling or trauma from the past. People tend to constantly use diversions such as phoning others and talking, going to mass events such as dance floors, keeping on the move, in fact anything other than facing the emptiness of their daily lives. See Avoid Being Victims

Many of our wounds are caused by being so vulnerable. Therefore it is wise to be able to recognize that these are habits of reaction to events. We might say we are victims of the world or life. But we can alter it by learning how to change our habits. And it started for me a long time ago, because I had to learn things without which no change could have taken place. I do not mean book learning, but learning by living it. See Habits

Almost half the dreams on file that mention wounds are about the abdomen, belly or stomach, and show the dreamer being shot, as in the example below. This is obviously to do with a particular type of hurt. When human beings learned to stand up, they exposed their vulnerable underbelly. If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. The sort of hurt referred to is that related to when we might be deeply criticised, feel badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.
So this might point to vulnerability, or the sort of hurt that results from being deeply criticised, badly wronged or slandered. This area often feels the pain of a broken relationship too.

Example: The people watching are saying Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Then someone finds an extra bullet, puts it in the gun and shoots me in the stomach. I wake with my body completely straight with my hands on my stomach. I feel my whole body cracking up inside. Vanessa. LBC

Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented. In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting a disaster in which a man rampaged and shot down many people, and she was feeling the fear it led her to feel. Fear is a very necessary and protected primitive human’s from innumerable dangers; but Vanessa by imagining the danger, caused an awful problem and didn’t in any way protect her from anything. Such fears cause an enormous amount of human suffering. See Fear-Dealing With

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there without the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us.

If wounding someone: Desire to hurt someone, or to destroy some aspect of yourself.
If pierced: Apart from hurt feelings, may also show you being opened by new hurts, new experiences, even love.

Wreck

Damage you have experienced to some aspect of your self-image, or even your body. If it is an old wreck, such as a shipwreck, it could point to the memories and feelings surrounding an old relationship.

Writing Write

Whether we are aware of it or not, when we write our whole body takes on a certain posture, and a mood or emotion may be present as we write. Our age and state of health, as they underlie our movements, also express in the subtle actions of writing. Therefore the marks we have made on paper are the result of what is going on in our or someone elses body and mind at the time of writing.

Also this is about communication or thinking about something and sorting out or defining your ideas and decisions, and leaving your mark in life. If you are writing it shows you expressing your inner feelings and ideas, perhaps revealing or clarifying who you are and your personal history. It may at times be a creative act expressing what is an expression of something greater than your conscious self. Ask yourself what is being communicated or shown to others.

It might also suggest leaving your mark in life, or a mark being left, memories engraved in you. If you are writing it can be that you are expressing your inner feelings and ideas or recording and remembering your personal history.

If it is someone else’s writing: What you feel about them; their influence in your life and mind.

Analysing someone else’s handwriting: You wish to see what the motivations or relationship with the person is, or maybe fear that person’s motives.

Autograph: A symbol of what you have put your name to, what you will to do or say. A mark of your own determination or existence.

If it is not your signature, then it suggests the essence or even power of the person whose signature it is.

Trying to get someone else’s autograph suggests trying to get some of their influence or power or that you are letting people know you have been near that person.. See: A Master At Work signature writing.

 Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is your signature, what are you giving your essence to?

If someone else’s autograph, what am I needing or wanting their influence or power for?

What do the events of the dream suggest the autograph is in connection with?

 

Looking at writing: This might show you learning something about that person, or defining your feelings or intuitions about them. See Intuition – Using It

 

 

Letter X

X-Rays

Invisible influences in your life. Penetrating insight, fear of being seen through, looking at the inner self. Fear of illness or inner faults.

It can also suggest something influencing your life unconsciously, or that you are seeing into a situation or yourself. It can also indicate a fear of illness.

If you dream you have x-ray vision, it suggests you are developing the ability to see more deeply into others or your surroundings.

Useful questions:
Do I feel invisible influences are acting upon me?
Have I a fear of being ‘seen through’?
What is revealed by the X-rays?
Was there any penetrating insight?

Xylophone

Playing upon feelings, or sympathies.

Letter Y

Yacht

See: Boat; Ship.

Yawn Yawning

Boredom; tiredness; the unconscious trying to say something – yawning is a movement arising from the self regulatory process. See: Movements during sleep.

A yawn, like a sneeze, occurs by itself. While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body.

So, we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. But often our Life Will occurs in movements while we are awake in yawning and sneezing. Such movements are spontaneous and are nearly always ways dealing with necessary things for our better health and well being.; LifeStream today. See People’s Experience of LifeStream 

Here is how yawning can be a sign of the Life Will breaking into waking experience.

“I began to sob a little, but it soon went, as if the tail end of something felt. Then I began to yawn and yawn, time and time again. This had occurred in the past. The yawn’s got bigger and bigger until suddenly my mouth opened up hugely and stuck open. I then began to choke for air, my lungs empty and unable to breathe because of a terrific throat tension, as if being strangled. My body became rigid – not shaking – and I fought for breath. That is, the spontaneous movements were those of fighting for breath.

“I felt I was reliving the experience of being hanged. I fought for breath and my body contorted rigidly. Towards the end my body went into a big spasm and I turned over onto my side as if in a huge struggle. As this happened it felt as if all the sickness and nausea I had previously felt burst in my head and came down my nose. It literally felt, tasted and smelt, like a warm, sweet, sickly blood gushing down my nose. My nose felt very strange, but now my whole body relaxed and I breathed easily. My hand went to my nose and I gently touched it a few times. I felt sure this was an experience of reliving my nose operation as a nine year old.”

A yawn can be a doorway to explore the unusual. Give yourself over to the enjoyment of having time to really indulge your own natural feelings and body pleasure. In the same way you would normally allow your body to express itself in a stretch, let it express itself as noisy yawns, so allow whatever noises you want to make, however ‘silly’- or have a direction of their own, don’t hold yourself back. This is playtime with your body, so enjoy it. You can do whatever your body needs to do.

Year Years

The mention of year or years in a dream is often a reference to the passsge of years in which importatant events  or growth or great change occurred.

The birth year is a marker of a beginning in your life and so may point to to other starting periods. Also our age in years is often very important to people depending on their feelings, negative or positive, about their age.

Example: As most lives are…mine is a long story, but I would like to give you a little background.   At the time that I dreamt this dream I had been in an unfulfilled marriage of 29 years.  I had not anticipate leaving my marriage at the time, though deep within I regretted my marriage and suffered much pain and unhappiness that I had repressed.  It wasn’t really a marriage – neither of us married for the right reasons.

The example shows how important the passage of 29 years was, and how the years were filled with repressed pain and unhappiness.

Yeast

The tiny ideas or inner forces, that can ferment in the being. and change the whole life.

Ideas or intangible influences which can yet change ones life or situation. An increase in your affairs that is subtle in its action.

There is a power or action within us that may often feel like a divine process that acts like the yeast in the dream below. The effect of it can be very subtle or dramatic and it always seems to act upon us in a way people cannot see yet its effects are obvious. See Opening to Life

A rather shadowy man gave me a leather pull-string purse or pouch. In the pouch was powder that the man suggested I pour onto my rather stained trousers. Immediately the powder started working like yeast, cleansing and purifying my trousers in a spreading action. I knew that this yeast, or pollen, had also penetrated my body, and was gradually working through me, purifying and healing. – Adrian.

Yeast infection: For over a year after I had an operation that required follow-up care with antibiotics, I suffered from a chronic vaginal yeast infection, which wouldn’t respond to prescribed medicinal treatment. Someone suggested taking Folic Acid. I read something about this remedy in Adelle Davis’s Let’s Get Well, and began to take Folic Acid in large doses. In a couple of days, I developed strange cramps. Then I had a dream, in which I was in the kitchen moving bowls and bowls of “acid” around, wondering what to do with it all. In another part of the dream, I handed a raggedy kitten some brown bread, with yeast and strawberries in it, and the kitten gobbled it up. Reflecting on this dream, I wondered if the bowls of acid referred to my taking too much Folic Acid, and if perhaps the kitten, who had come to represent for me my physical health, really wanted yeast. So I stopped taking Folic Acid, and began to take yeast tablets. My cramps disappeared right away, and in a few days, the yeast infection had all but cleared up. Since then I’ve read a lot more about such things as bacteria, antibiotics, infections, yeast, Folic Acid, and soon, and I’ve learned that my situation was more complicated than I initially suspected. I don’t mean to imply that I found a perfect cure, but I do believe that once I made an effort to heal myself, my dream came to guide me in a better direction.

Yellow

Depending on the context in the dream, yellow can link with lightness of feeling; intuition; hopefulness for the future; a clear intellect or extroversion. Because it is a colour associated with shining, it may indicate your innermost wisdom shining out – especially if you are dressed in bright yellow.

On the negative side it can suggest cowardice, jealousy, caution or quarantine. So in some dreams it is linked with sickness or some form of inner illness, or a warning that something is not right.

Yellow roses are used to depict friendship without sexual love, or a love that is not leading to partnership.

Because the action of light tends to fade colours, you find the word yellowing or yellowed used to describe an ageing process, or something that is old. So in some dreams it would indicate a sense of something being old, worn or perhaps fragile. In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald used yellow to represent moral decay decadence and death.

Corn and sun dried landscapes are yellow, and so in a dream can indicate feelings of content, fruitfulness and richness of spirit. As the sun is thought of as yellow the colour also depicts life giving and warming influences or attitudes, of the expression of your own life flow.

Yellow also links with gold, its ability to remain untarnished and its precious quality. So if yellow in your dream has any of these associations it would link with what is of great value and abilities in you.

In some forms of meditation yellow also signifies a shift in awareness, or a change in the way you sense things.

Cream Gentle relaxed feelings. Cream softens the impact of yellow, so suggests, as with cream clothes or furnishings, an easy, quiet feeling, friendship and relaxation rather than sexual excitement and youthful exuberance.

Yellow-green is sometimes associated with lies or deceit, or even sickness.

Muddy Yellow: This might indicate toxins in your body, and therefore lowered energy and poor health. But it can also suggest lack of clarity in your thoughts and feelings, and therefore depressed thoughts and confusion.

Yellow Orange: Energetic and clear feelings and thoughts. This might also lead to feelings of warmth in connection with others.

Idioms: yellow belly; a yellow streak

Useful questions:

What of the many associations with yellow does my dream suggest?

Is this a radiant dream, suggesting the expression of my own inner life in a positive way?

Is there any link with age or decay in the dream, pointing to something in me that is outworn?

See: Colour.



On the negative side it can suggest cowardice, jealousy, caution or quarantine. So in some dreams it is linked with sickness or some form of inner illness, or a warning that something is not right.


Yellow roses are used to depict friendship without sexual love, or a love that is not leading to partnership.


Because the action of light tends to fade colours, you find the word yellowing or yellowed used to describe an ageing process, or something that is old. So in some dreams it would indicate a sense of something being old, worn or perhaps fragile. In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald used yellow to represent moral decay decadence and death.


Corn and sun dried landscapes are yellow, and so in a dream can indicate feelings of content, fruitfulness and richness of spirit. As the sun is thought of as yellow the colour also depicts life giving and warming influences or attitudes, of the expression of your own life flow.


Yellow also links with gold, its ability to remain untarnished and its precious quality. So if yellow in your dream has any of these associations it would link with what is of great value and abilities in you.


In some forms of meditation yellow also signifies a shift in awareness, or a change in the way you sense things.


Cream Gentle relaxed feelings. Cream softens the impact of yellow, so suggests, as with cream clothes or furnishings, an easy, quiet feeling, friendship and relaxation rather than sexual excitement and youthful exuberance.

Yellow-green is sometimes associated with lies or deceit, or even sickness.

Muddy Yellow: This might indicate toxins in your body, and therefore lowered energy and poor health. But it can also suggest lack of clarity in your thoughts and feelings, and therefore depressed thoughts and confusion.

Yellow Orange: Energetic and clear feelings and thoughts. This might also lead to feelings of warmth in connection with others.

Idioms: yellow belly; a yellow streak

Useful questions:

What of the many associations with yellow does my dream suggest?

Is this a radiant dream, suggesting the expression of my own inner life in a positive way?

Is there any link with age or decay in the dream, pointing to something in me that is outworn?

Yes No

Wherever we say yes to a person or situation in a dream or everyday life, we are opening to the influence of that aspect of ourselves. It is important to define what leads us to agreement in the dream. Is it that one says yes because of feelings that one ought, or should, or it was expected? Was the yes out of anxiety? Was it said because that was what you agreed with, or was the most useful response?

Unless we can say ‘no’ effectively, our ‘yes’s’ in life may be acquiescence rather than agreement. Therefore, saying no in our dreams is an important expression of our needs and ability to make decisions in face of disagreement. It is important to understand what it is you are saying no to, however.

But as the example hints at, we are often saying yes or no to the function of Life in us. See Opening to Life

Example: I was still wondering what this was about and so asked the process to help me understand. Gradually it became clear that the yes and no was a switch. For instance, life energy can be expressed in any number of ways. It can be movement, sexuality, thought, emotion, writing, swimming, and so on. The direction, or the way we direct, our energy, comes about through the yes/no action. Perhaps we do it unconsciously, but we are always applying the switch of yes or no to direct each movement, each action, each thought even.

So what was being gradually explained to me was how this action worked, and that the yes no switch not only directed our energy, but in the way I was using it, it was also a sort of generator. The action was that I was using it to circularise energy and in some way build it up and to create a new pattern.

Yoga Yogi

Your core self as you are meeting it in your dream. It might also suggest a withdrawal from outward activity. Or it might relates to some sort of inner disciplines of mind or body you have been practising, or have been influenced by. It could also suggest some sort of introspective insights or contact with your wholeness.

The real aim of yoga is not to do fantastic postures/asanas but to bring unity  between the conscious personality and the huge awareness we have hidden under our conscious self.

Example: Suddenly, toward the end of working on my dream, I seemed to leap beyond anything I had ever experienced before. Instead of being someone separated from everybody else living a certain day in time, I was a river that flowed through all time. I had always existed and was involved in all history. As this happened I knew just as clearly as in ordinary life I know my name, that a life had been lived in which the ‘I’ of that person had been persecuted for their religious beliefs. In persecution some of their family had been killed, and as that person I had made a decision to never again trust people. The decision brought about the desire to live isolated from human group activity. With an amazing heightened vision I could see this influence flowing through all my present life, subtly shaping it. The things I had chosen to do or work at were all connected either as a means of trying to change that decision or as an expression of it – Tracy M.

Example: In my dream I was in a prison cell with two other men. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression of having been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self-pity. I had done this day after day while in the prison. Suddenly I realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was myself. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. So I dropped the attitudes behind the anger and shouting and was free of them. Years went by, and one by one I dropped other habits of emotion and thought with which I had trapped and tortured myself. I realised I could be totally free within myself. One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. So intense was it I cried out. The cellmates called a warden. They stood looking at me as I experienced a radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was mad. Nothing would ever be the same again.

We are all prisoners of our emotions, of our thoughts, and of our sense impressions. Mostly we live in these as if they are reality. This is a form of confusion, but also of imprisonment. The bars of this prison are often invisible to the person they enslave. Or else the person calls them ‘Me’. We say, ‘That is how I feel. I don’t like this. I am afraid. I am in love.’ Or else we depend entirely upon events and others to stimulate pleasure or pain in us.

The identification between the thoughts, the emotions, and the sense of self is so immense, that no life outside this imprisoning identification is even suspected. Yet here is the source of most human misery.

Drop the identification, as the dream suggests, and immediately a degree of liberation arises. Drop the multitude of other identifications and gradually the bliss of liberation opens.

You Me Ego

You are the great theme of your dreams. You are the mystery your dreams explore and reveal. As you will gradually discover if you take the journey into yourself, you are much more than you thought you were. You are not simply a person who was born to certain people and now lives in a particular country. The threads that are woven together to form you are drawn from ancient times. Your attitudes, language, thoughts and responses are inherited from great and ignoble people who lived long ago. Ancestors

Perhaps you will modify those impulses and concepts. Perhaps you will add to them. But your life does not escape them. The tree of your life has its roots not only in the genetic material passed to you by your parents.

In a real way your experience of life and being you is a grand experiment and exploration. You are probably not aware of it, but you already have gone through unbelievable evolutionary changes, but our education and beliefs have covered it up. For example it is now known that in the womb we start off at the very primitive level of cellular production. Then our forming body goes through a fish stage and has gills. Slowly it moves toward an air breathing body. And all these evolutionary changes leave their mark, for we have at least four levels of brain – the spinal – the reptilian – the mammalian and then the human. So your background of experience that is unconscious unless you delve into yourself, hold all of life and millions of years of experience.

So you, the little you that you call yourself, is a tiny fragment of awareness which is like a small hand that unknowingly is linked with a vast body, and all it is aware of is what it can sense with its physical senses. And so it gratefully touches and senses things, and other hands pass on the things they sense to each other. But only very few of them realise that they have a vast potential in the great body. Those who have no awareness of this believed that there is no such thing and tend to tell everyone to face facts – these being what you can see and hear and touch. Those that have become in some way aware of the enormity they are often at first scared of it, or say that there is a great being outside of them they must worship or be afraid of in case they do things It does not like. Just realising this can set a seed that might grow into further insight. See Meeting yourselfLife’s Little SecretsReaction to the unconscious.

Your life is more than a day. It is more than a year. It includes a thousand hopes, countless pleasures, and pains beyond memory. Your life is not even your own, but a vast wonderful weaving of many others into your being. Even the animals and landscapes, the houses you have loved or feared are intricately a part of you. So, shall a painting capture you, or words, or a photograph tell all that you are?

 Example: I am experiencing an enormous tension throughout my body. I am allowing the tension to wrack me and begin to see what is causing it. It seems to have developed in my childhood. I, like most youngsters, didn’t have it explained to me what the rules of the game of life are; what the social and biological expectations, regulations, drives and urges are and how to work with them. But we are supposed to get it RIGHT. If you do get this amazingly complex apparatus of life right, then the bells ring and you are rewarded. Then you climb the social and biological ladder of success. But if you press the wrong buttons you slip down the snakes, not up the ladders, as in the game. As I begin to understand this my tension starts to melt. I am not wrong, I am just learning! ATC

See Programmed – Edgar Cayce – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Compensation Theory

Your Immense Resources

Youth

The first part of this entry applies to both girls and boys but a separate section for girls is given here – Teenage Girls

Yourself at that age, so the attitudes and responses developed at that age. If you are younger than the dream youth it indicates your potential of growth and change; the part of you growing toward that age. See: Boy; Girl.

It is a time if quite enormous and often dramatic changes, for you are preparing to become a woman or man. This means you are starting to feel the urgent pressure of sexual desire and forming a way of dealing with it.

Adolescence is the time of your greatest sexual growth, and development of new ranges of emotion, intellect, and sensitivity. So any adolescent in your dream often points to yourself at that age, and the things you faced – or if you are not yet a teenager, then the things you feel about moving toward adolescence.

During adolescence we move from youth to becoming a mature adult. This means learning to become more independent of the work energy, the money and time given by parents. It means making your own decisions, moving toward learning how to survive live without your parents support and establishing yourself in the community and the world. Sometimes the break from parents is made by establishing a relationship with someone. However the shift needs a level of heroism in many ways, and if you succeed the difficulties change and deepen you.

This journey of becoming an individual is not only that of becoming a person, but also expanding the boundaries of what we can allow ourselves to experience as an ego. As we can see from an observation of our dreams, but mostly from an extensive exploration of their feeling content, our ego is conscious of only a small area of experience. The fundamental life processes in our being may be barely felt. In many contemporary women, the reproductive drive is talked about as something that has few connections with their personality. Few people have a living feeling contact with their early childhood; in fact many people doubt that such can exist. Because of these factors the ego can be said to exist as an encapsulated small area of consciousness, surrounded by huge areas of experience it is unaware of. These unconscious areas of their being direct their life to an extraordinary degree. Individuation means to emerge from unconscious dependence on this hidden side of self. It means to become functionally independent of the archetypes that dominate human life. In many ways it is similar to, and includes, becoming functionally independent of ones mother and father. See The Story of a Premature Baby

At such a time you may unconsciously use certain strategies to become independent. One is to become angry, defensive or down right obnoxious. What this does is to give strength to break away – even if it means feeling your parents are a heap of shit.

Another way is to become a mother’s boy and cling – but this doesn’t mean you become independent emotionally, but it might make you feel safe.

On one site about teenage behavior it list such things as:

Does your child often:

Or is your child often:

These are all ways to become yourself, after all, all your life you have had to be dependent on parents or carers. And it is quite something to emerge from it. But if you understand what happening it can become an easier journey.

The dream world of the adolescent shows very big shifts from that of the child. One of the major themes here is illustrated in this dream from Natalie, a thirteen year old:

I have this recurring nightmare. I see my mother standing by my bedroom door, blocking it as if I am being trapped and stopped from getting out. I often call to her, “Let me out Mum” but she just stands there staring with no expression on her face at all. I end up getting out of bed and switching my bedroom light on and then she disappears. Sometimes I will see her standing by my wardrobe. It seems as if she is always standing by a door and trying to trap me.

The dream shows how a teenager is trying to find a way out of her dependence on mother. The dependence is felt as if it is the power of the mother over the child, a sort of restrictive force. This theme of moving toward independence physically and psychologically is a huge step to take, and many dreams in this period explore how this can be achieved, and the various paths one could take to attain it.

Example: Back with my lover I felt, still young, inexperienced and a bit clumsy, but laughing and happy, the flow of pleasure to my lover, leading to a kiss. The deep internal pleasure of kissing gradually widened until it led to genital feeling. I realised so many things as this lovely gentle growth of feeling and flowing occurred. I realised that I and most teenagers have too much technical sex instruction, so it is portrayed as an erect penis entering the vagina.

But I was seeing it wasn’t like that at all. First of all came the gradual relationship with my lover and as that deepened it led to touching, being happy together and kissing. The kiss, oral pleasure, was our first area of loving with our mother through the breast. From that original centre of pleasure, it grows into anal and genital pleasure. This was what was happening. Then gently the body began to move. But there was still no erection. The movement was the forerunner of the inner pleasurable urge to thrust and penetrate. So there was a slow and internal growth through escalating feelings, and not an outwardly ordained set of movements that led to “sex”!

The following dream shows a particular facet of this. It is from Eric Fromm’s book on dreams, The Forgotten Language. The dreamer was a young man, an only child, who had been cosseted by over protective parents, and was finding it difficult to face life without their support.

He dreamed that he was about five or six years old and was faced by a river he must cross. He looked for a bridge but found none. He thought of swimming but then realized he could not swim. (In the waking state he actually could swim). He then sees a tall, dark man who indicates he will carry him across the river in his arms. He is greatly relieved and allows the stranger to pick him up and begin. But then he is seized with panic. He suddenly realizes that if he does not escape from this man he will die!

They are already in the river, he in the man’s arms, when he gathers his courage and makes a desperate leap into the river. He is sure he will drown but suddenly finds that he can swim and soon reaches the other side. The frightening man disappears.

Each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change.

How do I leave home?

Dr. Fromm describes crossing the river as the need, and the difficulty, of moving from childhood toward adult independence. The man represents all the support he gets from parents and other people such as teachers and friends – excellent while he was a child, but something he must learn to do without if he is to develop his own innate strengths. When the dreamer takes the risk of daring the river, he finds he has the ability to survive.

In many teenage dreams a darker note arises as the emerging independence starts to make a dramatic break with parental authority and with the dependence upon the succouring received. Because the break is difficult it sometimes needs anger or a form of violence. This is not because the parents are necessarily holding on to the child, but because the need of the child is so strong, that to cut those ties a form of violence is used. We then find a dream such as the following:

I dreamed I dared not move from home as I had murdered my father and hid the body in the rubbish tip at the end of the garden.

If it is not murder, then the dreamer sees the parent or parents die. In either case, the child still faces life without them, and this seems to be the point of such dreams. In waking life there may at such times also be some anger or aggressiveness toward the parents – once again a means of making the break. After all, how could you move away if you were still tied emotionally? The next dream illustrates the quieter form of getting rid of a parent.

For the past year I have had recurring dreams about fairground rides. Occasionally members of my family, including my father have died on the rides. When I’m on the ride I’ve survived, but I can sense danger all around me. This dream is beginning to bother me. I am 15 years old.

Sexual development is of course of prime importance at this time.  So dreams explore the facets of this in a variety of ways.

Example: As I considered teenage I had a series of wonderful scenes occur. They were so lovely I laughed with pleasure. I felt the explosion of energy which occurs in adolescence, and I saw teenagers, running, dancing, loving, fighting, and exploring relationships. They were life exploding into the new, into experiment, into growth. If we held them back too firmly it would be like my stuck record, and my vision of the cosmos had shown me life never repeats itself, never stops. It always moves on, changes, dances.

Many things we face while young are never resolved, or remain as potentials, and are frequently confronted later in life. So the dream teenager can depict these unresolved issues or potential still to discover and work through them by keeping in touch with their dreams and attempting to understand them. 

Teenage girls experience these years similarly, but there are also marked differences.

If you are a teenage girl, you will be experiencing the changes brought about by puberty. Looking at your dreams can help you understand these changes as you develop from a child into a woman. The physical and emotional issues which are part of adolescence will often emerge in your dreams.

There are three major themes you may notice in your dreams. One of the most important is the emergence of your sexual abilities as a woman. In all warm blooded animals sex is not just the urge to join two bodies genitally. It also involves desires to attract and bond to a mate; the urge to have a child, and the strength to care for and protect your children. Your dreams are a safe place where you practice or unfold these emerging facets of yourself. Dreams allow you to work out any difficulties in letting these qualities flower. It is quite normal to worry that you may not be attractive enough to attract a partner, or that if you do you may not know what to do. So you will probably dream of a boy you find attractive, and enjoy the pleasure of touching and loving. You will also encounter the fears or pains standing in the way of such a meeting.

At this level of your development you are in a huge flood of hormones that drive you toward enormous desires for a man. It is actually the sex instinct, but you might not recognise it as that. It may probably be felt as a tremendous attraction to a star singer or actor – sometimes a desire to improve your appearance – it could even show as ambition to achieve something to become a mature person. Sometimes it is even a firm sense that you do not want anything to do with a man. It can express in many ways, but it is your life energy, and is diverted or directed according to you inner world – the world of your beliefs, convictions, educational ideas, your programming from parents and society. See Programmed

The courtship and mating behaviours in reproduction and the sexual drive that urges you toward the opposite sex or toward mating in some way, is often accepted in its naked power, to find a mate and to have sex in order to procreate. Unfortunately most of us have no real awareness of how we are instinctive creatures and so are driven largely by ‘nature’ in us. After all we are mammals, for us as we evolved as humans, had lived in the state for millions of years, where we never had to make decisions but were directed by our instincts. And being conscious and able to look back upon oneself and ask, “What am I?” – We were suddenly naked of this background of support given by instincts and felt exposed and unprotected.

Most people explain it by the idea of romance and soul mates, and so often end up deeply hurt. Other instinctive drives are the desire to have standing and recognition in one’s social group; the drive for dominance – or the resulting depression or sickness if no recognition or place in the group is found. This is most likely an influence form the reptilian brain we all have that is a basic prompt. It developed about 200 million years ago and is still an underpinning part of what influences your behaviour today. See Animals in your Brain

Your dreams can guide you as you flower into the unique woman you potentially already are. No matter what you look like, no matter what your skin colour, you have an innate beauty. As you look around you, you may recognise the beauty in everyone, and realise that no one is too fat or thin, too ugly or too beautiful, too white or too dark, too wrinkly or too spotty to love and be loved. As the secret processes of life are transforming you into a woman, you may realise that being female is something you share with women of every race throughout history – yet YOU are unique.

Example: I dreamt of being with a woman who was desperately seeking a man. I was also with my own female companion. I believe the woman had been suddenly dropped by her man, and I and my partner were close and with her.

Still in the semi-awake state I tried ‘being’ the woman, and had a very clear response. I experienced being her, but was also me with experience of seeing into myself in some degree. I saw that the woman, like most of us, was a female creature whose instinctive drive was to find a mate. But she was not aware of this as an instinctive drive but as a personal feeling. As such she had become, like many women and men, lost in a huge web of personal ideas about whether they were attractive, sexy, with many complications about love, gender mixed with childhood unconscious traumas and the heartbreak all that brings. See Being the Person or Thing

Being pregnant

In some dreams you may also experience being pregnant, and even having a baby. These are very positive signs that you are meeting your physical and emotional changes well.

Example: I’m 14 and had a dream of having a baby boy. I don’t know who my husband was. I am sitting in a house with no roof and all my family come to see my baby and said it was special. It was night time. When I looked into the sky there were 3 moons. Two of them were shaped like a lady with a baby in her arms. Sam – Teletext.

Sam’s dream shows a great sense of beauty and ease about her ability to have a baby.

 

Letter Z

Zeppelin

Usually refers to sexual urges that threaten intellectual stability. See: Air Raid; Air.

Zero

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance we may have had three children, so the number three in a dream could be connected with your feelings or fears about them – but three has generally been seen as the troublesome triangle in love, or the child, mother, father threesome. So a number may refer to a particular year of ones life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event; your family group – or have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

In particular zero indicates female qualities or the womb. It depicts, because of it apparent absence, the unconscious, or the absolute or hidden. Its shape – 0 – also gives it the meaning of completeness. In a sense nothing can represent everything, because a thing can be seen, whereas everything can never be a thing so cannot be seen so is invisible – no-thing.

The circle or zero also represents the most profound aspect of human nature and the cosmos, that of the hidden, the invisible within all phenomena. It is the silence or void in which all feeling, thought, sound exist – the space between the notes of music that allows the heard. It is the nothingness that essentially allows existence. It is nothing, that is because it remains undefined, can express as everything. See: Numbers – Abyss Black Hole

Zip

Connections with others; unity in attitudes.

A feeling or emotion that acts as something that can can either connect or release one in in some way.

Zodiac

The whole range of inner possibilities. The course or path of the soul through earthly experiences. So, the twelve signs of the zodiac are twelve patterns from which the soul chooses when coming into the earth plane.  They are like races – patterns of temperament, personality, etc.

Every 2160 years a different sign of the zodiac is in the position dominating earth.  It goes backward, and is therefore called a precession. During the heyday of Egypt the sign of Taurus, the Bull, was in the commanding position.  So the people worshiped the bull.  But Taurus ruled only by reflection, as it were.  It was the overt sign.  The sun, actually in Scorpio, was shining across into Taurus.  So Scorpio, the real sign, the spiritual guide of the time, appeared on the foreheads and staffs of the priests of the time.

We are now at the tail-end of the Age of Pisces, the fish (the Church Age) and will enter the Age of Aquarius (the Age of the Water-Bearer, Christ) around the year 2300 AD.  Christ was born as the last Lamb of the Age of Aries (the Ram) and the first Fish of sacrificial Pisces.  The two fish of Pisces show Christianity’s split between spirit and matter.  The Equinox reached the first star of the second fish in 1817, and the rise of secular science in this year fulfills ancient predictions of “antichrist”. Jesus recuited fishermen as disciples to make them fishers of men.  He fed the masses with a miraculous draft of fishes.  His followers were know as “pisciculi”, the “little fishes”.  The sign of the fish has been know the world over to be the sign of Christianity.

It is said that with the Age of Aquarius, after much earth upheavals, the true Water Bearer will rule this planet.  He is the one who will bring Living waters that bring eternal life.  Many believe this Age will bring heaven on earth. This is the time when the prophet says “They shall beat their swords into plowshares”.  Jesus Himself said that there will be wonders in the sun, moon, and stars signalling His return.  We must always look to the many signs so that we will not be taken unawares.

Zombie Zombies

This is about something you sense in yourself or others that is moved by other than human and conscious motives. It is like being asleep and sleep walking, there is no sense of any response there. Or at least they are moved by urges that control them and they are controlled by. This is something like we meet when we see people moved by habits, by propaganda, by religious bigotry or political brain-washing.

In a sense we are all zombies, or have a part of us that is a zombie. It is because we are all programmed and what we do is not from our real selves. If you find it difficult to believe read Programmed and childhood

A friend had recently visited my wife and I, and had asked if the house was haunted. A couple of nights later I dreamt that my wife was asleep beside me and I was sitting up in bed with my friend’s words in mind. So I challenged any such ghost to show themselves, feeling I could handle them. Nothing happened so I lay down thinking I had solved the problem – there were no ghosts.

Quite soon afterwards, still dreaming, the sound of a door creaking open made me sit up. Then from behind me two black men who looked as if they had risen out of a grave with flesh peeling off them approached me. I quickly made the sign of the cross and said some holy words and the figures disappeared.

I lay back again thinking it was a good thing I knew how to get rid of them. But as soon as I settled to sleep again the door creaked open and the two figures appeared once more. This time all my hand waving and words had no effect on their advance, and their hands closed around my throat and I woke screaming in terror.

Yes they were zombies of the worse kind. My wife, feeling my fear, got up and we switched on all the lights.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

That was about 1958, and as I knew nothing about exploring dreams I did nothing about it. But soon afterwards I started practicing yoga. I realise looking back that it was the pranayama, the breathing control and fasting that were part of what worked and helped me to meet what was behind the nightmare. I could see that each of these were ways of struggling with my instinctive drives.

I had repressed my sexual feelings so severely, that for eight of my teenage years and early twenties, I had no sexual release at all. I had killed and buried my youthful feelings and they had rotted inside me. Now in my early twenties, not knowing how to love – just having sex without any love – I had called up the terrible things I had created. That is what zombies are – the life in us that has been crucified. There are plenty around, and coming alive again was extremely difficult.

But a view given by depth psychology is: A television play by Rod Serling on “Twilight Zone” featured ghostly creatures from outer space who invaded the minds of their vic­tims and forced them to act as agents. The horror of the piece was not based on the fictional situation. It symbolized in explicit terms what happens to us daily. Our minds are invaded and have been invaded all our lives by other individuals and groups. We are made zombies by the black magic of psychic manipulation. We accuse Com­munist countries of brainwashing and yet practice it daily, hourly, with equally effective and devious means.

As most modern critics agree, national and international propa­ganda through mass communication strikes a serious blow at the intel­lectual range and freedom of individual opinion. But this is only the latest refinement of a situation long established. The battle for control of men’s minds has simply moved into the larger, more complex pat­terns of power. Primary groups have always had more direct means, equally effective. The smallest pioneer town probably enforced more conformity of thought and behavior than any government not entirely totalitarian can ever achieve. Here, at the direct interpersonal level, the real battle is fought.

Zoo

Inner urges and instincts repressed, or caged. Your spontaneous urges trapped by social conventions. It might suggest that you find it safer to see your natural urges and drives caged/repressed because it seems safer.

Ones natural urges and instincts, such as sexuality, parental caring, social grouping. What is happening to the animals shows how one is relating to the natural side of oneself – and how it is responding to ones conscious attitudes and activities. Life processes in us are not inert. They constantly respond to what we do and what we are. See: animals; Brain Levels and Dreams explains the  animals you have within you.

Are you seeing the animal in you as something to be kept caged up or like a curiosity?

Zulu

The power of the unconscious self, or instinctive self.

Letter J

juggler Juggling

It shows an ability to deal with several things at once – keeping things in the air so to speak. It can also point to the talent or skill to have many things you are good at and work with different skills – i.e. musician – carpenter – photographer – IT.

A tricky problem really can be solved by “sleeping on it”, new experiments have shown. The researchers suggest our brains re-juggle data while we slumber to present us with a solution when we wake.

Are trying to juggle too many things at once? If you are doing a good job as the juggler, so are you. Stop doing some of your activities if the juggler is a bit out of control.

Example: I work from home (educational writer) which means I can juggle parenting and work. I am the sole financial provider for J. I have experienced extreme financial pressure at different times during his childhood, but now things are better. I often have to juggle big writing deadlines and this is a stress. I live in a house which has been divided in half with a lovely garden and pool. Landlord, Grant, lives in the other half. Have been toying with living communally again. J says: I want to live with more people so that I know that I exist.

Example: B: YES – I am cycling too now from dog to inner child and on and on and on.

A: That is what I thought. So observe as an outsider instead of being involved in the images.

B: Sort of juggling with the symbols AH I got it……….YES I am now observing that inner child rather than identifying with it.

A: That is an excellent thing to do. And if necessary talk to it.

B: I do, I uncovered that inner children are not only just victims of what happened

they are a saboteur too, so compassion only might not do the job.

A: Yes – we swing from one end of the feeling to the other.

Letter T

t

The symbol of T is sometimes used to represent the cross. But where it does so, it stands for the evolutionary forces within, rebelling against the inertia of physical life, traditions, the past, our habits, resentments to change.

Letter W

wheat

See: Corn.

whirlwind twister or vortex

Conflict – energies storming in you causing emotional turmoil. You may be meeting the impact of a past trauma. See: Tornado. 

Example: Quickly the huge column of twisting storm moved down the open countryside directly toward the house. At one point I thought it changed course and would miss us, but it turned back and came straight at us. At this point all the distant view was obscured by a whirling mist. It was suddenly dark as the massive whirlwind blotted out everything but its own presence. Then it hit the house. I was expecting the roof to be ripped off, but there was no sound of rending or breaking. There was great tension though and I turned to look out of another window across the room facing the opposite direction. I could see great turmoil as the wind hit people and objects outside. It presented a great contrast with the house, unmoved and unshaken. Through the window it appeared as if an earthquake were lifting people up and dropping them. The earth itself shook and rolled like it were water rippling.

 The dream describes an event in their life that caused great tension and was brought about by tremendous life changes – the earthquake – but did no physical harm. The dreamer had found an inner strength which left him unshaken. The feeling of abandonment can represent big changes in your life such as leaving home, or travelling and living in another country, and so feeling abandoned by all one’s friends and usual sources of support.

 

Letter X

x

An unknown quantity. Or sometimes used as X marks the spot, or a sign of error. See: Cross.

Letter Y

y

Also an unknown quantity in mathematics. May symbolise You.

Letter Z

z

Unknown quantity. Sometimes represents lightning or electricity.